Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

In this instalment of The Originals, we look at the provenance of one of the biggest hit of 1978, the triumphal comeback of a Bacharach/David song that flopped at its first attempt, and the original version of a Marilyn Monroe signature tune. Remember, you can look up the originals covered so far in The Originals Index.

*     *     *

The Righteous Brothers ““ Substitute (1975)
Gloria Gaynor ““ Substitute (1978)
Clout ““ Substitute (1978)
In 1978, the five-piece South African girl-band Clout scored a surprise hit with a cover of an unsuccessful single from the unremarkable 1975 Righteous Brothers LP The Sons of Mrs. Righteous. It”s fair to say that the Righteous Brothers” version of the unrequited love anthem lacks the euphoric verve of the Clout version.

It is said that the members of Clout didn”t play on Substitute (though I recall drummer Ingie Herbst telling a German interviewer in 1978 that she prefers to hit the drums with the thick end of the stick), but the South African rock band Circus, who were paid the princely sum of 34 Rand  ““ worth about £30 in 1978 money ““ for their efforts.

Clout”s version  was released in South Africa in November 1977. Within a few months it was topping the charts in countries such as Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden and the Netherlands, and spent three weeks at #2 in Britain (held off by You”re The One That I Want, despite shifting half a million copies).

In December that year, Gloria Gaynor released her version of the song on her Love Tracks album. In fact, Gaynor”s record company, Polydor, initially released Substitute as a lead single in November 1978. Presumably because of the success of the Clout single, Polydor flipped the single a month later, with the original b-side becoming the a-side. The song”s name was I Will Survive.

Clout, by then without keyboard player Glenda Hyam, went on to have another European hit in early 1979 with Save Me (featured HERE), a cover of Clodagh Rogers song.

Also recorded by: Peaches (1978), Sylvie Vartan (as Solitude, 1978), Izabella Scorupco (1990) 

“¦

Keely Smith – One Less Bell To Answer (1967)
The 5th Dimension – One Less Bell To Answer (1970)
Barbra Streisand – One Less Bell To Answer/A House Is Not A Home (1971)
Kristin Chinoweth & Matthew Morrison – One Less Bell To Answer/A House Is Not A Home (2009)
Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote One Less Bell To Answer for Keely Smith. Smith had a few years earlier divorced her long-time singing partner Louis Prima, so a song about marital separation seemed to be suitable. Alas, Smith”s version ““ with its recognisable Bacharach arrangement ““ went nowhere.

As so often with Bacharach/David compositions, the song was eventually rediscovered by others and made into a hit. In January 1970, The 5^th Dimension recorded it for their Portrait album. The single reached #2 in the US, its popularity no doubt helped by the group singing it on the TV series It Takes A Thief, starring Robert Wagner.

The lead vocals were performed by Marilyn McCoo, who in 1969 married bandmate Billy Davis Jr. They have been together ever since.

One Less Bell To Answer has been covered many times since. The most spectacular version is that of Barbra Steisand, who dueted with herself on a medley of One Less Bell To Answer and A House Is Not A Home, another Bacharach/David song, which appeared on her 1971 album Barbra Joan Streisand. Streisand”s phrasing in that recording in places echoes that of Keely Smith”s original.

Almost four decades later, Streisand”s version served as a template for an outstanding showstopping duet on the TV series Glee, performed by the wonderful Kristin Chinoweth with Matthew Morrison, who plays the teacher Will Shuester.

Also recorded by: The Dells (1971), Gladys Knight & The Pips (1971), Vikki Carr (1971), Burt Bacharach (with Close To You, 1971), Living Brass (1971), Dionne Warwick (1972), Shirley Bassey (1972), Rita Reys (1973), Irina Milan (1974), Karen Logan (1987), Stanley Jordan (1987), Pearly Gates (1989), Mari Nakamoto (1993), The Starlite Orchestra (1995), McCoy Tyner Trio (1997), Marie McAuliffe’s ArKsextet  (1998), Lucie Silvas (2002), Vanessa Williams (2005), Michael Ball (2007), Trijntje Oosterhuis (2007), Steve Tyrell (2008), Patty Ascher (2010) a.o.

