Fave songs from way back when!!

[Sean Regan]

I've mentioned this tune befotre. I had a bid in on e-Bay for a week for this and was succesful and it only cost me about £10 including postage. It's the last 45 I'll order for a bit as I'm fast running out of records I'm willing to take out. I've about thirty other 45 that have served time, but are now out of favour. They live on top of the worktop of the small cupboard in the tea-house in a "retro" music rack.
It'll complete my Motown jukebox. I do rip other music off YouTube, but with that I'm happy for it to be mp3s.

It's by the Shirelles.

They had a lot of hits. This got to the US #4 in their hit parade

I would have preferred it by the Cookies, as I think it's a better version.
But I don't think it's available on a 45. I've got it on an mp3 on one of my Wall Boxes in the house and I copied it to a CD I have in my car.

I find the song amusing and I like tunes that tell a story.

It amuses me that the Shirelles were still singing it to an appreciative audience in 2015 (bless them, they tried but they weren't just out of their teens any more. Few can cut it at that age, unlike John Gummoe of the Cascades}.
The group was down to three from four and only one of them was in the original line-up, now well in to her seventies.

 

[Sean Regan]

Playing tunes on my leccy piano today, I played a few Hoagy Carmichael ones including this.

It's been played by the world and his wife. But this particular version by Dick Haymes reminds me of the many times in the seventies and early eighties we went most weeks to a nightclub in Manchester, which had a regular big band. The singer and compere was a guy called Kevin Kent.

He could sing this song (and often did), just as well. Sadly he like many singers, Kevin, with no hit records has been lost without trace.

But not quite, here he is singing on a record made by the Syd Lawrence Orchestra.

 

[Sean Regan]

I had a go at playing and recording "Skylark" substituting a few jazz chords.

Skylark mp3.mp3 | Powered by Box

app.box.com

 

[Logan]

That's very nice @Sean Regan

 

[Logan]

 

[Sean Regan]

Some songs from women I admire, who died too young.

Donna Summer, died at 64 from lung cancer.

I have this in one of my jukeboxes.

Two women who committed suicide.

Susannah McCorkle. Reputed to have a repetoire of over 3000 songs.

Jumped off her apartment balcolny at 55.

Phyllis Hyman, died from an overdose at the age of 46, before a performance, left a note saying " I'm tired. I'm tired. Those of you that I love know who you are. May God bless you ."

This is in the same jukebox.

 

[Sean Regan]

Helen Forrest with Dick Haymes

 

[Sean Regan]

Spotted this on eBay for nine quid.

It's from 1964. It'll fit in well with my sixties jukebox.
I guess few will have heard of her, as the song was a "one hit wonder." Well it wasn't even a hit, it just crept into the top forty in the USA.

But I knew of it and liked it. It's a "Northern Soul" favourite, as are a lot of these little known groups.

There were so many of these groups in the sixties, who had a bit of success and then disappeared.
Patty has been dead for over 20 years and all but one of her backing singers are gone too.

 

[Sean Regan]

Another Cookies' song, but not one by Carole King. (Sylvester Bradford).

Gerry Goffin produced, so I bet he had a hand in the lyrics.

 

[Sean Regan]

This is Bea Wain.

Here she is again in 1983 still singing at the age of 66. Her voice almost as good as it was more than forty years earlier.

She died in 2017 at the age of 100.

 

[Sean Regan]

My new record arrived.

 

[Logan]

 

[Sean Regan]

I bought a copy of this for about ten quid a few months ago on eBay, but it got lost in the post so I got a refund.

A bit like The Cookies, Girls Grow Up Faster than Boys, it became made of "unobtainium" as there was no copies for sale for weeks. But like that record, one came up, a mint copy and I've got it for a fiver. It'll be here next week. Can you not like Carole King Songs?

 

[Sean Regan]

Jan Jones Independent Woman

This record is from 1980.

Seems to appeal to younger generations too.

 

[Sean Regan]

I've just received a mint copy of this 45rpm. Wasn't advertised as such on eBay, so I was suprised to get it for £7.99.
It's a Goffin/King song from 1962, originally recorded by the Everley Brothers, but not released. The Cookies had a hit with it i in 1962. It was later copied, as were many US hits by the Beatles in 1963. But this I like far better.

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