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Post by sliderocker on Sept 28, 2012 11:08:12 GMT -5
Slide, this is the album I knew of ticket to ride from. At the time, I think everyone had that album. My mom had this and I took it over. That album was my first introduction to their version of "Ticket to Ride" as well. I think it was the album A&M took "Top of the World" from and made it into a hit, even though it had been in release for some time and had had some radio airplay before it became a hit in '73. I played the album a lot although there were some songs I skipped playing. Curiously, I think "The Singles" was the Carpenters's biggest selling album which was an oddity at the time for act. Now, all too many times, a greatest hits package is the biggest selling album on some artists. They can have dozens of other album releases yet it's the greatest hits album that defines them.
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Post by erik on Sept 28, 2012 17:32:04 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker:
The same may be true for Linda, as her first Greatest Hits compilation from 1976 has gone Platinum seven times over. Of course, this discounts the fact that every studio album she released between 1974 and 1989 sold in monstrous amounts, especially Canciones De Mi Padre, which was not necessarily a candidate for a Platinum certification out of the gate because of the language and musical barrier.
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Post by the Scribe on Sept 28, 2012 18:32:47 GMT -5
My guess is Linda heard Karen's version as Linda was always "checking out the pipes of new chick singers." The Carpenters version was a regional hit in the NYC area where I lived at the time. I prefer it to the Beatles version. I am surprised we hear very little about Karen Carpenter and Olivia Newton-John who were both huge stars in the 1970's along with Linda. Seems they were both bigger singles artists than Linda but I could be wrong about that.
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Post by the Scribe on Sept 28, 2012 20:35:44 GMT -5
Tony, do you still have a Skeeter Davis page?
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Post by Partridge on Sept 28, 2012 21:16:39 GMT -5
Absolutely! It is a subset of my Linda Ronstadt page: www.ronstadt-linda.com/skeeterdavisI got an email one time from a Skeeter Davis fan that admonished her she should not associate with that heathen Linda Ronstadt.
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Post by the Scribe on Sept 28, 2012 22:02:50 GMT -5
Absolutely! It is a subset of my Linda Ronstadt page: www.ronstadt-linda.com/skeeterdavisI got an email one time from a Skeeter Davis fan that admonished her she should not associate with that heathen Linda Ronstadt. Linda Ronstadt heathen? ha Love those photos. Her voice is very pleasing, refreshing, especially on this song. Just curious what made you a fan of Skeeters?
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Post by sliderocker on Sept 29, 2012 13:26:06 GMT -5
The same may be true for Linda, as her first Greatest Hits compilation from 1976 has gone Platinum seven times over. Of course, this discounts the fact that every studio album she released between 1974 and 1989 sold in monstrous amounts, especially Canciones De Mi Padre, which was not necessarily a candidate for a Platinum certification out of the gate because of the language and musical barrier. It's ridiculuous the number of acts who had multiple million selling albums yet who are represented only by a great hits album or in some case, multiple greatest hits albums. Did the sales of the non-greatest hits albums suddenly dry up sales wise? I can't imagine they did as I know one of the sources of irritability in the record collecting business was people wanting their favorite albums on cd when that format became the predominant format. Record companies refused to release old titles on cd for a time, saying the older albums didn't sell. Of course, they're not selling when they're not available but convincing the record companies otherwise was sometimes an exercise in futility. It's commendable that Capitol saw fit to reissue Linda's recordings onto cd in the 90s, including the albums by the Stone Poneys and the albums that didn't sell well originally. It's regrettable Capitol didn't keep the albums in circulation, but it's still the three greatest hits packages on Asylum and Rhino that are widely available and everything else is find what you can. It's surprising Linda's back catalog hasn't been given the remastered and remixed treatment in deluxe versions with alternate takes and previously unreleased recordings. I think the market is there but with Linda's catalog spread out over several record labels, the chances of remasteerd and remixed deluxe versions must be slim and none - unless Linda happens to own the rights to all of her recordings and could lease the rights to another record company. I'm sure she'd have no problem finding a record company willing to reissue her recordings.