“¦

Helen Kane – I Wanna Be Loved by You (1928)
Marilyn Monroe – I Wanna Be Loved by You (1959)
Three decades before Marilyn Monroe had men getting hot under the collar by going boop-boop-de-boop, Helen Kane became a star by doing that ad lib and variations thereof. Kane might have inspired the cartoon character Betty Boop, who was born in 1930. Her lawsuit, which claimed just that, was dismissed. But compare pictures of Kane with those of Betty Boop, and consider Kane”s trademark scatting, and it seems that Kane might have had a case.

Kane said that the scat ad libs came to her by accident: “I just put it in at one of the rehearsals, a sort of interlude. It”s hard to explain ““ I haven”t explained it to myself yet. It”s like vo-de-o-do, Crosby with boo-boo-boo, and Durante with cha-cha-cha.”

Born in 1904 to German and Irish parents in the Bronx, Kane got her break in theatre in 1927. A year later, she appeared in the Oscar Hammerstein production Good Boy, which included I Wanna Be Loved By You, written by Herbert Stothart and Harry Ruby, with lyrics by Bert Kalmar. The song, and others with titles such as I Taut I Taw A Puddy Tat, helped make Kane a singing sensation.

Her popularity was brief but immense, giving rise to the production of such novelty items as Helen Kane dolls. But by the early 1930s, the flapper culture had become passé, and Kane”s career entered a two-decade hiatus. She re-appeared with the advent of television, and made her final public appearance on Ed Sullivan”s show in March 1965. She died of breast cancer a year and a half later, at the age of 62.

The record of I Wanna Be Loved By You was released in September 1928. It was revived in 1959 by Marilyn Monroe in the Billy Wilder film Some Like It Hot, which was set in 1929 and in which Monroe”s character is named, surely not coincidentally, Sugar Kane.

Also recorded by: Grace Johnston (1928), Annette Hanshaw (1928), Dan Ritchie and His Orchestra (1929), Ben Selvin (1929), Eydie Gormé (1958), Adolph Deutsch (1959), Marty Wilde (1960), Kay Barry (1961), Skeeter Davis (1965), Matadorerne (1967), Claudja Barry  (1978), Bibi Andersen (1981), Sinéad O’Connor (1992), Alana (2008), Pepe Lienhard Big Band (2009) , Pizzicato One feat. Wouter Hamel (2011) a.o.

“¦

More Originals

I realise that this is coming rather late in the month, and there has been the death of Marvin Isley in the interim. Anyway, the two big deaths in May were those of the stunning Lena Horne and heavy metal legend Ronnie James Dio. Another particularly notable death is that of country musician and songwriter Slim Bryant, who died at 101. He had one of his songs recorded by the legendary Jimmie Rodgers, who died in 1933, and played guitar on his 1932 song Mother Queen Of My Heart, and collaborated with the seminal fiddler Clayton McMichen.

Siphiwo Ntshebe, who died of tuberculosis, was a promising South African tenor, who merits inclusion by dint of having been slated to sing at the World Cup opening ceremony on June 11.

I owe the Chubby Carrier song to the marvellous Cover Me blog, which posted it on May 15, apparently unaware that Carrier had died 12 days earlier. Read more…

What, you may implore me, connects sweaty, saliva-dispersing self-parodist Rush Limbaugh with the world of pop (of course there is no question as to what connects the putrescent pusbucket to twattery)? Has Rush recorded an album of his favourite Motown songs, adding his own twist to the lyrics; perhaps adapting Smokey Robinson & The Miracle’s hit named after Mickey Stephenson autobiographically to read Cheney’s Monkey? Has Limbaugh praised the humanitarian work of Bono, or the operatic stylings of Michael Fucking Bolton, or the art of Yoko Ono (well, obviously not, though he seems psychotic enough to own the complete canon of MFB’s artistry)? Was Rush perhaps ghastly to my favourite artists, insulting the memory of Karen Carpenter?

