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Showing posts with label Sixties Pop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sixties Pop. Show all posts

24.8.12

Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull - Loveinamist [Japan Bonus Tracks] - 2002 - Decca (USA)

Faithfull's final album of the 1960s (she would do one more single, in 1969) was a confused, patchy effort that seemed indicative of musical directionless. There was overblown, orchestrated straight pop (the cover of the Beatles' "Yesterday"), numbers where she seemed to be attempting to be a British Edith Piaf of sorts, and covers of contemporary folk-rock tunes by Donovan and Tim Hardin. Also, a couple of the better songs ("This Little Bird" and "Counting") had long been available on singles, from 1965 and 1966, respectively. This would have been categorized as "eclectic" rather than "directionless" if the material had been better, the arrangements more inspired, and the singing more commanding, but that wasn't the case on any of those counts. There are still some enjoyable bits, like the cover of "Young Girl Blues," and particularly the version of Jackie DeShannon's moody "With You in Mind." At the time, it was likely seen as something to fill in the gaps in the absence of better material. No one suspected, probably, that Faithfull would be diverted by other professional activities and personal calamities, and really wouldn't return to high visibility as a recording artist for a dozen years. The 1988 CD reissue on London U.K. has a couple of worthwhile bonus tracks in previously unreleased covers of Tim Hardin's "Hang Onto a Dream" and the Kinks' "Rosie, Rosie" (titled "Rosy Won't You Please Come Home" when it appeared on the Kinks' Face to Face album), both of which were recorded in September 1966. © Richie Unterberger © 2012 Rovi Corp | All Rights Reserved http://www.allmusic.com/album/love-in-a-mist-mw0000374789

"Loveinamist" was Marianne's fourth LP and her last studio album until 1977 when she released "Dreamin' My Dreams". "Loveinamist" is a good mix of pop and folk, with great tracks like Tim Hardin's "Reason To Believe and Donovan's "In The Night Time. The album was completely overlooked on it's release in 1967. The media in the "swinging sixties" were more concerned with other aspects of Marianne's life. In fact much of her early music has been neglected for many years now. This Japanese bonus issue is a good chance to hear the '60's Marianne Faithfull's beautiful voice and a great choice of covers by writers that include Lennon & McCartney, Jackie DeShannon, Donovan, Tim Hardin, Ray Davies and many more. Listen to Marianne's "Broken English" album, a critical success of which Rolling Stone writer Greil Marcus said, "Fifteen years after making her first single, Marianne Faithfull has made her first real album." Also listen to Marianne's underrated "Strange Weather" album. Read all you need to know about Marianne @ http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/april2009/marianne-faithfull.html N.B: Has anybody out there got a full list of musicians' credits for this album? [All tracks @ 320 Kbps: File size = 111 Mb]

TRACKS / COMPOSERS

1. Yesterday - Lennon & McCartney
2. You Can't Go Where the Roses Go - J. DeShannon
3. Our Love Has Gone - C.Andrews
4. Don't Make Promises - T.Hardin
5. In the Night Time - D.Leitch (Donovan)
6. This Little Bird - John D. Loudermilk
7. Ne Me Quitte Pas - Michel Legrand
8. Counting - Bob Lind
9. Reason to Believe - T.Hardin
10. Coquillages - Marcel Stellman
11. With You in My Mind - J. DeShannon
12. Young Girl Blues - D.Leitch (Donovan)
13. Good Guy - D.Leitch (Donovan)
14. I Have a Love - L. Bernstein, S.Sondheim
15. Hang on to a Dream - T.Hardin [Bonus]
16. Rosie, Rosie - Ray Davies [Bonus]
17. Monday, Monday - John Phillips [Bonus]

N.B: Some issues of this album have a different track list than the original Decca UK version of this album. In fact, there are many versions of this album. However, Tracks 1-14 on this post were on the original UK Decca 1967 mono pressing of the album

