Punk rock
is Cecil Beaton's costume designs for "My Fair Lady" (especially the hats).
So it goes to follow that The Gallants - a swingin' group who released only one LP in 1964 - should use "My Fair Lady's" music as an excuse to get all bomb-diggity (as the kids used to say). Does it work? Quite well, thankyouverymuch. Who were The Gallants? I've no idea, but their sleazy, sax-heavy version of "The Rain In Spain" is a delight.
Even Judy has had it up to here with this this hot and sticky weather we've all been having. Imagine if you had no air-conditioning (and if you don't, you have my deepest sympathies) (no, really).
As for Judy, when people think of her, they usually think of weeping, wrenching ballads, like "The Man That Got Away," "All Alone" or "By Myself," and of course, "Somewhere Over The Rainbow," which became increasingly heart-tugging as the years went on.
But contrary to popular belief, most of Judy's hit songs were breezy and upbeat. The compilers of this 1999 "Cocktail Hour" entry understood this, and they've brought together what must be the happiest of all Judy collections. In a way, this is the real Judy, at least professionally, and even more proof that when it came to selling a cheery tune, she has no peer.
From the daughter of a speakeasy-singing mother to West Coast jazz crooner to successful restaurateur, Pat Healy lived many lives.
It wasn't always by choice. She first tried to hit the road as a jazz singer as a seventeen-year-old, but her mother put a stop to that. Happily, by the time she was in her early twenties, she was playing well-received club gigs up and down the West Coast. But fate would throw her a monkey-wrench.
After her agent abruptly died and her marriage fell apart, she reinvented herself as a beloved West Coast restaurant and bakery owner - one of her restaurants became a haven for music-loving hippies - and didn't retire until she was seventy-eight. Her genuinely bewitching 1958 LP, "Just Before Dawn" - which she produced herself (because of course she did) - was her sole album release. It's quite a set. Her warm delivery, coupled with her razor-sharp interpretive skills, make every song sound like a mini three-act play. Her life remarkably well-lived by any measure, she died this past January at the grand old age of ninety-two.
For many singers, interpretive intelligence can be hard to come by, yet it seemed to come naturally for Pat - and for Susannah McCorkle, too.
If you read anything about Susannah, much is made of her battle with depression - which she kept well hidden until her suicide in 2001 - as if "depression" somehow explains her unique gifts. That's doing her a great disservice, I think.
Here was a singer whose subtle, seemingly spontaneous, emotional intensity was very much wedded to the lyric at hand. In other words, she was one of the most successful jazz club acts in the 1980s and 90s for a reason: she sang like a dream. 2000's "Hearts And Minds" - a So Sweet Susannah Cheerful Exclusive! - was her last set of recordings before her death, and its every bit as eloquent and heartfelt as you could hope for.
Like many of you, The Secret Song File is working from home these days. Which means she can wear whatever she likes.
She also keeps an eye on her mulla. Unlike a certain singer who once lost it all (she even had to sell her Grammy!) and was famously taken to task for her sloppy ways by Oprah on her show. So embarrassing. She's back with a new LP, and while it probably won't be a huge chart-topper (that's for the younger set with their moist cooters 'n' such), it's very nice, old-school R&B. But, please, take it from The Secret Song File, gurl, hold onto that lootage this time.
If your boss can't see you in your mangy drawers, who gives a rat's booty?
But really, what are you wearing? Let us know in the comments, if you like!