Rush Limbaugh’s mind, twisted like fusili, yesterday.

No, on Wednesday Rush Limbaugh contrived to wind his fusili mind into a palomar knot by virtually blaming Barack Obama for the death of Michael Jackson. Spunk-silo’s take on MJ’s death: “Jackson’s success, if you stop and think of it [amusingly Limbaugh listeners are being asked to THINK!] and this is going to really irritate some people, which I will enjoy doing — Jackson’s success paralleled the rebound of the United States under Ronaldus Magnus [that would be Ronald Reagan whose decomposed salad he’s tossing]. Michael Jackson’s biggest successes, and as it turns out his final successes, real successes took place in the eighties. That was Billie Jean, Thriller and all this. I mean he was as weird as he could be [says Rush fucking Limbaugh!] but he was profoundly, because of his weirdness, an individual. He wasn’t a group member [except when he was, of course. Rush evidently couldn’t feel it]. He reached a level of success that may never be equalled. He flourished under Reagan [but his best record, the wildly successful Off The Wall, was a hit under Jimmy Carter, pop fans]; he languished under Clinton-Bush; and died under Obama. Let’s hope the parallel does not continue.” (Full story here)

I actually don’t think that Limbaugh is as stupid as to believe the ignorant, noxious shit he is disgorging upon the public. His “hilarious” shtick is to try and wind up liberals with such associations. If it wasn’t a sideshow, there’d be no reason why he has not been committed to a caring institution for lobotomised patients. In fairness, he signals his pitiful intent when he says: “this is going to really irritate some people, which I will enjoy doing”. It isn’t really what Limbaugh is saying that is irritating “Them Liberals”; it’s the idea that there are some very dull-witted people who take him and his likes seriously.

I must concede though that the clammy wankmonster might be on to something. Think about all the great celebrity icons who have died. Almost all of them kicked the bucket on the watch of a Democratic president. Jimmy Carter’s reign was particularly grim: Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Bing Crosby, Charlie Chaplin; Bill Clinton has Frank Sinatra, Princess in the Wind and Kurt Cobain to answer for. JFK died during the JFK presidency (as did Marilyn Monroe and Patsy Cline), while Jim Reeves crashed under LBJ. Lately only Johnny Cash, being Johnny Cash, bucked the trend. And there Madonna was happy that Obama was elected.

But Limbaugh’s theory of Democratic culpability in celebrity mortality does fall flat. Consider the victims of the Nixon presidency: Hendrix, Morrison, Joplin, Parsons and Elliott. Of those, only Cass died a natural death (and even that is disputed by ham sandwich conspiracists). And Karen Carpenter died in Ronaldus Noxious’ watch. Makes you think, no?

In the case of Michael Jackson, however, I am disinclined to indict Obama. More likely, on the morning of Thursday, 25 June, MJ found his transistor radio had been mistuned. As he surfed the dial he stumbled upon the depraved sound of Rush Limbaugh vomiting his bigotry all over the airwaves, and decided that he could no longer live in a world where that anal itch on humanity — and his idiot listeners — are allowed to exist. And here”s the kicker: my theory makes a zillion times more sense than any of Limbaugh-s deranged splutterings.

*

And to celebrate dead celebs:

Frank Sinatra – High Hopes With John Kennedy (1960)
Marilyn Monroe – Happy Birthday, Mr President (1962)
Patsy Cline – I Fall To Pieces (1961)
Michael Jackson – Ain”t No Sunshine (1972)
Cass Elliott – I’m Coming To The Best Part Of My Life (1973)
Elvis Presley – Heartbreak Hotel (Alternate Take 5) (1956)
Jimi Hendrix – Star Sprangled Banner (1969)
Gram Parsons – Big Mouth Blues (1973)

.
More Twattery in Pop

The release of Scarlett Johannson’s album of Tom Waits covers brings into focus again the question of thespians turning to the microphone, a career divergence usually as ill advised as the reverse direction. Here is the first of two mixes compiling vocal performances by actors, most of them straight efforts at assaulting the hitparades, a selected few performed in character, a couple of them novelty records. Some are pretty good, some so bad that one wonders what these people were thinking. The second part will follow next week.

