Tainted Love

The 1981 hit, Tainted Love, by Soft Cell has always been a THC favorite and the band is a classic one-hit wonder.  Because it had such a distinctive early 80s sound, THC always assumed it had been composed at that time but recently he learned that it was the cover of a 1964 single by a singer he'd never heard of, Gloria Jones, and what a great vocal performance she gives coupled with a pounding arrangement that doesn't sound like much else from that year.

But before there was Gloria Jones, there was Ed Cobb.  From 1956 to 1966, Cobb was a member of The Four Preps, a singing quartet that had eight gold singles.  The group's mild, soothing pop thrived in that period of the late 1950s and early 1960s when rock was at an ebb between the mid-50s pioneers (Presley, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly) and the coming of The Beatles.  Cobb moved into songwriting and producing.  Among the songs he wrote were Dirty Water, recorded by The Standells in 1966, and Tainted Love.(Cobb)

In 1964, Ed Cobb met Gloria Jones in Los Angeles.  Gloria, born in 1945, grew up in Cincinnati, at 14 forming a gospel trio which also included Billy Preston who later went on to record with The Beatles and have his own successful recording career including the #1 hit Nothing From Nothing.  Gloria signed with Cobb's production company and began recording, under his direction, with a subsidiary of Capital Records.  Neither Tainted Love nor the three followup singles were successful and by 1966 Gloria was moving on to the next part of her career.

A UK disc jockey from Northern England purchased the single on a 1973 trip to the U.S. and started playing it at clubs back in England.  Apparently in the 70s there was a Northern Soul scene in England and eventually members of Soft Cell heard it and made their version which reached #1 in seventeen countries.

This is the Gloria Jones original.

The rest of the story is also interesting.  After leaving Cobb productions, Gloria studied classical piano and began appearing in musicals, including the Los Angeles version of Hair.  She met Pam Sawyer and together they began writing songs for Motown Records.  Most of their works were for the albums, not for singles, and were recorded by Marvin Gaye, The Four Tops, The Supremes and Diana Ross among others and they had one big hit, If I Were Your Woman, by Gladys Knight and The Pips.

In 1972 she began singing backup vocals for Marc Bolan of T Rex and moved to England where they became a couple and had a son with Gloria doing backup vocals on the T Rex records (you can see them performing together here).  T Rex had a monster hit in the U.S. with Bang a Gong (which THC did not care for) and was very popular in the U.K. for several years.  Then in September 1977 as they returned from an evening out, with Gloria driving, they ran off the road hitting a chain link fence post and tree.  Neither were wearing seat belts.  Bolan was thrown from the car and died instantly while Gloria ended up on the hood of the car with a broken jaw and arm.Gloria returned to the U.S. to raise her son (Rolan Bolan), working as a music supervisor in films.  According to IMDb she currently resides in Sierra Leone where a music school in Marc Bolan's name is operating.

Here is a 2009 UK newspaper interview with Gloria with her remembrances in which she mentions that the accident that killed Bolan also damaged her voice.

Well Justified

Tomorrow night is the premiere of Season 5 of Justified, the FX series based on the character Deputy US Marshall Raylan Givens created by the late Elmore Leonard.  It's serious but lighter than Breaking Bad (almost anything is lighter than BB) and THC has done prior posts on it here and here.  The best news for long-term fans is the return of the dense and inept Dewey Crowe after his absence last season.
(Mr Crowe)
Here's the Season 5 trailer.

And speaking of Breaking Bad we'll end on a heavy note. 

American Hustle

American Hustle was the most recent movie we've seen.  It had a lot going for it.

Great cast - Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner and lots of others, including one big surprise cameo.

Outstanding acting - Particularly by Bale, Adams and Renner

Cool clothes - The movie, set in 1978, luxuriates in velour, leisure suits and dresses that cling.

Remarkable hair - Bale's comb over and Renner's homage to Elvis are Hall of Fame worthy. Adams and Bradley in curlers aren't bad either.

Salute to American technology - The "science oven".

Director with a good track record - David O Russell who directed several movies THC really liked, Flirting With Disaster, Three Kings (one of two pro-neocon movies made by George Clooney - Syriana was the other), The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook.  And, he produced Anchorman!

So what went wrong?  THC wanted to like this movie, based loosely on the Abscam scandal, a lot more than he did.  It wasn't terrible, but it lacked the spark you get when the elements of a movie come together.  The screenplay is uneven, with good scenes and dialogue followed by unneeded scenes and limp dialogue.  You could have cut half of Jennifer Lawrence's scenes and not missed anything but the one scene she has with Amy Adams is terrific. The plot is too convoluted and the movie was at least thirty minutes too long.  This was an attempt to make a wacky offbeat movie but pulling that off requires a delicate balance which did not happen in this film.  If you see it you won't hate it and you'll like parts of it but it should have been much better.

Baby Let's Play House

Hubba hubba.

You may go to college
You may go to school
You may have a pink Cadillac
But don't you be nobody's fool

Elvis Presley; recorded in early 1955 when Elvis was still good.  This was his first single to make the charts, hitting #5 on Billboard Country Singles and it's Exhibit 1 for why parents thought Elvis' popularity signaled the end of civilization.  The song was written by Arthur Gunter in 1954.  In a nice touch, Elvis changed the line "you may get religion" to "you may have a pink Cadillac".  John Lennon lifted the line "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man" for Run For Your Life, a track from Rubber Soul.

Accompanying Elvis on rockabilly guitar is Scotty Moore who helped identify Elvis as a talent for Sam Phillips at Sun Records (for the ur-moment for Elvis, see That's All Right).  Here's a 2009 interview from GuitarPlayer.com with Scotty.  He plays some great licks along with chunka-chunka rhythm on this song.

What To Do When The Zombies Come

As part of its continuing series of reader alerts on this critical topic, THC presents this timely analysis from baseballnation.com on which Major League Baseball stadium is best situated to resist a zombie assault.  Our thanks to occasional THC reader JHC for bringing this article to our attention.

Upon seeing the headline, THC immediately thought of the stadium that the author of the article also focuses on:  Miller Field, home of the Milwaukee Brewers, which presents several advantages as a stronghold for non-zombies.

(Refuge for the remnants of humanity)

1.  It is outside the city, without large buildings nearby which could shelter zombies and allow them to get close unseen by defenders  - for instance, Target Field in Minneapolis would be a trap for defenders.

2. Surrounded by parking lots it allows for clear fields of fire for the defenders.

 

(Fields of fire)

3. The retractable roof would allow for some protection from the weather as well as the growing of crops allowing for long-term sustainability while civilization is being rebuilt. (Hope they've got a heckuva generator at the stadium to operate the roof).

4. The primary defect, the presence of large amounts of glass on the ground floor, can be taken care of by boarding up and the use of metal supports.  Once this is completed the stadium would be as secure as a medieval fortress before the development of gunpowder.

There are a number of ancillary challenges to be worked through including what are the minimum number of defenders needed to hold the stadium and the amount of supplies, including ammo and food, that must be secured in order to survive a long-term siege.

We must also consider the possibility that in spending time on this planning it may support the notion that THC has too much time on his hands.

Happy New Year!

Still recovering from last night . . .