Thursday, August 8, 2013

Thursday This And That

re:  BURTON CUMMINGS:  
Hi Kent, 
I just read your post that you, too, are a big admirer of Burton Cummings and "Stand Tall" is one of your favorite songs.
So, I thought you'd enjoy this video clip I shot of Burton last week in New York doing just that!  Tom Cuddy and I went 
to see him and were once again amazed.   
Burton Cummings "Stand Tall" Live at City Winery - New York City - July 30, 2013

Brad Joblin
Ridgefield, CT

I saw him in 76 opening for Bee Gees in Omaha.  He was GREAT!  I am surprised his current set list does not include "My Own Way to Rock" or more Guess Who tunes like "When Friends Fall Out" or "American Woman".  "Wolfman" seems like it would be dated for today?? 
Clark
I think a lot of that probably had to do with the fact that Cummings was putting on a stripped-down, one man show with no band ... tough to make something like "American Woman" work under those surroundings.  Now I'm not sure what he's doing in Chicago ... first I heard it was going to be another solo show ... but his website says "Burton Cummings and His Band" ... so I'm looking forward to being pleasantly surprised.  As a major fan, I can't think of anything Burton could do that would disappoint me.  I'm just SO glad he's back out performing again ... especially here in The States.  (kk)

re:  THIS AND THAT:  
Hi Kent -
Just got the DVD of the Beach Boys 50th Anniversary Concert and they were F A N T A S T I C ...
I was to glad to see my favorite BRIAN WILSON and in fine form!
I adore the Beatles and they had Lennon and Mc Cartney for their songs and arrangements.
The Beach Boys had Brian Wilson and  he did it ALL!!!!!
I may be prejudice because I always had a "crush" on him. You were so fortunate to meet him when he was at the Arcada Theater. Wish I could have seen him perform there.
Just wanted to share my thoughts. Keep up the Great Work!!!!!
Carolyn
I've met Brian a couple of times now ... obviously we're HUGE fans, too.  The DVD is outstanding ... and I've been listening to the live CD as well.  (It's a 2-CD Set that captures the entire concert ... typically budget-priced for under $15.00 ... definitely worth picking up and adding to your collection.)
The thing that irks me the most about Mike Love pulling the plug on continuing the good vibrations beyond the 50th anniversary tour is the fact that the entire band sound SO incredibly good ... honestly, the best they've sounded in decades.  Why he felt that any fans would prefer seeing the Mike and Bruce show over the authentic Beach Boys is beyond me.  (Brian has included Al Jardine and David Marks in his summer tour ... all three played at Ravinia about a week ago.  Naturally, as it has nearly every night this past month, it poured!!!) 
Here's a link to the live CD ... Click here: Amazon.com: Buying Choices: The Beach Boys Live - The 50th Anniversary Tour   Some of this will absolutely blow you away when you hear just how good they sound.  (My daughter was at the show here in Chicago, sitting in the nose-bleed seats ... but still said it sounded amazing.)  kk

