Cheesy Choonsday: Salena Jones and John Schroeder

Another couple of winners from the vaults here at Piley Towers.

First up is American singer Salena Jones. Today Salena is best known for her jazz versions of standards and classics (she's still recording and has notched up over 40 albums), but in the 1960's she was a funky hit on this side of the Atlantic. Her first two albums ('The Moment of Truth' and Everybodys Talkin About Selena Jones') were both produced by Cheese legend Keith Mansfield, and he gave both a solid 'swingin London' feel. Have a listen to 'Right Now' from her debut album.





The second track is from John Schroeder, and his Hammond frenzied version of 'Papas Got A Brand New Bag'. I'm not sure how successful Schroeder was in his day (although he did wright 'Walkin Back To Happiness' for Helen Shapiro), but he was one of the big names in the Cheesy Listening revival. This track is taken from his 1966 groove-fest 'Working in the Soul Mine'.





Piley

Cheesy Choonsday: Sandie Shaw

Sandie Shaw will always be best known as the mop-topped, bare-footed winner of the 1967 Eurovision Song Contest, but there is a lot more to her musical career than you might think…

In 1969 she released her 5th album, ‘Reviewing The Situation’, which I stumbled on in a charity shop 20+ years later (I’m sure it was 10p!). It’s an album of wall to wall covers, and Sandie produced the whole thing herself. It’s quite a varid collection, going from the title track (from the Oliver soundtrack) thru to the Stones (a pretty good attempt at ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ but how could she forget to do the ‘woo-woos’??! – you find yourself putting them in to help her out!), via the Beatles, Dylan, Donovan, Lovin Spoonful, Rufus Thomas, Bee Gees and Led Zeppelin! - a stunning version of Your Time Is Gonna Come. In 2004 it finally got a CD release, and is well worth picking up.

By far the best two groovy cheesers are 'Love Me Do' and 'Reviewing The Situation', which are here for you to shake a leg to. I know you’re thinking the Oliver one will be shit, but trust me on this one ok?!

Love Me Do:


Reviwing The Situation:


And whilst I'm on a Sandie\Beatle-y buzz, here she is doing a 'fab four' medley:



Piley

Cheesy Choonsday: More Sitar Grooves

Following on from the last edition of Cheesy Choonsday, i'm bringing you two more sitar treats...

Gianpiero Reverberi is an Italian pianist and composer, and it was he that brought us Rondò Veneziano in the late 70's - remember them??! Renaissance-clobber wearing chamber orchestra, playing classical music in a rock styley (believe it or not, they are still going, and have cranked out over 70 albums!)... Back in the 60's though, Reverberi created this slice of genius, 'Sequence 36'. Not a heavy sitar driven track, but it's in the mix, and is a groovy little fella of the highest order. Reminds me of hazy smokey evenings at the Laurel Tree in Camden, circa 1994.

Gianpiero Reverberi - Sequence 36:


The second track is from Pakistani composer Sohail Rana, who in the 60's created some of the finest film soundtracks ever. This super-funky gem is called 'Soul Sitar'.



Sohail Rana - Soul Sitar:


Piley

Richard Cheese

Firstly, an extra warm welcome to any new visitors, who have wandered over due to my ‘guest spot’ over on Planet Mondo. Thanks for dropping by! Have fun clickin’ around and I hope you’ll pop back from time to time…


I love the way you stumble across new music. Lately the iPod has become a real boon for this, as people now walkabout with room-fulls of music in their back pocket. A while back, I was heading off to a meeting in London, and bumped into an old friend on the train. Both music fiends, we spent the whole journey connected to each other's earphones, linked only with sentences like "check this out" "have you heard these" "I can't get enough of this" etc etc. And it was this chance meeting that introduced me to Richard Cheese, whose complete back catalogue I now own.

Richard Cheese’s slant is genius, Sinatra-fied versions of punk, metal, rap and indie toons! Ah! I hear you cry, we’ve seen all this before with Paul Anka... But Mr C actually predates Anka’s cover albums by a few years, and has been releasing his brand of lounge classics since 2000. To be fair, Paul Anka is playing it pretty straight with his CDs anyway. He’s chosen sensible-ish songs with sensible-ish lyrics. Had you not known the originals, you'd probably be happy to take them as Anka originals (my father for example loves Anka’s covers albums, but is unlikely to know the Van Halen, Pet Shop Boys, Oasis originals).

With tongue firmly in cheek, Richard Cheese makes a beeline for songs with quirky, odd and downright rude lyrics, making the whole experience much livelier… oh, and much much funnier! Martini Metalica anyone?! How about some Swingin’ Snoop Dog or maybe a Chili Pepper Cocktail??! These songs are ‘laugh-out-loud’ funny, yet at the same time, you can't help but be impressed at the quality of the arrangements, production and the musicians involved (who, by a remarkable coincidence are Bobby Ricotta, Gordon Brie and Buddy Goulda!). After six albums of bizarre covers, the latest release by Dick (yes I know, Dick Cheese…) is a CD choc-full of TV themes.

I urge you to investigate the Dickster, or at the very least check out the three samples I’ve added below…. It was tough to narrow it down to 3, but in the end I went for a shot of ‘Slipknot at the Sands’ (I mean, anyone, who can make a Slipknot song sound good, MUST be a musical genius right??!), and a slice of ‘ring-a-ding’ Radiohead. All finished off with my personal favourite, a dash of Dead Kennedys.. Las Vegas style!

Enjoy!

People = Shit (Slipknot):



Creep (Radiohead):



Holiday in Cambodia (Dead Kennedys):


Oh and don’t forget to check out Richard’s website, where you can buy all his CDs and only the finest quality merchandise!

If these toons have given you the taste for more cheesy morsels, why not pop over to Planet Mondo, where as guest blogger, i've just posted 3 forgotten nuggets!

Piley

Destination Mondo Land

I’ll be nipping over to Planet Mondo tomorrow as guest blogger, where I’m being let loose at the controls for this weeks edition of the legendary 'Funky Friday' feature. Joining me for the journey will be three mature slices of cheesy listening -- all taken from my personal collection, and Caerphilly (sorry!) converted from vinyl to MP3 for your delectation. Do please pop over and have a listen…

My appearance on Planet Mondo heralds the start of a new regular feature here at Start The Revolution Without Me, which I’m calling 'Cheesy Choonsday'. I'll be diggin’ deep into the vaults at Piley Towers, to bring you a gourmet cheese-fest, as I unearth lost gems from the 60s and 70s. All the tracks will come from LPs that I've picked up at charity shops and car boot sales over the years, the vast majority of which have almost certainly never been released on CD. Download ‘em week by week and by Christmas we’ll have you looking like an extra from Randall and Hopkirk or Jason King!

See you over at Planet Mondo!!

Piley