Tag: 80s

Mohammad Jamal – Alemni El Hob

Mohammad Jamal – Alemni El Hob (1985)

After an illustrious career as a singer and actor in Lebanon, Jamal emigrated to the US and opened a falafel restaurant called Byblos in Los Angeles, where he was a regular performer. The restaurant is still around and gets pretty decent reviews, despite the occasional roach in the men’s bathroom.

Susan – Ah! Soka

Susan – Ah! Soka

(1980, Japan)

Do you believe in mazik? Susan Nozaki believed in all forms of mazik, and so did Yukihiro Takahashi of Yellow Magic Orchestra (by then he was over the whole Tammy Wynette fiasco). When Yuki met Susan at a TV studio in 1980 he was so impressed by her energetic personality he got the entire YMO crew together and convinced them to be the backing band and produce her mazical debut album.

As for Susan, she was the daughter of a Japanese woman and an American military man of French ancestry — the ultimate genetic smoothie according to Phil Donahue. Over the years she has starred in countless Japanese musicals, TV shows and commercials and is now trying to re-establish herself as a performer of techno music (let’s ignore that little detail, shall we?).

In the early 80s an attempt was made to launch Susan’s career in England, but as fate would have it, the trip coincided with the outbreak of hostilities between Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands (damn it Argentina!). Don’t cry for Susan, though: the following year she married a member of The Rokkets (every girl’s dream), got pregnant and has been blissfully happy ever since.

Electric Cord Orchestra – Aerobic Music

Electric Cord Orchestra – You And Me (Aerobic Music, 1985)

Doru Danciu, the orchestrator and conductor of this Romanian library record, had very high hopes for this particular collection of music. His dream, though he wouldn’t admit it to anyone but his grandmother, was to have the songs included in the film Perfect, which was currently in production in Los Angeles. There were rumors filtering through the Iron Curtain that the movie was about an aerobics instructor, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, and that most of it would take place in a swanky L.A. health club with John Travolta’s sock-stuffed crotch doing a never-ending series of pelvic thrusts to a shiny dance beat. Doru’s close friend Mihai, a Romanian Securitate agent with the inside scoop on everything censored from the West, revealed that eventually John and Jamie Lee would work up a sweat in the bedroom too. Doru wrote a song specifically for that plot development. He even added an invigorating Olympic Theme just in case one of characters reached the highest level of competitive aerobics at some point in the story. Basically he included everything filmmaker could possibly need for a movie about aerobics, and he was convinced that the director, James Bridges, and the music supervisor, Becky Mancuso, would find his music just…perfect.   Upon completion, Doru FreighterExed a copy of the album to Columbia Studios, and then for five long months he and his grandma sat huddled together with their fingers crossed in the cramped offices of Electrecord Records.

One can only imagine Doru’s shock and disappointment when his friend Mihai finally managed to smuggle a bootleg betamax copy of the finished movie back to Romania, and he watched John Travolta thrusting his pelvis to…. something else entirely!

As a footnote, the weirdest thing about this record is that smack-dab in the middle of all this aerobic “library” music is an utterly horrifying cover of “Who’s Holding Donna Now” (please sign our release form before listening at your own risk). But still, what a wonderful surprise to run into the Debarge family deep within the stacks of the National Library in Bucharest!

Oriental Wind & The Karnataka College of Percussion – High Fly

Oriental Wind & The Karnataka College of Percussion – High Fly (1985)

Okay Temiz, widely recognized as the bee’s knees of Turkish jazz percussionism (if that’s even a word), teams up with his band Oriental Wind and the Karnataka College of Percussion from Bangalore, India to create a song that, if nothing else, is quite useful for frightening small children on Halloween. 

Pat Thomas – Yesu San Bra (1980)

Pat Thomas – Yesu San Bra (1980)

A track reminiscent of of K. Frimpong’s “Kyenkyen Bi Adi Mawu”, the greatest Ghanian song EVER. Pat was a native of the Ashanti Region of Ghana. He learned the guitar and drums from his uncle Onyina who had played with Nat King Cole, Miriam Makeba, Ray Charles and Ella Fitzgerald. In the early 70s he was a member of The Blue Monks, the resident band of Accra’s Tip Toe Nite Club (which still exists). He later formed the Sweat Beans Band, an extremely popular group during the Kutu Acheampong Era of government (1972-78). Pat was crowned Mr. Golden Voice of Africa in 1978.