William Shatner – Common People
Shatner had created a classic in the so-bad-it’s-really-bad-cult genre with his staggering cover of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. One evident admirer of Capt’n Kirk’s stylings was Ben Folds, who in 2004 produced an interesting, in parts quite good album of Shatner’s ramblings. Shatner doesn’t sing, but speak (and so I’m kicking off this compilation with a track which exposes its title as a misnomer). Over a whole album, that method of interpretation slowly loses its appeal; but on a song like this cover of the Pulp hit, it works gloriously (with the help of Joe Jackson coming over all emo). One does not know whether to laugh at this, or acknowledge that it’s all quite great.

Ricky Gervais & Liam Gallagher – Freelove Freeway
In what may well be the best scene in the original The Office, David Brent hijacks a team-building session to perform some of the songs he wrote on his abortive path to superstardom (on which he gave a leg-up to Scottish rockers Texas). Freelove Freeway sums up Brent brilliantly: it’s a cracking tune — Brent does have some talent, but invariably finds ways to undermine it. Here he does so by applying mangled clichés which he clearly didn’t think through (“because none of them was you…”). In the series, Brent eventually leaves Wernham Hogg and tries to follow his musician’s dream. As we learn in the Christmas special, he even releases a single. But even there, he typically misjudges things: the a-side is a really bad cover version of Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes’ If You Don’t Know Me By Now (Brent would probably think he is covering Simply Red), while the potential hit, Freelove Freeway, is stuck on the b-side. Oasis’ Liam Gallagher recorded this song with Gervais (did you know that in Quebec’s version of The Office, Brent’s character is named…Gervais?); we’ll have to live with that.

Jack Palance – The Meanest Guy That Ever Lived
Am I the only person who thought that the man born Volodymyr Palahniuk had died long before his actual death in 2006? This little gem is from his only album, 1969’s country set Palance, recorded in Nashville. The Meanest Guy That Ever Lived was written by Palance. One can almost imagine Johnny Cash singing it. The advantage of that would have resided in Cash’s ability to actually sing, but I doubt that Cash could have project the depth of Palance’s menace.

Marlene Dietrich – Die Antwort weiss ganz allein der Wind
How likely is the notion of proto-diva Marlene Dietrich doing US folk music in German? This is a 1964 cover of Dylan’s Blowing In The Wind. Dietrich sings it straight, and the arrangement is quite unlike the sort of treatment the Vegas-bound entertainers have given it, despite the use of strings (great flute though). Die Antwort… was coupled with a German version of Joan Baez’s Tell Me Where The Flowers Are. Imagine, the great Marlene Dietrich as West Germany’s proto-hippie!

Richard Harris – MacArthur Park
You can’t argue that actors should never sing if you know Harris’ MacArthur Park. Jim Steinman, who produced Meat Loaf in his pomp, made a career from ripping this song off. Written by the great Jimmy Webb, Harris had the first bite off this little masterpiece in 1968. It seems a strange choice, and at times Harris is warbling a bit; but then, towards the end, Dumbledore hits the falsetto, almost falls over and needs help from the backing singers, and the whole recording reveals itself as a piece of pure demented genius.

Brigitte Bardot – Je T’aime…Moi Non Plus
It was a huge hit for Jane Birkin, but Serge Gainsbourg actually wrote it for BB, who was the first to record it with him in 1968. Married at the time to German playboy Günter Sachs, the future cheerleader for animals and racists asked Gainsbourg not to release the song. So this recording remained locked away for nearly two decades. Birkin’s orgasm is better, but BB makes Serge sound like he’s doing it with a woman where on the Birkin version he sounds like a dirty old man.

