Peggy Lee "Sneakin' Up On You" (1965)

Alright doggs, here's a quick one to keep things breathing.

Peggy Lee was a very prolific jazz/lounge singer with about twenty or thirty albums to her name, peaking in the 50s and 60s. I tend to think of her as a more schoolmarmish version of Julie London - in 1950s terms, Peggy Lee could probably make 1 bow-tie spin around for every 4 bow-ties set spinning by Julie London, or; Julie London could make one single bow-tie spin at a rate four times faster than the same bow-tie in the presence of Peggy Lee - I'm not quite sure how it worked exactly. 

Peggy Lee - "a swell dame"

Julie London - "dang, up to 4x sweller"

 

(In the interests of being even-handed in my sexual objectification of musicians, I will be comparing 2Pac's abs against this Korean in a later post)

"Sneaking Up On You" is not a famous joint, but like many of the world's great songs it is about stalking. Peggy vows that she is going to "creep up" and "pounce" on her target, regardless of whether he is at the beach, on a date with another girl, or "standing around on a roller-whirl" (whatever that is) - those seem to be the three scenarios she has allowed for.
She even trucks out the phrase "if it's the last thing I do", more famously associated with Gargamel, nemesis of the Smurfs. The whole thing rides a nicely arranged and surprisingly tough groove (given the genre and the early vintage), I'm particularly fond of the double-bass work and the drumming. Check it out.

Peggy Lee - Sneakin' Up On You


BTW, keep 'em peeled for Peg's stomping version of "Dock of the Bay" - I haven't managed to track down a copy yet.

Sandie Shaw "Reviewing the Situation" (1969)

Sandie Shaw was pretty famous in the mid-60s for recording songs that your Auntie likes such as "Always Something There To Remind Me" - and in fact she even performed the barely excusable feat of winning Eurovision in 1967 with this oompah joint that presumably won over the German judges in the first four seconds.

(To clarify, I have a fairly watertight theory about Eurovision: EVERYTHING THAT HAS EVER WON IS SHIT)

Sandie first showed signs of a lurch towards grooviness in 1968 when she appeared on the cover "The Sandie Shaw Supplement" in what appears to be a crocheted bikini. Since, as we all know, the UK has no beaches, the photo was apparently taken at low-tide on a salt marsh in Dartmouth, probably at sub-zero temperatures. The album also included a pretty worthy stab at "Route 66", a whiff of the good things to follow.

She looks like she should be holding a barbarian's leg.

In 1969, at the age of only 22, she released the self-produced "Reviewing the Situation", an LP of superbly arranged covers of significant artists of the day, covering ground as diverse as The Beatles, Dr. John, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, and Rufus Thomas. Yet bizzarrely enough the storming title track is actually one of Fagin's songs from "Oliver!"

I include three selections here - unlike some of the stuff I've posted so far, this album is available commercially via iTunes and maybe elsewhere, so hit that mess up for more songs at better quality if you're feeling it.

Sandie Shaw - Reviewing the Situation
Sandie Shaw - Love Me Do
Sandie Shaw - Coconut Grove

(I'll be screaming "PROMO USE ONLY" even as they drag me off to jail, you'll see)

Potapy, "C - O - backwards P joined with frontwards P - backwards N - backwards R" (1970s)

Both myself and my keyboard are incapable of rendering Cyrillic characters so I've had to resort to the Jackie Chan school of sounding out Russian script. Who knows what the name of this LP actually is. There's no Wikipedia article for Potapy so I'm not going to feign any erudition on this one - the only clue I have as to how it made its way to NZ shores is the words "From Ukrainian Friendship Society, Kiev, May 31 1977" scribbled in ballpoint on the back. So presumably someone at the Kiwi Embassy sent them back a Ray Woolf LP and the detente was ON.


I have no idea how the production and distribution of pop music worked behind the Iron Curtain. One imagines stooped, hollow-cheeked men with hard eyes, travelling from school to school searching for children with slender fingers and a sense of rhythm - those showing promise dragged into blockish gray buildings where they are subjected to Beatles and Otis Redding records until their eyeballs spin. Elsewhere, old ladies in headscarves queue for half a day in the snow, clutching tickets redeemable for the latest state-approved hit single - most will trudge home disappointed, as just thirty copies were made before the vinyl press was repurposed to boost steel production.

But however it was done, the process was not without successes.

Potapy - Side 1 Track 5
Potapy - Side 2 Track 3