I Was The Groupie And He Was The Star Song Download
Josefina Polly
"Superstar" is a 1969 song written by Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell, with a songwriting credit also given to Delaney Bramlett,[1] that has been a hit for many artists in different genres in the years since. The best-known versions are by the Carpenters in 1971, and by Luther Vandross in 1983.
In its first recorded incarnation, the song was called "Groupie (Superstar)", and was released in December 1969 as the B-side of the Delaney & Bonnie single "Comin' Home". Released by Atco Records in the United States and Atlantic Records in the rest of the world, the full credit on the single was "Delaney & Bonnie and Friends featuring Eric Clapton".
The original version of "Superstar" finally surfaced in 1972, when the album D&B Together was released, shortly before Delaney and Bonnie's marriage and collaboration ended. That version was also included as a bonus track on a 2006 reissue of the 1970 album, Eric Clapton.
"Superstar" became most popular after its treatment by the Carpenters. Richard Carpenter became aware of the song after watching Bette Midler sing it on the February 15, 1971 edition of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.[2]
Produced by Richard Carpenter with Jack Daugherty, it was recorded using members of the Wrecking Crew, a famed collection of Los Angeles-area session musicians. Because the original subject matter of the song was more risqué than was typical for the Carpenters, Richard changed a lyric in the second verse from "And I can hardly wait/To sleep with you again" to the less suggestive "And I can hardly wait/To be with you again."[4] The track was finished in one take.[5]
In the early 1980s, American R&B/soul singer-songwriter Luther Vandross had "Superstar" in his stage act, sometimes in a rendition that stretched to 12 minutes, with vocal interpolations and an interpretive dancer.
Vandross then recorded "Superstar" in 1983 in a slower, more soulful fashion, as part of a medley with Stevie Wonder's "Until You Come Back to Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)" on his album Busy Body. Released as a single the following year, it became an R&B hit, reaching number 5 on the Billboard Top R&B Singles chart.[16] It did not have much pop crossover effect, however, only reaching number 87 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Second-season American Idol contestant Ruben Studdard found his melismatic, R&B groove early in the Final 12 rounds when he performed a Vandross-influenced "Superstar". It got rave reviews from the judges and established Studdard as one of the early leaders in the competition, a position he held through his narrow May 2003 win over second-place finisher Clay Aiken.
By now his signature song, Studdard recorded "Superstar" as the B-side of his June 2003 first single and number two hit, "Flying Without Wings". Studdard earned a 2004 Grammy Award nomination for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for "Superstar", but he lost to his own idol, Vandross, who won for "Dance with My Father". Studdard's treatment was also included on his December 2003 debut album, Soulful.
Starr first attended concerts around Los Angeles in late 1968 at the age of 11, together with older friends who had dropped out of school. She claimed to have lost her virginity when she was 12 to Spirit guitarist Randy California after a gig at Topanga, California.[3] Iggy Pop slept with her when she was 13, as reflected in his song "Look Away".[4][5] Starr also claimed to have had relationships with David Bowie, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and Johnny Thunders.[6]
Starr became one of the first "baby groupies" who in the early 1970s frequented the Rainbow Bar and Grill, the Whisky a Go Go, and Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco; these were trendy nightclubs on West Hollywood's Sunset Strip. The girls were named as such because of their young age. She got started after a friend invited her to the Whisky A Go Go at the age of 14.[7] Starr later described herself at that period as having been "nuts to begin with. I always liked getting into trouble".[7] She had considered herself unattractive, so she had a nose job when she was 15.[7] During the time Starr was a groupie, she continued to live at home with her family and attended Palos Verdes High School to placate her parents.[2][7]
In 1973, Starr gave a candid interview for the short-lived Los Angeles-based Star magazine, and boasted to the journalist that she considered herself to be "the best" of all the local groupies.[2] She also claimed that she was closely acquainted with some of rock music's leading musicians, such as David Bowie, Rod Stewart, and Alice Cooper. When asked how she attracted the attention of the musicians, Starr maintained it was because of the outrageous glam rock clothing she habitually wore.[2] She was often photographed alongside well-known rock musicians; these photos appeared in American rock magazines such as Creem and Rock Scene.
