From the Vaults

Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs: Wooly Bully (1964)

19 Jun 2013 | 1 min read

When this out-of-the-blue single raced around the globe at the height of Beatlemania it sounded like a typically gimmicky hit of the period. The band name, Sam wearing a turban and the group dressed like Arabs didn't exactly deny it. You might have expected them to disappear immediately. But they didn't. They came back with a slightly sleazy slice of rough garageband rock on... > Read more

Willie Nelson: Nite Life (1962)

18 Jun 2013 | 1 min read

For many folks, Willie Nelson's wonderful album of standards Stardust, in the late Seventies, was a revelation . . . and unexpected. By then he had been so long associatied with the Outlaw movement in modern country -- and been adopted as the dope-smoking Red Headed Stranger by post-hippie adults -- that him singing standards like the title track, Blue Skies and Moonlight in Vermont... > Read more

Roger Waters: Money, demo (1972)

7 Jun 2013 | <1 min read

One of the most interesting aspects of popular music reissues is when an expanded edition of a classic album (or artist) offers working drawings of songs which became -- usually much embellished or in some later form -- massive hits. Back in the Eighties Pete Townshend of the Who began offering his double-vinyl home demo albums under the banner Scoop, the Beatles' Anthology had some... > Read more

Japan: Don't Rain on My Parade (1978)

6 Jun 2013 | <1 min read

Way back before singer David Sylvian came over all Eno, European and arty. And before bassist Mick Karn (who died in January 2011), drummer Steve Jansen and keyboard player Richard Barbieri (now in prog-rockewr Porcupine Tree) lit of out for territory which was sometimes on the border of jazz, they were in the louche, sometimes funky and new wave Japan where they dressed like the New York Dolls... > Read more

Big Boy Groves: Bucket o Blood (1962)

4 Jun 2013 | <1 min read

Most songs inviting you to club promise a great night with dancing and drinking and fun times to be had. Ervin Groves from San Diego promising nothing of the sort with this song. In fact this is one club which sounds like it would be a must to avoid because of the bodies stacking up. The mention in the opening lines to the Chicken Shack is a reference to a song by Chris Kenner called I... > Read more

Bernard Butler: Woman I Know (1998)

16 May 2013 | <1 min read

Was it Bob Dylan who said something to the effect, "amateurs borrow, professionals steal"? Not to encourage plagiarism, but Bernard Butler certainly took a leaf or two -- if not a whole chapter -- from the Book of Fleetwood Mac for this track which uses Albatross as it's starting point -- but then doesn't go too far with it. This was the opening track on Butler's solo album... > Read more

Marilyn Monroe: You'd Be Surprised (1956)

15 May 2013 | <1 min read

Although it's hardly surprising that Marilyn Monroe would sing a song as suggestive as this interest alights on who wrote it. Yep, the man also responsible for such classics as Blue Skies, White Christmas, God Bless America, There's No Business Like Show Business (from Annie Get Your Gun) and hundreds of other songs imprinted in the collective memory of Americans and large portions of the... > Read more

Eden Kane: Boys Cry (1964)

6 May 2013 | 1 min read | 3

When Peter Sarstedt had his smash hit single Where Do You Go To My Lovely? in '69 some unfairly asked . . . where did his brother Richard go? Richard, who used the stage name Eden Kane, had enjoyed some chart success in those pre-Beatle days (hence the name change, he was in there with Adam Faith, Marty Wilde, Billy Fury et al) but had largely disappeared after his one last flash, the... > Read more

Johnny Cash: Understand Your Man (1964)

29 Apr 2013 | <1 min read

The friendship and mutual admiration in the late Sixties between Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan has been well documented: they did some sessions together in '69 (their duet on Girl From the North Country appeared on Dylan's Nashville Skyline), and Cash subsequently invited Dylan onto his television show as a guest. But their friendship went back even further and Cash was an early supporter of... > Read more

Steve and Eydie: Black Hole Sun (1997)

24 Apr 2013 | 1 min read | 1

The fad for lounge music in the late Nineties was amusing enough, but inevitably most of what emerged was forgettable. (Although who could expunge this from the memory.) Still, groups like Pizzicato Five were kind of amusing, and it was good to hear the great Esquivel and Martin Denny's names being mentioned in hip'n'fashionable circles even if you suspected most people didn't... > Read more

