Can't beat the line-up for this post: The Lennon Sisters, Peggy Lee, The Lettermen, The Electric Scoundrals, The Harmonicats, Terry Baxter (the legendary), Boots Randolph, Ferrante and Teicher... And the list goes on. And I've got scores of tracks either ready to go for the next installments, or in preparation for same. In addition to the ready-to-go tracks, I have about 25 in need of audio clean-up and labeling.
And... perhaps the worst Hey Jude ever concocted in a budget studio, or any other kind, as bellowed out by "The Electric Scoundrals," a pulled-out-of-who-knows-where alias for a fake best-of-the-1960s LP from Premier Albums, Inc. Lord help me, I love this version. It's so bad, it's... wonderful bad.
However, The Lennon Sisters and The Four King Cousins provide perfectly acceptable covers of, respectively, I Want to Hold Your Hand and Good Day Sunshine. The former is from 1964, which makes the LS one of the first "pop" acts to tackle the Fab Four. Ferrante and Teicher give us a catchy Yellow Submarine cover, and I realize that I accidentally chose two of the few acceptable covers from Terry Baxter's box set, Yesterday: The Wonderful Music of the Beatles: namely, Sgt. Pepper's... and The Fool on the Hill. My bad. The dreadful Paperback Writer will have to wait until next time.
Bud Shanks' jazz treatment of I Am the Walrus is a track I like more each time I play it, and we've got Ella Fitzgerald performing George Harrison's Savoy Truffle, and quite well. I love the truly spacey ending. Also, The Carpenters expertly adapting Help to their style, the Lettermen delivering a memorable World Without Love, and Tammy Wynette giving us a Countrypolitan Yesterday. The Sandpipers, meanwhile, essentially mimic the Beatles on Things We Said Today, but quite well.
Boots Randolph's My Sweet Lord totally works for me, unlike Jackie Cain and Roy Kral's Fixin' a Hole, which I tried hard to like, but... And Petula Clark is back, with a Hey Jude which fares infinitely better than the hilarious Premier track, though just about anything would. Enjoy!
DOWNLOAD: Fab Forgeries Pt. 4.zip
I Want to Hold Your Hand--The Lennon Sisters, 1964
Yellow Submarine--Ferrante and Teicher, 1969
Fixin' a Hole--Jackie Cain and Roy Kral, 1968
I Am the Walrus--Bud Shank, 1968
The Long and Winding Road--The Sandpipers, 1970
If I Fell--Perry Botkin, Jr. and His Orch., 1970
Good Day Sunshine--The Four King Cousins, 1968
Yesterday--Jerry Murad's Harmonicats, 1966
Michelle--Warren Covington Orch.
Norwegian Wood--Perry Botkin, Jr. and His Orch., 1970
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band--The Terry Baxter Orch. and Chorus, 1972
A Hard Day's Night--Charlie Barnet and His Orch., 1970
Help--The Carpenters, 1970
Savoy Truffle (Harrison)--Ella Fitzgerald, 1969
Hey Jude--Petula Clark, 1969
Yellow Submarine--The Richard Wolfe Children's Chorus, 1969
The Fool on the Hill--The Terry Baxter Orch. and Chorus, 1972
I Want You (She's So Heavy)--The Assembled Multitude, 1970
My Sweet Lord (Harrison)--Boots Randolph, 1971
World Without Love--The Lettermen, 1975
Yesterday--Tammy Wynette, 1968
Things We Said Today--The Sandpipers, 1966
Something (Harrison)--Peggy Lee, 1969
Photograph (Starkey-Harrison)--Engelbert Humperdinck (1974)
Hey Jude--The Electric Scoundrals
Lee