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Post by sliderocker on Sept 29, 2012 13:52:01 GMT -5
Absolutely! It is a subset of my Linda Ronstadt page: www.ronstadt-linda.com/skeeterdavisI got an email one time from a Skeeter Davis fan that admonished her she should not associate with that heathen Linda Ronstadt. Linda Ronstadt heathen? ha Love those photos. Her voice is very pleasing, refreshing, especially on this song. Just curious what made you a fan of Skeeters? Some fans are simply crazy. I don't think Skeeter would ever have had a problem with Linda, either musically or personally. By all accounts I've read, she was a down to earth person and friendly with everyone. People forget her musical roots included pop and rock. The late Gram Parsons recalled a time when he was playing an Opry show in Nashville and was supposed to have sung some Merle Haggard song but switched to a song he had written for his grandmother. He did that because she was in the audience. The Nashville establishment - at least the ones upon the stage (the Glaser brothers) had a hissy fit over the song change. Davis sided with Parsons and stood up for him, telling him it was about time someone blew off the Nashville establishment's ways of doing things. Fans like to think their musical faves share the same values and politics as they do. Sometimes they do but many become intolerant of an artist when they're the complete opposite. Some people need to grow up sometime.
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Post by Partridge on Sept 29, 2012 22:01:31 GMT -5
Skeeter Davis in the late '60s was a fan of Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins. She probably listened to Linda Ronstadt too. I don't think it's a coincidence that Skeeter recorded "We Need a Lot More of Jesus" just a few months after Linda's version. Of course Skeeter tried to put one Jesus song on every album.
I recall Creem Magazine in 1973 reviewed a Skeeter Davis album-- I think the review was by Robert Christgau. He said the album was excellent, except for one singing commercial for Jesus. He said country AM radio didn't play her much, and she belonged on FM, where she would blow away Linda Ronstadt and the other pretenders.
What an ass!
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Post by erik on Sept 29, 2012 22:23:21 GMT -5
Quote by Partridge:
I think Skeeter already knew of Linda before Linda came to Nashville (I don't remember where, but I think she mentioned she knew of Linda when Linda was still in the Stone Poneys).
As for Christgau being an ass, I'd agree with you on that, except I think it does a great disservice to mules (LOL).
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Post by Partridge on Sept 29, 2012 22:24:04 GMT -5
Just curious what made you a fan of Skeeters? I think she just grew on me over the years. Unlike Linda, whose work I almost universally love, Skeeter's albums are hit or miss for me. She was terribly produced and managed at RCA. Albums came and went and no singles were released. Singles were released that didn't go on albums. Her first album I'll Sing You a Song and Harmonize Too where she did duets with herself was goofy, but it worked. That was followed up by Here's the Answer, which had 6 country/pop songs and Skeeter singing 6 answers to those songs. Totally forgettable except for Last Date. That was followed by two bad duet albums with Porter Wagoner and Bobby Bare and three albums that leaned toward pop which were pretty good. Then an album of country standards and an album of the great American Songbook- Skeeter Sings Standards followed by a pop album of bad summery beach music, all three forgettable. During this time, Skeeter had several big and minor pop hits, so it was time to apologize for her success, so she recorded My Heart's in the Country. Then an ill-conceived album of Buddy Holly songs. Then a tribute album to Flatt and Scruggs, from which no singles were released, but I did love the album. It was at about this time, late in her career and when she was no longer a major country act, that I began to become a fan. With her new producer Ronny Light, she started producing good albums. She did a fine country version of Angel of the Morning. She did two almost perfect albums, It's Hard to Be a Woman and Skeeter. Even Robert Christgau loved Skeeter Davis the Hillbilly Singer. Few people other than me were buying these albums, so RCA dropped her in the mid-1970s. About this same time the Opry kicked her off for criticizing the police in Nashville. And it was downhill from there.
