Mary Wilson [1944-2021]

Artist: The Supremes

LP: Floy Joy

Song: "A Heart Like Mine"

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Song: "Automatically Sunshine "

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I was sad to awaken today to news of the death of Mary Wilson, the most supreme member of the legendary Motown girl group The Supremes. Wilson was the only founding member of The Supremes to remain with the group from the beginning (as The Primettes in Detroit in 1959) to the end, when the group disbanded in 1977. 

 

The Supremes' lineup for their 1972 "Floy Joy" LP is Jean Terrell (she handled most lead vocals after coming aboard to replace Diana Ross, who had left the group in 1970 for a solo career), Mary Wilson, and Cindy Birdsong. In fact, Birdsong was exiting The Supremes to focus on raising a family at the time "Floy Joy" was released. She was "great with child" at the time of the album photo shoot, so it's her replacement, Lynda Laurence, standing in on the LP cover (far left, holding a drink) despite the fact that she hadn't actually contributed anything to the record. Mary Wilson is pictured seated on the cover, with Jean Terrell standing to her right (well, to her left, but to our right). 

 

With her misty dry-ice-vapors-on-the-dance-floor voice, Wilson takes center stage on the lovely ballad "A Heart Like Mine." Her vocals are featured again, as co-lead with Terrell, on one of the album's singles, "Automatically Sunshine," which peaked at #37 on the Billboard Hot 100, at #21 on the R&B singles chart, and made it all the way to #10 on the singles charts in the U.K. "Floy Joy" was produced by Smokey Robinson. You can find Mary Wilson's obituary in the New York Times here.

 

Mary Wilson

[ March 6, 1944 — February 8, 2021 ]

We will miss you, Mary.

Henry Stephen

Artist: Henry Stephen

LP: 7" single

Song: "O Quizas Simplemente Le Regale Una Rosa"
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A week ago today I was in Barcelona, Spain! Some good friends had been invited to house-sit for some good friends of theirs at their L'Auberge Espagnole for the entire month of August. They, in turn, invited me to make my first pilgrimage to Spain to spend a few weeks with them. The trip was absolutely fantastic! And you bet I visited a bunch of record stores while I was there. 

The first one I checked out, on the evening of my arrival, was Discos Edison's. It's located just a few blocks from where I was staying in El Raval neighborhood of Barcelona. Edison's is a long and narrow store with lots of bins and piles of discos, way more than I was able to dig through in the 90 minutes before they closed. But I did find a couple of keepers, including this lovely 1969 single from Venezuelan singer Henry Stephen, who was once a member of Los Impala. You can read about him here. The cover of my copy features some sort of printing error, where one of the colors ended up slightly askew, giving it a 3D-without-wearing-the-proper-glasses appeal. I came across more copies of this same single at other stores and they had printed correctly, but that just made me feel like my copy was somehow special and unique.

[ Discos Edison's — Barcelona, Spain ]

Pete Burns [1959-2016]

Artist: Dead or Alive

LP: 7" single

Song: "Hooked On Love" 
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*** We interrupt our special coverage of Alex's Upstate New York Road Trip Record Store Bonanza for this important news bulletin: Dead or Alive frontman Pete Burns is dead; he is no longer alive. ***

This makes me sad. I can recall exactly where I was the very first time I heard Pete Burns' wonderful, booming voice. Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" suddenly stabbed its way through my little cassette/radio boom box speakers at the dining room table in our farmhouse in Tampico, Washington one afternoon. Even the horses stopped grazing so they could hear. I was 16 years old and I thought it was absolutely the greatest song that had ever been played on Yakima's Hit Music Station, 107.3 KFFM. In fact, it's still probably the best song they've ever played. Dead or Alive became my new favorite band.

I bought a copy of their followup single, "Lover Come Back to Me," at a record store in Munich when I was there with my mom for a Shaklee convention in the summer of 1985. "Brand New Lover," which was nearly as big a hit in the USA in 1986 as the by-this-time-overplayed 'record-spinning' song had been a few years before, is still one of my favorite hits of the '80s.

It's been a long time since I've purchased a Dead or Alive record. But strangely, I just found this Australian copy of the group's 1987 "Hooked On Love" single, and also the Australian release of "That's the Way (I Like It)" with a picture sleeve, at Vortex Records in Kirkland this past Saturday. And then boom. Dead. There's a nice Pete Burns obituary in The Guardian here, you can read about him on Wikipedia here, and find the Dead or Alive discography and chart history here. "Hooked On Love" went to #33 in Australia in 1987. 

