March 6 – Kiki’s Career Not So Dusty

Bet she’s still got the music in her even at age 77! happy birthday, Pauline Matthews, aka Kiki Dee!

We talked of Duffy a few days ago and mentioned comparisons to Dusty Springfield. Today, we laud another great Blue-eyed soul female singer and one who actually started her career being a backup singer for Dusty. She began singing at age 10 and by 16 was working in a drug store by day, singing in clubs around Leeds at night and then signed to Fontana Records. She not only sang backup to Dusty, she was also on the 1968 hit “Everlasting Love” by Love Affair.

She became the first British female signed to Motown, but her real break was catching the ear of Elton John. She was one of the first, and most successful, artists he signed to his own Rocket Records, and there she scored her first solo hits, “Amoureuse” (a top 20 in their UK) and “I’ve Got the Music In Me”, a top 20 in North America as well.

We know Elton loved Dusty’s voice, but he must have been pretty impressed with Kiki’s as well. He had her sing backing vocals on “All The Young Girls Love Alice” on his brilliant Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album, and then really put her on the map…when Dusty bowed out. Kiki of course did the duet “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” with Elton (oddly they recorded their respective parts in different countries, Elton in Canada and Kiki at home in England) after Dusty Springfield, his first choice said she was unavailable. Lucky break for Dee; the song of course went to #1 almost everywhere and was the second-biggest one of the year in 1976 both in the UK and U.S. All the while she was the girlfriend of Elton’s guitarist, Davey Johnstone. And she and the Rocketman got

together one more time with success, in 1992 doing a duet of Cole Porter’s “True Love” in 1993 that went to #2 there. Although she’s not had much commercial chart success since then, she’s put out several more albums and has remained a busy performer, mostly performing with guitarist Carmelo Luggeri in acoustic and eclectic sets over the past decade. They have three shows slated for later this month if you happen to be in the UK.

February 14 – An Easy Anniversary Date For Them To Remember

It’s supposed to be the most romantic day on the calendar, so it’s no surprise lots of people get married on this day. That applies to musicians as much as other people, it would seem. Unfortunately, in music as with other walks of life, those unions don’t  always work out to a happy fairytale ending.

For example, the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia married his third and last wife, Deborah Koons on Valentine’s in 1994. This was shortly after he divorced his second wife, Carolyn Adams. Adams and he had been married since 1981, yet he says they hadn’t lived together since the ’70s…she was his main girlfriend going back to the late-’60s and had a couple of daughters with him. Maybe Deborah and he would have made an even better go of it, but sadly Jerry passed away the following year.

Courtney Love may have married a singer called James Moreland on Valentine’s ’89; it was such an insignificant part of her life apparently, no one is even sure of the real date. Some reports had it listed as being in July. Either way, she later called it a “joke” and had it annulled very quickly. Kurt Cobain entered her scene shortly after.

Even more of a failure was Elton John’s first marriage, to sound engineer Renate Blauel on Feb. 14, 1984 in Australia. He seemed to feel it necessary to quell persistent rumors that he was gay; rumors that of course he probably heightened when he later married David Furnish! He apparently told her he wanted a divorce while they were still on their honeymoon though they stuck it out on paper until 1988. He says of Renate, “she was the classiest woman I ever met but it was never meant to be. I was living a lie.”

And on this day in ’96, Prince married his first wife, Mayte Garcia. The gal had been a backup dancer on his tours since 1991; she’d been moderately famous since appearing on That’s Incredible at age 8 as a belly dancer! Perhaps more incredible than that, Prince met her when she was 16 and somehow became her legal guardian when she was 17! The pair had a son in 1996 but unfortunately he died at just a week of age and they never really got over that. They divorced three years later but when he died, Garcia said of him “this man was my everything. we had a family. I am beyond deeply saddened.” 

Does popping the question on Heart Day give one better chances at lasting happiness? Well, probably not. Lady Gaga said “yes” to Taylor Kinney on this day in 2015. He was an actor who’d been in one of her videos four years prior. Unfortunately she then said “no” and called it off the following year. But, take heart…not every Valentine’s Day connection ends badly… we hope. Katy Perry got engaged to actor Orlando Bloom on Feb. 14, 2019 and they had a daughter together the following year. Although they’ve had a bit of a rocky road, apparently they are still together and currently happy. Maybe she kissed Orlando and liked it even more than a girl. May we suggest they don’t go to the altar on the 14th day of February however!

February 1 – A Different John & George Topped The Charts

Rising to #1 on Billboard this day in 1992, a duet of two of the most popular male singers of the late-20th Century: Elton John and George Michael.

The two had a lot in common. both were British, both had their careers shoot them up to superstardom quickly (although Elton’s career took more years to get off the ground initially), both were gay but reluctant to “come out” and possibly as a result, both had issues with substance abuse. John says George was “one of the first people I performed with after I got sober” and while he didn’t like the elder singer nagging him about his drug problems, they still got on well. In his autobiography Me!, Elton says Michael was “ludicrously talented (and ) the kindest, sweetest, most generous man.

“Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me” was originally an Elton song, a successful single off his Caribou album which hit #1 in Canada and #2 in the U.S. Bernie Taupin said he wanted to do something “big, in a dramatic (Phil) Spector-y style…hopefully being powerful without being pompous” when he came up with the lyrics. That not withstanding and even though Elton said his original inspiration for the tune was Beach Boys music, and indeed Carl Wilson and Bruce Johnston of the Boys sang backup on it, Not that it impressed Elton or his crew too much. Gus Dudgeon, the producer of Caribou later said the album was essentially garbage and Elton himself apparently threw a tantrum while recording the song, suggesting it was better suited to Engleburt Humperdink. Fans apparently disagreed! John and Michael, then of Wham, performed it together at Live Aid and Michael often sang it during his subsequent concerts. He brought Elton out on stage at Wembley Stadium to sing it in ’91, the show was recorded and released as a charity single raising funds for 10 different charities.  George produced the record himself  and it went to #1 in both the U.S. and UK plus Canada, France, Belgium, Italy and more. Although George had seven U.S. #1 hits in a short period of time, it was Elton’s first chart-topper there since 1976! Likewise, George had done very well over here but it was his first #1 in his homeland since 1986 when he did the duet “I Knew You Were Waiting” with Aretha Franklin.

While sadly Michael died in 2016, the sun has yet to go down on Elton , although he currently says he is done with touring now that his multi-year “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour has drawn to a close.

November 8 – Chicago, Elton Bought Into The Rocky Mountain Way

In our previous post today, we mentioned Elton John’s Caribou album, among others. Some might wonder where he got the idea for the title. It wasn’t a nod to the big northern moose-lookalikes. Instead it was named after the recording studio he made the record at – Caribou Ranch. He was far from the only star who would call it temporary home from time to time. So, let’s have a look at one of the country’s most popular studios in its day.

True to its name, Caribou was indeed a ranch. Although synonymous in the music world with “Chicago”, it’s located in the Rocky Mountains, not far from Boulder, Colorado and, being less than 50 miles outside of Denver, close enough to a major airport to allow easy access for stars to drop by from pretty much anywhere. In the 1960s, the Western Stage Coach was filmed on its 4000 acres.

Fast forward to the ’70s and Columbia’s top producer was James William Guercio. He’d done records for the likes of Blood, Sweat & Tears and others but had become closely associated with the band Chicago, being their normal producer. He didn’t like working in the big city, nor the restrictions he felt unions placed on him in the big studios. So he decided to take matters into his own hands and bought the ranch. He converted a barn there into a state-of-the-art (for the times) studio and upgraded some of the cabins for artists to stay in. It was ready to use by 1972, and by way of happy coincidence, Joe Walsh was living nearby and working on a record. He had troubles in his own studio, so he popped by Caribou to finish recording his Barnstorm album. While there, he wrote his first hit, “Rocky Mountain Way.” “The Rocky Mountain way is better than the way I had,” he’d later say, “because the music is way better.”

He told his friend Rick Derringer about the place, and he went and recorded his hit “Rock & Roll Hootchie Coo” there. Soon Guercio had his own band in and Chicago recorded albums VI through XI there. The film about Terry Kath’s life showed how much the band loved the place. It was Party Central when they were around, and with all that open space, Kath could go out and play with guns, a hobby of his which eventually led to his unfortunate demise.

Word of the place’s appeal and sound quality soon spread, and Elton booked it for his follow-up to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – what would be Caribou. He loved it… even though making music there wasn’t as easy as some studios due to its physical location. It’s about 8000 feet above sea level, and the air is thin. “It could be really hard to sing at such a high altitude,” he would write in his memoir. He threw tantrums at times due to that but all-in-all “it was great up at Caribou. The studio was much more plush than the Chateau (d’Herouville, the French studio he’d recorded at several times) . You stayed in beautiful log cabins filled with antiques… there was a screening room for movies…” And while recording there, friends would stop by including Stevie Wonder “who turned up one day and took a snowmobile out and insisted on driving it himself”. Elton marveled that Wonder didn’t kill himself or anybody else, John Lennon also popped by, helped him do his cover of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” there and was doing a good job of staying anonymous in Colorado… until Elton joined him to do a little shopping and eating in the town nearby… dressed in a pink fur coat and being chauffeured in a huge limo. On the negative, Elton also remembers it being the place where he first encountered cocaine. “the first line I snorted made me wretch… talk about God’s way to tell you leave it right there.” Of course, he didn’t follow that advice for years.

Elton would record three albums there, and the star factor, combined with the scenery and yes, the sound made the studio famous. The thin air seemed to give the music a bit more of a resonant, fuller quality somehow than sea level studios and the second half of the decade, it was a busy locale for stars making hits. No surprise John Denver made use of it – though ironically his song “Rocky Mountain High” was done in New York – but it was also utilized by artists including Rod Stewart, Steely Dan (briefly), Supertramp, Tom Petty, Stevie Nicks, Peter Frampton… even Michael Jackson who for a time had interest in buying it off Guercio. In time, 45 top 10 albums would be recorded at Caribou and 18 Grammy Winning ones.

