Bizarre record album covers (3)

In my this installment on bizarre album art, I just wanted to thank you for accompanying me on the ride. We have been exposed to the twisted mind of musicians and artist. Let's finish our journey.

Father Francis L. Filas, S.J. was a Jesuit priest who wrote many books regarding family life and relationships between husbands and wives. He was also one of the Jesuit researchers of the shroud of Turin. He released the album “The Sex Education of Children” in the 1950’s. It was a narration on how adults should broach the subject to children. Whats else can you say about that?

http://www.catholicauthors.com/filas.html

Shut up and Dance is a British band led by Smiley and PJ. They were rappers that were trying to get a record deal, so the duo would go to abandoned buildings and have impromptu raves. That’s why their album “Dance before the Police come” was titled, because of the illegal raves they put together. Many of their shows ended with the sounds of sirens coming down the street to close down their raves. Link to website: http://www.shutupanddance.co.uk/artist/biography=453.0398.html

Slim Good Body is the alter ego of John Burstein, who created the character to teach healthy living at the Floating Hospital in New York. He created the PBS show “The Inside Story”, which was developed to teach kids about the functions of the body. I remember when I was younger; I thought the picture of his lower intestine ended with a penis, because it looked like that. Slim body must have heard the remarks, because he has modified his body suit so that the rectum looks less penile. His website: http://www.slimgoodbody.com/

Steel Panther was band that began playing heavy metal music on the Sunset Strip in 1988. They continued playing while other bands started being signed by record labels. They alleged that the band Poison ripped off their look and musical style. They do look alike. They released their last CD in 2009, but they are still getting gigs at comic book stores and dance halls. Their link: http://www.steelpantherrocks.com/main.aspx

Malkit Singh is a famous Punjabi Bhangra singer, the first one honored by Queen Elizabeth II with the award “Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.” His album “Millennium Mixes” uses Star Trek imagery and font from the promotional posters of their movies. It isn’t uncommon for Indian performers or artists to borrow from Western media themes to promote their own work. I’m not sure if his work is the best of the millennium, but you decide.

Steven Seagal is a martial artist, sheriff deputy, and all around badass. What you may not have known is that he is also a musician. He released the album “Songs from Crystal Cave” in 2005; even Stevie Wonder and Lady Saw collaborated on the album. This description from Wikipedia: “Songs from the Crystal Cave is a 2005 album by Steven Seagal, his first. Seagal is credited with "Lead Vocals, Rhythm and Lead Guitar" and appears on the cover and throughout the liner notes emotively playing and posing with a guitar. The style can be described as "outsider country-meets-world music-meets-Aikido." Many of the songs reflect Seagal's esoteric Buddhist and spiritualist stance.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songs_from_the_Crystal_Cave

Sugar Lee Hooper was a female Dutch singer whose real name was Marja Van Der Toom. Her Mother was a Jazz pianist, and her father a Hawaiian guitarist. She began playing drums as a child, but then had to stop because of a back injury. IN the 1990’s she began performing on a variety show called “Showmasters”; she adopted her stage name from her love of sweets and Lee Hooper who was Billie Holidays manager. Her musical inspirations were Billy Holiday, The Pointer Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sam and Dave. In 1998, she entered into a same sex marriage with Andrea Cape, the first of its kind in Holland. She shaved her head to show her support for cancer research, and in 2008 had a benign tumor removed from her hip. In 2010, she fell from a scooter and broke her hip; in the hospital, she suffered from cardiac arrest and hypoxia. She died on April 4, 2010.

Supercharge was a 1970’s rock band from England. Their biggest hit “You’ve gotta get up and Dance” was number one in Australia in 1977. That was their only big hit, but they had a good reputation as a live band, and even opened for the band Queen. The album self-titled “Supercharge” is another example of semi-nude men frolicking amongst each other. I don’t know why either, they don’t seem to have the bodies for frolicking, but I could be wrong.