BIO

Few stars of the '60s have reinvented themselves as successfully as Marianne Faithfull. Coaxed into a singing career by Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham in 1964, she had a big hit in both Britain and the U.S. with her debut single, the Jagger/Richards composition "As Tears Go By" (which prefaced the Stones' own version by a full year). Considerably more successful in her native land than the States, she had a series of hits in the mid-'60s that set her high, fragile voice against delicate orchestral pop arrangements: "Summer Night," "This Little Bird," and Jackie DeShannon's "Come and Stay with Me." Not a songwriter at the outset of her career, she owes more of her fame as a '60s icon to her extraordinary beauty and her long-running romance with Mick Jagger, although she offered a taste of things to come with her compelling 1969 single "Sister Morphine," which she co-wrote (and which the Stones later released themselves on Sticky Fingers). In the '70s, Faithfull split up with Jagger, developed a serious drug habit, and recorded rarely, with generally dismal results. This occurred until late 1979, when she pulled off an astonishing comeback with Broken English. Displaying a croaking, cutting voice that had lowered a good octave since the mid-'60s, Faithfull had also begun to write much of her own material, and addressed sex and despair with wrenching realism. After allowing herself to be framed as a demure chanteuse by songwriters and arrangers throughout most of her career, Faithfull had found her own voice, and suddenly sounded more relevant and contemporary than most of the stars she had rubbed shoulders with in the '60s. Faithfull's recordings in the '80s and '90s were sporadic and erratic, but generally quite interesting; Strange Weather, a Hal Willner-produced 1987 collection of standards and contemporary compositions that spanned several decades for its sources, was her greatest triumph of the decade. In 1994, she published her self-titled autobiography; the biography As Tears Go By by Mark Hodkinson is an objective and thorough account of her life and times. Faithfull returned to recording in 2002 with Kissin' Time, an eclectic collection of songwriting collaborations with Beck, Damon Albarn, Billy Corgan, Jon Brion, and Jarvis Cocker, among others. In 2004, Before the Poison was released in the U.K., making its entrance into the U.S. market in early 2005. This album continued in the vein of its predecessor, with songwriting and production contributions from PJ Harvey, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Brion, and Albarn, but with far more consistent results. Faithfull and Willner released Easy Come Easy Go in 2008, an all new collection of typically eclectic covers from the likes of Morrissey, the Decemberists, Billie Holiday, Black Rebel Motorcycle, and Dolly Parton. Faithfull and Willner re-teamed for 2011's Horses and High Heels, a collection of covers and originals recorded at the famed Piety Street studio in New Orleans. The album features the talents of local musicians including renowned guitarist John Porter, as well as cameos by Dr. John, Lou Reed, and Wayne Kramer. © Richie Unterberger © 2012 Rovi Corp | All Rights Reserved http://www.allmusic.com/artist/marianne-faithfull-mn0000651107

