Zümrüt - Turkey's Cover Girl

The music of Turkey has long been home to a diverse array of influences, both homegrown in regional terms and externally, including Persian, Balkan, Byzantine and both popular and classical western music. The resulting mix has produced a vast array of genres over the decades, but the one concerning this post, is the one by the name of Aranjman, or literally "Arrangement". This genre was a dominant force in the Turkish music in the 60's, 70's and early 80's before it fell temporally out of favour and is basically the interpreation of foreign pop songs (mainly French, English, Spanish and Italian) into Turkish by homegrown artists, albeit sometime with traditional flair. Fecri Ebcioğlu's version of French singer Bob Azza's C'est écrit Dance le Ciel in 1961 is generally regarded as the first instance of this, and was so popular that a craze was born and so subsequently many artists joined the frame with their own slants on their westernly neighbours hits. The main propenent of these was blonde beauty Ajda Pekkan, who continued to have a long and popular career - but the focus this month is on a lass who goes by the name of Zümrüt. Recording a slew of singles and an album in the late 60's and early 70's she is the more poppier of the recording artists, and whose covering reportoire includes The Beatles, Sandie Shaw, Ray Charles, Sylvie Vartan, and US girl group The Toys. So not too bad a starting point eh! I've managed to collate most of her output from various Turkish forums, but improved the sound quality to make the listening experience a bit more pleasant! The full rundown goes as follows ::

1. Zümrüt - Anya Manya Kumpanya
2. Zümrüt - Aşk Sönmesin (Long Live Love)
3. Zümrüt - Aşk ve Sen (Rain and Tears)
4. Zümrüt - Bir Sevenin Şarkısı (A Lover's Concerto)
5. Zümrüt - Bir Zamanlar (Those Were The Days)
6. Zümrüt - Bu Benim Şarkım (This Is My Song)
7. Zümrüt - Bu Hikaye Boyle Bitsi
8. Zümrüt - Dönüş (Aranjuez D'amour)
9. Zümrüt - Ne Zormuş Unutmak (A Hard Day's Night)
10. Zümrüt - Samanyolu
11. Zümrüt - Sen Olmadan (Where Do I Begin?)
12. Zümrüt - Seni Gidi Çapkın (If I Were a Rich Man)
13. Zümrüt - Sevgim (My Love Is Warmer Than The Sunshine My Love Is Warmer Than The Sunshine)
14. Zümrüt - Şeytan Tüyü (Caro Mozart)
15. Zümrüt - Son Dans (The Last Waltz)
16. Zümrüt - Yanimdaki Golgen

Interestingly enough her strongest song, Anya Manya Kumpanya, is an original by acclamied and sadly the very recently departed Turkish composer Selm Andak. The fusion of the Turkish and Latin rhythms work very nicely indeed! Cover wise her take on Sandie Shaw's Long Live Love is very worthy, but close enough to the original that it sounds like it uses the same backing track! A Hard Day's Night gets more of a makeover, and stands up pretty well too. Ok, so discover the jewel that is Zümrüt below!

Preview Anya Manya Kumpanya
Preview Ne Zormuş Unutmak (A Hard Day's Night)
Preview Aşk Sönmesin (Long Live Love)

Dive into Zümrüt's Emeralds
(Part 1)!
(Part 2)!

Anna Melato - Punto D'incontro

Here's something nice that like many before got banned from YouTube, or more correctly the original uploader got a thourough talking, and therefore is no longer available to the masses. So thanks to whoever digitized this first!

There are a number of things I like about this video; these being the emotive facial control which Anna displays throughout, the fact it's a fairly decent song, dramatic swooping camera swoops and it's l-i-v-e! Anna does have some other songs on YouTube which are worth checking out too - including the album version of this song.

Another round of Cafe Con Leche - please!

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Yo! Due to a couple of requests, here is a updated repost of the kidpoptastic duo of Cafe Con Leche! Updated due to the inclusion of 4 new tracks, which include another single Sing Your Song! Which means the entire output of the group! How amazing is that! While not reaching the phonic heights of Land of Light, the additional numbers do capture that Cafe Con Leche spirit of love, light and happiness, which is pretty groovy!

Included are as follows:

The Bubble Gum Song/Puppy Bobby
The Land of Light/Fly Away
Sing Your Song/Do It Again

Bit of more info on the group. The two members were called Monica Glaysher and Freddy McCoy - both who had fathers who worked in a US Army Base in Spain. Monica's dad was the leader of the choir, while Freddy's was an aviation sargeant. Whats twice as cool is that they both co-wrote some of their songs! Enjoy once more!

☆Pick up your order here!☆

Sunshine Rays of Los Massot

Hey! So so sorry for such a delay in postings - middle of moving house blah blah yadda - but here's something fun for February! Just picked up this today for the grand sum of 25p - wahey! The group Los Massot hail from Majorca but that's all I've really gathered of them so far! Included are the songs Un Rayo De Sol and slightly skewed cover of Sugar Sugar - of course no cover could beat the original!

