Zümrüt - Turkey's Cover Girl

The music of Turkey has long been home to a diverse array of influences, both homegrown in regional terms and externally, including Persian, Balkan, Byzantine and both popular and classical western music. The resulting mix has produced a vast array of genres over the decades, but the one concerning this post, is the one by the name of Aranjman, or literally "Arrangement". This genre was a dominant force in the Turkish music in the 60's, 70's and early 80's before it fell temporally out of favour and is basically the interpreation of foreign pop songs (mainly French, English, Spanish and Italian) into Turkish by homegrown artists, albeit sometime with traditional flair. Fecri Ebcioğlu's version of French singer Bob Azza's C'est écrit Dance le Ciel in 1961 is generally regarded as the first instance of this, and was so popular that a craze was born and so subsequently many artists joined the frame with their own slants on their westernly neighbours hits. The main propenent of these was blonde beauty Ajda Pekkan, who continued to have a long and popular career - but the focus this month is on a lass who goes by the name of Zümrüt. Recording a slew of singles and an album in the late 60's and early 70's she is the more poppier of the recording artists, and whose covering reportoire includes The Beatles, Sandie Shaw, Ray Charles, Sylvie Vartan, and US girl group The Toys. So not too bad a starting point eh! I've managed to collate most of her output from various Turkish forums, but improved the sound quality to make the listening experience a bit more pleasant! The full rundown goes as follows ::

1. Zümrüt - Anya Manya Kumpanya
2. Zümrüt - Aşk Sönmesin (Long Live Love)
3. Zümrüt - Aşk ve Sen (Rain and Tears)
4. Zümrüt - Bir Sevenin Şarkısı (A Lover's Concerto)
5. Zümrüt - Bir Zamanlar (Those Were The Days)
6. Zümrüt - Bu Benim Şarkım (This Is My Song)
7. Zümrüt - Bu Hikaye Boyle Bitsi
8. Zümrüt - Dönüş (Aranjuez D'amour)
9. Zümrüt - Ne Zormuş Unutmak (A Hard Day's Night)
10. Zümrüt - Samanyolu
11. Zümrüt - Sen Olmadan (Where Do I Begin?)
12. Zümrüt - Seni Gidi Çapkın (If I Were a Rich Man)
13. Zümrüt - Sevgim (My Love Is Warmer Than The Sunshine My Love Is Warmer Than The Sunshine)
14. Zümrüt - Şeytan Tüyü (Caro Mozart)
15. Zümrüt - Son Dans (The Last Waltz)
16. Zümrüt - Yanimdaki Golgen

Interestingly enough her strongest song, Anya Manya Kumpanya, is an original by acclamied and sadly the very recently departed Turkish composer Selm Andak. The fusion of the Turkish and Latin rhythms work very nicely indeed! Cover wise her take on Sandie Shaw's Long Live Love is very worthy, but close enough to the original that it sounds like it uses the same backing track! A Hard Day's Night gets more of a makeover, and stands up pretty well too. Ok, so discover the jewel that is Zümrüt below!

Preview Anya Manya Kumpanya
Preview Ne Zormuş Unutmak (A Hard Day's Night)
Preview Aşk Sönmesin (Long Live Love)

Dive into Zümrüt's Emeralds
(Part 1)!
(Part 2)!

Anna Melato - Punto D'incontro

Here's something nice that like many before got banned from YouTube, or more correctly the original uploader got a thourough talking, and therefore is no longer available to the masses. So thanks to whoever digitized this first!

There are a number of things I like about this video; these being the emotive facial control which Anna displays throughout, the fact it's a fairly decent song, dramatic swooping camera swoops and it's l-i-v-e! Anna does have some other songs on YouTube which are worth checking out too - including the album version of this song.

Way Fun Bantams!

Enough of the girls - here fantastically are 3 young lads who recorded under the name - The Bantams! I've previously posted a (now defunct) video of the group, of the amazing sunshine trip Follow Me - and now I've collated that ditty along with the rest of the singles, Meet Me Tonight Little Girl, I'm So Lucky and Good Lovin' Girl - all pure pop perfection! In contrast to their full length album, entitled Beware The Bantams, the group are judging from my ears backed by a studio group instead of playing their own instruments - consisting of drums, guitar and bongos - and subsequently have a more polished sound - all for the better too! Here's a wee piece on them from a news article :

"Beware The Bantams! This "out of sight" group on Warner Brothers Records is billed as "The Biggest Little Band In The Land." Three pre-teens with a rocking sound three times their size.

What is the Bantams formula?....1) Start with those freckles (you count 'em) 3,605 freckles a piece; 2) Special Award winners in the National Band Championship at Pacific Ocean Park, Santa Monica, California. They look like three finalists in the National Dennis-the-Menace-Look-Alike-Sweepstakes. They are 31 years old if you add up their ages, 12, 10 and 9. Only one of them is named Fritz; the other two are Jeff and Mike - all part of one family. Jeff, Mike and Fritz have three more brothers and two sisters. One of the sisters has waist-length blond hair and she sometimes joins the group as their own bam-bam Wa-Wa-Watasui dancer. She is seven."

Cannot express how much I love these singles - definitely some of the best unabashed sunshine pop garage going! And as such if it doesn't make the corners of your mouth turn upward in a gawping grin - well.....this is the wrong place for you!

Finally here's a vid of them performing one of their album tracks!

Follow The Bantams Here!

Power to Romina!

Hey! Apologies for a lack of updates - in a bit of a transitory situation - but expect more soon! In the mean time I had to post this vid of a 15 yeard old Romina Power performing her second single from 1965, Apri Quell'ombrello - What a great a song! Dig those shapes she throws as well - too cool - and quite refreshing from what the standard of Italia's female singers!

Unknown Acetate - River Girl

Hey! Coming up this week is this mysterious acetate I found lurking in the depths of some random vinyls. Pretty standard late 60's affair Im reckoning but if any could tell me who the male crooner might be that would be ace!

Get me!