MORE

Long before Madonna made reinvention her artistic byword, Marianne Faithfull had resurrected herself many times over. Yet the British singer-songwriter's endeavors have consistently been upstaged by personal scandal and vice. Her early years as a Euro-waif pop singer coincided with a well-chronicled relationship with Rolling Stone frontman Mick Jagger, and her recordings were often overshadowed by the couple's legendary exploits. Faithfull began her musical career while still a teenager with timely, well-packaged singles that never quite achieved their full potential; meanwhile, life among the Stones entourage led to bouts with heroin addiction and alcohol abuse. Faithfull was implicated in a notorious 1967 drug bust involving the band, and her relationship with Jagger came to an end in 1969. She spent much of the 1970s battling her addictions while intermittently acting in theater productions and recording a few overlooked albums. The singer made a dramatic comeback in late 1979 with the release of Broken English, a critical success that prompted Rolling Stone writer Greil Marcus to remark, "Fifteen years after making her first single, Marianne Faithfull has made her first real album." During this incarnation, Faithfull's ability to embody pain and pathos led many to view her and the ultimate survivor/chanteuse—a rock version of Marlene Dietrich. Subsequently, she recorded several albums during the 1980s, like Broken English, that were lauded by critics for their searing vocals and choice backing musicians. More importantly, after a serious confrontation with her addictions she also regained some ballast in her life, which resulted in renewed faith in her abilities. Early Fame Linked to Rolling Stones: Faithfull was born on December 29, 1946, in Hampstead, London, to an Austrian baroness and a British intelligence officer who had met in Vienna during World War II. Her father, a devotee of Utopian social schemes, relocated his family to a communal farm in Oxfordshire in 1950, but after two years the Faithfulls' marriage disintegrated and Marianne and her mother moved to Reading, England. Living in rather reduced circumstances, Faithfull's girlhood was marred by bouts with tuberculosis and her charity-boarder status at the local convent school. Despite these early hardships, Faithfull emerged as a fashionable, vivacious teenager and soon began partaking in London's exploding social scene. In early 1964 she attended a record-industry party with John Dunbar—an art student she later married—and there a chance meeting with Andrew Loog Oldham, the Rolling Stones' manager, led to a contract with Decca Records. Her first single, "As Tears Go By"—a reworking of an old English lyrical poem—was written by Oldham, Jagger, and Stones guitarist Keith Richards; it reached number nine on the British charts and number 22 in America by the fall of that year. A colorful spark-plug of the swinging London scene, Faithfull was a few months short of her eighteenth birthday. Faithfull became an overnight Top 40 sensation, known for her ethereal, whispery vocals and angelic face. Artistic differences led to a falling out with Oldham, but the teenager continued to record singles for Decca over the next few years, including covers of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" and the Beatles' "Yesterday." She had her biggest successes in 1965 with Jackie DeShannon's "Come and Stay With Me" and "This Little Bird." Her first full-length album, Marianne Faithfull, appeared in April of 1965, followed by Go Away From My World in November of the same year and Faithfull Forever in 1966. Drugs Ruined Early Promise: Faithfull's dramatic personal life matched the fast-paced lifestyle her high-profile career demanded. In between appearances on such American rock music shows as Shindig and Hullabaloo, she had a son with Dunbar in November of 1965, but the couple separated shortly thereafter. By then she and Jagger had become an item, and their subsequent drug-fueled, jet-set exploits made her a household name for all the wrong reasons. In 1967 a party at Richards's fourteenth-century manse was raided by English law enforcement authorities, and Jagger and Richards were brought up on drug-related charges. Headlines proclaimed that Faithfull was in attendance wearing nothing but a fur rug. In an interview 27 years later with A. M. Homes for Details, Faithfull discussed her wilder days and admitted that the drug bust-fur rug incident had ravaged her personal life: "It destroyed me. To be a male drug addict and to act like that is always enhancing and glamorizing. A woman in that situation becomes a slut and a bad mother." The young singer's recording career never fulfilled its early popstar promise, but the ready availability of drugs and alcohol offered some temporary solace. In 1969 she cut her last single for Decca, "Something Better," a record more notable for its B-side, "Sister Morphine." Faithfull had cowritten this song—a harrowing tale of heroin addiction—with Jagger and Richards but didn't receive official credit for it until 1984. Another version of the song appeared on the Stones' 1971 album Sticky Fingers, along with the cut "Wild Horses." The latter is considered to be Jagger's lyrical parting tribute to Faithfull, written around the time their relationship was disintegrating in 1969; the break-up was apparently precipitated by her suicide attempt in an Australian hotel room during Jagger's filming of the movie Ned Kelly. Faithfull also played a small part in the genesis of "Sympathy for the Devil," released on the 1968 Stones album Beggar's Banquet and considered by some critics to be one of their most noteworthy compositions. Jagger penned the lyrics to the song after Faithfull encouraged him one night to read an obscure novel written by early-twentieth-century Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov entitled The Master and Margarita. For the Record …: Born Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull on December 29, 1946, in Hampstead, London, England; daughter of Robert Glynn (a university lecturer) and Eva Sacher-Masoch (Baroness Erisso) Faithfull; married John Dunbar (an art dealer), May 1965 (divorced, 1970); married Ben Brierly (a musician), June 1979 (divorced); also married briefly to Giorgio della Terza (a writer); children: (first marriage) Nicholas. Singer, songwriter, actor, and author. Recorded several pop singles and albums for Decca Records, 1960s; appeared in film and theater productions, beginning in 1967; recorded Broken English, Island, 1979; published Faithfull: An Autobiography, 1994; recorded critically acclaimed albums for RCA, 1997, 1998; recorded the Vagabond Ways LP for Instinct, 1999; recorded Kissin' Time album with Beck and Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins, 2002; Fourth Estate released her second book, Marianne Faithfull's Diaries, 2003; narrator for the film, A Letter to True, 2004. Addresses: Record companies—EMI-Capitol Records, 1750 N. Vine St., Hollywood, CA 90028; Island Records, 825 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10019, website: http://www.universalchronicles.com. Film and Television Actress: Despite her continuing drug problems, Faithfull harbored ambitions for greater things than cutting Top 40 records. In 1967 she appeared in two films, I'll Never Forget Whats is name and the racy Girl on a Motorcycle, the latter with French actor Alain Delon. Two years later she made her stage debut at London's Royal Court Theatre in Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters and the following year played Ophelia in a film version of Hamlet. In the early 1970s Faithfull's heroin addiction led to intermittent hospitalization, and at one point she registered with Britain's National Health Service as an addict in order to receive a regular ration of the drug for free. Small royalties from "Sister Morphine" were sometimes her only source of income. She produced little in the way of recording, and the attempts made were disastrously ignored, such as 1975's country-and-western-inspired Dreaming My Dreams and Faithless, released in 1978. By the late 1970s things were beginning to look better for Faithfull. She had put together a band and began touring British clubs, and the gigs led to a deal with Island Records. In June of 1979 she married punk bassist Ben Brierly, and a few months later her new label released Broken English, a fierce comeback that garnered critical acclaim. In a