I admit I'm not a huge fan of some of the looks Pete has created for himself over the years, like this one or this one or this one (wait, is that Kate Winslet?) But I do quite like this one from 2006 that they've included in The Guardian article. It brings to mind a lovely mixture of Faye Dunaway and Sandy Dennis. 

Pete Burns

[ August 5, 1959 — October 23, 2016 ]

We will miss you, Pete.

Corry en de Rekels

Artist: Corry en de Rekels

LP: Corry en de Rekels

Song: "Ik Heb Op Jou Gewacht"
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Song: "Droomwals"
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You know how disappointing it is when you're at the used record store and you see "Free poster inside!" advertised on one of the LP covers, but then when you look inside there's no free poster? Well imagine how the opposite of disappointed I was when I opened this Corry en de Rekels LP and found a free poster inside, even though the cover never promised me a thing! 

I think this may be the 1970 debut album of this hit-making quintet from The Netherlands, though I don't see any of their hits included. Singer Corry Konings, who's cute as a button, left the group in 1972 to pursue a solo career. The quintet continued their hit-making ways as Hanny en de Rekels, with lead vocal duties taken over by a gal named...Hennie, actually. She's cute too, but more like a zipper. There's more about de Rekels and their ladies on Wikipedia in both English and Dutch.

[ Corry en de Rekels ]

Rose Maddox

Artist: Rose Maddox

LP: A Big Bouquet of Rose's!

Song: "Early In the Morning"
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Song: "Just One More Time"
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Song: "There's Better Times a Comin'"
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It was Rose Maddox bonanza day at Golden Oldies in Tacoma last Saturday! I found no fewer than three of her albums there, both with and without her brothers. (Of course I also found no more than three. In fact, I found precisely three Rose Maddox albums on Saturday. I wish I'd found four.) Emmylou Harris and I both feel that Rose has never really been set in her proper high place in the vast country sky studded with shining musical stars both past and present. Rose hasn't received proper recognition as an actress either. Admittedly, I don't actually remember her as Woody "Big Boy" Harrelson's grandmother in Stephen Frears' THE HI-LO COUNTRY (1998), but I'm sure she deserved a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination at the very least. I'll be using Ms. Maddox as an excuse to re-watch THE HI-LO COUNTRY this weekend, but I probably won't be bothered by having to see a 1990s Billy Crudup cowpoke galloping around on my TV screen again.

 

[ Rose Maddox: August 15, 1925 — April 15, 1998 ]

Perennial

Artist: Perennial

EP: You're the Ones

Song: "Rock and Roll Evenings" 
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The derivative early '80s heavy metal band Perennial hailed from Seattle, which explains why they're screaming about "Rock and Roll Evenings" instead of "Rock and Roll Nights." Seattle is still known as a fairly sleepy town where residents go to bed pretty early. Perennial could have even gone so far as to call the track "Rock and Roll Brunch" and it would have made perfect sense around here.

According to the info on the back of their 1983 4-track EP, Perennial's manager, Redvers Watson, worked out of Edmonds, a suburb just north of Seattle. I tried in vain to track Redvers down today, mainly just to ask if they knew what brand of shampoo the group used to produce such stunning highlights. You can read a little about Perennial here, and I've included a video for "You're the Ones" below. It's uncanny in their video how much all four members of Perennial look exactly like Mrs. Welsh, my 4th grade teacher at Robertson Elementary. Except for the wardrobe, of course.

Perennial on YouTube:
[ "You're the Ones" ]

[ Perennial ]

Carol Chase

Artist: Carol Chase

LP: Sexy Songs

Song: "Disco Devil" 
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Have you ever wondered what you'd get if you mixed late-'70s disco with the early '80s Nashville sound? Carol Chase is here to tell us: DISASTER! I recommend not listening to this one—I'm posting a track only out of tradition. Suffice it to say that "Disco Devil" is the musical equivalent of Carol's outfit on the cover: A stale hunk of wedding cake stuffed into a pair of bluejeans. 

As we learn from her 2004 interview with some French people, Carol has fine musical tastes—ranging from Etta James to Carol King; from Led Zeppelin to Janis Joplin. So I'm dying to know what juicy bit of scandal someone used to blackmail her into recording "Sexy Songs" and posing in that preposterous getup.