Graham Parker: Between You and Me (1975)

23 Apr 2013 | <1 min read | 5

It's all every well to ridicule Dick Rowe of Decca Records for turning the Beatles down after an audition in '62 ("Not to mince words, Mr Epstein, we don't like your boys' sound. Groups are out: four piece groups with guitars particularly are finished"). But if he had just addressed the music he was probably right. The Beatles' Decca audition was hardly promising, largely... > Read more

Lucille Bogan: Shave 'Em Dry II (1935)

17 Apr 2013 | <1 min read | 2

In these days of earnestly crotch-thrusting young women on video clips you long for something which has that long forgotten ingredient: wit. Old time blues is ripe with innuendo, downhome analogies and suggestive lyrics. When Lonnie Johnson sings of being the The Best Jockey in Town he doesn't mean he brings home the winners. Lil Johnson in the Thirties delivered a line of sexually... > Read more

Noel McKay: Sweater Girl (1963?)

16 Apr 2013 | <1 min read

Noel McKay had a drag act in New Zealand in the early Sixties (and lesserly so into the Seventies) but always walked both sides of the line. He released albums in covers with him in drag but also had a series of EPs on the Viking label entitled Party Songs; For Adults Only which were directed at the straight audience. These included mildly risque songs such as Loretta the Sweater Girl... > Read more

The Beatles: I Saw Her Standing There (1963)

3 Apr 2013 | 1 min read

Half a century ago the Beatles' debut album Please Please Me was released. Legend has it that it took only 16 hours to record, the final song being Twist and Shout, for which Lennon -- suffering from a cold and drinking sweet tea -- roared through in a searing performance. The album contained their earlier minor hit Love Me Do and chart topper Please Please Me alongside Arthur... > Read more

Steeleye Span: Cam Ye Oer Frae France (1973)

28 Mar 2013 | 1 min read | 1

As with Fairport Convention (which included Richard Thompson), Steeleye Span were in the vanguard of the British folk-rock movement of the late Sixties. Unlike Fairport however, Steeleye Span didn't move as often and as far from the roots of folk and frequently drew on Francis Child's text The English and Scottish Ballads for inspiration and source material -- a book which has more recently... > Read more

Gary US Bonds: Quarter to Three (1961)

27 Mar 2013 | 2 min read | 2

In the DVD doco accompanying the box set version of The Promise -- the songs recorded while waiting to start a new album after Born to Run -- Bruce Springsteen talks about how he was a product of Top 40 radio, those great three minute songs which set you free just for that moment in time. And E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt later says that Springsteen could have been one of the great... > Read more

Peter Cape: She'll Be Right (1959)

26 Mar 2013 | <1 min read | 1

Peter Cape was New Zealand's unofficial poet laureate in the days before television, when men were "jokers" and women were "sheilas" . . . and when you could afford to assume that "she'll be right". (ie no matter what happens, it'll be okay.) Cape wrote and sang of awkward young men and women at a rural dance (Down the Hall on Saturday Night), of train stops on... > Read more

Brute Force: The King of Fuh (1969)

25 Mar 2013 | 1 min read

The two hour-plus DVD doco Strange Fruit shone a spotlight on a fascinating period in the Beatles' career, that of their own production/recording and publishing company Apple whch McCartney described as "Western communism". The ethos of the label was to give artists freedom to record and as such the label openly touted for talent. Ironically not one of those who many hundreds who... > Read more

The Waikikis: Nowhere Man (1968)

13 Mar 2013 | 1 min read

It is a well known fact that Honolulu and Liverpool have much in common. Both are port cities and . . . Err. Maybe not. But the emotional and physical difference didn't stop the Waikikis from adapting a bunch of Beatles songs into their distinctive Hawaiian style. Not that there was anything unusual in a band adapting the Lennon-McCartney songbook into their own voice, there are... > Read more

The Vapours: Turning Japanese (1980)

12 Mar 2013 | 1 min read

Ever wondered why the English New Wave band The Vapours were just a one-hit wonder with Turning Japanese? They don't. They know exactly why. A little background though: they were from Guildford and the mainman was singer/songwriter Dave Fenton who had a day job as a solicitor. Playing as the Vapours, the four-piece were spotted by Bruce Foxton of the Jam who was impressed. The Vapours... > Read more