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Post by erik on Sept 29, 2012 23:23:41 GMT -5
Back to A.G. for a sec:
I think we all know that his mother, Marni Nixon, dubbed the voices of Audrey Hepburn (in 1964's MY FAIR LADY) and Natalie Wood (in 1961's WEST SIDE STORY). But what we also might want to remember is that his father, Ernest Gold, wasn't exactly a musical slouch either. In fact, Ernest, an emigre from Austria (born Ernst Siegmund Goldner), was one of Hollywood's most pre-eminent film music composers, having scored such films as 1959's ON THE BEACH, 1961's JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG, and 1962's PRESSURE POINT, and winning an Oscar in 1960 for the score of director Otto Preminger's immense historical epic EXODUS.
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Post by sliderocker on Sept 30, 2012 13:37:15 GMT -5
Few people other than me were buying these albums, so RCA dropped her in the mid-1970s. About this same time the Opry kicked her off for criticizing the police in Nashville. And it was downhill from there. It was totally dumb for RCA to drop Davis from the label in the 70s as she had been with them since the 50s, so I assume she must've been a fairly solid seller for her to have remained with them for so long. I recall seeing an article in some country music magazine back in the 70s in which there was a gripe that the country genre was a poor selling genre album wise for most of the artists and that the record companies didn't push the artists like the push they gave rock artists. It was said the sales expectation was very low, something like 50,000 copies. I always thought that was a little bit of smoke until I read that RCA only expected Mindy Macready's first album to sell something like 70,000 copies. And then it sold a million copies. When it came to Skeeter, I think she was a victim of age discrimination in the 70s because she was in her mid-40s. Record companies want the artists to be in their 20s and 30s when it comes to the artists selling records. I don't know what it about artists being older and not being able to sell but it just seems to scare the record companies. Maybe there is a corresponding drop off with the record buying public who are of an older age?
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Post by sliderocker on Sept 30, 2012 13:52:56 GMT -5
Back to A.G. for a sec: I think we all know that his mother, Marni Nixon, dubbed the voices of Audrey Hepburn (in 1964's MY FAIR LADY) and Natalie Wood (in 1961's WEST SIDE STORY). But what we also might want to remember is that his father, Ernest Gold, wasn't exactly a musical slouch either. In fact, Ernest, an emigre from Austria (born Ernst Siegmund Goldner), was one of Hollywood's most pre-eminent film music composers, having scored such films as 1959's ON THE BEACH, 1961's JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG, and 1962's PRESSURE POINT, and winning an Oscar in 1960 for the score of director Otto Preminger's immense historical epic EXODUS. I sometimes wondered if Andrew was also related to Wally Gold, one of the writers for Elvis's hit "It's Now or Never?" I thought I had read some time back that Ernst and Wally Gold were related. If memory serves, I think "It's Now or Never" was the only song cowritten by Wally Gold that Elvis recorded. And ironically, its melody was taken from "O Sole Mio," which was in the public domain and meant the writers and publishers only got 1/20th of the music publishing royalties as a result. Consider how cheap the publishing royalties were at the time (two cents split 50/50 between writers and publishers), you had to wonder why writers would settle for an even lower fraction of the royalty, which was already low to begin with?
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Post by the Scribe on Nov 5, 2012 9:25:56 GMT -5
Linda did put her heart into it, although I think if she had recorded it herself, she'd probably do it the way the Fab Four did it in '65. I think you might be right Erik, at least if she had done it mid-70's. I wish she had done more Beatles songs. So many of them would have suited her voice or even the Trio group. i.e. If I Fell, That Boy, If I Needed Someone, I Will, Blackbird. I even would have liked to hear her sing Let Me Roll It by McCartney and Wings for the obvious:
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Post by erik on Nov 5, 2012 10:04:46 GMT -5
It would have been nice for her to interpret more Fab Four material (she only ever put "Good Night", a White Album track, down on Dedicated To The One I Love); and what is Sir Paul McCartney anyway other than rock's premiere Gershwin/Berlin-caliber writer?
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Post by Goldie on Nov 2, 2015 21:36:19 GMT -5
IT'S BACK:
ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2015 21:56:54 GMT -5
keepvid.com/ lets you download videos and save them as you wish...
