heewwrrrragghhhh

You know that moment. That feeling. The one you get when you think of the perfect reply.  That witty yet cutting rejoinder that puts the other person in their place.  Or those almost poetic words that turn the object of your desire into putty in your hands.  Or that pithy remark that’s bound to impress everyone in the room, to make them look at you anew,  eyes filled with admiration and perhaps even a little envy. You know that moment when the right words are just there, magically.  In your head. At your disposal. The words that can turn any situation to your advantage.
You know that moment.
It happens anywhere between three hours and eighteen months after the time to say those words has been and gone. Lost forever. And you just standing there. Mouth gaping. With spinach stuck to your teeth.  

One afternoon, I was flicking through the TV channels and stopped on an Oprah Winfrey clipshow, featuring highlights from years of celebrity interviews. They showed an amusing moment from sometime in the early 80’s where she introduced her star guest, Sylvester Stallone, with the words: “I’m here with Sly Stone,” The audience laughs, its a genuine slip, but Oprah’s a pro, she quickly corrects herself eliciting yet more laughter. It’s a cute moment between Oprah and her audience and Stallone’s kind of left out of it, with nothing else to do but sit there and chuckle in a good natured fashion.  
Now I may be wrong, but I’d guess that sometime after he left the studio Stallone had one of those:  ”when she said that what I should’ve said was…” thoughts, that we all get from time to time. The only difference is that Stallone is a Hollywood star and he can insist, contractually, that the moment is re-enacted. Only this time he gets the chance to look just as sharp as a tack and as cool as a cucumber, because the next clip they showed was from a few years later, and Oprah is about to interview the stars of Tango & Cash. TV professional that she is, I don’t think she’d have made the same error twice, but sure enough she says: ”I’m here with Kurt Russell & Sly Stone.” The audience laughs, Oprah adopts an ‘Oops! Aren’t I a scatterbrain’ expression, and the camera cuts straight to Stallone who utters the perfect response, the timeless words: “Boom acka lacka lacka! Boom acka lacka!“

Now, if you don’t know why that was just the perfect thing to say run this Youtube clip, and make sure you’re paying attention around the 7:05 mark.

Here’s a unique tribute to the magic of Sly.

And here’s the best quality clip I could find of this summer’s shows – Sly Stone is 64. I advise caution .

a word from our sponsors

My post on Dusty Springfield singing The Six Million Dollar Man Theme got me thinking about Petula Clark doing adverts for Chrysler in the seventies. I couldn’t find any video or even audio evidence of those adverts online, but I did find out that Pet recorded a “Things go better with Coke” radio jingle in the sixties – and apparently so did almost everyone else.  Click here for a link to a page that includes playble jingles by Tom Jones, The Bee Gees, Nancy Sinatra, and one by the Supremes that sounds like it was recorded at Hitsville with the Funk Brothers.

60sgaragebands.com have made quite a study of bands who did endorsements from just within their particular sub-genre.

Below a number of other pop stars take the corporate dollar.  

That’s the real Four Seasons, though they do seem kind of camera shy.

 

Is this why Peter Tork quit? 

Lulu went on to advertise the Freemans catalogue

In Britain, Madness were the inspiration for a number of adverts – the British Meat ones in particular (Wot! No Meat? How about a bit of British Beef?) In Japan they just took the money and advertised the Honda City themselves.

 

cross genre shenanigans

It’s funny  how one post leads to another around here.
Finding the Lorna Bennet version of Breakfast In Bed on Youtube, that I shared last time brought a couple of things to mind. I hadn’t heard it before, but it’s obvious that the UB40/Chrissie Hynde version of the song was a cover of Lorna, not Dusty, because they repeat Lorna’s mishearing of the original lyrics. Dusty’s “a kiss or three” becomes “kisses for me” when Lorna sings the song. Where Dusty ends the chorus:
“Breakfast in Bed
Nothing Need be Said,” then ad libs “Aint no need.”

Lorna gives us:
“Breakfast in bed
Love can make you see
Hang on me.”

Put it down to Dusty’s intentionally sleepy diction.  

You’d often get that with a reggae cover version of an American or British pop song – I suppose it comes of learning the song from the record not the published sheet music, and you’d to hear those kinds of error in the lyrics when Britsh beat groups covered American R & B songs.   -
For example on the orignal of Shout – The Isley Brothers sing:
“Now that you’re grown up, old enough to know,
You wanna leave me, you wanna let me go.”
On Lulu’s version (and to this very day) she sings: “You wanna leave me, you wanna love me so,” which doesn’t make an awful lot of sense. Somewhere, this very night, maybe right this second, Lulu is still getting the words of Shout wrong after forty years.
On Mod classic ”I’ll Keep On Holding On” by The Action  you’ll hear a little bit of vocal interplay that, I think, goes:

“Waiting…
Oh, Yeah.
Watching…
Shoulder.
Looking for a chance….
A Chance to make you mine.”

That makes so little sense that later in the song lead singer Reg King, sings the lines:

“I’ll be waiting and watching….
I’ll be looking over my shoulder….”

On the Marvelettes original version, Wanda Young doesn’t sing ’shoulder’ at all, of course. She’s singing  ’Sho’ nuff,’ which was probably unfamiliar enough a phrase to confuse a bunch Londoners in the mid-sxities.
Of course I might be mis-hearing some of these myself.

Anyway I like a good cross genre cover and so here are three groovy soul versions of rock classics for your enjoyment.

Lou Rawls: For What It’s Worth

The Isley Brothers: Love the One You’re With

Spanky Wilson: Sunshine of Your Love

Now because you’ve been good and read all the way to the end, here’s the flip side of that Lorna Bennet single, courtesy of mrrk on Youtube - a bit of proto-dub  madness that they called Skank in Bed – featuring Scotty. I’d've called it Toast for Breakfast, but what do I know?

 

wish you still had a turntable?

So, how many people reading this switched to CD and got rid of their turntables?
How many live with a spouse or partner who didn’t like the amount of space a record player and all that old vinyl took up? (I wouldn’t mind but you never bloody play any of it anyway.) 
How many always intended to replace the old deck when it finally gave up the ghost, but just never got round to it?

Well, if you count yourself amongst that sorry band there’s no longer any need to worry. Thanks to countless Youtube subscribers you can experience the simple joy of spinning an old 45 from the discomfort of your own computer work station. 

And there’s also a mountain of this stuff at the online home of the Motown Master, but the Master doesn’t allow embedding so you’ll just have to follow the link.

Now, go and buy yourself a fucking record player, you sad bastard.

(And if you already have one, change the bleeding stylus for God’s sake. - How long has that one been on there for? Since you bought the turntable?  I thought so.)