The Phone Sessions are finally out now! This is about a ~14 month long time span of recording whatever jams and music loops that I came up with. Not much else to say that I haven't done with the The Jams of a Lifetime thing, other than there being slightly more electronic elements to it all.
Coming up next will be a supplementary EP that tries to reuse some of the more loop-based tracks from the collection, along with 2-4 brand new songs.
A new album from yours truly called "Jams of Our Lifetime"
was released a couple days ago. It's the absolute opposite of
professional, being three meandering jams, all to make an estimated
combined ~68 minutes of sloppy guitar noodling.
If that's not to your preference, then you may still like the songs all having their own individual cover art variations of what you see above.
These songs are also all part of the collections and scraps of audio from the past, all part of the The Phone Sessions collection.
Not exactly the newest thing, but I'd love to just share an older blog post as made by "junkfoodphilosophy" about the former 60s pop singer Evie Sands from 2007. Unfortunately, the blog seems to be very dead in activity, so I'd like to take the time to replicate the original post and share it with others. The link to said blog post is here if one wishes to see it (or here: https://junkfoodphilosophy.wordpress.com/2007/08/12/the-curse-of-evie-sands/). (Any post-commentary by me is seen through bold text in parenthesis, like here.) As a final note, the original writer states of this being "an oft told tale", but in today's music, said often-toldness has quickly faded away in the giant swashes of newer music. Also of note is a Shallow Rewards video titled "Your Mother Should Know", where Mr. Chris Ott talks of how he found of the way Evie Sands had left an influence on future artists such as the whole of Spacemen 3 (Spirtiualized and Spectrum also included) right here.
//..//
This is becoming an oft told tale, but was Evie Sands the unluckiest woman in 60’s pop?
In 1965 a teenaged Evie was signed by Leiber & Stoller’s Blue Cat
label and teamed with producers Chip Taylor & Al Gorgoni. (Taylor
is, of course, the brother of Jon Voight and the guy who wrote “Wild
Thing” made famous by The Troggs.) Taylor and Gorgoni recorded a classic
debut single with Evie called “Take Me For a Little While.”
Evie Sands – Take Me For A Little While Uploaded by soulpatrol(The Youtube video had been deleted by the account owner, so I'll replace it with a different video. However, the Dailymotion video/channel is still up, so I'd advise others to go to that link.)
So far so good, but here’s where the bad luck starts. A
pre-release copy of the song fell into the hands of an A & R man
from Chess Records. Chess artist Jackie Ross had just had a big hit with
“Selfish One,” and the label were looking for a follow up hit.
The white label of “Take Me For a Little While” was taken to
Chicago, and a version recorded with Ross and rush released before
Evie’s original came out officially. DJs around the US started playing the Ross version(previous version was removed) believing it
to be the original & dismissing Evie’s as the cover. A legal
dispute between Blue Cat and Chess resulted in the Jackie Ross version
being withdrawn – but the damage was done and Evie’s single never
gathered the neccessary momentum to become a hit.
“Take Me For a Little While” was written by Trade Martin, the
follow up “I Can’t Let Go” was written by Taylor & Gorgoni
themselves. Another classic, but somehow not a hit for Evie. Perhaps the
whole Jackie Ross “Take Me for a Little While” affair had left some
with the incorrect impression that it had been the Evie Sands camp who’d
been in the wrong. Whatever the reason, the single went nowhere, but
the following year the song was an international smash hit for The
Hollies.
Although Evie left Blue Cat and joined Cameo records she continued to
work with Taylor & Gorgini, who produced further singles. In 1967
they must have thought they’d struck gold – Chip Taylor came up with
arguably the greatest song of his career, and it was the perfect
vehicle for Evie. It was recorded as a single. It came out. It started
to get air play. It started to sell – but the curse of Evie Sands struck
again. The Cameo label folded and the single disappeared. The song was
“Angel of the Morning.”
Yes, that “Angel of the Morning.”
P.P. Arnold, Merrilee Rush and the Turnabouts:
“Just call me Angel of the Morning, Angel.”
A song so robust even Shaggy couldn’t kill it, though he gave it a damn good kicking in 2001.
And so, despite 3 or 4 years of trying and producing a bunch of great
singles including three stone cold classics, Evie Sands just couldn’t
get a hit. If the material wasn’t up to par, if Evie was untalented or
unattractive there might be an excuse, but not only is she a fox, she
has a really good voice, an impressive range and a distinctive
sound. Taylor and Gorgini had found or written & arranged material
that suited her down to the ground. And anyway, to steal a line
from Steve Jordan, you could’ve had Deputy Dawg singing these songs and
still have had hits. How could she miss? And yet miss she had.
Strike three – but Evie wasn’t out quite yet. Chip Taylor hatched a
plan. He’d given Evie his best new songs only to see other artists get
the hits. So, this time, he took a song of his that had already been a
hit, on the basis that no one was likely to record a spoiler
version. The song was “Any Way That You Want Me” previously recorded by
The Troggs. Chip came up with a new arrangement and a new bridge with
more than hint of “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” and the result was –
at long last – a monster hit in 1969. Here she is performing it live in
2006 with the BMX Bandits(a long-running (for almost over 30 years!) Scottish pop group) in Glasgow.
Evie is still musically active – check out her Myspace page, I
think she maintains it herself. She’s still in great voice as
demonstrated by “While I Look at You” the track you’ll hear there. You
can hear clips from her last album Women in Prison, here. (She also had a split album with Billy Vera in 2014 called "Queen of Diamonds/Jack of Hearts" on Train Wreck Records.) And you can buy CDs of her two early 70s albums from those nice people at Revola Records, and I recommend that you do.
//..//
And that's the whole post. I'd like to give much thanks to the original writer of said post, and for the many people who had uploaded and archived all of the original audio and footage and whatnot. Also credit to be given to Evie Sands and all of the other people behind the wonderful music itself.