However, times, tastes and technologies change. Demand for the studio decreased in the ’80s. State of the Art for 1971 was no longer state of the art in 1981. It came to a crashing end in 1985, while Christian crossover artist Amy Grant was on her way in from Nashville. A faulty space heater caused the barn to catch fire and much of the structure burned to the ground. About $3 million in damage was done; it’s noted that even some gold records on the walls were destroyed by firemen’s chainsaws working their way through to the blaze.

Guercio decided not to rebuild. By then digital technology was taking over and he wasn’t as fond of that as his old standby analog equipment. As well, the once young, single guy not averse to partying was now a family man and he didn’t like having his children exposed to so much of the rock & roll lifestyle. It was one of his kids who apparently first discovered the fire. He salvaged and restored the main console though, and sold it to a studio in Europe.

It would seem that he and his family lived there for years to come, but in the late-’90s he began to sell off Caribou. About half – 2000 acres – were picked up by the county for conservation use, while he’s apparently also overseen some housing on the rest. In 2015, he held an auction for some of its artifacts, including a baby grand piano Elton had used there (it got over $50 000) and an old Corvette which had been sort of a “staff car” to run people into town when needed.

So, like Elton John and Chicago, Caribou was a big and beloved part of the ’70s music world, though unlike them, it’s now merely a memory.

November 8 – Twas The Year Of Elton

Elton John was on a roll like we’d seldom seen before ..at least since a quartet with a John, Paul, George and Ringo came ashore in America… or since, until a gal called Taylor hit the record stores. On this day in 1975, his Rock of the Westies album hit #1 on Billboard, making it his third chart-topper that year! That came one year to the day after he (and MCA Records) released his first Greatest Hits album.

That compilation album quickly rose to top the charts in the States and Canada , became the best-selling record of 1975 and ranks up there with the Eagles, Queen and Billy Joel near the top of best-selling “greatest hits” albums ever, with some 25 million copies sold. That despite being out of print for years now (other compilations from Elton, such as the expanded 2002  Greatest Hits 1970-2002, which has topped nine million on its own,  have rendered it redundant) and not having new material on it. The ten-song record did include some of his older singles like “Border Song” his newer fans might have missed the first time around, but didn’t include the chart-topping singles (“Philadelphia Freedom” and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”) that were released between the previous album, Caribou, and the next one after it, Captain Fantastic.

With Captain Fantastic being a summertime #1 hit in ’75, after Greatest Hits and then Rock of the Westies, the three #1 albums in the year made him the first artist since The Monkees to do that. they scored a trio in 1967. For Elton, Rock of the Westies was the eighth album in a row to go platinum in the U.S. and seventh overall to hit the top of the charts; however, all good things like winning streaks must come to an end. By almost unanimous agreement, while not a bad record, it wasn’t a terribly good album compared to his previous six or seven. Allmusic for example, gave it 3.5-stars, quite good but the lowest since his 1971 Friends soundtrack, and the Punk Panther probably summed it up nicely by also saying it was an OK effort but showed he was falling into a habit of putting out “one superb album followed quickly (often too quickly) by a patchy one.”  Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Captain Fantastic were the superb ones,  Caribou and Rock of the Westies the iffy ones. While “Island Girl” , its first single, did well, the follow-up “Grow Some Funk Of Your Own” didn’t quite cut it for most fans and stalled at #56 in the UK and even in Elton-crazy Canada reached just #8.

Personal problems and changing tastes meant his star would begin to fall after ’75. He wouldn’t have another #1 album until The Lion King soundtrack in ’94. However, his recently-completed Farewell tour, was the biggest earning tour in rock history until Taylor Swift embarked on her current one, showing fans still remember – and love – his music from when he was King of the charts.

September 16 – Turntable Talk 18 : The Friendly Voice With The Tunes

Welcome back to Turntable Talk! Thanks once again to all the regular readers and welcome to any new ones. If you’re keeping count, today begins our 18^th instalment…if you’re wondering about past topics, I have previous topics indexed here. For any new readers, briefly, on Turntable Talk we have a number of guest columnists from other music sites, sounding off on one particular topic. This month, our topic is Behind The Curtain. It’s a well-known phrase uttered in The Wizard of Oz, when the gang is warned to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain…who was actually in charge. Well, through 17 rounds we’ve looked at a number of great musicians and albums and given credit to those artists. But it takes a lot more to put out a great record. This time around we’ve asked the writers to pick a “behind the scenes” type of person who’s done a lot for music we love. There are record producers, record label bosses and scouts, anonymous session musicians, radio DJs, videographers and so many more that have helped shape the soundtrack to our lives that usually go ignored. This time, we change that.

Today we finish up this instalment, with yours truly.

