February 2010
31 posts
Listen
“Remember Me,” Dead Moon (1988).
Fred Cole and his wife Toody Cole formed Dead Moon with drummer Andrew Loomis in 1987, twenty years after Fred and Toody got married and 23 years after Fred made his first record with the garage band the Lords. As has been Fred Cole’s habit since the mid-’70s, Dead Moon produce and engineer their own records, release most of them on their own Tombstone label, and Fred even cuts the vinyl masters himself on an ancient lathe used to make the original lacquers for the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie.”
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Will You Be My Love
Four J's
“Will You Be My Love?” The Four J’s (1963).
Thinking those opening harmonizers had to be family—and wondering who was out-Ronnie-ing Ronnie Spector on lead—I did a little research about the Four J’s. Turns out they were family after all: two sisters and a cousin (plus a friend). The cousin was Pat Hunt. The sisters? Patrice and Brenda Holloway of Watts, L.A.
Motown fans should recognize the names. Patrice was all of 13 when this single was released on a local label; she went on to put out a string of terrific (and unjustly overlooked) 45s in the mid-Sixties and was eventually hired to sing the part of Valerie in Josie and the Pussycats.
Brenda, 16 in 1963, was an even bigger deal. Signed to Tamla the following year, she debuted with the classic “Every Little Bit Hurts” and soon became one of the label’s greatest acts. The Beatles asked her to open on their 1965 U.S. tour, including Shea Stadium; later, she and Patrice contributed backing vocals to Joe Cocker’s version of “With a Little Help from My Friends.” Both Holloway sisters were songwriters and multi-instrumentalists as well; by the time “Will You Be My Love?” was released, Patrice could play drums, guitar, cello and violin.
As for the lead singer, I don’t *think* it’s a Holloway. Pat Hunt? Their friend, Priscilla Kennedy? In any case, wow.
“To hear Jon Corzine tell it, Meg Whitman is either deceiving us or deceiving herself. Like Whitman, the former eBay CEO who’s vying for California’s Republican gubernatorial nomination, Corzine is one of the few people in America who has tried to make the leap from running a business (in his case, Goldman Sachs) to running a government (the state of New Jersey). He can only scoff when he hears Whitman arguing that deficit-ridden California desperately needs her corporate skills. Corzine also thought “the managerial skill set would be helpful,” he tells NEWSWEEK. But after four grueling years as a Democratic governor—ending in a humiliating defeat by an uninspiring Republican opponent—Corzine no longer believes that being a CEO prepares anyone for the day-to-day grind of governing. “The idea that you’re accountable to a bottom line and to a payroll in managing a business—it gives voters the confidence that you have the right skills [to govern]. But it’s 20,000 people versus 9 million. I don’t think candidates get the scale and scope of what governing is. You don’t have the flexibility you imagined. There’s no exact translation.”
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Romano/Hirsh on the rise of the CEO politician (via newsweek).
My latest contribution to the print mag.