Starr admitted to having gotten into fights with rival groupies. Lori Mattix, a fellow baby groupie, claimed that Starr once told her to "keep her hands" off Jimmy Page, saying "if you touch him, I will shoot you. He's mine."[8] Her closest friends in Los Angeles were fellow groupies Shray Mecham and "Queenie".[2] Model Bebe Buell described Starr as having been one of the two top Los Angeles groupies of the era, adding that "every rock star who came to Los Angeles wanted to meet her".[7]
Starr ran away from home when she was 16 after meeting Johnny Thunders, guitarist in the glam rock band the New York Dolls.[9] She went to live with him in New York City. Their relationship did not last, mainly due to his violent jealousy and drug addiction.[10] He had wanted to marry her after she became pregnant with his child, but she refused and instead had an abortion.[10] Tired of the physical abuse Thunders often inflicted upon her, and unable to adjust to life in New York, Starr moved back to Los Angeles. She claimed that "he [Thunders] tried to destroy my personality. After I was with him, I just wasn't Sable Starr anymore. He really destroyed the Sable Starr thing".[10] Starr made frequent visits to New York, where she had an affair with Richard Hell, befriended Nancy Spungen, and participated in the local burgeoning punk rock scene. By the early 1980s, she was no longer part of the groupie milieu.[10]
You probably got confused several years ago when sculptor Nick Cave started to get a lot of press coverage for his "Soundsuits." We certainly were! But he is not "our" Nick Cave, the musician. But now Nick Cave the musician is a sculptor too or more specifically a ceramicist!
The new high profile NBC TV show Extended Family is using a Buffalo Tom for its the theme song. To think that a local group has the theme song to a network show is amazing.
I am searching for a Portuguese rap song, which was almost over 8 minutes long, and it's from a guy who says a story about himself, that he was approached by a fan to have sex, and he ended up not having sex with her because he didn't have and couldn't buy condoms, so the moral of the story was to not practice unsafe sex in any circumstance.
JF- I usually just stay home, read books, listen to music and go to practice. BGN- Everyone thinks you must live this life filled with lots of friends and things going on. JF- Yeah those days are over. I had this conversation with a friend the other day. My birthday is on December 27th. And for years, for many, many years we would start partying on the 24th and go straight through to New Year's Day. Everyday constantly, so high, so inebriated-just outta control. The whole Real Kids entourage!! Nowadays-completely different. I mean last year I spent it in the hospital. I almost died on my birthday last year. I almost died on my birthday!! The year before that I was in the hospital as well and the year before that too, I had an operation then. But back then it was "Yeah Party!!" But we'd always play on New Year's Eve, at the Rat or at Cantone's. We'd just sober up enough to play the gig, though sometimes we didn't do that either. BGN- And that was a paying gig? JF- Oh yeah New Year's Eve was always a big night! I had a job but I would take off between Christmas and New Year's every year. And I remember one New Year's Eve at the Rat it was packed downstairs and there was a line to get into the Rat that was all the way down to the House of Pancakes down the street! And of course Alpo got in a fight. Some kids from New Hampshire said something and a big fight broke out on stage. It was so crowded the bouncers couldn't get to the stage. So we were up on stage beatin' the hell outta these guys ourselves. Taking beer pitchers and smackin' them over the head, kicking one kid's teeth out with steel toed boots. It was bad. When the bouncers finally got to the stage, after we had beat them all bloody, they took them out back and finished them off. And you know what I'm talking about. If those guys got you it meant at least a week in the hospital or worse. I saw some nasty shit there. BGN- The Rat bouncers had quite a reputation! JF- Oh yeah!! We were always there. We were Jimmy's pet band for a long time and we'd rehearse upstairs there. It was our hang out, play gigs - it was everything. BGN- And you made money from those gigs there? JF- Yeah I think the first time I ever made a thousand dollars or 1,500 was at The Rat. BGN- That was good money then! So between 1975 and say '80 you had big money gigs? JF- We started playing in '74. And in '75 the gigs at the Rat were four nights in a row, Thursday through Sunday. Friday and Saturday you could get a lot of people in there. Then we started playing places that were further out, like the North Shore where Billy Borgioli and Alpo were from, from