raspy, harsh voice light years away from her whispery teenage vocals, Faithfull sang of despair, jealousy, rage, and redemption. Her backing band included Brierly and guitarist-songwriter Barry Reynolds. Faithfull cowrote the title track as well as two other songs, but the album earned special praise for her covers of John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" and Shel Silverstein's "Ballad of Lucy Jordan." In a Rolling Stone review, Greil Marcus looked back at the long road the singer had traveled since her 1964 debut, calling Broken English "a stunning account of the life that goes on after the end, an awful, liberating, harridan's laugh at the life that came before." The profanity-laden track "Why D'Ya Do It?," a terrifying rant against a faithless lover based on a poem by Heathcote Williams, contributed to a decision by EMI—Island's British distributor—to boycott the record, although it did manage to reach number 57 on the British charts and number 82 in the United States. "I'm so, so strong," Faithfull told Debra Rae Cohen of Rolling Stone a few months after the release of the album. "People have no clue." Her pride in Broken English was apparent: "I've never worked very hard at anything before; it's the first time musical demands have been made on me." In his review Marcus termed the album "a perfectly intentional, controlled, unique statement about fury, defeat and rancor.... It isn't anything we've heard before, from anyone." Despite her newfound success, Faithfull continued to battle the twin demons of heroin and alcohol. A disastrous appearance on Saturday Night Live was blamed on too many rehearsals, but it was suspected that drugs had caused her vocal cords to seize up. A second album for Island, Dangerous Acquaintances, was released in 1981 and featured a more upbeat mood and a track written by Steve Winwood, formerly of the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, and Blind Faith. The album just missed breaking the top 100 in the United States but reached number 45 in the United Kingdom. "Faithfull fairly revels in her newfound strength," wrote Parke Puterbaugh in Rolling Stone. "Dangerous Acquaintances quakes with a darkly luminescent power, as the singer meditates on the transience and intransigence of affairs of the heart." During the 1980s Faithfull moved between London and New York, her heroin addiction helping to obliterate the reality of her sometimes squalid living conditions and equally squalid acquaintances. Her third LP for Island, A Child's Adventure, was released in 1983 but achieved only scant commercial success. Though he praised the musicianship of the record, Rolling Stone's Puterbaugh mused that Faithfull had perhaps "overextended her poetic license, for the allusions are far too vague, the protagonist of these living nightmares too swollen with her own suffering." During the mid-1980s Faithfull's chemical addictions began to catch up with her—in a chemical-induced stupor she took a bad fall down a flight of stairs, and in another incident her heart actually stopped. Extensive rehabilitation, including a stint at the famed Hazelden facility, helped her overcome her demons by the time Strange Weather was released in 1987. The album of covers was produced by Hal Willner after the two had spent numerous weekends listening to hundreds of songs from the annals of twentieth-century music. They chose to record such diverse tracks as Bob Dylan's "I'll Keep It With Mine" and "Yesterdays," written by Broadway composers Jerome Kern and Otto Harbach. The work also includes tunes first made notable by such blues luminaries as Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith; latter-day beat-virtuoso Tom Waits penned the title track. Made Comeback on Island Records: Coming full circle, the renewed Faithfull cut another recording of "As Tears Go By" for Strange Weather, this time in a tighter, more gravelly voice. The singer confessed to a lingering irritation with her first hit. "I always childishly thought that was where my problems started, with that damn song," she told Jay Cocks in Time, but she came to terms with it as well as with her past. In a 1987 interview with Rory O'Connor of Vogue, Faithfull declared, "forty is the age to sing it, not seventeen." In 1990 Faithfull released Blazing Away, a live retrospective recorded at St. Anne's Cathedral in Brooklyn. The 13 selections include "Sister Morphine," a cover of Edith Piaf's "Les Prisons du Roy," and the controversial "Why D'Ya Do It?" from Broken English. Alanna Nash of Stereo Review commended the musicians whom Faithfull had chosen to back her—longtime guitarist Reynolds was joined by former Band member Garth Hudson and pianist Dr. John. Nash was also impressed with the album's autobiographical tone, noting "Faithfull's gritty alto is a cracked and halting rasp, the voice of a woman who's been to hell and back on the excursion fare—which, of course, she has." The reviewer extolled Faithfull as "one of the most challenging and artful of women artists," and Rolling Stone writer Fred Goodman asserted: "Blazing Away is a fine retrospective—proof that we can still expect great things from this graying, jaded contessa." Faithfull next took a hiatus from performing and lived in relative isolation in Ireland for a few years. She returned to the stage for a 1991 Dublin revival of The Threepenny Opera and played a ghost who comes back to torment her abusive husband in the film When Pigs Fly. She also spent time with writer David Dalton in compiling her 1994 autobiography, Faithfull, and released an album of the same name in August of that year. The book, as expected, is loaded with the singer's forthright reminiscences of being caught up in the orbit of the Rolling Stones and her difficult attempts to break free of those years, recounted "with witty, humorous detachment and in a voice as distinctive as her latter-day rasp," according to Billboard writer Chris Morris. The 1994 album Faithfull, subtitled A Collection of Her Best Recordings, contains Faithfull's original version of "As Tears Go By," several cuts from Broken English, and a song written by Patti Smith scheduled for inclusion on an Irish AIDS benefit album. This track, "Ghost Dance"—suggested to Faithfull by a friend who later died of AIDS—was made with a trio of old acquaintances: Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts and guitarist Ron Wood backed Faithfull's vocals on the song while Richards coproduced it. The retrospective album also features one live track, "Times Square," as well as Faithfull's return to songwriting with "She," penned with acclaimed composer and arranger Angelo Badalamenti. Best known for his work scoring projects for filmmaker and Twin Peaks creator David Lynch, Badalamenti teamed up with Faithfull for A Secret Life, her first full-length studio effort since 1987. Vanity Fair writer Cathy Horyn predicted in September of 1994 that this Island Records collaboration, released in March of 1995, "will almost certainly restore this fallen angel to her rightful place: as one of the great interpretive singers of our time." A Respected Icon: Faithful returned to songwriting full-time with the 1999 album Vagabond Ways for Instinct. Co-writing most of the material, she turned in an emotionally resonant performance that cemented her status as both the supreme interpreter of personal torment and contemporary creative force to be reckoned with. At the age of 56, she simultaneously enjoyed the role of a burgeoning art-film actress in such movies as Far From China, and Intimacy, and as the patron saint for a new wave of musicians. Indeed, her 2002 EMI album Kissin' Time featured remarkable collaborations with the likes of such modern day artists as Beck, Blur, Pulp, Dave Stewart, and Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins fame. The result was her finest, most emotionally revealing disc since Broken English, one that won her the admiration of a new generation of discerning music fans, albeit not much action on the mainstream charts. Looking back, which she often asked to do by interviewers, she has only one regret. "I wish I'd never taken heroin," she told told Charles R. Cross of the Seattle Weekly. "It seems to me now, looking back on it, from a long way in time, that it was just a waste of my time." © Carol Brennan and Ken Burke 2005 © 2012. All rights reserved © http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Marianne_Faithfull.aspx#1-1G2:3430400020-full