As always, I want to thank the guests who’ve contributed to Turntable Talk this time around with great picks and write-ups. The topic has generated a bit more interest than I first expected, which pleases me as I firmly believe that there are a lot of individuals that are vital to the music we love who go unrecognized. I’m glad they touched on record producers (Glyn Johns, Mike Fraser), session musicians (James Jamerson, Carol Kaye, Nicky Hopkins) , and even the people in the record offices themselves (Stax Records, RCA and their important creation of the 45). These were all areas I had considered going to, as there are so many more greats in those areas. Have you heard of Hal Blaine, for instance? If not, you should have, he was the go-to drummer in the ’60s and ’70s in L.A. and worked with everyone from Frank Sinatra to the Beach Boys to Simon & Garfunkel. Producers ? Where would the Beatles have been without George Martin’s guidance and suggestions? Or Phil Collins and The Police have been without Hugh Padgham modifying their sound (for Collins) or being the, well “policeman” controlling the room and keeping them from killing each other (in the case of The Police.) I considered both Clive Davis (Columbia and later Arista Records) and Ahmet Ertegun (Atlantic) who were monumentally important to finding talent for and shaping their huge record companies. But since we’ve had a little taste of all those categories I decided to go a different direction.

“Blackwater”. “Bennie & the Jets”. “Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl)”. What do they have in common besides being great songs from the ’70s that hit #1 and are still played widely today? Well, none of them were supposed to be hits, let alone #1s. And so I salute local radio, and DJs who loved music. Let me explain.

Looking Glass was a newish band from New Jersey that recorded for Epic Records, but the company didn’t really have a lot of hope for them. However, one PR guy for them took a few copies of the debut LP out to radio stations around his home in Washington and Baltimore, asked them to give it a listen. There wasn’t even a 45, a single picked, and rumor has it “Brandy” was not high on the label’s list of choices. One program director in Washington, working for WPGC – then the highest-rated hit music station in the Capital area – liked “Brandy” and put it on air. Within two days, “the switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree” every time one of his DJs played it. They’d never seen anything like it before. Epic took note and quickly put it out as a single, by which time it had already reached #1 in DC, despite the public not yet being able to buy it as a single. Soon it would hit the top all across the U.S. and Canada as well.

“Bennie and the Jets” is of course perhaps Elton John’s best-known single, although he has had a lot of them over the past 50+ years. The great Goodbye Yellow Brick Road had already had two singles off it, “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting” and the title track. The album was still selling, and being a double-disc, there were plenty of songs to pick from to release a third. MCA went with “Candle in the Wind”, a good song to be sure. On the b-side, they put Bennie. “Candle” at the time was doing well in Britain but not taking off in North America. But, one DJ at CKLW in Windsor, Ontario flipped it over and said why not give the b-side a listen? He liked it and began playing it. Now, Windsor is located directly across the river from Detroit… there a river about 200 yards wide separates Canada and the U.S. So, as it turns out CKLW was the most-listened to station in Detroit…and even as far away as Toledo, Ohio! The Canadians loved Bennie, but so too did the people in Michigan and Ohio. Frankly this surprised some, because unlike the Canadian city, Detroit was largely Black and Elton didn’t sound typically R&Bish or Soulful. “Bennie and the Jets” was soon #1 in Detroit as well as Windsor, and MCA took note. They changed the printing to make it the A-side and pushed it as such across the continent. Soon it was a #1 hit in both countries. In the States, Elton’s second. He’d go on to have quite a few more, including of course, a remake of “Candle in the Wind” over 20 years later.

What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits was a Doobie Brothers album that wasn’t selling well in 1974. Warner Bros. had basically given up on it, since the first two singles, “Another Park, Another Sunday” and “Eyes of Silver” – especially that one – had basically flopped. However, the b-side to “Another Park…” was a southern-cooked song called “Blackwater.” Producer Ted Templeman said “we never thought of it as a single.” Thankfully for the band, a man named Chuck Hollaway did. He was a DJ at WROV in Roanoke, Virginia. He liked the song and played it. Listeners responded, and soon a couple of stations in the larger Norfolk market to the east caught on and began playing it too. Soon it was going to the top across the state. Needless to say, Warner took note and re-issued it, this time with it the A-side and it quickly became the band’s first ever #1 song.

All hail local radio and DJs who knew music. There are many more examples like these, of songs that got played by one DJ at one radio station and ended up becoming beloved hits despite not being initially backed by the record companies. DJs knew music, had their own tastes and personalities and more importantly, had the freedom to play what they felt like.

Sadly those types of stories won’t likely ever happen again, as radio has changed so dramatically this century. Not only is it not as big a part of most music fans lives as it was before, the business itself has changed. Most stations are owned by a handful of large corporations that have programmers in New York or LA come up with short lists of songs they allow the stations under their wing to play and DJs – when they still exist (a lot of the time it’s automated now) – play what the piece of paper they’re given at the start of the shift says. The next “Blackwater” might be out there, but even if there’s some DJ in Roanoke or Windsor that loves it, he or she’s not likely to be able to play it for you. It’s a shame and we all lose out because of it.

There was a great film made a few years back called I Am What I Play. It showcases four DJs, including my own friend David Marsden, who were ground-breaking and simply played the music they loved…and shaped the industry and our listening habits. I recommend you give it a look if you can locate it… and salute the local radio and DJ!

