Plastic Ono Band

Artist: Plastic Ono Band

LP: 7" single

Song: "Pavo Frio (Cold Turkey)"
[ listen ]

I was one of the last people out at door at Discos Revolver when they closed at 9pm, and then I began making my way down Calle de les Sitges, heading in the general direction of our apartment near the Filmoteca Catalunya. I'd only gone a few steps when the bright lights from inside Kebra Disc caught my eye. This little store hadn't been on my list! The place is only open in the evenings from 6:30-10pm, so it was fortunate that I passed by when I did. (Here's how to get there from Seattle.)

I found yet another handful of singles, but I ended up more with American and British rock and new wave records (Pat Benatar, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Cure, Nina Hagen Band) rather than the usual vintage Spanish releases I'd been finding most of the time. The owner of Kebra Disc is friendly and talkative and helped me dig up a few things I'd been looking for, including a 4AD single by Tanya Donelly. Most things already had prices on them, but a few did not, and the fellow there wanted to charge me an outrageous amount for a 1977 Grace Jones single (€20!) but I didn't bite. I found a copy at another store a week later for just €3 instead. 

One of the treasures I picked up at Kerba Disc is this Spanish release of Plastic Ono Band's 1969 single "Cold Turkey" (or, "Pavo Frio" en español). It's pretty torn up, taped up, scratchy, and all that, but still holds together well enough to be enjoyed. One of Plastic Ono Band's very first singles, released just after John Lennon had departed The Beatles, "Cold Turkey" went to #30 on the US singles charts and peaked at #14 in the UK. According to Wikipedia, in most cases the cover featured an X-ray of John Lennon on the front, with Yoko Ono's X-ray on the back...but "an alternative sleeve with the X-ray photographs of John and Yoko side by side, rather than on either side of the cover, was issued in several European countries." So it seems that Spain was one of those! 

The single features John Lennon on vocals, Eric Clapton on guitar, Klaus Voormann on bass, and Ringo Starr on drums. Though Yoko Ono doesn't provide vocals on this version (there are reportedly versions where she does), the influence of her particular brand of avant-garde performance artist circa 1969 makes a pretty strong appearance all the same.

 [ Plastic Ono Band ]

 [ Kebra Disc — Barcelona, Spain ]

Della Reese

Artist: Della Reese

LP: I Like It Like Dat!

Song: "Drinkin' Again"
[ listen ]

Song: "'Tain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do"
[ listen ]

Today I went with some friends to a farm up near Snohomish that has a huge corn maze shaped like the state of Washington. You had to enter the maze over by Spokane, and then all the pathways through the corn are labeled as the roads, highways, and freeways of Washington. You can travel all around the state on foot to visit its various landmarks—like the Washington State Capitol Building in Olympia, the Tacoma Narrow's Bridge, Mount St. Helen's, the Grand Coulee Dam, the Space Needle—and even learn a bit of historical trivia about each of them by reading a little placard placed nearby. It was pretty amazing, though a little bit corny too. 

I found a copy of this terrific 1965 Della Reese LP at the big double-level antique store in downtown Snohomish after we got some coffee and pie, just before we headed to the farm. Turns out there's nothing quite as nice as Della Reese singing you the blues on a late-October evening while you're sipping a cup of tea.

[ Della Reese ]

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band

Artist: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band

LP: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band

Song: "I Got My Mojo Working"

[ listen ]

The blues has never been one of my favorite genres, but this 1965 debut album by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band is actually more blue-green, if you ask me. Though it sounds like Paul was likely playing harmonica as he sprang from his mother's womb, his singing voice is a little thin, if you ask me that too. My favorite track on the album is "I Got My Mojo Working," sung by drummer Sam Lay. A native of Birmingham, Alabama who was born in 1935, Lay came down with bad cases of pneumonia and pleurisy shortly after the release of this record and left the group. He went on drumming after he recovered, and has since been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in Memphis, the Jazz Hall of Fame in Los Angeles and the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. You can read more about Sam Lay on All About Jazz here. Also appearing on this Paul Butterfield record are 23-year-old Elvin Bishop (rhythm guitar) and 22-year-old Mike Bloomfield (slide guitar). Sadly, Bloomfield died of a drug overdose in 1981, and then Paul Butterfield died of the same thing just six years later. You can read more about blues harmonica virtuoso Paul Butterfield on Wikipedia here, and the LP liner notes in which Pete Welding begs listeners to take Paul seriously as a blues performer even though he's young and white are included below.

 [ Paul Butterfield: December 17, 1942 — May 4, 1987 ]

Alberta Hunter

Artist: Alberta Hunter

LP: Remember My Name

Song: "You Reap Just What You Sow"

[ listen ]

Song: "Remember My Name"

[ listen ]

This weekend they're doing an Alan Rudolph retrospective at SIFF Cinema, showing two of his films each night as double-features. I was excited to see that they were screening a film of his from 1978 called REMEMBER MY NAME, which has never been released on video or DVD. In fact, I'd never even heard of it. The film stars Geraldine Chaplin and Anthony Perkins, two actors I like quite a bit, and includes early performances by Jeff Goldblum and Alfre Woodard. I rounded up some cinema buddies from the new book group I joined a few months ago and off we went to the movies.

We were doubly excited to discover that Alan Rudolph was actually in Seattle and would be introducing REMEMBER MY NAME as well as sticking around afterward to talk about the film and answer questions from the audience. We learned that this was Rudolph's second film (after WELCOME TO L.A. in 1976—he evidently doesn't count his two previous horror films, PREMONITION [1972] and THE BARN OF THE NAKED DEAD [1974]) and that shooting on the film was begun even before he and producer Robert Altman had scraped together the funds to finish it. Columbia Pictures showed interest while the production was underway and bought the film rights, sight unseen. Once they watched the finished product, however, they realized it wasn't really their sort of thing and they scrapped all plans for the film's release. Some small company offered to show the film in theaters, but they could only afford one city a year—so REMEMBER MY NAME ended up being screened in approximately seven U.S. cities over the course of five years. It reportedly had a successful debut on television on one of the early cable channels in Los Angeles and was an arthouse hit over in France, but otherwise REMEMBER MY NAME has pretty much dropped off the radar. 

That's a real shame, since it's a brilliant, funny little film that features an incredible central performance by Geraldine Chaplin; it's one of her best. She plays Emily—a nutty, beautiful, unbalanced-but-intelligent woman who's just done time in prison on a murder charge. Now free, she gives herself a makeover, takes a job at a rinky-dink drug store and begins stalking her ex-husband (Anthony Perkins) and his new wife, making their lives miserable and perhaps even putting them in danger. Songs by 83-year-old blues singer Alberta Hunter (who you can read all about here) are used to terrific effect throughout the film, and when I saw in the closing credits that the soundtrack had once been available, I remarked to my friend that it would be a great thing to find on LP. Only then did I suddenly recall that I'd found a film soundtrack at a used record store here in Seattle about a year ago that featured lots of blues tracks by an elderly female singer. I'd never heard of the film, but I liked the cast and thought the music was neat, so I added it to my collection. So I went home last night and checked my shelf and, sure enough, I was delighted to discover that I already owned the soundtrack to REMEMBER MY NAME. Up above are a couple songs from the film, and here are the pictures and notes from the back of the LP:

[ Alberta Hunter ]

[ Geraldine Chaplin ]

 [ Anthony Perkins & Geraldine Chaplin ]

 [ Anthony Perkins ]

 [ Alberta Hunter: April 1, 1895 — October 17, 1984 ]