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Post by rumba on Nov 2, 2015 23:15:44 GMT -5
IT'S BACK: ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN Linda sounds great on this and like she's having a good time.
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Post by moe on Nov 3, 2015 13:35:05 GMT -5
IT'S BACK: ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN Linda sounds great on this and like she's having a good time. Great duet, don't think I've heard this before yet it sounds very familiar, had I heard this song before or something very similar? Probably just experiencing deja-vu or as the French say- didn't this shit just happen? Miss AG!
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Post by Dianna on Nov 3, 2015 14:30:55 GMT -5
Said it before and I'll say it again. Sounds very Donny and Marie-ish. Which isn't a bad thing. Linda can sing anything..
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Post by Goldie on Nov 3, 2015 15:32:11 GMT -5
Interesting comment Dianna since this was originally a hit by Andy Williams whom I believe introduced the Osmonds to the television world in the late 1960's.
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Post by Belle on Nov 3, 2015 18:26:44 GMT -5
That song has a quirky-reggae beat. Very commercial sounding but I like it. Linda's voice is perfect of course, their voices blend well.
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Post by jay15206 on Nov 22, 2015 13:27:45 GMT -5
Just curious what made you a fan of Skeeters? I'm not Partridge, but I am a fan of Skeeter Davis. She was one of my favorite singers in 1963, the year I started buying records. Except for the Beach Boys' "In My Room," the music I loved most that year was by one girl singer or group or another (Skeeter, Lesley Gore, Little Peggy March, the Ronettes, the Crystals, the Angels), and "End of the World" was a favorite favorite. My first album was Cloudy with Occasional Tears, which my parents bought me along with some Beach Boys 45s and my first stereo, for Christmas that year. Off topic: though male groups trumped just about everything but the Supremes the following year, I've always liked female singers, but for whatever reason, I did not encounter Linda until 1976, when someone played "Long, Long Time" at me while breaking up with me. That sent me to the record store the next day, where I bought Drum, Heart, Prisoner, and Hasten, on which I gorged for, well, a long, long time. I've always wondered what that meant, someone playing "And I think I'm gonna miss you/it's gonna hurt me for a long, long time" at me while breaking up with me.
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Post by jay15206 on Nov 24, 2015 14:10:34 GMT -5
Who in 1963 would not have been a fan of Skeeter Davis?
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Post by goldie on Oct 7, 2016 15:02:02 GMT -5
One of the precious few songs co-written by these two lifelong friends. Andrew Gold and Stephen Bishop spin their magic on "Linda Linda" in 2003 by the beach in Los Angeles....
PS: What was the first song you wrote that changed how others perceived you?
AG: Lonely Boy. Because it was top 5 for a long time, and I was on all the TV shows, and was chased by girls etc. It was fantastic - and at the same time I would say, You're No Good, which I didn't write but played everything on except bass, and the whole Linda Ronstadt success....that changed my life first, and was unbelievably great during the seventies. Ah, those days....They were great.
progsheet1.hypermart.net/agold.html
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Post by jay15206 on Oct 8, 2016 15:04:50 GMT -5
Andrew was more than a little bit in love with Linda, wasn't he?
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Post by Eden on Oct 8, 2016 20:23:14 GMT -5
Andrew was more than a little bit in love with Linda, wasn't he? I have always believed so. The way he talks about her and how he looks at her in some of the videos and pictures available is very evident he was in love or at least admired her very much.
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Post by eddiejinnj on Oct 9, 2016 10:10:12 GMT -5
I don't want to assume, so I will ask, is the song "Linda Linda" about Ms. Ronstadt? If so is it on our list of songs about Linda? I do not recall but I don't know list by heart. eddiejinnj
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Post by goldie on Oct 13, 2016 23:02:05 GMT -5
I don't want to assume, so I will ask, is the song "Linda Linda" about Ms. Ronstadt? If so is it on our list of songs about Linda? I do not recall but I don't know list by heart. eddiejinnj I believe it is about our Linda. I couldn't find written lyrics anywhere but if you listen to and watch (the video) closely there are clues. The song does grow on you. Andrew was a master at pop music.
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