July 12 – Turntable Talk 16 : Not Enough Said Hello To Talented Aussie

Welcome back to Turntable Talk! Thanks once again to all the regular readers and welcome to any new ones. If you’re keeping count, this is our 16^th instalment…if you’re wondering about past topics, I have most previous topics indexed here. For any new readers, briefly, on Turntable Talk we have a number of guest columnists from other music sites, sounding off on one particular topic. This month, our topic is Coulda Been A Contender. We asked our guests to write about a song which wasn’t a “hit”…but should have been. Now, it’s upto them to really define what is, or is not, a “hit” – some songs hit #1 in say, Canada but get ignored elsewhere, or else they get to #41 worldwide, etc … hit ? Not hit? – but there’s no doubt, there’ve been a lot of very good songs that missed the mark somehow.

Today’s we have Keith, from the Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian site and with a background in Michigan radio, so we can bet he heard some fine songs most people didn’t get to:

It is time once again for my contribution to Turntable Talk. This is the 16th installment and the topic this time around was an easy one for me. The topic this month is entitled “Coulda Been a Contender.” This is simply a song that we felt should have been a hit but wasn’t.

As a music director (the guy who helped the station’s program director choose what songs to play) I heard a lot of songs that wanted a spot on our play list. Many times we added songs that never went anywhere on the charts, but we thought they were good. On the other side of the coin, we played a lot of songs that I felt were crap, that wound up being hits.

When this topic presented itself, one song immediately came to mind. Unlike other topics where I went back and forth between 2-5 songs trying to pick one to write about, this one was the only one I felt really should have been a smash. I have felt that way about this song since hearing it the first time. It is a duet by a legendary artist you will know instantly, and a singer whose name you SHOULD know, because she is just that good!

The song is “Where We Both Say Goodbye” by Catherine Britt and Sir Elton John.

From her website at www.catherinebritt.com:

She has lived a life in the world of entertainment most will never experience or dream of. The archetypal Aussie girl from the coal works of Newcastle uprooted herself at 17 years old and moved for six years to Nashville TN (USA) where she gained a deep knowledge of country/roots/folk history as well as touring extensively and releasing top 40 Billboard hits.

How did this happen you may well ask. Not every 17 year old moves from Newcastle to Nashville to pursue their musical dreams. Well, the story is that a certain Elton John (yes, THAT Elton John) heard Catherine during one of his Australian tours in the early 2000s. So impressed with Catherine was Elton that he took her albums back to America with him and helped get a deal with RCA Records.I can only imagine the feeling she had when she heard that Elton John was a fan AND was helping her get a record deal! There is a very cool video of Elton and Catherine that I will share after I talk about the song.

Music, like humor, is subjective. It has a certain power to it. Perhaps my feelings about the song are a bit swayed because of what was going on in my life in 2005. My mother was dying of breast cancer, my son was going through intense therapy for autism, and my marriage was slowly falling apart.

I connected with the song on a personal level, but I also understood that I wasn’t the only person who was having relationship trouble. This song struck a chord with me and I knew that there were listeners who had to be going through the exact same thing. As years went by, this song took on more and more meaning for me. As my first marriage continued to crumble and my unhappiness grew, I heard this song again on my iPod, and knew it was certainly time to “say goodbye.”

I still cannot understand how this song was NOT a hit. Perhaps it was programmers questioning whether or not to play Elton John on a country station? It could have been some consultant who felt that way, too. But today, we see artists crossing over from genre to genre and no one thinks twice about it. Maybe this song was ahead of its time.

Catherine’s voice is simply beautiful. It is almost sultry. Elton could sing just about anything and it would sound great. These two together? Magical! Their voices blend so well. Their harmonies are stellar and they convey the hurt of the lyrics. Here are two people who are dying inside because they both know – it is probably over.

Let the steel guitar pull at those heart strings …..

“Where We Both Say Goodbye ”

A fire that’s left unattended
Surely will burn out and die
Now that we’re down to nothin’ but ashes
Is this where we both say goodbye

Chorus

Is this where two hearts break down and cry
Is this where we let go and give up the fight
Have we reached the point where it’s too late to try
Is this where we both say goodbye

It’s so hard to go on pretendin’
The truth is we’re livin’ a lie
And it kills me to know our love’s dyin’
Is this where we both say goodbye

(Chorus)

I wanted you to hear the song before you watched the next video. This is a very cool piece  Elton and Catherine talking about how they came to meet and eventually record the song. I love watching behind the scenes stuff like this.

The song itself only reached #38 on the Country Singles Chart. Shame on country radio !!

In 2008, RCA dropped her from the label and she returned home to Australia, where she has had great success and continues to tour. Her website states:

Over the course of her career Catherine has collected a host of accolades, a legion of fans and a mantel of awards including the country industry’s highest honours, 2009 CMAA Female Artist of the Year Award, 2012 CMAA Single of the Year, 2013 CMAA Female Artist of the Year Award, 2016 Female Artist of the Year, 2017 Vocal Collaboration of The Year for her celebrated single “F U Cancer” as well as APRA Award and CMC Artist of the Year nominations. 6 of Catherine’s albums released to date have been nominated for the ARIA Award for the Best Country Album release, which is a first for any Australian country artist. In 2010, Catherine was also presented with the CMA Global Artist of the Year award.