1.10.10

Janis Ian


Photobucket

Janis Ian - Who Really Cares - 1969 - Verve-Forecast

Recorded at the end of her troubled teenage tenure with MGM, Janis Ian's Who Really Cares limped out of the gate in 1969 to immediate obscurity. It's actually the strongest of her childhood efforts. Charlie Calello (responsible for Laura Nyro's Eli and the Thirteenth Confession) provides characteristically lush, ornamental production, while avoiding the gimmicks (police sirens, etc.) that Shadow Morton foisted on Ian's previous sets. But it is Ian's growth as a performer and songwriter that elevates Who Really Cares head and shoulders above the rest of her Verve recordings. The tracks might not have the political clout of her earliest work, but they more than compensate by way of gorgeous, sophisticated, fully realized music and dreamy, wistful lyrics. Ian displays remarkable musical scope; gone is the earnest folk, and in its place a stately jazz-pop-funk fusion, colored by crafty, energetic string, woodwind and horn arrangements. In particular, "Love You More Than Yesterday," "Sea and Sand," and "Do You Remember" stand up to repeated listens, while "Calling Your Name" — an unexpected stab at French chanson — really gets under the skin. Also conspicuous is Ian's vocal growth as the shrill, reedy, adolescent qualities of her voice give way to a warmer adult sound. The bulk of Who Really Cares appears on the two-CD compilation Society's Child. © Charles Donovan © 2010 Rovi Corporation. All Rights Reserved http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:jxfyxql5ldhe

Produced by Laura Nyro producer (and former Four Season) Charlie Calello, and the arrangements are well detailed and lovely - ghostly flutes (by Joe Farell) on "Snowbird," a trombone solo (by Tony Stud) on "Month Of May" - with strings, vibes, French horns and keyboards all used creatively and never laid on too thick. The songs cover various branches of pop, from the psychedelic rocker "Love You More Than Yesterday" (with a strikingly 90s-sounding high-pitched repeating hook) to the driving Walt Whitman-meets-Motown "Sea & Sand." Overall it's probably closer to Seasons Of Your Mind than any other Ian album, with two significant differences: the production is far more elegant, and the songwriting is far less ambitious. Lyrically Ian backs away from weighty themes in favor of navel-gazing ("Time On My Hands") and diffuse imagery ("Orphan Of The Wind"), and her vocals are sometimes hard to hear through all the instrumentation. Al Kooper plays organ on "Do You Remember?" and "Calling Your Name"; the rest of the large cast includes Dick Hyman (keyboards), Hugh McCracken, Stu Scharf and Ralph Casale (guitar), Bob Bushnell (bass), Al Rogers (drums), and a horde of string and horn players. *** © (DBW) Wilson & Alroy's Record Reviews http://www.warr.org/jian.html#WhoReallyCares

Janis Ian, like so many artists, including the great Maria Muldaur, is mainly known for a few songs/hit singles like"Society's Child" and "At Seventeen." But check out her back catalogue, and you will discover just how good a singer and great songwriter she is. Often branded as as a soft-rock folk singer, and although this is not necessarily a bad label to have, it is also not what Janis Ian is mainly about. Her musical scope extends much further than that. Janis, at one stage semi-retired from the music business, and moved to Nashville, where she penned many great songs for other artists. This great New York songstress, has released many great albums, and some of them classics, but not recognized as such. "Who Really Cares" contains nine quality songs. As usual, with Janis Ian, her songs are emotional, from the heart, and concentrate on serious social themes, although WRC is a very early album, (Her forth on Verve), and is less concerned with Janis' sociological songwriting side than some of her later albums. Janis' songs were never overly commercial, and perhaps this aspect of her songwriting has halted the success she has always deserved, but never really achieved. Janis Ian has a great noice, very well suited to blues and jazz as well as folk. She also never received the recognition she deserves for her guitar technique. Her albums,"Between the Lines", and "Breaking Silence " are absolute gems, and need to be heard. Give this album a listen, and buy her great "God & the FBI" album. Her "Stars" album is @ JANIAN/STRS and her "Hunger" album @ JANIAN/HNGR

TRACKS

1 Time On My Hands
2 Love You More Than Yesterday
3 Orphan Of The Wind
4 Sea And Sand
5 Galveston
6 Do You Remember
7 Month Of May
8 Calling Your Name
9 And I Did Ma

