From the Vaults

Mandingo; Jungle Wedding (1973)

30 Oct 2017 | 1 min read

The original cover of Mandingo's album The Primeval Rhythm of Life was singularly unhelpful. It just had titles on the front, some brief liner notes which started "Thousand upon thousands of years ago Man discovered that hitting two sticks together again and again . . ." and a list of instruments played. And you knew from the first track that this wasn't an African band. The... > Read more

Sex Pistols: God Save the Queen (2002, dance mix)

23 Oct 2017 | <1 min read

One of the more confusing and alarming posters I saw in Britain in 2012 was on a wall in Dover. It was this one, a DJ celebration of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee -- and given the massive unemployment and fragile economic conditions, I couldn't help but reflect on that earlier Jubilee year when the young people of Britain (a significant number anyway) exploded with rage about the banners and... > Read more

Sam Dees: We Always Come Back Strong (1972 demo)

16 Oct 2017 | 1 min read

Southern soul songwriter Sam Dees was best known as the guy who penned hits and album tracks for the likes of Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight and many others. But in the late Sixties/early Seventies he recorded his own material to some small success, then put the microphone aside for the backroom writing. But he was a fine interpreter of his own material and this demo... > Read more

Henry Phillips: The Bitch Song (1995)

9 Oct 2017 | 1 min read

Not everything in life is serious and Henry Phillips takes a skewed view of the world. The title track of his album On the Shoulders of Freaks notes that all those great Greek philosophers "had a thing for little boys", that Katherine the Great enjoyed large animals, Hemingway put a bullet through his head, Salvador Dali's paintings were heaven sent even though he ate his own... > Read more

Big Walter and the Thunderbirds: Watusie Freeze Part 1 (1959)

2 Oct 2017 | 1 min read

As with most sensible people, Elsewhere has long enjoyed music which isn't. The comedic noise of Spike Jones, the Goons, Spinal Tap, the exotica of Martin Denny, Esquivel, the outer space sounds of weird electronica and so on . . . all get airplay around our way. As do early Captain Beefheart, spoken word albums, soundtracks from disturbing movies (A Scanner Darkly most recently, always... > Read more

The Shangri-Las: I Can Never Go Home Anymore (1965)

25 Sep 2017 | 1 min read

The spoken-word song -- often with a moral or a message -- has rarely been as popular as it was in the early Sixties. Back then there were numerous examples and although only a few became hugely popular the idea was a legitimate form. The Shangri-Las -- better known for Walkin' in the Sand and their terrific Leader of the Pack among other widescreen hits -- weighed in with this... > Read more

Halim el-Dabh: Leiyla and the Poet (1959)

18 Sep 2017 | 1 min read

One of the less recognised figures in the genre outside the inner circle of electro-acoustic pioneers, Halim el-Dabh was in the vanguard of the using the emerging electronic equipment and instruments such as the synthesiser. In the mid Forties he experimented with, and composed on, tape which he manipulated to create the cornerstone piece The Expression of Zaar which included a... > Read more

Peter Cook: Bedazzled (1968)

11 Sep 2017 | 1 min read | 2

Although best seen in the context of the hilarious Bedazzled film -- where poor Dudley Moore is granted wishes by the Devil (the smarmy and petty Peter Cook) -- this song still resonates for its emotional coolness and distance. Some context then? Moore plays a nervous cook in a cheap London diner who is smitten with the beautiful waitress Eleanor Bron. He meets the Devil (in the guise... > Read more

Boyd Rivers: Fire Shed in my Bones (1985)

21 Aug 2017 | <1 min read

Not a lot is known about the Mississippi-based country-blues and gospel singer Boyd Rivers who died in '93, but his growling voice seems to belong to a much older time. He was born near the town of Pickens in December '43 and after being injured at his casket-making job in '72 he lived off his music and the pay-out. He was also a Reverend. And that's about it. Oh, and he seems to... > Read more

Willie Nelson: Cowboys are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other (2006)

14 Aug 2017 | 1 min read

When this Willie Nelson song started to get a bit of attention around the time of the movie Brokeback Mountain, many people -- myself included -- assumed it had been prompted by that film. But the story of it goes back quite a way and the song's writer Ned Sublette tells it in his excellent book The Year Before the Flood about his time in New Orleans before Katrina and the flooding.... > Read more

