June Valli

Artist: June Valli

LP: 7" single

Song: "Looking At the World"
[ listen ]

But if you're looking at the world through a teardrop while wearing rose-colored glasses, do they cancel each other out? You can read about June Valli here.

[ June Valli: June 30, 1928 — March 12, 1993 ]

Mardi Gras

Artist: Mardi Gras

LP: 7" single

Song: "Too Busy Thinking 'Bout My Baby"
[ listen ]

I've been pretty busy thinking 'bout my baby too! If I had to pick just one song to dance to for the rest of my life (I mean one song for whenever I felt like dancing from now on—not that I would be continually dancing until I finally dropped dead from fatigue), this might be it! Based in New York, Mardi Gras were ignored in their native USA, but they were a big hit all over Europe. That's how they good they are!

Slacker With a Scone

Slacker With a Scone is a breakfast order option at The Dish, my favorite neighborhood diner. It also aptly describes my dating options on Scuff, my favorite neighborhood dating app. 

side one:
01. English Summer - Eurythmics
02. Adamo ed Eva - Isadora
03. Damn That Valley - U.S. Girls
04. Young Lover - St. Vincent
05. Kiss Me Bwana - Cheetah
06. The Lonely One - Kitty Kallen
07. Belinda - Eurythmics
08. Coeur Du Musicien - Les Lionceaux Des Cayes
09. The World Is Looking For You - Aldous Harding
10. Prelude: Op. 17, No. 1 - Alexander Scriabin (piano: Andrei Diev)
11. Ebb Tide - Lew Davies and His Orchestra
12. Így Szólt Hozzám a Dédapám - Skorpio
13. The Word 'Hurricane' - Air
14. Dragon Down - His Name Is Alive
[ listen ]

side two:
01. Nine Hundred Miles - Nina & Frederik
02. 1, 2, 3, Beep, Beep - Colin Newman
03. That Feeling - Diana
04. She's Invisible Now - Eurythmics
05. Wait In the Car - The Breeders
06. Jimmie Mambo - The Confidential Club Orchestra feat. Jonathan Kemp
07. The Days of Pearly Spencer - The Grass Roots
08. Who I Want You to Love - Bleachers
09. Amelia - Cocteau Twins
10. 10:37 - Beach House
11. When Your Lover Has Gone - Della Reese
12. So In Love - Orchestral Manoeuvres In the Dark
13. Sing-Sing - Eurythmics
14. Give It Up - The Big Pink
[ listen ]

The Savage Rose

Artist: The Savage Rose

LP: Your Daily Gift

Song: "Lightly Come, Lightly Go (Song For an Unborn Child - Sarah's Song)"
[ listen ]

Here's another beautiful thing I picked up at the Kirkland record store last weekend, before everyone died. I had never heard of The Savage Rose before, but they've evidently been releasing LPs since 1968 ("Your Daily Gift" is their fourth, from 1970) and they continue to be rather popular in their native Denmark. 

I'm fascinated by the blond, bespectacled and bed-headed identical twin brothers, Thomas and Anders Koppel, that are part The Savage Rose. Singer Annisette Hansen married Thomas and became Annisette Koppel. How did she choose Thomas over Anders? Did she ever get them mixed up? Is that Thomas she stands with, slightly apart from the rest of the group, in the open field in the photo below? And then in the large gatefold photo, we find the Koppel twins huddled together, separated from Annisette by a large, dry-looking tree. The twins look wistfully on as Annisette coyly plays footsies with another blond hunk in the band. Could that be guitarist Nils Tuxen, who replaced Flemming Ostermann after the release of the group's first album? 

Visit Wikipedia here and here and here and here and all will be revealed. 

As I gaze at Anders and Thomas, I can't help but think of the handsome identical twin brothers who work at my local neighborhood Fred Meyer. Swarthy and friendly, they wear the company uniform and sport matching mustaches. They always seem to be working the same shift, doing the same work. Yesterday they were stacking oranges. Once, a few months ago, I entered an aisle containing boxed rice and found the twins standing on footstools across from each other on opposite sides of the aisle. They were conversing good-naturedly as they added more product to the shelves. I had the sudden urge to film a music video right then and there!   

[ The Savage Rose ]

David Cassidy [1950-2017]

Artist: David Cassidy

LP: Rock Me Baby

Song: "Song For a Rainy Day"
[ listen ]

Why does it always seem like so many people up and die during the holiday season? Was sad to read that Partridge Family heartthrob David Cassidy passed away yesterday—right before Thanksgiving! Looks like Kim Carnes provides some of the backing vocals on this, David's second solo LP, from 1972. You can read about David Cassidy here, go here to see one of the Annie Leibovitz photos from Rolling Stone that David hoped would help get rid of his squeaky-clean, teeny-bopper image, and go here to find David's obituary in The New York Times.

David Cassidy

[ April 12, 1950 — November 21, 2017 ]

We will miss you, David.

