"That's a great tune by Greg Paquette" Bob Nelson 12:24 pm WMWM Salem
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"We've got to let this feeling grow, or let it end"
Will You Be Staying After Sunday, Peppermint Rainbow/Paul Leka "Your lips are warm on Friday night, the next two days you hold me tight."
Spanky and Our Gang LIVE
https://www.allmusic.com/album/spanky-our-gang-live-mw0000848323
Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane released an extraordinary album on Epic in the 1970s, prior to her joining the Mamas & the Papas with McKenzie Phillips, the new Mamas playing with the old Papas. Although the pop elements Spanky was known for are here, the opening track "I Won't Brand You" could certainly be considered the logical sequel to her minor hit "Give a Damn," the album is more country than pop or rock. "Standing Room Only" opens with a great line, "you must think my bed's a bus stop/the way you come and go," and has Fairport Convention's Richard Thompson arranging the strings with the San Francisco Symphony String Ensemble and the Lovin' Spoonful's Jerry Yester on vocal harmony. While Olivia Newton John was delivering country-pop hits to the chagrin of many in Nashville, this American artist goes to the roots of American music on "When I Wanna"; the hardcore country is uplifting when the trademark Spanky & Our Gang vocal harmonies glide in. You want to talk about artistic risk, this album is chock full of it. John "Juke" Logan adds harmonica to "Since You've Gone," bringing tough country-blues to this mix. The band self-produced except for Chip Young's work on the first track, "I Won't Brand You," and the sound quality is first-rate. It's hard to see what Epic was thinking, though, with such stylistic change. "San Diego Serenade" is lovely, and this album is a work of art, but wouldn't the fans have appreciated maybe a country-pop version of the Peppermint Rainbow's 1969 hit "Will You Be Staying After Sunday," producer Paul Leka's tribute to Spanky's "Sunday Will Never Be the Same" and "Sunday Mornin'"? It would have made for a nice Sunday trilogy. Gene Clark's "L.A. Freeway" has a freewheeling, up-tempo sound, but this is all such a Change from the musical statements McFarlane made with her Mercury albums that one can see radio programmers being confused in 1975. "Space Cowboys Forever," featuring Gail Laughton on harp, is one of the standout tracks on this excellent album, along with "Dues," which has Jackson Browne/Fleetwood Mac guitarist Rick Vito's sounds coloring the solid number. In 2001, Spanky hooked up with producer/engineer Stuart "Dinky" Dawson, who recorded the lost Mamas & the Papas album with her. The final track on this album, "I Wish We'd All Been Ready," with Richard Thompson on piano and Jerry Yester on arrangements with Thompson, is the closest to her original sound.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/change-mw0000841485
PEPPERMINT RAINBOW - Spanky & Our Gang by way of STEAM's NA NA HEY HEY KISS HIM GOODBYE - or...how The Wonder Who sounded like Four Seasons with Frankie Valli
http://tickets.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,145133,00.html
All Music Guide Review
Did Ozzy Osborne perform on The Magic Lantern's "Shame Shame"? NO! Was the Peppermint Rainbow actually a "Wonder Who?" for Spanky & Our Gang? I'll never tell...
What happens when you take elements from two of Spanky & Our Gang's hits -- "Sunday Morning" and "Sunday Will Never Be the Same" -- create a sequel, and let veteran producer Paul Leka oversee the concept? You get a brilliant Top 35 hit from April of 1969, "Will You Be Staying After Sunday," by this little-known group out of Baltimore, the Peppermint Rainbow. Sisters Pat Lamdin and Bonnie Lamdin, singing in unison, sound like Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane, and the song has the same soaring melodic style that made "Sunday Will Never Be the Same" so precious two years prior to this. Leka would hit again in November of 1969 with Steam's "Na Na, Hey Hey, Kiss Him Goodbye," and has an impressive resum ranging from Gloria Gaynor to songwriter Tim Moore's Behind the Eyes, and he hits a 90 percent with this album, which has a number of potential hits, from "Walking in Different Circles" to "I Found out I Was a Woman." The Lamdin sisters have a wonderful style, dipping into a Mamas & the Papas mode for "And I'll Be There" (Spanky McFarlane, after all, replaced Mama Cass in a latter-day Mamas & the Papas). There are more references to "Sunday" here, as well as on "If We Can Make It to Monday," a sequel to "Will You Be Staying After Sunday," written by the same songwriters. Paul Leka composed "Green Tambourine" for the Lemon Pipers, and it appears here as well, though in not as refined a form as the 1967 hit, this version a bit more folky. "Run Like the Devil" is the one turkey on here, one of the guys in the band not being able to hold his own on vocals, but with material by Barry Manilow/American Breed songwriter Scott English and superb production by Leka, the Peppermint Rainbow deliver a truly smart and entertaining pop album. ~ Joe Viglione, All Music Guide http://www.varulven.com/joeviglione.html
Thanks Livingston Taylor for Re-Tweeting my review of your album published on RollingStone.com Livingston Taylor Review by Joe Viglione [-]
