Wow! That was a post and a half! ;-) Very nice!
Mike
Witch Doctor, by The Chipmunks, was my first introduction to the song. It quickly became a favorite dance routine song as it tells a story using an upbeat rocking scene. My first introduction to The Chipmunks was not Witch Doctor, but The Christmas Song - which I received at age 7 on a 45rpm. The "B" side was Almost Good ... no really, that was the title of the song. Except for the words 'That's Almost Good," it was an instrumental. Again, with a hip beat that was a good dance routine number. It rather shows Seville's musicianship. I still have the 45 ... not a surprise if you know me.
Shelley
The Chipmunks performing “Witch Doctor” was a natural (once they were established TV Stars! Lol)
I used to listen to “Almost Good” all the time on my
green-label Liberty 45 … I ALWAYS played the B-Sides of my records!!! It shows a little more of Seville’s jazz
side. (I eventually bought the 45 again ... with a black label this time ... when it was reissued with "Alvin's Harmonica" on the other side ... a #3 hit in its own right.)
Seville’s genius … and marketing skills … and belief in his creation (and its immediate universal appeal) are all to Ross Bagdasarian’s credit. When he died of a heart attack in 1972 (at the relatively young age of 52, just 11 days shy of his 53rd birthday), his son Ross, Jr., took the reigns and built the empire even bigger – issuing new musical releases, cartoons and even movies. (Both generations did their best to keep The Chipmunks contemporary … after Dad Ross recorded his Beatles tribute, Son Ross kept the vibe going into the ‘80’s by recording Chipmunk versions of hits by Queen and Billy Joel … right on up thru the “Urban Chipmunk” album … “Mama, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Chipmunks” was even released as a single!)
The Chipmunks have been with us for 65 years now … and EVERY kid between now and then has grown up loving them and singing their songs. (kk)
From CB (aka Chipmunk Boy) ...
Man, I WISH I had the time to go searching for it ... because it would serve as the absolutely PERFECT response to this ... but right now I don't even know where to begin to look ... plus I'd ultimately have to convert it to an MP3 from a very old cassette ... so all I can do right now is tell the story ...
Many, many years ago (I'm going to say early 1984 based on a time stamp reference mentioned below) Steve Dahl and Garry Meier were running a radio promotion that would allow a select number of listeners to travel with them for a week in Hawaii. The concept was "Sing Your Way To Hawaii" ... and I was all in!
Knowing that Dahl was also a huge Chipmunks fan, I recorded my own original song (simply called "Hawaii") where I sang along with The Chipmunks (or my recreation of them anyway) ... it really came out quite nicely (despite a rather macabre lyric stating "C'mon, we can all look for Dennis Wilson together" ... which I also added because I knew Dahl was a huge Beach Boys fan ... and Wilson had just drowned the previous December ... yeah, I know ... sick and clever, all at the same time!!!)
Anyway, it was good enough for Steve and Garry to play it on the air ... but not good enough to win the trip (and as such, I've still never been ... although youngest daughter Paige just got back from HER trip to the islands a few weeks ago!)
If it ever warms up to spring-like temperatures again (we had flurries and freeze warnings these past few days!) ... and I feel inspired ... I may scour the garage to see if I can find my copy of the cassette ... and then see if I can rig something up to burn it to a CD, transfer it to the computer and send it along. It would have been SO timely to run MY response in response to YOUR timely response above. (kk)
Voting for this year’s Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame candidates wraps up this Friday (April 28th)
Still leading the pack is George Michael … and by a fairly substantial margin. (He should easily pass one million votes when the polls close on Friday)
The only others with half a million votes or more are Cyndi Lauper (850,000) and Warren Zevon (just under 600,000). Iron Maiden is close (412,000) in fourth place … but early front-runners Willie Nelson and Sheryl Crow have fallen further down in the pack. (The only other artist that I care enough to vote for would be The Spinners, who are currently in 10th place with right around 285,000 votes.)
You can still cast your vote here: https://vote.rockhall.com/en/
The guitar that Eddie Van Halen played in Van Halen’s music video “Hot For Teacher” just sold for $3.9 million at Sotheby’s Auction. (A little too rich for my blood … I dropped out at $3.6 million) kk
The Rolling Stones have released their long-lost video for “Child Of The Moon,” the B-Side to their 1968 hit single “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”
Directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, the video for “Child Of The Moon” was shot on a farm near Enfield, outside north London.
