Episodes
Monday Jul 01, 2019
Super
Monday Jul 01, 2019
Monday Jul 01, 2019
The podcast feels obligated to celebrate our throwback ’70s icon du jour, Elton Hercules John. Reg Dwight was no stranger to disco. His Thom Bell sessions make for some very palatable Philly soul, and his flat-out reviled disco album Victim of Love was not so bad as it was extremely late to the party. Neither even comes close to the wackiness of French crackpot Paul Vincent’s “Super Elton,” which doesn’t offer a single writing credit to EJ or BT. You could get away with that crap back then. There seems to be nothing to be known about our next piece of French toast, Les Filles de Sebastien. (I assume Seb’s the Gallic basso profundo mumbler.) Had Serge Gainsbourg worked with Silver Convention, it might have sounded something like this. Facebook lit up a few months back with a Eurovision-Song-Contest-on-acid You Tube performance of “Space Rescue” (“Rescate Espacial”) by the Spanish band Zoom (a/k/a Ballet Zoom). I had to work some serious magic to get an original of this. It was worth it. I think of it as “Calling Occupants (of Interplanetary Craft)” of the Ibiza set. Things get back to super again with “Moving Like a Super Star.” I had only known this by the UK’s Jackie Robinson. Choreographer Amadeo’s version is delightfully more flamboyant. I believe there’s a nine minute version of it out there I need to hunt down. Cellophane is a one-off studio creation by Latin producer Titti Sotto. “Super Queen” sounds as if it was cobbled together from left over tape snippets from the studio floor; I find it really revolutionary for 1978; of course it was mixed by Walter Gibbons. I have no sense that queens ever adopted it. Pity. Max Berlin’s (who always goes by the possessive for some reason) is a Cerrone acolyte. “Boogie in the Bush” strikes me as some kind of lost percussive workout classic.
Part two kicks off with “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” a nugget buried on the back side of one of 10,000 disco versions of “I’m a Man.” Rowley is a UK folk singer, and I can’t think of another disco version of Dlyan. (Probably not trying hard enough.) I quite like this; it would pair nicely with Grace Jone’s “La Vie En Rose.” Calhoon came out on Phil Spector’s vanity label, although I don’t think Phil had anything to do with it. This is the super-rare 12-inch version. My copy is in a hand-decorated sleeve. Trini Lopez’s muscular “Helplessly” is better than it has any right to be. Finally, the rare “Spirit of Sunshine” is one of the rarer Tom Moulton mixes out there. It would pair well with that other disco sunshine classics, “Sun… Sun… Sun…” Happy summer!
Super Elton—Paul Vincent ’77 | Sexy Sally—Les Filles de Sebastien ’77 | Rescate Espacial—Zoom ’78 | Moving Like a Super Star—Amadeo ’77 | Super Queen—Cellophane ’78 | Boogie in the Bush—Max Berlin’s ’79 | It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue—Mick Rowley ’78 | Magic Carpet Ride—Diva Gray & Oyster ’79 | Dance, Dance, Dance—Calhoon ’75 | A Little Bit of Jazz—The Nick Straker Band ’80 | Il Me Faut Une Femme—Boule Noire ’79 | Megatron Woman—Native Love ’83 | Helplessly—Trini Lopez ’78 | Hey Taxi Driver—Chantal Curtis ’79 | Spirit of Sunshine—Chuck Davis Orchestra ’77
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