I tend to feel like Elton John in that I have always thought that she was the “real deal!”

Catherine got a raw deal here in the states. Personally, I believe she could have been as big as Martina McBride or Faith Hill. All too often, station programmers will opt to play crap from an established artists instead of playing a truly great song from a newcomer. Stupid radio/records politics!

She has done quite well for herself in Australia. Her fans love her and support her and she has taken control of her career. Her website says that her latest album, Home Truths, is “Catherine’s first release in over 20 years as a completely independent Australian artist. It’s a decision based on Catherine wanting complete control of her career – and having ownership of her own recording masters and copyrights. That’s something that – now as a parent of two young children – she believes is important – and something to pass on to them.”

“Where We Both Say Goodbye” should have been the song that made America country fans take notice of Catherine Britt. It is a song that proves that she is not only an amazing songwriter, but an amazing singer as well. Her music is deep, heartfelt, and honest. I’m glad that she is enjoying the success she deserves, even if it isn’t here in the US.

My hope is that I have chosen a song that is completely unfamiliar to you. If it makes you want to hear more from Catherine, fantastic. If not, that’s ok too. Music is subjective, right?

Thanks again to Dave for allowing me to take part in this monthly feature. I look forward to reading the rest of the gang’s picks and next month’s topic. Thanks for reading.

June 20 – Musicians Trusted Charles Had A Royally Good Idea

The success of Live Aid in 1985 caught the attention of many people not only in the music world, but amongst charities as well. It became clear how great the potential was to raise vast amounts of money for good causes through concerts, and how many famous artists would get behind them. It was a lesson not lost on Britain’s Royal Family. On this day in 1986, less than a year after Live Aid, Wembley Stadium in London got called into use again for a fund-raising concert. This time it was for the first “real” Prince’s Trust Fund Concert. We use the quotation marks as there had been a concert for the organization four years prior in a Birmingham arena (headlined by Status Quo) but it wasn’t really denoted specifically as a “Prince’s Trust “ extravaganza.

The Prince’s Trust is a British charity established by Prince Charles (or King Charles as we now call him)  in 1976. It aims to help out needy teens and youth in the land by giving them training and counseling to help them find work, primarily.

While Charles has never suggested he likes rock or even pop music, he must’ve been well aware of the mass appeal and the chance to not only raise millions but have his charity gain publicity if such a show was staged. And he was married to young Diana, noted pop music fan and friend of Elton John and Bryan Adams among others. Setting the event up was likely rather simple therefore.

For the huge ’86 show, non other than Paul McCartney was signed on to headline it, with plenty of star help including Elton John, Tina Turner, George Michael, Eric Clapton Level 42 and more. Most acts played one song, several had stars from other bands join them for their performance (for instance Level 42’s Mark King played bass and sang backup on “Every Time You Go Away” by Paul Young, which was made into a duet with George Michael.) It started with “In A Big Country” by Big Country, then “Marlene on the Wall” by New Yorker Suzanne Vega. Soon Phil Collins was doing “In the Air Tonight”, Howard Jones delivered “No One Is to Blame”, Dire Straits did “Money For Nothing”, with Sting appearing just like on the record, and Elton came out twice, early on to do “Your Song” then towards the end with “I’m Still Standing”. Sir Paul finished up with “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Long Tall Sally” before the finale, an all-star jam of “Get Back” with almost all the ensemble from the concert on stage.

Wembley Stadium (the original one, which was demolished this century; there is now a newer venue in its place) held about 82 000 for most events, but could be stretched to over 100 000 in a pinch, so it’s a good bet that something like that number were in attendance. for an event of its magnitude, surprisingly few reviews of it seem to have survived, but to judge for yourself, the whole concert was released on CD and was shown later that year on HBO, meaning video of it is readily available online.

Prince Charles was presumably very pleased with the results, and his organization ran similar concerts every summer through 1990. Elton and Eric Clapton were highlights of the ’87 show (with George Michael and Phil Collins among the returnees); Elton, Clapton and Phil Collins again in ’88; Van Morrison and Level 42 among the ’89 stars and the Moody blues, Lenny Kravitz, Big Country and a full orchestra in ’90. Since then the Prince’s Trust has had only sporadic, and generally smaller musical events. The charity itself continues its work in the UK to this day.

May 18 – Turntable Talk 14 : Elton Was Worth A Few Weeks Allowance

Welcome back to Turntable Talk! Thanks once again to all the regular readers and welcome to any new ones. If you’re keeping count, this is our 14^th instalment…if you’re wondering about past topics, I indexed the first dozen here. For any new readers, briefly, on Turntable Talk we have a number of guest columnists from other music sites, sounding off on one particular topic. This month, our topic is Feels Like The First Time. No, no, we’re not going X-rated here, we’re talking about a different kind of first – the first album our guests ever bought.

Today we wrap it up and I look back at …the first!

