Saturday 26 April 2008

The Sanjalice Collection

And so it is the turn of another all-femme-band to grace these pages - and this time it is none other than Balkan beat babes, Sanjalice aka The Dreamers. This compilation compiles their entire known output, i.e three EPs worth of goodies! Hailing from the former Yugoslavia these four girls first banded together around 1966, and went on to release three records in there career as well as touring some of Europe. Band members included Ljiljana Mandic, Slobodanka Miscevic, Ljiljana Jeftic and Snezana Veselinovic. There's a ton more info on this website, but unfort my Serbo-Croat is sadly lacking!




The obvious standouts from their reportoire are the songs Mi Mladi and Bez Reci, both cover of English language numbers, and both given a thouroughly rocking going over! Other recordings too are various covers, including ones of Happy Together, My Lady and Puppet On a String.
Enjoy!

Thursday 10 April 2008

The Charms of The Enchanted Forest


Hell-o once more! Thought I'd actually better post some more music this time round! Just in case you were getting worried......, well I was anyway! And this time we have something quite nice - nice meaning bejesusly good - of course! One of the best all female bands I have come across are a quintet called The Enchanted Forest, who recorded a couple of natch records at the latter end of the 1960's. Information and images on the group are very much elusive - however there are some interesting titbits to dilvulge - mainly on the people surrounding the group! Rumour has it tho' that one of the members had a famous sibling!

The first connections are with the writers and prouducers of the records, mainly one Mort Schman and one Kenny Lynch. Schuman and Lynch struck up a partnership in the mid-60's which led to among others writing the notable hit Sha-La-La-La-Lee for the Small Faces. However they obviously left their best mark with said group of female musicians! The Enchanted Forest released a grand sum of three records, however two feature the same A-side, and so 5 tracks alltogether! Released on both sides of the Atlantic, the recordings feature some great girl group-cum-pysch harmonies and pop delights! Most impressive is the track You're Never Gonna Get My Lovin', also covered by a couple of other artists, notably The Stockingtops who feature on the latest Dream Babes compilation. I would place my monies on saying the Forest's version is the definitive, but I shall always have bias for female bands regardless! The rest of their line reads like this....

You're Never Gonna Get My Loving / Suzanne STATESIDE SS 2080
The Word Is Love / I'm Not That Kind of Girl VARIATIONS 8687
The Word Is Love / Cold Winds- VARIATIONS 50011

Oh yes....I have forgot to mention thus far that the group also worked and backed for the legend that is Tiny Tim , of which footage has exists and is on the saviour of saviours that is YouTube. Here they are playing in the background while Tim glugs out Earth Angel!



Allright here are the goods!

Sunday 6 April 2008

Carmen Maki

Hey! Just a quick post to introduce the charms of Japan's Carmen Maki, with a fanastic folk effort from the early stage of her career and before things got a bit more, em....., heavy! Born in 1951, her career has lasted from the mid-60's to the present day. I nabbed the longer version of this song from YouTube before it dissapeared - phew! If anyone can reccomend any similar artists (female of course!) from Japan I would be more than a happy chappy!