Okay, that's amazing on so many levels I don't know how to begin.
For starters -- dig the production/arrangement credits. That would be Ron Dante (who sang lead on The Archies' "Sugar Sugar") and Barry Manilow, who...well, you know what he's notorious for.
For another thing, I had no idea Kellerman -- who I'm a huge fan of, if for no other reason than that second Star Trek pilot she was in --
-- had a music career of any sort.
But hey, Wiki informs me she actually was signed to Verve(!) Records in 1968. Who knew?
Even more astonishing by my lights, I was on the Bell Records mailing list when that single originally came out, and it is incomprehensible to me that it could have crossed my desk at Stereo Review without my noticing that a song by the Byrds was being remade. Let alone a song quite so...er, controversial.
Of course, in fairness, by 1973, that probably just seemed like the kind of sleazy swingers anthem that could have, plausibly, had some commercial success.
And I can easily imagine hearing it as background music on an underground sensation Manhattan Cable Channel J porn show like Al Goldstein's Midnight Blue...
...while Ron Jeremy and Robin Byrd...
...rolled around, sans underwear, on a badly dry-cleaned gym mat.
Boy. Have I mentioned I don't miss the '70s?
[h/t Bob in IL]
8 comments:
OK, I'm going to be ruthlessly mocked and derided, but that single is really good.
First, changing the perspective from male to female turns much of the ick into empowerment, of a sort. Second, her vocal is really assured. Third, the arrangement is prime early '70s Philly-style soul, from the strangled wah-wah guitar, to the soft, slick wash of strings.
Certainly beats any of Crosby's versions, all of which sound like a horndog's desperate rationalization after he's been caught cheating.
Here, make even more fun: I might like this version better than the Airplane's.
It's very good!
Captain Al
Maybe it's just me, but it creeps me out. As I said elsewhere, it's so 70s you can hear the leisure suits.
Three? Nice try but no. The human condition will never get past the jealousy.
She used to do gigs at the Catalina Bar & Grill on occasion. I never attended. For good reason. I think her records are awful. Her "sultry" voice is annoying. The lewd laughter between "why can't we go on as" and "three" cements it as drecky 70's cheese. She also cut two albums thirty+ years apart. She picks interesting covers and then fucks them all up. You haven't lived till you hear her do Creedence. She gets famous people to do the sessions like Gene Page, Dean Parks, Andrew Gold, Sklar and Kunkel etc. They can't save her. I keep her albums next to Tiffany Bolling's. At least Peggy Lipton wrote some of her own. Astonishingly, Kellerman covered a very obscure Peggy Lipton tune. She almost pulls it off but ..... I liked her better with Martin Landau in "The Belero Shield" when there was nothing wrong with my television set.
VR
"Wicked, Wicked." That's the ticket.
P.S. getaway goober - three is holy with the right people. been working for us for decades.
P.S.S. Gummo, Gummo, Gummo - first it's regressive, and sexist. Now it's empowering. You're beggin' for it. You wanna know what empowering is?
To quote Debra Kadabra: 'Three words. Fully equipped dungeon." : )
Re: VR
Party on, Garth. Party on.
My question about the original song: Who got stuck with the mangy wet dog in heat Crosby?
getawaygoober -
Who "got stuck" with Crosby? Probably two gorgeous girls way out of his league. Cue Mamas and the Papas "Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon.)" (what a great single, by the way - vastly underrated. Top Five in L.A. where it understandably performed best. Local color, you know. Brilliant composition, great backing track, excellent vocals. Felt like the music was about us. Our effervescent coming of age.
VR
Post a Comment