The Quarrymen/Silver Beatles; Cayenne (1960)

31 Jul 2017 | <1 min read

The QuarrymenSilver /Beatles at the time of this recording in Liverpool included bassist Stu Sutcliffe and (absent) drummer Pete Best. And all of them -- Lennon, McCartney who most likely wrote this, and Harrison who was also absent for this tape recording – were all shy of being 20. Best information on this says it was recorded in early 1960 and was part of about a 40... > Read more

Cayenne

Mamie Van Doren: Separate the Men From the Boys (1958)

31 Jul 2017 | 1 min read

Mamie Van Doren's not inconsiderable assets -- big breasts, bleached blonde hair and a breathy speaking style -- served her well for a career in cinema and self-promotion when she emerged as a kind of second-tier Marilyn Munroe in the Fiftes. She, of course, always denied being a mere copyist ("I have never been a Marilyn Munroe wannabe, I have always been happy in my own skin")... > Read more

Buffy Sainte-Marie: Soldier Blue (1971)

22 Jul 2017 | 1 min read

The great Buffy Sainte-Marie has appeared at Elsewhere previously for her always timely song The Big Ones Get Away, but this exceptional piece deserves to stand in its own right. Part political activism, part patriotic American anthem and a powerful plea underlining it all, Soldier Blue was the title song to a film of the same name which goes largely unseen these days. The film -- by... > Read more

The Mamas and the Papas: Free Advice (1967)

15 Jul 2017 | <1 min read

Although they looked kind of clean-cut by the hairy standards of the day and sang such pretty songs, what we would learn later was how fraught and seedy some of the internal workings of The Mamas and the Papas were. The song Go Where You You Wanna Go for example was less about living your life in the hippie spirit than John Phillips' address to his wife Michelle's infidelities (one of which... > Read more

Twinkle: Terry (1964)

8 Jul 2017 | 1 min read | 1

There's quite a tradition of death ballads in rock -- Pearl Jam tapped into it when they covered Last Kiss which had been recorded to no great public interest by Wayne Cochran in '61. Perhaps the greatest of them all was Leader of the Pack ("look out look out look out!") by the Shangri-Las in '64. Coincidentally at exactly the same time as the Shangri-Las were topping the US... > Read more

Lou Reed: Families (1979)

1 Jul 2017 | 1 min read | 1

Lou Reed probably never struck you as having a sentimental streak, but this song (from his album The Bells) is as nakedly autobiographical and pained as John Lennon's Mother. It is the sound of a son who knows he has disappointed the family but equally realises there is no way back. Interesting too is the tone of regret and sadness at what has been lost, and the line changes from... > Read more

Selina Tusitala Marsh: Fast Talking PI (2009)

24 Jun 2017 | <1 min read

Every time I have played this track on radio it has had an immediate and favourable response: people want to know who the writer/reader is, and what else has she done. Marsh has done a lot: she was the first person of Pacific descent to graduate with a PhD in English at the University of Auckland and is currently a lecturer/tutor in that department. She is not only an accomplished poet... > Read more

Ariel: Yellow Submarine (1997)

19 Jun 2017 | <1 min read

Another track from the often hilarious and sometimes worrying Plastic Soul Vol 4 album which is a compilation of mad Beatles covers, many from Russia. Ariel weigh in with two entries, A Little Help From My Friends and this tempo-challenging stab at Yellow Submarine which ends up waltzing down the Danube. The band – which these days seems to consist of five staid middle-aged... > Read more

Bertha Lee Patton: Mind Reader Blues (1934)

5 Jun 2017 | 1 min read

The last wife of Charley Patton, Bertha Lee was a fine singer in her own right -- and she probably had plenty of reasons to sing the blues. She was only married to Patton for about four years -- he died in 1934 -- but by all accounts their relationship was a volatile one. Honeyboy Edwards said, "Charley always had a lot of women. Men didn't like him much because all the women was... > Read more

Sarah Vaughan: After You've Gone (1963)

29 May 2017 | <1 min read

Some very serious jazz people don't take British pianist/singer Jamie Cullum very seriously. They point out he also sings pop, his repertoire includes songs by the White Stripes and hip-hop artists and . . . All the usual accusations. Like Herbie Hancock doesn't draw from contemporary music? And what of Coltrane using My Favourite Things as a vehicle? Cullum gets a mention here... > Read more