Here's the latest on our Whipped Cream girl, sent in first by FH Reader Eileen ... and then by several other readers later in the week who also saw this article:    
Herb Alpert's 'Whipped Cream Lady' now 76, living in Longview and looking back  
The Whipped Cream Lady who is the model on the memorable LP cover of the 1965 Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass' "Whipped Cream & Other Delights" is 76 now and living in Longview. Dolores Erickson wants to tell all you teen dreamers, "Enjoy the memories."
By Erik Lacitis
Seattle Times staff reporter
Guys, the girl of your teen dreams now is 76.
Her name is Dolores Erickson and she has been living in Longview for around 35 years, after a career that included being an Eileen Ford model in New York.
She appeared at a Seattle record store Wednesday and wants to tell you teen dreamers, "Enjoy the memories."
You don't know her by name — maybe as the "Whipped Cream Lady" — but certainly by the album cover on which she is featured: the 1965 Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass' "Whipped Cream & Other Delights."
There she is, seemingly naked but covered in what is supposed to be whipping cream looking at YOU.
Whenever a list of the most memorable record covers is put together, that album is right at the top.
How did a 2006 New Yorker magazine article explain the impact of that photo?
Oh, yes, it: "fogged the minds of many young men, as they gazed at the... personalized come-hitherhood to the woman staring back ... the inner portion of a bare breast protrudes from the foam. She is licking cream from the index finger of her right hand... in the virtually pornless atmosphere of the suburban mid-sixties it was ... the pinnacle of allure."
The record spent 141 weeks on Billboard's Top 40 albums chart.
In later years, at concerts, Alpert would tell audiences, "Sorry, but I can't play the cover for you."
Erickson drove up here to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Golden Oldies, the used-record store in Wallingford. A steady stream of fans stopped by, including, surprisingly, women.
Toni Weschler, 56, got signed copies for her brothers. She remembers growing up in New York and playing the album.
She remembers how her brothers couldn't take their eyes off the LP. "They stared at it constantly. It was very risqué. They hadn't seen this much breast in their life."
For Erickson, the photo shoot was one of many in her career.
She is a 1954 Cleveland High School graduate, and her modeling began when she was 14 and won a contest at the venerable Frederick & Nelson department store in downtown Seattle.
Her modeling career blossomed, and she ended up a staff model for Macy's in San Francisco, in the days when department stores could afford such things.
Erickson spent time in Los Angeles, signed to contracts by Paramount and then Warner Bros., but her movie and TV career mostly consisted of bit parts.
At age 24, she went to New York City and ended up being signed by Eileen Ford. She was in ads for Max Factor and was in all the women's magazines. Erickson is 5 feet 7, with dark brown hair and green eyes, and still weighs about the same as in the modeling days, which is around 119 pounds.
But she's cognizant of time having gone by. "Please don't do any close-ups," she tells a photographer.
In 1965, she got a call to fly to Los Angeles for a photo shoot for A & M, a new label started by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. The photographer was Peter Whorf, with whom she had done other covers.
Payment would be around $1,500 ($11,000 in today's dollars), plus expenses.
The shoot began midmorning and lasted through the afternoon. Erickson put on a bikini, but with the straps down.
She was 29 and three months pregnant. "But I wasn't showing," she says.
Erickson sat on a stool and from the waist down, Whorf placed on her a white Christmas tree blanket.
Then shaving cream was sprayed on Erickson. Under the bright lights, whipping cream would melt, although it was real whipping on top of her head.
The shoot kept going, Erickson remembers, and she didn't notice that the shaving cream kept slipping down.
Months later, Whorf mailed her two outtakes.
"He sent them to shock me. And it did shock me. I screamed," says Erickson. "I was a Christian girl."
Erickson has kept a copy of one of the outtakes, and it is a bit more revealing, but not by that much.
But she worried that her then-husband, a New York shoe manufacturer, and "conservative," would become upset. She hid the two photos behind the refrigerator at a girlfriend's home. Later, she'd tear up the photo she deemed the most revealing.
In the mid-70s, raising a young son, Erickson moved to Longview to be near her sister, and for years, ran an art studio.
Actually, it was by happenstance that back in 2000, while visiting here, that recognition began for Erickson's role on that memorable album cover. She had stopped by Golden Oldies to buy some used copies of "Whipped Cream."
She didn't have any copies herself and wanted to sign some for friends. Before that, the album's importance in pop culture hadn't registered with her.
But when Dean Silverstone, owner of Golden Oldies, found out he was dealing with the actual Whipped Cream Lady, he thought, "It was like finding a jewel that's been buried in the desert for 40 years. Everybody knows about the album cover but nobody knows about her."
By 2012 standards, that album cover is demure.
Yet it endures. Teen dreams.
"I looked at it as being an ice cream sundae," Erickson says.
I wonder why so many of you felt the need to send this article here.  I mean, wow ... that IS a pretty cool album cover ... but what made you think of me?!?!?!  (j/k)
Thanks for sending, Eileen!  (kk)

Kent ... 
Recently reported in New York Newspaper.  A young woman, who worked for the Mayor and the MTA, was dying of cancer. She was a lifelong Beatles fan. Paul McCartney called her up and spoke to her before she died.  Not many other people would take the time to do that.
Frank B.

