Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle

Sunday, 1 March 2020

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus!

Daffodil Tête à Tête putting on a great show in the extensive gardens here at Dolores Delargo Towers.

It's Saint David's Day, dears - a day to celebrate all things Welsh, including cawl, daffs, leeks, male voice choirs, Welsh cakes, rugby, Dame Shirley Bassey, Christian Bale, Ivor Novello, Terry Jones, Taron Egerton, Roald Dahl, Ray Milland, Dylan Thomas, Catherine Zeta Jones, Sir Bryn Terfel, David Lloyd George, Dame Siân Phillips, Mary Quant, Dorothy Squires, Sir Richard Burton, Laura Ashley, Steve Strange, Russell T Davies, Jonathan Pryce, Timothy Dalton, Michael Sheen, Ruth Madoc, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Tommy Cooper, Molly Parkin, Sir Harry Secombe, Katherine Jenkins, Bonnie Tyler, and...

...Cerys Matthews and Sir Tom Jones!

Tom Jones & Cerys Matthews - Baby, It's Cold Outside

"Bloody freezing, innit?!"

It certainly is this morning.

Saturday, 29 February 2020

Convoluted connections, #394 in a series

What links this song...

Gibson Brothers - Cuba

...with this...

Bananarama - Aie a Mwana

...and this one?

Daft Punk - Around the World

French songwriter and producer Daniel Vangarde began as an avant-garde synthesizer music pioneer in the early 1970s, and released a pseudo-Japanese album masquerading as a band called the Yamasuki Singers. Once the Disco boom began, however, he went on to write and produce some of the biggest (and cheesiest) hits of the era, including Ottowan's D.I.S.C.O., and local hits in France with artistes such as Rocky et Vandella, The Great Disco Bouzouki Band, Sheila (later of B Devotion fame), and the Soul Iberica Band.

He also launched the Gibson Brothers onto an unsuspecting world.

Along the way, he was also responsible for the song originally titled Aieaoa, that was later given Swahili lyrics and re-named Aie a Mwana. In the 1980s, a trio of wild-child girls, who were hanging around with The Sex Pistols at the time, decided to record it as a demo. While doing so, they improvised the lyrics to rhyme with "banana" - and lo and behold, Bananarama was born!

Finally - what possible connection is there with song #3?

Well... Mr Vangarde was actually born Daniel Bangalter. His son Thomas, who with daddy's encouragement became an electronic music maestro in his own right, is one half of the enigmatic synthpop duo Daft Punk!

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, they say...

Hoorah...

...it's a Leap Year!

Here's an appropriate number, methinks:

Paul Anka - Jump (Van Halen cover)

Indeed.

Friday, 28 February 2020

Quick slick, pull the tricks

The weekend looms, and for that we are grateful; however the weather remains stubbornly grim, cold, grey and wet. London's bleak enough, but parts of the Midlands and now Yorkshire are rapidly evolving as inland seas, it seems. Hey ho - at least coronavirus has a rival for the tabloid headlines.

Regardless of the weather, there's still a requirement here at Dolores Delargo Towers to "crank things up a bit" as we near the end of any week. Today's treat comes from a late, great artiste around whom there is somewhat of a mystery: for, according to several obituaries, she was born on this date in 1946, yet according to her Wikipedia entry and indeed several other sources she was actually born in August!

Whatever the truth might be, the former Mrs Stevie Wonder [and co-writer with him of hits such as Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours] Syreeta Wright (for it is she) was lauded in her short career for her sweet ballads - notably the Billy Preston duet With You I'm Born Again. As it turned out, that was the pinnacle of her recording career but, before she left the business, she had a stab at a more dance-oriented style.

From that era comes this long-forgotten number, so let's wiggle-along-a-'reeta and Thank Disco It's Friday!

Syreeta - Quick Slick

Not really surprised that it wasn't a big hit.

Syreeta Wright (28th February OR 3rd August 1946 – 6th July 2004)