Mel Tillis [1932-2017]

Artist: Mel Tillis

LP: Detroit City

Song: "Games People Play"
[ listen ]

Della Reese and Charles Manson weren't the only ones who died on November 19th, of course. In fact, county singer Mel Tillis died that same day too. To be honest, I'm not a huge (or even a small) Mel Tillis fan. I picked up this 1973 compilation LP mainly because I thought the cover was cool. But I'm sure Mel Tillis is someone's Doris Day out there, and to those people I'd like to say I'm sorry for your loss. (And to Mr. Tillis' friends and family too, of course.) But it really is a pretty neat album cover, you gotta' admit. You can find Mel's obituary here.

Mel Tillis

[ August 8, 1932 — November 19, 2017 ]

Someone will miss you, Mel.

Della Reese [1931-2017]

Artist: Della Reese

LP: Della By Starlight

Song: "These Foolish Things"
[ listen ]

Della Reese has turned out all the lights in the world. She has hung a cloud over the moon. Her obituary is here. I wonder if she and Charles Manson bumped into each other in line at the pearly gates.

Della Reese

[ July 6, 1931 — November 19, 2017 ]

We will miss you, Della.

Spoons

Artist: Spoons

LP: Arias & Symphonies

Song: "South American Vacation"
[ listen ]

After attending a memorial service in Bothell for a former work colleague yesterday afternoon, I decided to drop by Vortex, by my favorite Kirkland record store, to help shake the melancholy from my head. I was at the store for over three hours and, if not quite a fine-toothed comb, I would say I at least went through the place with a hairbrush, and I drove away with a heavy stack of wonderful and unusual things. 

One of them is this 1982 LP by Canadian new wave band Spoons. They're pretty doggone good, but I like them even more as I imagine how excited I would have been to have found out about them back in 1982, when I was 13 years old. I would no doubt have had bedtime fantasies about running off to the Yukon with cutie keyboardist Rob Preuss, where we would live in domestic, yet romantic, yet pretty cold probably, bliss for the rest of our lives. We'd have to snuggle in bearskin to stay warm! But instead of honeymooning with me, Rob and his hair ran off and joined Canadian rock group Honeymoon Suite. There's a sweet interview with Preuss here where everything about him seems bashful except his coiffure. You can watch an interview with the entire group here, find an effusive "Arias & Symphonies" album review on the Same Mistakes blog here, learn more about the four Spoons than you've ever wanted to know here, and go here to find out which two Spoons recently played a benefit show to raise money for the high school where they got their start.

[ Spoons ]

Ben Light

Artist: Ben Light

LP: Speed of Light: Ben Light At the Piano 
Song: "Lover"
[ listen ]

Song: "Charmaine"
[ listen ]

Three seconds after I put the needle on this 1956 Ben Light LP I began craving a martini. I didn't so much want to drink a martini, but to hold one in my hand, softly swirling it around in the glass as Ben's fingers danced 'lightly' over the keys.

Born into a family of classical musicians in New York City in 1893, Ben was a rebellious child and decided to go in for ragtime playing on the piano. By age 18 he had a regular gig in Denver, CO and he was a Vaudeville staple in the 1920s and into the mid-1930s. He recorded some 'racy' numbers (with titles like "The Guy Who Put the Dix In Dixie," you get the idea) in the '30s as Ben Light and His Surf Club Boys before moving on to more prestigious recordings for Capitol Records in the 1950s, like "Speed of Light." You can still hear his Vaudeville roots shining through, like sunlight from the distant end of the longest piano keyboard in the universe. Ben's last recordings were released in 1958; he died at age 72 in January of 1965. You can read more about Ben "Dizzy Fingers" Light here and check out the LP liner notes below.

[ Ben Light ]

Vitamin E

Artist: Vitamin E

LP: Sharing

Song: "Kiss Away"
[ listen ]

I had to take a big dose of Vitamin E this morning so I didn't catch tonsillitis. But even if I had, it would have been worth it!

Vitamin E's sweetener/vocalist Bianca Thornton eventually went on to bigger and better things as Lady Bianca—we have the same birthday! Wikipedia calls this 1977 Vitamin E record "commercially doomed," though, doomed as it may have been, it was through no fault of the music itself. It's dynamite! I'm fairly certain that the American public was once again to blame. They never know a good thing when they hear it. I picked up this LP for $3 at Doug's Used Records in Yakima, WA two summers ago on my way to a family camping trip in the woods. They had a used copy at Yakima's Off the Record too, which I stopped at next, but there they wanted $45 for it.

Black Heat

Artist: Black Heat

LP: No Time To Burn

Song: "M & M's"
[ listen ]

Black Heat's second album, from 1974, is one of the super groovy things I re-discovered in my own collection while doing a little autumn LP housecleaning today to make some extra room. M & M's...mmmm. I've always loved chocolate! There's not very much info about the under-appreciated funk band Black Heat here.

 
[ Black Heat ]