Thanks to all the guest writers for the great trips down memory lane! Interestingly, four mentioned Beatles-related records (themselves or solo works by Paul McCartney) among their very firsts. Not me, though I do think a Wings album made it into my first half dozen or so LPs.

I was lucky, I grew up in a house where there was often music playing. My parents both liked music and seemed to appreciate a range of styles. My Mom was more pop-oriented, liked the Beatles, Tom Jones I think – probably partly because he was Welsh like her, but probably partly because she was a woman with eyes and most women back then seemed to think Tom had “it”. My dad, when I was young, seemed to like older country music and often had that on in the car; he’d also soon get to appreciate some more traditional music like marching bands, anthemic pieces. He didn’t go in for much rock or pop, but he did like Seals & Crofts, and a few other acts of the ’70s. Then there was my older brother, old enough to like more of what would be “FM” rock – Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Led Zep, some Alice Cooper to annoy my mom if nothing else. If I had a leaning back when I was really young, it would probably be for easy-listening pop songs I heard in the background, and would later find to be things done by artists like Classics IV (whom I still like listening to), Dionne Warwick, the Mamas & the Papas.

I was “stuck” with listening to whatever happened to be on in the house until, I think, Christmas 1971. Or sometime around then. I was given a little transistor radio of my own… one that was about the size of a thick celphone by today’s standards, with a tiny gnurled dial on one side to change the AM stations and a volume on it somewhere. It came with a single earbud, if I wanted to listen in privacy. That’s when everything changed.

I quickly found Chum radio in Toronto, at the time the most popular radio station in the land. It was a typical AM, top 40 (although they put out a weekly chart that was actually top 30 instead as seen in the example below) music. And I listened a lot. It was one of the very few perks of being sick a lot. I had a bit more time to listen when other kids would be out playing, or even at school some days. I seem to remember all the music that came from ’72 more clearly than many years and much more so than any year prior. “Summer Breeze” (one my dad liked), “American Pie”, “Papa Was a Rolling Stone”, “Brandy”, “Long Cool Woman” … so many great singles to enjoy and sing along with. I still enjoy them now, but sing along a whole lot less frequently!

My parents gave me an allowance – probably 50 cents a week, maybe equivalent to two or three bucks now. Not much, but it made five or six year old me feel rich. I wasn’t a candy fan generally, and didn’t share my brother’s love of comic books, so for me, my money went to two things – baseball (infrequently hockey) cards and records. At the time, I didn’t have anything to play records on, but my brother had a portable record player he sometimes left out, and there was a good one in the living room that was part of my dad’s stereo. Somewhere along the way Dad taught me how to switch that on and turn it to the turntable. So many a trip to the mall with my mom were highlights to me, because I could go to the Eatons department store and go to their records section downstairs, and buy a 45. If I’d been saving for a few weeks, maybe two. I think the 7” singles were about 59 cents each then. I couldn’t tell you exactly what one I bought first but I do remember having and loving “Tightrope” by Leon Russell and “Nice To Be With you” by Jim Gold & the Gallery from that year. And “Rocketman”, by Elton John of course.

Elton became my first “favorite” musician and was everywhere on Canadian radio back then. Canucks loved him and there was lots of material to love – between November ’71 and October ’73, he put out four new albums, one of them a double-LP. That’s a fast clip! By 1974, there was another and, more significantly for me, I was given my first stereo of my own! It was an all-in-one that I loved; gaudy looking in a way that would now be considered retro-cool. White plastic, with rounded corners, silver knobs for volume, bass, treble (something on a kids’ stereo back then not found on half the mainstream units these days – go make sense out of that!), a light up orange display for sliding the channel tuner up and down. It had an 8-track player in it, and a turntable on top, with a smoked-glass looking cover. I wish I could find a photo of it, but even Google seems stumped by that search. Anyway, that went on my bedroom dresser and opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me, including making tapes (8-track) from the radio and playing my records whenever I wanted. By then I had a lot of singles, but sometime around then, end of ’74 or early ’75, I bought my very first LP … Elton John’s Greatest Hits.

Why not ? Ten of his singles all in one package, and I loved all of them. Well, nine of them off the bat, the tenth, “Border Song”, his very first single (which was a top 40 in Canada still) was new to me, but I quickly grew to like it a lot. Oddly, for some reason I can’t recall, as much as I loved his music, I think by then I only had “Rocketman” and “Bennie and the Jets” as 45s, so it was getting a lot of songs I absolutely loved all at once – “Crocodile Rock”, “Honky Cat”, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, “Your Song”… My brother disapproved. He scorned Elton because he figured he was a gay man . My bro’ used a slightly less polite term. That was only rumored back then, but turns out he was right. But I didn’t care, I loved his music, and that was that. Neither did most Canadians or Americans care, it seemed. The album was #1 in Canada for 14 weeks in total and in the U.S. was the top-seller of 1975. It’s diamond-status in both and has sold well over 20 million copies, and would probably be above that had MCA not eventually discontinued it and put out more extensive greatest hits packages instead.

After that, I can’t remember my second album purchase, but it might have been going backwards to get his Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, or forward to his Captain Fantastic that came out later in ’75. Or a K-tel … who didn’t love those 20-song hit compilations back then?