that we got a lot of fans in New Hampshire. And a lot of those fans would come down to Boston to see us play. And the scene was getting big. Every year it was bigger and bigger. And then the day I walked into Cantone's everything changed. BGN- When was that? JF- 1976. I was living with my wife at the time, Marilyn, on Batterymarch Street and our apartment backed up right on to Cantone's. We were coming home from the movies downtown, and that area was dead at night then, we could hear something it sounded like music, we could hear the bass so we decided to check it out. We walk in and there's nobody there. The only people there were the bartender and a waitress just sitting there doing nothing and some really awful cover band. I said to the manager "I could get this place full for you if you give me a chance to do it. My band can play here." That's how Cantone's started. First time was just a Friday, then we did Friday and Saturdays then eventually it was full time, every day. Oedipus got his hands on it and started talking about it. People needed another club to go to. The Club in Cambridge was no fun and The Rat people didn't want to go to the Club. So all of a sudden there was this place with tons of parking. I still have the posters from those first gigs. I had to draw maps in the posters to show people how to get there from the subway!! That area was like a no man's land. There wasn't even a Quincy Market back then. BGN- I always thought you worked at Cantone's and that's how it started. JF- Yeah after a while I worked there part time in the kitchen to get a few extra bucks. The band was busy at the time, we started playing a lot and we had a little bit of money coming in. I moved from Batterymarch St to upstairs over Cantone's and we could rehearse up there so it worked out well for us. BGN- Upstairs over Cantone's, I heard there were things going on up on the fifth and sixth floors; they had it done over like a private club kinda. JF- Those guys were mobbed up big time, that wasn't just a rumor. They were lower level but definitely with the mob and they didn't take shit. You wouldn't want to get on their bad side ever! They had all kinds of stuff going on there. We first started doing gigs on Friday and Saturday. On Wednesdays and Thursdays they still had belly dancing-belly dancing! For a while they had strippers in there and then the guy who ran the Other Side came to Mario and pitched the idea to make it into a gay bar. They tried that for a month but it didn't work out. The Other Side was a big bar and you could go dance there. The Modern Lovers played in there a few times. There wasn't any place to play back then. We had to make our own gigs. BGN- It was all cover bands in that era. JF- Yeah it was awful. The early 70's were a real bad time for music. BGN- In Brett Milano's book he mentions disco to you and you were ANGRY. As if you were STILL angry about it. And I'm thinking Yeah!! I'm still angry too! It was bad. Does he know how bad it was and all the shit we had to put up with?? JF- When you're 15, 16, 17 and you really believe in rock'n'roll and all you can get is disco then you're never going to lose the anger over that. Even 40 some odd years later I still feel the same about that crap when I hear it. Ugh you know, Saturday Night Fever and the Bee Gees and all that shit. But at the Other Side they played Motown and Stax, shit that you could dance to, it was still rock n roll, that shit ain't disco!! BGN- So let's stay with that era: you are out of the Modern Lovers and you're starting your own band; The Kids. At that time there's stuff like cover bands, James Taylor, Carly Simon, The Eagles .But your mind is focused on straight up Rock'n'Roll. JF- Oh yeah. Nothing different than what I'm doing now. My focus hasn't changed at all. BGN- What were you listening to at that time? JF- The obvious- Kinks and Stones, The Troggs, The Pink Fairies- I listened to them a lot. ACDC, I think their first record came out in '74. I remember hearing that and thinking "This shit rocks!!" And the Stooges obviously, and David Bowie. But at the time that was it, that's all there was. I had to go to Discount Records in Harvard Square and leaf through the imports to find out what was going on in music that was worth listening to. Curt Naihersy worked there and would recommend a record he thought I might like. This is before we played together. I knew Curt from when I was in the Modern Lovers. He was in a band called The Knobs with Richie Johnson. They were around before '74, it had to be '71. I played with Curt in '74. BGN- While you were in the Modern Lovers, you played all Jonathan Richmond songs. You weren't playing John Felice songs? JF- NO. Even though I was starting to write stuff. BGN- Did he know you were writing stuff? JF- Yeah. And the rest of