Here's another departure from the 'Vinyl' part of 'Vinyl Vault' ... I used to have this album on tape. Not cassette but the old school real stuff. At one point in the late 60's - early 70s, I can't quite remember, I decided to give some of my vinyl albums to a friend in exchange for a reel-to-reel tape deck and some tapes. This was one of them. I can't recall the model of deck I had but it looked something like the one pictured.
The exchange experiment was a failure, I didn't keep up any form of tape collection and soon went back to buying more vinyl, but this album was worth a listen and it was intriguing.
Sandie Shaw hit the ground running - in bare feet I might add - in 1964 with her version of '(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me'. In '63 Dionne Warwick did a demo of this Bacharach/David song, it was recorded in the US by Lou Johnson but then Sandie took it to #1 in 3 countries and charted in 9, with another two chart hits in a French language version. That wasn't unusual for her, she recorded quite a few of her singles not only in French but also German and Spanish so she created a bigger European audience.
Those singles came in a flood from '64 through '67 with 'Girl Don't Come', 'Long Live Love', 'Message Understood' and 'You've Not Changed' to name a few. In March '67 the unlikely but massive Eurovision hit 'Puppet on a String' saw Sandie on the world stage - literally. Despite it's popularity and success, Sandie is quoted as saying she totally hated the song .. "from the very first oompah to the final bang on the bass drum. I was repelled by its sexist drivel."
After all those commercial hits, this album may seem out of place. It's mainly covers of well-known songs by writers of standards, the likes of Cole Porter, Sammy Cahn and Jaques Brel. It's the Jaques Brel track 'Ne Me Quitte Pas' that drew me in. As she did with some of her earlier hits, Sandie sings in French (Rod McKuen did a popular English version of this song 'If You Go Away') but Sandie sticks to the original. There are a couple of Chris Andrews compositions - he wrote a lot of stuff for Sandie, but it's the classics that resonate, the smoky late-nightness of 'Time After Time' and the bounce of 'I Get a Kick Out of You'. It's a reflection on the change in attitudes when Sandie sings the words to 'Yes My Darling Daughter' and they can make us catch our breath ..
"What if he’ll persist, mama darling, doing things he hadn’t oughta
Mama, what should be my answer? Yes, my darling daughter"
REALLY !! That was then, this is now.
Any 60s compilation worthy of the name will contain one or more of Sandies songs, but the 'hit parade' tracks are only a part of her catalogue. Doing a deep dive can pay dividends. Just make sure you don't invest in the reel-to-reel version.
No comments:
Post a Comment