Eddie Murphy – Boogie in Your Butt
The sequencing is purely accidental. Having decided to include Murphy in this mix, I was faced with the choice of posting a novelty comedy single, or one of Ed’s stabs at soulmandom. Murphy’s attempts at soul were bad, very bad indeed, and they fail to amuse. Perhaps that is so because much of ’80s soul was so banal that Murphy’s effort just don’t seem absurd. (Of course, much of ’80s soul was great, as I plan to show here in the future.) So we’re left with Murphy’s musings on how the butt can serve as a storage utility (while being quick to point out that the title does not refer to what you and I at first suspected). It’s still not very amusing, but it is more entertaining to see a man failing at what he claims to be good at than at things he had no business attempting in first place. Still, if rumours are true, it seems that a Chelsea player who used to play for another London club took the advice of one line in the final verse. Incidentally, I borrowed this MP3 from the wonderful Mine For Life blog.

Billy Bob Thornton – Angelina
Even for a very sporadic consumer of celebrity news such as myself, it is clear who the song is about. Released in 2001, when Pitt and Rachel were still happily married, Thornton proves that he has no talent as an oracle as he triumphantly proclaims: “They all said we”d never make it.” Stupid, silly them. It’s a rather disturbing song in light of the sexual antics Billy Bob and Angelina reportedly engaged in. “You walked into a wall…you were masked in tiny cuts”. I bet Brad is gentler.

Rainbo (Sissy Spacek) – John, You Went Too Far This Time
Before she became famous as an actress, including her singing role as Loretta Lynn, Spacek tried to become a singer, releasing a solitary single before being fired by her label. The John in the title would be Lennon, and his transgression would be letting it all hang out on the cover of Two Virgins. Sissy is spitting blood over this act of public nudity, and aesthetically I’m inclined to concur. John and Yoko were not attractive naked people. But if Lennon went too far on a record sleeve, then Spacek oversteps the boundaries of musical decency with that chorus (which supposedly was meant to evoke the Beatles sound). Breathtakingly bad.

Robert Mitchum – What Is This Generation Coming To
More sentiments of moral outrage are expressed in Mitchum’s generation-gap calypso opus. Though one suspects that Bob is more likely to piss into the cup of indignation as he alligns his chosen genre with the rock ‘n’ roll, both of which the young people of today (that’d be the late ’50s) are shaking their hips to as furiously as their elders are shaking their heads. Mitchum is a fine case for allowing actors to sing — as long as they remember to return to the set.

Peter Sellers & Sophia Loren – Goodness Gracious Me
One for the race relations board as Sellers does that Indian accent his racist pal Milligan possibly taught him, and applies it in a lewd way in conversation with the lovely Sophia Loren, appearing here uncharacteristically as a kitten of sex. Thing is, much as this song is objectionable, it is very catchy.

David Soul – Don’t Give Up On Us
Hutch left Starsky in the Gran Torino as he laid on some loverman action on the hitparades in ’77. David troubled the higher reaches of the charts four times within a year, starting with this song, and later with the fantastic Silver Lady (which I’m holding back for a future occasion). One final hurrah with a UK Top 20 hit in 1978, and our man’s singing career was over. A year later, his hit TV show was also over. Soul entered a decline into obscurity and, sadly, alcoholism, until he moved to England in the ’90s to become a star of the stage in the West End.

Joe Pesci – Take Your Love And Shove It
I am certain that the “Am I funny to you?” line was exhausted before Pesci’s “comedy” album was even completed. In case it wasn’t, the answer is no, Joe, you are not funny at all. You were fucking irritating in the Lethal Weapon movies, fucking annoying in that Cousin Vinny shit, fucking acted under the fucking table by fucking De Niro and fucking Woods and even Rocky’s fat fucking brother-in-law when you fucking had your chance at making a fucking impression in Once Upon A Fuckin’ Time In America, and I cheered like a fucking fuck when they fucking shot you in fucking GoodFellas, hoping they used fucking live ammunition while fucking filming the scene. Unfortunately your Vincent Laguardia Gambini comedy shtick was so fucking unfunny that we’re fucking stuck with you in the fucking movies. Fuck off Joe fucking Pesci.