All songs composed by Janis Ian

MUSICIANS

Janis Ian - Guitar, Vocals
Stuart Scharf, Ralph Casale, Hugh McCracken - Guitar
Bob Bushnell - Bass
Dick Hyman - Organ
Al Kooper - Organ on "Do You Remember", and "Calling Your Name"
Al Rogers - Drums
Brad Spinney - Percussion
Joe Farrell, Romeo Penque - Saxophone
Bernie Glow - Trumpet
Tony Studd - Trombone
Ray Alonge - Horn
George Ricci - Cello
Harold Coletta - Viola
Gene Orloff, Joseph Malin, Manny Green, Marvin Stamm, Julius Schachter, Aaron Rosand - Violin

BIO (WIKIPEDIA)

Janis Ian (born Born Janis Eddy Fink in New York City on April 7, 1951) is a Grammy Award-winning American songwriter, singer, multi-instrumental musician, columnist, and science fiction fan-turned-author. She had a highly successful singing career in the 1960s and 1970s, and has continued recording into the 21st century. At age thirteen, she legally changed her name to Janis Ian, her new last name being her brother's middle name. At the age of fifteen, Ian wrote and sang her first hit single, "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)," about an interracial romance forbidden by a girl's mother and frowned upon by her peers and teachers; the girl ultimately decides to end the relationship, claiming the societal norms of the day have left her no other choice. Produced by melodrama specialist George "Shadow" Morton and released three times between 1965 and 1967, "Society's Child" finally became a national hit the third time it was released, after Leonard Bernstein featured it in a TV special titled Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution. The song's lyrical content was too taboo for some radio stations, and they withdrew or banned it from their playlists accordingly. In the summer of 1967, "Society's Child" reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Apparently "Society's Child" was too hot for Atlantic Records as well at the time. Ian relates on her website that although the song was originally intended for Atlantic and the label paid for her recording session, the label subsequently returned the master to her and quietly refused to release it. Years later, Ian says, Atlantic's president at the time, Jerry Wexler, publicly apologized to her for this. The single and Ian's 1967 eponymous debut album were finally released on Verve Forecast; her album was also a hit, reaching #12. In 2001, "Society's Child" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which honors recordings considered timeless and important to music history. Her most successful single was "At Seventeen," released in 1975, a bittersweet commentary on adolescent cruelty and teenage angst, as reflected upon from the maturity of adulthood. "At Seventeen" was a smash, receiving tremendous acclaim from critics and record buyers alike — it charted at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It even won the 1975 Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance - Female beating out the likes of Linda Ronstadt who was nominated for the classic Heart Like A Wheel album, Olivia Newton-John and Helen Reddy. Ian performed "At Seventeen" as a musical guest on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live on October 11, 1975. The song's album, Between The Lines, was also a smash and hit #1 on Billboard's Album chart. It was quickly certified Gold and later earned a 'Platinum' certification for sales of over one million copies sold in the US. Another measure of her success is anecdotal - on Valentine's Day 1977, Ian received 461 Valentine cards, having indicated in the lyrics to "At Seventeen" that she never received any as a teenager. "At Seventeen" can also be heard playing in the background in one scene in the 2004 movie Mean Girls. The movie, like the song, addresses the topic of teenage cruelty and alienation; the film features a character named "Janis Ian" who was not a lesbian but was called one nonetheless by some of her classmates in an attempt to demean her. The character was played by actress Lizzy Caplan. "At Seventeen" is also mentioned in Jeffrey Eugenides's 1993 novel The Virgin Suicides, where the song is used by four girls imprisoned in their own home and essentially cut off from normal adolescent experiences to communicate with the narrator and his friends. "Fly Too High" (1979) was her contribution to the soundtrack of the Jodie Foster film Foxes. It earned her a Grammy nomination and became a hit single in many countries, including South Africa, Belgium and the Netherlands. Another country where Ian has achieved a surprising level of popularity is Japan. She had two top 10 singles on the Japanese Oricon charts, "Love Is Blind" in 1976, and "You Are Love" in 1980; and her album Aftertones was a #1 best-seller there in October 1976. By contrast, in the U.S., Ian made the pop charts only once more after "At Seventeen" ("Under the Covers," #71 in 1981), though she had several more songs reach the Adult Contemporary singles chart through 1980 (all failing to make the Top 20, however). Ian spent much of the 1980s and early 1990s without a record deal; her label dropped her in 1981 following the disappointing sales of Miracle Row (1977), Night Rains (1979), and Restless Eyes (1981). "Basically, I didn't do anything from 1982 to 1992. Ian finally resurfaced in 1993 with the album Breaking Silence, its title song about incest. She came out as a lesbian with that release. Also in 1993 was her infamous Howard Stern Show appearance where she performed a "new" version of "At Seventeen" about Jerry Seinfeld. Ian has released five albums since (including one live album, 2003's Working Without A Net). Ian's most recent album, Folk Is The New Black, was released jointly by the Rude Girl and Cooking Vinyl labels in 2006. It is the first in over twenty years where she did all the songwriting herself. She still tours and has a devoted fan base. Other artists have recorded Ian's compositions, most notably Roberta Flack, who had a hit in 1973 with Ian's song "Jesse" (also recorded by Joan Baez; Ian's own version is featured on her 1974 album Stars). Ian also co-wrote "What About The Love?", featured on Amy Grant's 1988 album Lead Me On. She is an outspoken critic of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a record industry organization which she sees as acting against the interests of musicians and consumers. As such, she has willingly released several of her songs for free download from her website. She was not only one of the first artists to do this but also was one of the first, along with author Eric Flint, to show conclusive evidence that free downloads dramatically increased hard-copy sales, contrary to the claims of RIAA and NARAS. Ironically, Ian's signature tune At Seventeen sold over two million singles in the United States alone yet was never certified. "I've been surprised at how few people are willing to get annoyed with me over it," she laughs, "there was a little backlash here and there. I was scheduled to appear on a panel somewhere and somebody from a record company said if I was there they would boycott it. But that's been pretty much it. In general the entire reaction has been favorable. I hear from a lot of people in my industry who don't want to be quoted, but say 'yeah, we're aware of this and we'd like to see a change too'." In addition to being an award-winning singer/songwriter, Ian writes science fiction. A long-time reader of the genre, she got into science fiction fandom in 2001, attending the Millennium Philcon. Her works have been published in an assortment of anthologies, and she co-edited, with Mike Resnick, the anthology Stars: Original Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian, published in 2003. When her schedule permits, she occasionally attends science fiction conventions. Ian has been a regular columnist for, and still contributes to the LGBT news magazine, The Advocate. She has a selection of her columns available on her website. On July 24th 2008, Janis Ian released her Autobiography: Society's Child (published by Penguin Tarcher) to much critical acclaim. An accompanying double CD "The Autobiogrphy Collection" has also been released with all Ian's best loved songs. Ian currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with attorney Patricia Snyder, whom she married in Toronto, Canada on August 27, 2003.