I just picked up some new albums.  Wanna come over and listen?
Dr. Bob
Click here: 21 Painfully Awkward Band Photos
Awkward AND Awesome.  (Hey can I borrow your Turds Of Misery album?!?!?)  kk
 
>>>Sorry, but I can't go along with you on this one ... you see, I LOVE The Sunrays' version of "Andrea"!  (kk)   

>>>"Andrea”!!! An Eye Gouger! Yikes! With all the empty skulled mush over the last 40 years, to pick “Andrea”.  Holy Crap!  (Ken)  
As I mentioned recently, "Andrea" is GREAT!  Dislodged "Look Through Any Window" for one week on my weekly charts before the Hollies reclaimed the spot in January, 66.
Clark Besch 
Jeez, I didn’t know I was smacking such a hornet’s nest.  To me, the harmonies don’t flow into the verses, the verse lyrics don’t have a whole lot to do with those leading into the chorus (which I find annoying), and they sing the word “Andrea” as if she’s bursting into a room with a cape on ... but, sigh, that’s just me.  Didn’t mean to make a big deal of it.  I do see your point on not doing such a topic, though.  I could get away with it because I’m a small fry, but you have too many connections.  I just thought it might be fun, and I mentioned it knowing some of my sacred cows would get hit.  
A while back I stumbled onto a site where you could post your fifty favorite albums of all time.  I thought it would be fun, but I like ELO and some dude from England thought I’d be interested in John Lennon’s derogatory comments about them.  And I had Asia’s first album on there which rated “... and Asia?  Really?” from this guy.  A few less-well-worded posts later, he got the idea through that you can disagree without being insulting.  I hope you will take my take on Andrea in this light.
CW Martin
LOL ... don't take it personally, CW ... we all like what we like for different reasons.  I, for one, have always enjoyed "Andrea" ... to this day I don't know how much Beach Boys Pop had to do with achieving this sound, but I thought he captured it pretty well.  But I'm also the first to acknowledge that one man's trash is another man's treasure.  There are no right or wrong opinions when it comes to music ... it's whatever works for you.  (And hey, I love most of ELO's stuff, too ... no matter WHAT John Lennon said about them!!!  In fact, it was Jeff Lynne who captured the sound of The Threetles for the Anthology series and made a masterpiece out of Lennon's old demo / rehearsal tapes.  So there!!!  lol)  kk 

A few comments to your comments ...
I'm on board with Bobster (Blub) when it comes to Glass Bottle's B side "The First Time", which I enjoyed a lot when it was the B side of their great 45 "I Ain't Got Time Anymore", which seems reminiscent of Brooklyn Bridge's earlier sounds to me.
As for STYX, I agree that "Mr. Roboto" was a horrendous ending to their career.  Sadly, the local station still plays it a lot.  I agree that I turn the dial (if possible) when many of their songs come on, but disagree about "Lady."  That one is still their best song ever.
Meanwhile, it was great to see Gary Theroux praise all the NC6 records.  VERY cool coming from a vet of the History of Rock N Roll documentary.
Clark Besch
I've always thought "Lady" was a GREAT record ... that record broke right here in Chicago and helped define the early sound of Styx. Of the wimpy ballads I named, it certainly is my favorite ... and has aged pretty well by comparison.  But they still play it to death here in Chicago.  (Speaking of which, I heard "Too Much Time On My Hands" THREE TIMES today during my work commute ... what's up with that?!?!?)
I asked Ray Graffia, Jr. to share Gary Theroux's comments with the rest of the original band ... some high praise indeed for a group far too often overlooked.  (kk)

Here's another early Styx that doesn't get enough airplay or recognition ... "Best Thing" from 1972.  



ROCK POP LEGEND AND MULTI MILLION SELLER TOMMY ROE, best know for international hits DIZZY, SHEILA, SWEETPEA, EVERYBODY and JAM UP JELLY TIGHT is back on the international recording and touring scene with his brand new AMERICANA / COUNTRY HIT SINGLE "MEMPHIS ME".
I am proud to attach the single to this email ... for your immediate play on air.  A perfect end of summer, autumn song ... MEMPHIS ME is a mature TOMMY ROE at his best.
TOMMY and band are available for international touring as well as local, domestic appearances.
All information can be found here:  http://www.tommmyroeonline.com/

 
"Memphis Me" is the great, lead-off track from Tommy's new CD "Devil's Soul Pie".  Give a listen ... and then hop on over to Tommy's website to order your own copy of this hot, new release.  (kk)
Posted by at