the band wanted to do some of my songs. BGN- Was that the source of the acrimony that made you leave? JF - There were a lot of things. We went from being offered six figures for a record contract to finally signing for $45,000 but originally they were offering us $650,000. That was because we couldn't make up our minds. There was in-fighting. There was a lot of tension because of the money left on the table just by being unable to decide. I was just starting to get really disgusted by the whole thing and I was also tired of being the baby of the band. We played that gig in New York and it was a really good gig for us but on the way home I was like "I'm done." BGN- Is it true Jonathan had the Howard Johnson's TV dinner boxes lining his bedroom walls in Natick? JF- I wouldn't say "lined" but yeah he had them up on his walls. He was into Trademarks and Howard Johnson's had those colors, the turquoise and orange and he was into that shit. When we'd play Roadrunner we'd bring it down and he'd go into this rap and talk about Howard Johnson's. He was really into Howard Johnson's. BGN- You mention how he'd 'bring it down', you do that. Did you learn that from him? JF - Kinda probably. We both learned it from soul bands maybe like Otis Redding and James Brown. It creates a dynamic-you wanted to keep people dancing. When we played in the old days there were dance floors - people DANCED. It wasn't a crowded mosh pit, it was dancing. It was rock'n'roll and that's what you're supposed to do - shake your ass. So if you could bring it down to that beat-it was a tool. BGN- Is there anything thing else you think you learned from Jonathan song writing wise? JF- The love of rock'n'roll. We don't have a lot of similarities in our writing styles. But you want to be able to get it across as simply as possible. You don't want people guessing what you're trying to say. Jonathan was older than me by five years but he turned me on to a bunch of shit when we were growing up together. BGN- And it's unbelievable that you were living close to each other as kids. JF- Next door. He had a basketball hoop in his driveway which was right outside my bedroom. BGN- Did he leave Natick before you? JF- Yeah he took off and traveled through Europe for a while and he went to Israel for a while. While he was doing that we were in touch by mail and I kept bugging him about starting a band. I was like "What the fuck is this solo shit? It doesn't cut it. You need a band." I kept bugging him and finally he caved. He wanted to continue playing, using a guitar and amp, but by himself. A lot of those songs ended up on the first Modern Lovers album, the songs he used to play by himself on Cambridge Common. He would have kept doing that if someone hadn't pushed him into do it with a band. BGN- It's such a strange concept. If someone is playing solo or acoustically I'm really not interested. JF- Rock'n'roll really needs that whole delivery system in your face-and the drama. You need that. Jonathan does OK now with him and his drummer. He's refined his act now to exactly what he's always wanted to do. He didn't want, you know, Jerry on keyboard and he certainly didn't want another guitarist. When we first started playing we were loud and abrasive in a lot of ways. And we'd bring the volume up and down. But he kept chipping away at it more and more and I was getting frustrated more and more. He wanted us to play at a whisper. Sometimes I felt like he was doing it to bust my balls. But he was going in one direction and I was heading in a different one and that was the end of that. BGN- So then you started the Kids. At that time are you in Boston or in Natick? JF- Boston. I moved out of Natick when I was 15. I was playing with Kevin Glasheen, he was in the Classic Ruins. Kevin grew up with us in the same neighborhood, too. He played drums, we got Curt Naihersy to play guitar and we had this kid named Jeff playing the bass. That was the band. This was like 1974. BGN- And what are you playing? Covers? JF- We did a lot of cover songs like Too Many Fish in the Sea, Pushing Too Hard. But I was writing too. BGN- What originals did you have then, anything we know? JF- All KIndsa Girls, Common at Noon, My Baby's Book and Just Like Darts that was a very early song. BGN- Really?!? That early! JF- Yeah like 1975. BGN- That's surprising! It's just that All Kindsa Girls is such a massive song and for it to be cobbled together, written that early is amazing. It's sophisticated writing! JF- It just came to me. I was driving around listening to the oldies station and this melody came into my head. But I didn't just come out with it in one day. I kept working on it. As you say-cobbled together. I had all these songs I was living down in the financial district and I was in between bands, I auditioned for the Heartbreaker