MORE ABOUT JANIS IAN

A singer/songwriter both celebrated and decried for her pointed handling of taboo topics, Janis Ian enjoyed one of the more remarkable second acts in music history. After first finding success as a teen, her career slumped, only to enter a commercial resurgence almost a decade later. Janis Eddy Fink was born on May 7, 1951, in New York City. The child of a music teacher, she studied piano as a child and, drawing influence from Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday, and Odetta, wrote her first songs at the age of 12. She soon entered Manhattan's High School of Music and Art, where she began performing at school functions. After adopting the surname Ian (her brother's middle name), she quickly graduated to the New York folk circuit. When she was just 15, she recorded her self-titled debut; the LP contained "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)," a meditation on interracial romance written by Ian while waiting to meet with her school guidance counselor. While banned by a few radio stations, the single failed to attract much notice until conductor Leonard Bernstein invited its writer to perform the song on his television special Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution. The ensuing publicity and furor over its subject matter pushed "Society's Child" into the upper rungs of the pop charts, and made Ian an overnight sensation. Success did not agree with her, however, and she soon dropped out of high school. In rapid succession, Ian recorded three more LPs -- 1967's For All the Seasons of Your Mind, 1968's The Secret Life of J. Eddy Fink, and 1969's Who Really Cares -- but gave away the money she earned to friends and charities. After meeting photojournalist Peter Cunningham at a peace rally, the couple married, and at age 20, she announced her retirement from the music business. The marriage failed, however, and she returned in 1971 with the poorly received Present Company. After moving to California to hone her writing skills in seclusion, Ian resurfaced three years later with Stars, which featured the song "Jesse," later a Top 30 hit for Roberta Flack. With 1975's Between the Lines, Ian eclipsed all of her previous success; not only did the LP achieve platinum status, but the delicate single "At Seventeen" reached the Top Three and won a Grammy. While subsequent releases like 1977's Latin-influenced Miracle Row, 1979's Night Rains, and 1981's Restless Eyes earned acclaim, they sold poorly. Ian was dropped by her label and spent 12 years without a contract before emerging in 1993 with Breaking Silence (the title a reference to her recent admission of homosexuality), which pulled no punches in tackling material like domestic violence, frank eroticism, and the Holocaust. Similarly, 1995's Revenge explored prostitution and homelessness. Two years later Ian returned with Hunger; God & the FBI followed in the spring of 2000. A live set, Working Without a Net, appeared from Rude Girl Records in 2003, and a DVD, Live at Club Cafe, saw release in 2005. Folk Is the New Black appeared as a joint release from Rude Girl and Cooking Vinyl in 2006. © Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

24.11.07

Mama Cass Elliot


mamacasselliot-bubblegumlemonade&something4mama1969




Mama Cass Elliot - Bubble Gum, Lemonade &.... Something For Mama - 1969 - Dunhill/ABC

This is a rare Mama Cass Elliot album. Her 2nd solo album , released in 1969, has some great songs & dynamite singing. " IT'S GETTING BETTER " is a definitive pop single, and is the longest charting single of any Mamas & Papas associated single ever! This album also has one of the biggest ballads that Cass ever sang - " HE'S A RUNNER " written by Laura Nyro. Cass really belts out this ballad so heartfully that is just amazing to hear this woman's talent. Another great ballad is the closing song " WHO'S TO BLAME " that was written by her sister Leah Kunkel. Plus, there is a return to the old-time yester-year sound on " I CAN DREAM CAN'T I ". Cass' talent & way with a song is something that will always live on. Even when the songs aren't great (the psuedo-Country "Sour Grapes", the forced nostalgia of "When I Just Wear My Smile"), Cass always is. This is very simply a must-have for a Cass Elliot fans. A nice collection of songs, sung by one of the truly unique voices in the history of pop singing.