Download Please!

I Know I'm In Love With Chee Chee and Peppy!

Hey! And who's here to give us a warm welcome to the year of 2008? Well it's the fabbest duo to come out of the spangle paradise that was the 70's, Chee Chee and Peppy! - wow that's like 36 years ago! (Man, need to stop watching Countdown....)

Anyway! Just who were Chee Chee and Peppy??? Well after some snooping or the SoufulDetriot forums - here's some background infomation and musings!

Chee Chee (Keith Boilling) was born in 1957 in Frankfort, PA while Peppy (Dorothy Moore) entered into the world in Morristown, PA in 1959. The jury's out on whether they were brother or sister (which would make them a MUCHO cooler Same Difference), but they both got together in 1971 (14 and 12 years old respectively) to eventually record two full albums and few singles to add to the bargain! Apparently they named themselves after their pet dogs, which they reported when they appeared on an recording of the Soul Time music show!

You may have heard "I Know I'm In Love", their most successful single, and hopefully like me admit that it is the upmost A-mazing slice of Bubblegum soul! And so I eventually managed to seek out their first self-titled LP from 1972, for a resonable amount as well - and love it I did! Released on Buddah records, it was masterminded by notable producer Jesse James, with him making up the vast majority of the songwriting credits. Also included are covers of Mocking Bird and This Magic Moment. Of note is the included version of I Know I'm In Love seems to be a slightly different version to the released single, as Chee Chee's voice is a tad deeper (naturally I guess considering it was recorded a year later!) and runs for a slightly shorter frame of time.

After "I Know..." the hits dried up but eventually the two came back to release another album and single on the Branding Iron label, both called Super You.

Ok ok, now here's the place where you can lap up and listen to this gooey-soul masterpiece!!!

Enjoy!!!

I love Chee Chee and Peppy*

Spin and twirl with The Rock Flowers!

"Spin My Record, Watch Me Twirl!"

(The dolls in their glory!)

This week is a combination of a few of my favourite things; things such as Girl Groups, Bubblegum, Lost Gems...and Debra Clinger! Wahey! Man, if I was a doll collector as well ^__^ Haha!



So yea, The Rock Flowers - whattatheyallabout? Well, in a long and indeed great tradition of toy and music markerting link-ups Mattel lauched a set of dolls to compete with the then popular Dawn dolls by rival firm Topper Corp. The Rock Flower then kinda melded their own niche, concentrating on a "hippy rocker" image together with a plastic single that came with each doll. They were produced en masse from about 1970/71 to 74 and were quite the popular girls on the block! The original trio that made up the Rock Flowers Heather, Lilac and Rosemary but were also later joined by Iris and a certain Doug! By 1974 the dream was over, and Mattel resorted to selling the remaing dolls minus record and shoes - funnny! Well I guess it complimented the hippy vibe!

Now as well as the singles that came with each doll, 2 LP's were released consecutively in '71 and '72 featuring the vocal talents of Rindy Dunn, Debra Clinger and Ardie Tillman. What was stange about these LP's is that bearing in mind their issuing as part of a marketing masterplan, the only reference to the dolls was the name of the group itself! Anyhow the Lp's and singles are a utter fantastic collection of bubblegum girl sounds, with a bit 'o a rockin' edge! Produced by the man behind the Partride Family (Mr. Wes Farrell) and written by Toni Wine, Ellie Greenwich (brill!) and Carol Bayer. So great that Jeff Barry wrote for The Archies, and Ellie for The Rock Flowers! The girls went on to tour with Tom Jones before splitting. I will probably feature more of the wonderful Debra Clinger and her sisters in the future, but for now enjoy!





The 2 seperate downloads below include the first self-titled LP and the second called Naturally as well as 4 more songs in addition! Which = 26 in total! Wahey!

I Am the First Download!

I Am the Second Download!

A double dose of Café con Leche!

Time to get another fix of bubblegum..., and this time its a total sugar high.... with added fuzz!


Café con Leche were two young American kids who released at least two records in Spain in '72/'73. For what reasons and the amount
of success the record acheived are unknown, but its great that they did! The Spanish speaking world during the 70's and early 80's seemed to have a thing for groups featuring young members, with artists such as La Pandilla, Los Chicos and Parchis garnering massive success in Spain and Latin America, so I guess this is somehow related to the craze!


The first single the band released was The Bubble Gum Song (nana-nana) which absoultely blistering, just like digging into a big knickerblocker glory - makes you very hungry after listening tho'! The next, Land of Light, manages to do one better and becomes a total fuzz fest. This thing is epic!

Anyhow here's the two said tracks!

I Am a Download!