It would be difficult not to compare Livingston Taylor's self-titled 1970 debut to his brother's second solo release, Sweet Baby James, as the latter certainly brought attention to the former, but the Jon Landau-produced disc crafted in Macon, GA, is a world unto itself. Ten originals by Taylor along with one cover, the Earl Greene and Carl Montgomery country standard "Six Days on the Road," make for a pleasant listen. "Sit on Back" is a bright enough opening, with "Doctor Man" bringing in a bit of the darkness. "My time's at hand" is the same line James Taylor used in the hit "Fire and Rain" and both brothers spent their time in the psych ward: "People with smiles/They talk of a hand that they got from a man called the doctor man." You would love to hear Lou Reed take this on, and somehow the pretty guitar and arrangement are real paradoxes for what should be a dirge, the lyrics profoundly in need of a few spins to sink in. Because much of this album feels like the producer and the artists were getting their bearings, "Six Days on the Road" becomes one of the more accessible tracks. Versions by Hank Snow, Bloodwyn Pig, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Taj Mahal, and others proliferated, and this is not as ethereal as the artist's cover of "On Broadway" from the Liv album, but in its simplicity the point still gets across. The LP cover photo is pretty out there, with Taylor looking down from a metal structure of some sort, his hair all frazzled, while the back cover has a darkened room which looks like a recording studio. "Packet of Good Times" is very up-tempo, while "Hush a Bye" brings things right back down and, like most of the project, is understated. It's on Liv, the second album, that things really come together. Sure, these songs are well constructed, but they still seem somewhat raw and no doubt influenced the way things would be tackled the second time around. Sister Kate and James are referenced in "Carolina Day," a song with more parallels. "Can't Get Back Home" follows suit -- impressive ditties with "In My Reply" up and "Lost in the Love of You" down again. The obvious yin yang would change on the next album, which should have been a huge breakthrough for this sensitive and special artist. The seeds of future work are here, and Livingston Taylor is a nice start to the singer's interesting career. https://www.allmusic.com/album/livingston-taylor-mw0000043888
Thank you for re-posting, Liv. Wrote additional reviews of your music on AllMusic.com Would love to have you on my TV show some day.
Man's Best Friend Review by Joe Viglione [-]
Man's Best Friend boasts superb musicianship, high production values, good song selection, beautiful vocal performances from Livingston Taylor, and an impressive cast of guest stars who do not get in the way of the singer/songwriter. Though "First Time Love" broke the Top 40 for a couple of weeks in September of 1980, this album, much like his work on Atco a decade earlier, is superlative and deserved more chart activity. Converging on "Sunshine Girl" are drummer Jeff Porcaro, Jeff Baxter from Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers (it should be noted, a fellow Bostonian), and ex-Turtles Flo & Eddie, just the right touch to knock this one out of the park. "Sunshine Girl" is so sincere, such an uplifting composition and performance, that it makes it frustrating to hear these remarkable sounds and know that Epic Records or whoever couldn't deliver this to the wide audience it deserved. Covers of Randy Newman's "Marie" and the Stevenson/Gay/Hunter classic "Dancing in the Street" are fine, but the collaboration between Baxter and Taylor, "You Don't Have to Choose," like the aforementioned John Manchester/Livingston Taylor title, "Sunshine Girl," gives the listener insight to the artistry at play, insight you can't find on the fun romps "Ready Set Go" and "Dancing in the Street." It's a nice mix, though. Carla Thomas dueting with Taylor while backed up by Steve Cropper and the Memphis Horns is pretty phenomenal. Baxter takes to the keyboards on this cover of the Motown hit, giving Cropper space, but who wouldn't have loved to hear a guitar duel here? When the earthy dance stuff subsides, Taylor hits you with a co-write his wife, Maggie Taylor, helped him with, "Out of This World," and not to sound cliché, it is out of this world. Taylor has a sweet, down-home folksy voice perfect for pop radio, and his delivery is magical, from the calypso-style "Face Like a Dog" to the beautiful rendition of Jon Hall's 1975 hit, "Dance With Me." Don Henley is on harmony vocal for the Orleans tune and, as stated above, these big-name artists do a marvelous job of complementing the music, not impeding it with overplaying. From his 1971 Jon Landau-produced LP Liv to this John Boylan/Jeff Baxter co-production almost a decade later (the producers doing their tracks separately, not collaborating), Man's Best Friend continues the consistent musical saga of a musician who should be a huge star. Where brother James Taylor is the icon, deservedly so, it is too bad room wasn't made in the pantheon for this bright and talented artist. Livingston Taylor's albums are refreshingly strong, and enhance radio when they get their chance to entertain. This one's a contender for lost classic status. https://www.allmusic.com/album/mans-best-friend-mw0000565745
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