Engelbert Humperdinck was born Arnold George Dorsey on May 2, 1936. He was born in India to parents who were British and Anglo-Indian. The family moved back to England where he learned how to play musical instruments. He joined the British military in the 1950’s, and when his enlistment was up in 1958, he recorded his first single “I’ll never fall in Love again.” He continued to play nightclubs after his bout with tuberculosis, but was having only moderate success. In 1965, Arnold teamed up with Gordon Mills, who suggested he change his name to the famous 19^th century composer Engelbert Humperdinck. The rest, as you say, is history. I just included his album cover because if anyone else had this name without his looks, well let us just say they may not have had the same fortune.

Captain and Tennille was an American pop band from the early 1970’s until the late 1980’s. They hit the billboard top 100 with “Love will keep Us Together” and “Do that To Me One More Time.” For some reason they decided to do a remake of song originally sung by Willis Alan Ramsey called “Muskrat Candlelight.” It was renamed “Muskrat love” and the Captain used his synthesizer to mimic muskrats courting. I am not making this up people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muskrat_Love

Reginald Siki was better known as Sweet Daddy Siki, the professional wrestler from the seventies and eighties. Wrestling wasn’t his only passion though; he has a talent for singing and playing country and western music. He released this record while he was still wrestling, and continues to play country music at the Duke bar in Toronto Canada. His music doesn’t sound too bad.

Allen Smethhurst was an English postman and singer from the early 1950’s till the late 1960’s. He hummed tunes on his route, and sent an audition tape to the BBC, which earned him a spot on the show and a recording gig. He made the record and promoted his songs, but he suffered from nerves and stage fright. In 1966, he recorded the song “Hev Yew Gotta Loight, Boy?” which actually knocked the Beatles off the top spot on the East Anglia Hit Parade. In the 1970’s he stopped singing, drank all his money away, and died at a Salvation Army Hostel in 2000.

Wing Han Tsang, or as her fans call her Wing, emigrated from Hong Kong to New Zealand in the 1980’s. She began singing for nursing home patients in local homes around Auckland. She received a grant for her singing from the Manakau City Council, and launched her debut CD “Musical Memories of Les Miserable’s” and “Phantom of the Opera.” If you are moved to tears by her performance (I was), then you can have Wing call and sing you a song over the phone. I am so doing this!

http://www.wingmusic.co.nz/index.html

The Shaggs were an all girl band from Fremont, New Hampshire. The group members were sisters Dorothy, Betty, Helen, and Rachel Wiggins; they were formed in 1968 at the insistence of their father. He thought they had talent and potential. They released their first record “Philosophy of the World” in 1969 with little fanfare or attention. They played locally until 1975, the year their father died.

Fellow hubber FatFreddysCat had found this link, indicating that this bands story is being made into a play on Broadway. Cool!

FatFreddysCat profile: http://hubpages.com/profile/FatFreddysCat

Link to play: http://theater.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/theater/revi

The Scorpions are a heavy metal band from Germany that was synonymous with the power ballads of the eighties, like “I’m Still loving You” and “Rock You like a Hurricane”. When I lived in Germany they headlined almost every Monsters of Rock concert fest. Their lyrics and album covers have created quite of bit of controversy though. In 1976 they released “Virgin Killers,” and the on the cover was a nude preteen girl. The album cover was banned in the U.S. and England, so another cover featuring the band was released instead for those markets. They also created an uproar with their release of “Animal Magnetism” in 1980. The album cover depicts a dog and woman in positions of submission in front of a man. The controversy didn’t hurt the music, the album went platinum in 1991.

James Whild Lea was a multi-talented musician who sang backing vocals for the band Slade in the 1980’s. He stayed with the band until 1991, where he took time off to study psychotherapy. He didn’t take it up as a profession, he continued producing music for other bands. In 2007, he released the solo album “Therapy”; I can’t decide if this is his therapy album or just an exercise in creativity. You decide.

Wayne Cochran is the white brother James brown never knew he had. The 6’2” singer embraced R&B and Soul music as a child in Georgia. He began playing and performing the musical genre to audiences that wouldn’t normally James Brown or Otis Redding in the 1960’s and seventies. He stopped performing music in front of audiences in 1981; last word was that he was a preacher on a public access channel in Miami, Florida.

AC/DC was an Australian rock and roll band formed in 1973 by the brothers Malcolm and Angus young. The band went through a few lineup changes before releasing their first album “High Voltage” in 1975. This album had the song “She’s got Big Balls,” which was a song about Bon Scott’s ex-wife Irene. I think the lyrics say it all.

