The Tornados were produced by Joe Meek the legendary British producer and technical innovator behind the band’s hits “Telstar” and “Have I the Right.”   Meeks has become a cult figure since his death in 1967.   It was only six years between his first chart success and his suicide at the age of 38.   It’s no exaggeration to say that Joe Meek’s short life was stranger than fiction. He was a tone-deaf songwriter, a spiritualist convinced that he had foretold Buddy Holly’s death, and a hopelessly inept businessman who was conned out of his “Telstar” royalties. Like his contemporary Joe Orton he was gay, and like Orton he came to a violent and untimely end. Unlike Orton, however, Meek was a murderer instead of a murder victim – he shot his landlady Mrs Shenton before turning the shotgun on himself.

(13 votes, average: 3.69 out of 5)

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7″ from a flea market in Cannes.

(10 votes, average: 4.40 out of 5)

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Here’s a vintage 45 on the French Fontana label.   Soundtrack music to the French comedy classic Mon Oncle.   I saw this movie with my friend Tony Jacobs in Jr. High School.   Maybe at Case Western Reserve (where they had a good film series and we saw a lot of foreign films) or at the Cedar Lee theater where they still show the best foreign and independent films.   I don’t remember much about the movie, but that Jacques Tati was like the French Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton.   Tony turned me out to lots of great movies and music in those formative years.   Here’s a bit from Wikepedia about Jacques Tati:

Jacques Tati (October 8, 1909 ““ November 5, 1982) was a noted French filmmaker   Originally a mime, Tati’s films have little audible dialogue, but instead are built around elaborate, tightly-choreographed visual gags and carefully integrated sound effects. In all but his very last film, Tati plays the lead character, who – with the exception of his first and last films – is the gauche and socially inept Monsieur Hulot. With his trademark raincoat, umbrella and pipe, Hulot is among the most memorable comic characters in cinema. There exist several recurrent themes in Tati’s comedic work, most notably in Mon Oncle, Playtime and Trafic . These include Western society’s obsession with material goods, particularly American-style consumerism, the pressure cooker environment of modern society, the superficiality of relationships among France’s various social classes, and the cold and often impractical nature of space-age technology and design.

Mon Oncle (My Uncle), was his first film to be released in color and perhaps his best-known work. The plot centers on M. Hulot’s comedic, quixotic and childlike struggle with postwar France’s mindless obsession with modernity and American-style consumerism. Mon Oncle quickly became an international success, and won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1958.

(14 votes, average: 4.14 out of 5)

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I saw Antoine “Fats” Domino play at JazzFest in 1990 and have always loved his music. He was a king there at the piano, big rings on his fingers, flashy suit. I think I read he lost everything in the flood. Here’s a sweet single courtesy of Fred.   Great liner notes on this mid- fifties collection and a nice illustration on the cover. Fat’s early classics are all on the Imperial label. This four song e.p. features his eponymous first hit “The Fat Man”.

(13 votes, average: 3.31 out of 5)

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I love kid’s records like this. Something sweet and innocent about it. I’m not even sure these fellas can really play.

(8 votes, average: 4.13 out of 5)

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