Not too long after 1975, my enthusiasm for a lot of Elton’s new work diminished, but his Greatest Hits was a record I played and played and played for years. Making it a pretty good expenditure of a month or so’s worth of allowance , close to 50 years ago.

That’s our memories – I’d love to hear your firsts . Feel free to comment on them.

April 20 – Mercury Memorial A Cadillac Of Concerts

As website DW speculated, it would take some kind of special event for us to see “openly gay Elton John and allegedly homophobic Axl Rose hugged (and) David Bowie knelt down and prayed.” That type of event happened on this day in 1992 with the Freddie Mercury Memorial Concert in London.

Freddie as you doubtless know, was the charismatic, powerful-voiced leader of Queen, and had died of AIDS a few months earlier. The remaining trio of band members – John Deacon, Brian May and Roger Taylor – weren’t sure where they would be headed, or even if the band still existed, but they decided Freddie would’ve wanted one last big spectacle of a show. And they set out to give it.

May and Taylor announced the planned concert during the Brit Awards in February. The tickets for the 72 000 capacity show at Wembley Stadium sold out in three hours despite Queen being the only announced performers at the time. Around the same time, Mercury’s friends and estate established the Mercury Phoenix Trust, a charity to promote AIDS safety and awareness as well as medical research. Profits from the concert were given over to it.

A huge amount of work was needed to pull it off only two months after it was first conceptualized, but they did it. Not only did they get the stadium ready and sell it out, arrangements were made to televise it in over 70 countries. That Easter Monday, guitarist Brian May took to the stage and announced “Good evening Wembley, and the world! We are here tonight to celebrate the life and work and dreams of one Freddie Mercury! We’re gonna give him the biggest send-off in history!” And if that was hyperbole, it wasn’t by very much.

The four hour-plus concert was basically broken down into two parts, the first being sets by other artists, sometimes with members of Queen joining them, and the latter being basically a Queen concert but with guest singers taking Freddie’s place for the night. It kicked off with Metallica doing three hits off their then-hot self-titled album. They actually released the set as an EP for the diehard fans. Next up were Extreme who did a medley of about ten Queen songs before their own hit “More than Words.” Def Leppard followed, getting a little help from May; benefit concert superstar Bob Geldof did a number, as did one of the more curious acts to appear, Spinal Tap who played “The Majesty of Rock.” U2 weren’t there in person but did “Til The End of the World” via satellite from California while Guns’N’Roses set up for their set which included a cover of Alice Cooper’s “Only Women Bleed.” Mango Groove a “township band” popular in their native South Africa played, Elizabeth Taylor read a speech and a video montage of Freddie was played, leading to part two.

Queen didn’t have their beloved friend and singer, but seemed in fine form as they kicked into “Tie Your Mother Down” with Slash helping out and Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott singing, then did numbers like “Pinball Wizard” with the Who’s Roger Daltrey and “Las Palabras de Amor”, an obscure track off Hot Space with Italian singer Zucherro. James Hatfield of Metallica was back with Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath, doing “Stone Cold Crazy” before Robert Plant took the stage. A voice fitting of doing Mercury’s operatic parts, but his set was underwhelming by most reports, as he struggled to remember the lyrics to “Innuendo” before redeeming himself on “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” Paul Young and Lisa Stansfield each did a number before one of the show’s highlights, David Bowie and Annie Lennox dueting for “Under Pressure.” Bowie stuck around to do “All the Young Dudes” with Ian Hunter and members of Def Leppard before saying the Lord’s Prayer to the surprise of some. That led to what Entertainment Weekly (and some others) called “the best performance of the evening,” George Michael taking the mic to do “These Are the Days of Our Lives” and “Somebody to Love.” A number of people at the time speculated Michael would take over Freddie’s spot permanently but as we would find through the years, the show was a one-time only appearance for him.

If George Michael was considered the highlight, a close second was Elton John – a close friend of Freddie’s – joining Queen. They kicked off with “Bohemian Rhapsody”, with Axl adding his voice to dubbed in backing vocals from Mercury. The show went on with “The Show Must Go On” and “We Will Rock You”, before Liza Minnelli finished that with “We Are The Champions.” The night was nothing if not an eclectic collection of musicians, but then again, Freddie Mercury was a rather eclectic sort of talent. The lights dimmed with a tape of Queen playing “God Save the Queen.”

The night was noteworthy on an addition level as it would mark John Deacon’s last full concert with the band. Unlike May and Taylor, he felt that the death of Freddie should also mean the death of Queen.

The concert was said to have raised about $35 million for the AIDS charity, though others have speculated that expenses ate up a lot of that and $8 million was more realistic. Either way, Brian May says the “emphasis was always made that this was not a fund-raising event. The accent was on awareness.” And sending one of rock’s great front men out in style. On that they succeeded.

The concert has been released at various times both on VHS and DVD, although some parts (typically including the Mango Groove and Robert Plant’s set) usually aren’t included. Queen are still going with Adam Lambert being the current singer.