AC/DC released “Highway to Hell” in July of 1979; this is also the last album that Bon Scott performed on alive. It was a big commercial success worldwide, especially in the United States. The album contained many songs that hit the top twenty including “Touch too much,” “Girls got Rhythm,” and “Shot down in Flames.” The last words spoken by Bon Scott were “Shazbot, na-nu na-nu,” which was the phrase Robin Williams used on the show “Mork and Mindy.” The words were uttered after the song “Night Prowler” ended. On February 19, 1980, Bon Scott went out for a night of heavy drinking, and with the help of a friend was left passed out in a parked car outside the club called the Music Machine. Alistair Kinnear came back the next morning to check on Bon, and found his lifeless body in the front seat. He was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. The coroner concluded that Bon had choked on his own vomit and died from acute alcohol poisoning. AC/DC considered disbanding, but Bon Scotts mother felt that her son would have wanted them to continue. They selected Brian Johnson to lead the band, and he has been the lead singer since.

In 1985, Richard Ramirez was responsible for a series of murders in Los Angeles and was referred to as the “Night Stalker.” He was a fan of AC/DC, and even claimed that he wore the bands t-shirt while committing crimes; in one of the crimes scenes an AC/DC hat was found. Once captured, he began saying “Hail Satan” in court and carved a pentagram into his palms. Parents began protesting outside of AC/DC concerts because of Ramirez’s actions, implying the band was responsible for the killer’s behavior. The song “Night Prowler” is about a boy sneaking into his girlfriend’s bedroom, but the rhythm has a bit of a sinister tone to it. Judge for yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC/DC#Scott.27s_death_.281980.29

Lynyrd Skynyrd was a Southern rock band formed in 1964 by some teenage friends who lived in Jacksonville, Florida. Ronnie Van Zant, Allen Collins, and Gary Rossington formed the band the “The Noble Five” before adding Larry Junstrom and Bob Burns. Once they joined the band, they were working through band names before settling on “Leonard Skinnerd,” which was derived from the name of a notorious gym teacher who harassed the boys about their long hair. Eventually the spelling was changed to Lynyrd Skynyrd , and the gym teacher who harassed them even introduced them to the crowd at a concert held in Jacksonville, Florida. Eventually Artemis Pyle became the drummer, and backup singers Leslie Hawkins, Cassie Gaines and JoJo Billingsley were added to the line up. Cassie Gaines brought her brother Steve Gaines to try out for the band, and after a few trial shows he was also added to the lineup.

The band released another record, began living the rock and roll lifestyle of drugs, booze, and women. The band members decided to clean up their act and released “Street Survivors” in 1977. Steve Gaines talent flourished on the album, and the band had great hopes that for the tour they were about to embark on. On October 20 1977, the band charted a Convair 240 plane to take them to their next show in Greenville, South Carolina. The plane ran out of gas before it could reach the Greenville, so the pilot attempted an emergency landing on a small airstrip nearby. The plane crashed in a forest outside of Gillsburg, Mississippi. The impact of the crash killed Ronnie Van Zant, Steve and Cassy Gaines, manager Dean Kilpatrick, both the pilot and co-pilot. The other band members were seriously injured but survived.

The original album cover above shows Steve Gaines standing in flames, so the record company changed it to an earlier picture of the band members standing together, with no flames in the picture. Ronnie Van Zants brother Johnny eventually reunited the band with some of the surviving members, and began touring the country as Lynyrd Skynyrd again. They still tour to this day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynyrd_Skynyrd

The Kasenetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus was a bubblegum "supergroup" created by record producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz, consisting of various Super K Production groups.” (Wiki Orchesteral Circus). On their album "Kasenetz-Katz Super Circus" was actually five groups: The 1910 Fruitgum Company, Ohio Express, Music Explosion, Shadows of Night, and Professor Morrison’s Lollipop. It was a concept album, developed to perpetuate “Bubble Gum” music. The genre focused on generic bands, producing one hit wonders, which focused on singles that pre-teens and teens could afford. It flourished during the sixties and seventies, but the fad soon faded out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasenetz-Katz_Singing_Orchestral_Circus

©2011 Augustine A. Zavala