Michael Lindsay-Hogg remembers conceptualizing the music video:
“I said to Mick Jagger, ‘I think we really need a white horse in the field. Think Fellini,’ because Fellini was the go-to guy in the ‘50s and the ‘60s for the odd ingredient in the shot, whether it was a clown in white face or a white horse. We all arrived at various times in this field looking onto a sort of clump of trees aiming up a little hill. Brian was late, which is sort of the reason Brian isn’t around for a while in the shot. Mick said, ‘Do you want me to mime?’ I said, ‘No. I think we want to try something even more different here. More radical. We intercut you with things that are happening up in the trees and make a little story.’ He was very savvy and very versed in film. He was willing to try this, and I don’t know if it had been done before, where you have a small scenario where you cut in the principals with something happening and stitch it together. I thought it would be interesting basically to have three ages of women coming out of the trees and Mick looking at them. Then the audience would become a participant in the video and start to make the story themselves. What’s interesting is we have a little girl, we have an older woman, and the middle woman was an actress friend of my girlfriend, Eileen Atkins and she now is Dame Eileen Atkins, one of the foremost actresses in the British theatre. The little girl runs off to the side, the older woman walks through the slightly wet ground and we see her go off and we see the white horse. Eileen Atkins is the one who retreats up back the way she came down, and she looks back at Mick with a look which you might describe as longing or anxious. Something in her look relates to Mick in a way we let the audience figure it out.”
Lindsay-Hogg recruited cinematographer Anthony B. Richmond for the shoot, who recalls:
“Michael said, ‘What are you doing Saturday? I’m going to do something with the Stones. Will you shoot it for me?’ And that was ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash.’ That was the Saturday, and the Sunday they went up to a farm near where I used to live in North London, and we did ‘Child of the Moon.’ We put Keith Richards in a tree, which I thought was amazing. At the end of the shoot, Brian Jones came with me and had a few beers at a pub. The waitress recognized him. She said, ‘I’d like an autograph for my daughter.’ He said, ‘Well I’m not a very good person. Are you sure?’”
“Child of the Moon” is part of The Rolling Stones and ABKCO’s ongoing effort to restore and officially release original music videos by the group. Last July, both versions of the aforementioned “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” were rolled out, followed by “We Love You” in August, both versions of “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow?” in September, and “2000 Light Years From Home” in November. More Stones music videos restored in 4K are expected to be released later this year.
(You can find all of the above clips on YouTube … and the COLOR version of the “Child Of The Moon” video is right below!) kk
This Friday (April 28th) marks the 13th anniversary of the loss of a great musician and friend to many of us here in FH-Land.
From the mid-70s into the 90s I hung around with Deon Jackson, who I met when
he was the piano bar entertainer at Myron & Phil's restaurant in Lincolnwood. Around 1980, Deon moved up to Myron & Phil's other restaurant in the northern suburbs for a while, and then to Billy and Company (Billy was a nephew of Myron and Phil) in Wheeling.
One night, around 1982, a young guy sat down at the piano bar, and when Deon got up to take a break, he asked Deon if it'd be OK to play the piano during the break. Deon said "Sure," and this young musician bowled us over with his talent. He came
back again the next week, and brought a guitar with him. He also sang. He was an all-around great talent. His name was Mark Eskin.
There was a bar near Lincolnwood called Earthquake McGoon's, where Deon and I
would go for a drink after his shift at M & P's. After he finished playing at M & P's or Billy's, we'd meet at Earthquake's, and Mark would meet us there. Deon had a portable keyboard, and he and Mark would entertain the crowd.
After a while, Deon and Mark got together and recorded a simple tune that Deon had written while sitting at the recording studio. Deon and Mark were very popular at Earthquake's. On warm evenings, we'd take our drinks out on the sidewalk. There was a building next door to the bar, and we'd see groups of people come out and they'd be singing; they were GREAT! We didn't realize, until after many weeks of hanging out there, that the building was Curtom Studios. We'd join in with the singers, and it was like a mini-soul concert.
I miss those days.
To add to the sadness, we also lost Deon, back on April 18th of 2014.
Mike Wolstein
Mark was a great guy who just LOVED music … and loved to entertain. His death was an unexpected loss. (I will never forget his wake service … it was a true celebration of life … with so many of Mark’s musician friends showing up to pay tribute and say goodbye. It was literally non-stop entertainment of some great local celebs joining in the singing and playing festivities.
We wrote a short tribute to Mark shortly thereafter …
https://forgottenhits60s.blogspot.com/2010/04/mark-eskin.html
kk
