Fran is giving you hair, she's giving you hips, she's giving you canary-yellow hot-cha pants. With bell-bottoms! What more did a red-blooded American fella need? Playboy magazine had the answer.
They featured her in two pictorials, the first in 1971 at age thirty-five, the next in 1982 at age forty-five. Both were wowza! as the kids said back then, and Fran was no pushover. She was intimately involved in choosing her photographer and all the final pictures, analyzing each shot and pose. Behold the I-Dare-You pose below.
Fran, of course, was more than mere hotness. The daughter of Greek immigrants, she slayed in a number of movies - all but stopping the show in the original "The Pink Panther" - recorded several hit LPs, and made knock-out appearances on TV shows, like "The Tom Jones Show," all while hitting the club circuit worldwide (and working her way through four marriages). Her smooth-as-silk vocals are amply highlighted in "This Is Fran Jeffries" - a Frantastic-Fran Cheerful Exclusive! - which includes her sublime rendition of "Lazy Afternoon." It's a gorgeous album.
Meanwhile, Peggy King is playing peek-a-boo with her sunhat.
Peggy King, as you may know, was dubbed "Perky Peggy King," but please don't let that scare you away. A versatile jazz and pop singer throughout the 1950s and early 60s, she was seemingly everywhere - TV, radio, cabaret stints - during a career largely ignited by her TV jingle recording for Hunts canned tomato sauce (gross!) (and really, please make your own; it's so easy) (but I digress).
Surprisingly, she recorded very few LPs, but her 1956 album "Wish Upon A Star" is a classic for the ages, a fizzy-pop autobiography in song in which Peggy recounts her rise to success, including tales of her Hunts commercial, her Big Band stints and her triumphant arrival in Hollywood. It's irresistible, and, okay, I'll admit, perky as all get out. In a good way.
Now that we've wished upon a star, it's time to sing out in praise of ladies with big-big hair.
If you wonder "How big is too big?' then wonder no more, because the answer (obvi) is "The sky's the limit!" Just give a gander to the cover art for Linda Scott's 1965 LP "Hey Look At Me Now," a Lotta-Locks Linda Cheerful Exclusive! for you and yours. Linda hit the road early, scoring her first radio hit, "I'm Told Ev'ry Little Star," while she was still in high school. Then she rode a crest of early-rock popularity for nearly a decade before happily settling into back-up vocal work for some of the biggest names in the biz throughout the late 60s and early 70s.
But her solo LP work endures, with fans including none other than David Lynch (who used her version of "I'm Told Ev'ry Little Star" for a key sequence in "Mulhollond Drive"). "Look At Me Now" was her last solo LP, and she goes out on fire, offering up a heady mix of slow-jam seducers, like the opening, "If I Love Again," to a Samba-inflected version of "The Very Thought Of You."
The Secret Song File appreciates longevity. Few will look as beautiful as she for eternity, but for a select group of British female singers, like Shirley Bassey, for instance, there would appear to be few obstacles toward maintaining a long and vital career. Case in point, this British female pop singer who's been putting out essential LPs for seven straight decades.
You might call her a downtown kinda singer - *cough*hint*phlegm* - but rest assured, she ain't sleeping in any subway anywhere. Anywayyouknowwhoitis, she has a spanking new CD, recorded at age eighty-four (she even raps!), and dammit, it's rully-rully fyne. I swear. For some, like The Secret Song File, time truly does stand still.
But then some careers crash and burn. Aw.
Test your endurance in the comments, if you like!