Thelma Houston

 

Artist: Thelma Houston

LP: The Devil In Me

Song: "I'm Here Again"

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Born in Leland, Mississippi in 1943, Thelma Houston is primarily known for her popular cover version of "Don't Leave Me This Way," which topped Billboard's Hot 100, R&B and Dance singles charts in 1976. "The Devil In Me" was Houston's follow-up record, and, though filled with the same energetic, danceable pizazz that gave her a hit the year before, it didn't bring her a similar success. The album's first single, "I'm Here Again" only reached #21 on Billboard's R&B singles charts, but just see if you can keep your body from dancin' to it! You can read all about the fabulous life and career of Thelma Houston here and find videos, pictures, new music samples and become Thelma Houston's friend on her MySpace page here.

Mats Olsson med sin Kör och Orkester

Artist: Mats Olsson med sin Kör och Orkester

LP: Strö Lite Rosor
Song: "Bonnjazz"
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Song: "Tacka Vet Jag Det Som Var En Gång"
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This pair of joyous ditties comes to you with warmth and affection (and silver pants, pretty lady, flowers) from Sweden's Mats Olsson. I've included one track here med sin kör and one medout. My quick morning web search didn't turn up any info about Mats Olsson, but extensive notes in Swedish are included on the back of this LP. I've posted them below, so if anyone reading this can provide a summary in English, I'd find some way to give you a great big tack så mycket!

Faye Tucker

Artist: Faye Tucker

LP: Blues From a Broken Hearted Country Gal
Song: "Don't Love Tonight"
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Song: "Bill Bailey Please Come Home"
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As one might expect, there were lots of great country records to be found in North and South Dakota. I picked this one up for $2 at an antique mall in downtown Bismarck. There's not much info about singer Faye Tucker on the web (guess she didn't win the sweepstakes), but if you like her sound, you can get a copy of this 1968 LP here. These notes are from the back of the record:

When a country gal is broken hearted she lets
you know it. Faye Tucker is the latest entry in the
Nashville sweepstakes for top girl country singer.

With a great feeling for the blues, Faye sings her
heart out as she empties her soul in these great
country blues ballads. Some are old, some are
new, none are borrowed—all are blue.

Paul Parker

Artist: Paul Parker

LP: Too Much to Dream
Song: "Baby You Can Have My Lovin' Anytime"
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Song: "Too Much to Dream"
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Song: "Nighthawk"
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It took three gay disco songs to wake me up this morning. Paul Parker's invigorating LP was produced by Patrick Cowley and released on Castro Street's Megatone Records in 1983. You can read a little about Parker's music and career here and then read a lot more here, while listening to some auto-play '80s radio. You can visit Paul Parker's webpage and hear samples of his new songs "Don't Stop (What You're Doing to Me)," "I'm Letting Go" and "I'll Be That Man" by clicking here. LP cover photo by Garry Gay.

Menage

Artist: Mengae

LP: 12" single
Song: "Memory (Recuerdo)"
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I've had disco Andrew Lloyd Webber stuck in my head for the past 24 hours, so I figured I might as well get this one out of the way too; made in Mexico, released in 1983. I counted 39 dramatic key changes. Is that what you get?

Albert & Jenny Armen

Artist: Albert & Jenny Armen

LP: Albert & Jenny... With Love
Song: "Disco Tango"
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Song: "Kefie Yerk (The Party Song)"
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I stuck the formidable "Disco Tango" on my last mix, but I think it deserves a private spotlight--even just so people can see Jenny Armen's pretty white dress. there's some info about the Armens on the back of the LP, written by "M. Garbedian," which is obviously a pseudonym for one Albert Armen:

Albert Armen presents ten of his original hits; Jenny Armen sings all of Albert's
compositions. Jenny has been performing for 15 years in night clubs; on TV, radio
and record albums. This talented Armenian couple have their own unique style,
especially after Albert spent 7 years training Jenny's voice. This extra training
helped to enhance her voice and personality, causing many of the live audiences
to comment on her charisma and magnetism--setting her style far above ALL
other Armenian singers.

Albert Armen, the great composer and conductor is full of energy and style--just
what Armenians need today. Many Armenian musicians hesitate to play his songs
because his special styling, along with unique rhythm and punch, seems to have an
extraordinary quality which is almost impossible to duplicate. -- M. Garbedian

Jenny must have been a real drag before Albert came along. in any case, since he spent 7 years working on her personality and voice, I figured I should post two songs from their album instead of just one.