TRACKS

It's Getting Better
Blow Me a Kiss
Sour Grapes
Easy Come, Easy Go
I Can Dream, Can't I
Welcome to the World
Lady Love
He's a Runner
Move in a Little Closer, Baby
When I Just Wear My Smile
Who's to Blame
Make Your Own Kind of Music (Bonus Track on Import CD)

BIO

Called the Earth Mother of Hippiedom by fellow band member John Phillips, Cass Elliot brought charm and vocal muscle to a stormy and transitional period of American music history. In flowery print dresses of the mid-1960s, made tentlike to accommodate her great size, Elliot, born Ellen Naomi Cohen on February 19, 1941, in Baltimore, grew to fame with the tightly harmonic vocal group the Mamas and the Papas. During their three-year reign at the top of popular music charts, the Mamas and the Papas melded folk and psychedelic styles in a quartet whose half-dozen remembered songs still evoke a time prior to the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention, when hippie ideologies of communal living and relaxed standards of dress and demeanor had not yet divided the recording industry or the nation along fierce political lines. In 1966, the Mamas and the Papas made their television debut, singing “California Dreamin” on the variety show The Hollywood Palace. It was broadcast to American soldiers in Vietnam, and host Arthur Godfrey sent “our boys” a message of hope.
Cass Elliot looked like the mother of a commune, photographed lounging on the grass, a bottle of wine at her side. The band’s familial names lent credence to the public image that their lives were one continuous summer picnic. Papa John Phillips, baritone and songwriter, was a gangly opposite to his wife, Michelle Phillips. Michelle Phillips's delicate beauty offset the robust Mama Cass. Rounding out the quartet was tenor Denny Doherty, who shared the band's penchant for long hair and brightly colored clothing. Musically, the Mamas and the Papas created a sound never duplicated in American pop music. Their harmonies, indebted to the power of Elliot's voice, resemble a distant, often eerie echo that suddenly appears to be closer than it sounds. “California Dreamin’,” “Monday, Monday,” and “I Saw Her Again Last Night,” all written by John Phillips, remain staples of both AM radio and elevator music circuits, an honor never bestowed on songs by the band’s hard-edged contemporaries Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. But even within the Mamas and the Papas’ lush harmonies, the candor of Cass Elliot's voice is conspicuous.
Though very much a California band, the members of the Mamas and the Papas found each other through the folk music network in New York. Elliot had had her own group, Cass and the Big Three, and had been a member of the Mugwumps with Doherty before joining John Phillips's new band at St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, where the quartet perfected its sound in sunlight and penury. One of the Mamas and the Papas' biggest hits, the autobiographical chronicle "Creeque Alley," details the genesis of the band down to John Phillips's American Express card, which sustained all four until they arrived in Los Angeles and were immediately signed to a recording contract at Dunhill Records in 1965.
Although always overweight, Cass Elliot appeared comfortable with her size, and allowed it to inspire a few of John Phillips's lyrics. Verses of "Creeque Alley" conclude with the refrain, "No one's getting fat except Mama Cass." In his autobiography, Phillips says Elliot repeatedly tried to lose weight, but such worries never penetrated her public persona. A solo LP called "Bubblegum, Lemonade, and ... Something for Mama" features Elliot in a white baby dress seated on a wicker chair looking positively enormous. Labeled "the queen of L.A. pop society in the mid-sixties" by Rolling Stone, Elliot lived in a home in Laurel Canyon once owned by Natalie Wood. She surrounded herself with famous and soon-to-be famous peers in the recording industry, including David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Joni Mitchell. Elliot was first married to James Hendricks, of Cass and the Big Three, with whom she had a daughter, Owen Vanessa, in 1967, and again briefly to Baron Donald von Wiedenman in 1971.
Elliot's solo career began in 1968 with the release of the Mamas and the Papas song “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” Solo performing deprived her of the opportunity to serve the sumptuous harmonies that made the quartet distinctive, although “Dream a Little Dream” remains the clearest indication of her gift. She released eight albums as a solo artist (one as part of a duet with former Traffic member Dave Mason), but none was successful. Cass Elliot contented herself with a career in cabaret, and in the early 1970s was a frequent guest on television programs like The Hollywood Squares. Ironically, she was a guest host on The Tonight Show as the nation learned of Janis Joplin's death. Soon afterward, Elliot died after completing a show at the London Palladium on July 29, 1974. Speculation that Elliot choked on a sandwich has bound her musical legacy with her weight in perpetuity, a turn of events Cass Elliot might have heartily enjoyed. (Source: Paula Hyman and Deborah Dash Moore eds. Jewish Women in America. NY: Routledge, 1997. Reprinted with permission of the American Jewish Historical Society. ) Copyright 2007, American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise,