Much ado about musenick since my last post. My music-dedicated external hard drive of several years up and died. I've grieved its passing, and mourned the many rare tracks I'll likely not have again. So it goes. Trying a cloud-based backup called Backblaze; we'll see how that goes.
It's high time for something on here, so here's one of the first "lost" albums that I hunted down. The Chiffons' star had long since paled when this odds and sods album was issued in 1971. The group has one of the more substantial catalogs of the girl-group genre, with powerhouse classics like "My Block," "He's So Fine," "Oh My Lover," "One Fine Day" and "Nobody Knows What's Goin' On In My Mind But Me," to name five. Their lead singer, Judy Craig, has one of the most appealing voices of her musical era.
Why this album was cobbled together is one of the mysteries of musical history. Perhaps it provided a much-needed tax-write off for a failing independent record label. Perhaps The Mob had something to do with it. Whatever the reason, My Secret Love is a first-rate valediction to one of the most solid girl groups of their day.
Its 10 tracks had never been issued during the group's chart heyday on Laurie Records. They span the group's hit-making career. The second track on the album is reason enough to download this. "You're The Love of a Lifetime," written by Ronnie Mack, who penned "He's So Fine," "Lucky Me" and "Oh My Lover" prior to his 1963 death, couldn't have returned from the grave (far as we know), so this recording must date from that year. With two chords, tribal percussion and a driving, repetitive melody, the song is hypnotizing, exotic and maddeningly catchy.
To spew a little music theory here, the song is built around the IV and V chords. There is no resolution. The I chord needs to be there to complete the circuit. The tension this effect creates is magical. The song is over in 1:42 but begs repeated listens. It might have been commercial suicide in 1963, but it sounds great in 2019.
Every song has something to recommend it here--including an otherwise-unheard song by Gerry Goffin and Carole King, "My First and Last." Other writers of note here are Jimmy Radcliffe, Toni Wine, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield and Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry. It's a who's who of New York pro pop songwriting circa 1963-66.
Never available on CD, this album, which was pressed in teensy numbers and commands $300+ from savvy record dealers, has recently been reissued on vinyl, and may sound better than the 1971 original. I hope you can see, after a listening, why this was one of the first "oh, crap, I don't have ________________" moments I had after external HD failure.
This accidentally perfect album can be had HERE. I hope this filehost not cad-like. My Box links will stay put until they give me the complete boot. Not being able to upload new zipped files there makes them doomed to dullness.
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