Leonard Nimoy – Highly Illogical
Serving as a counterpoint to another long-faced Leonard releasing records in 1968, Nimoy recorded an amusing LP titled Two Sides Of Leonard Nimoy. Half was Nimoy singing songs such as Gentle On My Mind and If I Were A Carpenter, the other was in Spock character (following up the previous year’s Leonard Nimoy Presents Mr. Spock’s Music From Outer Space), as on this partly spoken, partly badly-sung track. The kind of thing the term “novelty record” was invented for.

Phyllis Diller – Satisfaction
This a contender for worst recording of all time. It’s also quite funny, possibly in an unintentional way (the “hey hey hey” had me laughing anyway). What turns out to be not funny is the sudden and brief barrage of punchlines for which Diller presumably fired her writers.

Gwyneth Paltrow & Huey Lewis – Cruisin’
Included to fulfill my contractual obligation to feature thespians who sing. Paltrow can hold a tune and even sounds vaguely pleasant, but she should not give up her day job. Now if only she could persuade her husband to stop singing…

Traci Lords – Fallen Angel
A rock-dance type of track from 1995, featuring Katharine Hepburn in character of her great 1940 film, The Philadelphia Story. On the cover, Ms Hepburn looks well-kept and striking a pose to publicise her new blonde image. Another Traci Lords, you say? I would not possibly know anything about that.

Crispin Hellion Glover – These Boots Are Made For Walking
Whatever happened to Marty McFly’s father? Diller’s Satisfaction may be a contender for worst song ever, but she won’t get past Crispin Glover’s non-comedic and description-defying cover of Nancy Sinatra’s hit. It needs to be heard. Once.

David Hasselhoff – Hooked On A Feeling
The Hoff must be included, of course, and how better to follow Crispin Glover’s artistic innovations with something entirely liberated from talent. The opening chant of “Hooga-shagga-hooga-hooga-hooga-shagga” sets up what might well have been the Hasselhoff’s 17th consecutive number 1 in Germany for the shitfest it turns out to be. Talking of Hasselhoff, why are all sorts of crap people turned into cult figures on strength of being the subject of public ridicule? Chuck fucking Norris has been revived from well-earned obscurity, Hasselhoff has become so much of a cult figure that even I refer to him as The Hoff. Give it time, and the pair of war criminals in the White House will find public acclaim on the back of a YouTube video showing them falling over each other.

Marilyn Monroe – Happy Birthday Mr President
And talking of presidents, MM’s scrotum-tickling tribute to JFK in 1962. Monroe, of course, was a pretty good singer, a talent which, like her acting, was often obscured by that breathy blonde shtick she was condemned to keep up. Listen to Kennedy’s acknowledgment at the end. When he says, “I can now retire from politics having had…”, he pauses for a bit, possibly reminding himself that he cannot exercise bragging rights at that particular moment.

TRACKLISTING
1. William Shatner – Common People
2. Ricky Gervais & Liam Gallagher – Freelove Freeway
3. Jack Palance – The Meanest Guy That Ever Lived
4. Marlene Dietrich – Die Antwort weiss ganz allein der Wind
5. Richard Harris – MacArthur Park
6. Brigitte Bardot – Je T’aime…Moi Non Plus
7. Eddie Murphy – Boogie in Your Butt
8. Billy Bob Thornton – Angelina
9. Rainbo (Sissy Spacek) – John You Went Too Far This Time
10. Robert Mitchum – What Is This Generation Coming To
11. Peter Sellers & Sophia Loren – Goodness Gracious Me
12. David Soul – Don’t Give Up On Us
13. Joe Pesci – Take Your Love And Shove It
14. Leonard Nimoy – Highly Illogical
15. Phyllis Diller – Satisfaction
16. Gwyneth Paltrow & Huey Lewis – Cruisin’
17. Traci Lords – Fallen Angel
18. Crispin Hellion Glover – These Boots Are Made For Walking
19. David Hasselhoff – Hooked On A Feeling
20. Marilyn Monroe – Happy Birthday Mr President (for JFK)

DOWNLOAD