Harley part 4

Merci à Filles Sourires-visiteur Frans for sending me two more mp3's with Harley Davidson-covers (find earlier posts here, here and here). Maybe I should change the name of my blog to Filles En Harley. But then I would not be able to post Belle & Sebastian's live-version (questionalbe quality) of the Serge-song. B&S are a very versatile indie-rockband, who also do James Brown-covers, and I have a version of Poupée de Cire by them as well.
Of better quality (okay, well, you decide) is Harley by Gina X. This German two-piece is best known by their electroclash-hit No G.D.M.Their version of Harley Davidson is in the vein of Serge's later disco-work, like Love on the Beat.
What do you think is the best version of the song so far, Brigitte and Serge excluded?

Belle & Sebastian - Harley Davidson (live)
Hear Here

Gina X - Harley Davidson
Hear Here

Nanette

Radio Oh-la-la's Natasha keeps on delivering the good stuff. Care for some disco?

"Nanette Workman belongs to a special breed of Québécois artists, who as immigrants were willing to live in Québec and learn French rather than coast along as an English minority. Nanette may have started her singing and acting career in English in her native United States, but in the mid-1960s when Québécois culture was en vogue, Nanette was not only crowned Best Female Discovery of 1967 as a French-language artist, she had also become one of their own.

How does a rising young television star and Broadway singer from Mississippi end up in Montréal? First, she met Tony Roman (Anthony d'Ambrosio) in a New York City club, who offered her the chance to sing a rock version of Et Maintenant by Gilbert Bécaud. Nanette’s talent was more than obvious, but unfortunately, so was her broken French. Her accent was such an issue that Tony Roman had to create his own record company to record Nanette.

Nanette learned French and charmed audiences with her American accent, appearing often on television, in particular on the show Jeunesse d'aujourd'hui, a sort of Quebecois version of Soul Train. Her second single was called Peint en noir, a French version of The Rolling Stones’ Paint it Black. In 1968 she not only sang back-up on The Rolling Stones’ Honky Tonk Women, but also for John Lennon, Elton John and many other big stars, never mind parts in many movies that also involves extensive name dropping.

In Paris she sang with Johnny Halliday, touring several continents before returning to Québec in 1974. That year, she recorded many hits, including a French version of Lady Marmalade. Another hit that definitely shows off her voice is the 1978 version of Ce soir on danse from the rock opera Starmania, written by Québec-France dream team Luc Plamondon and Michel Berger. Of all the duets Nanette performed, one of the favourites remains Aimer d’amourwith Québec’s first-ever French-language funk artist, Boule Noire (Georges Thurston), who also learned French and made Québec his home."

Nanette Workman - Ce Soir On Danse
Hear Here

Nanette Workman - Lady Marmelade
Hear Here

Boule Noire & Nanette Workman - Aimer d'Amour
Hear Here

Harley, plus en plus

And the Harley Davidson-covers just keep on a'coming - this here is a very radical version by bigbeat-godfather J Saul Kane, better known as Depth Charge. Don't know who the fille is who sings the song like she's high as a kite. But boy, do I love that phat seventies organ sound. And yes, the clicks and glitches are supposed to be in the song. It's taken from this album, thanks to monsieur La Rue again for the mp3.



Depth Charge - Harley Davidson
Hear Here

Lio

Natasha of Radio Oh-la-la-fame has written a nice story about "Belgian baby doll" Lio:

"In the 1960s when French teenybopper France Gall sang Les Sucettes supposedly about lollypops at age 19, she admitted being too naive to understand the true meaning of what she was singing. In the 1980s when Belgian baby doll Lio sang and danced around to Banana Split at age 17, she knew perfectly well what that ‘sudden avalanche of whipped cream’ was all about.

Although she has had more success as an actress, fashion designer and posing naked on all fours, Lio has always insisted on a singing career and managed to bring out quite few albums. Such a feat would not have been possible without the help of many a man, including maestro Marc Moulin of Telex fame who produced Banana Split and French singer Alain Chamfort, who helped her with an album entitled L’Amour Toujours, which, well, flopped. The fact that Lio’s long singing career is the result of sheer perseverance rather than talent is in itself quite remarkable.

Another one of her hits was Amoureux Solitaires, which sounds terribly happy if you don’t understand French. Luckily for the Anglo-Saxon world, Banana Split was adapted into English and renamed Marie Antoinette. Even the Belgian government deemed it appropriate to mention Lio alongside other, more famous Belgian singers such as Maurane and Axelle Red, although Lio gets the honourable mention of – and I quote – 'an impudent Portuguese immigrant'."

Lio - Amoureux Solitaires
Hear Here

Lio - Marie-Antoinette
Hear Here

Lio - Suite Sixteen
Hear Here

Clémentine

And another guest-selection, courtesy of Andrian @ Sunny (Brooklyn). The only scrap of information I could find in English about her, is this: "Clementine was born in Paris in 1963, her family name is Mitz and she is the daughter of the founder of Orange Blue records, himself a famous collector of jazz records in France. She sings in French, English, Spanish and Portuguese." (My Spanish is even worse then my French, so maybe here's more biographical info.) Clé is a well-known jazz-singer in Japan, she recorded a bunch of albums that are very pricey if you want to buy them in Europe. She also did one track with lounge-meister Stephane Pompougnac. First track posted here is a remixed version of her cover of the famous Un Homme et Une Femme-filmtheme.

Clémentine - Un Homme et Une Femme
Hear Here

Stephane Pompougnac feat. Clémentine - Morenito
Hear Here

Helena (2)

Helena Noguerra reappears on Filles Sourires courtesy of the stylish and sophisticated monsieur Monte la Rue. He send me an mp3 of Ollano. Merci bien, Monte - I have the album, released one album in 1996 (cd came out two years later, with a different cover) only on vinyl. Ollano was the brainchild of Xavier Jamaux and Marc Collin - the first also did filmscores and produces Bang Bang, the latter is nowadays best known as the guy behind the Nouvelle Vague-project.
The album (no title) is a real gem, with a general jazzy atmosphere, including smokey basslines, soulful Hammond-organs and two singers, actress Sandra Nkake and Helena. She's the one who sings the track posted here. If someone has the Air-remix of Ollano's Latitudes on mp3 (I have that one also only on vinyl), be so kind to send me the file, so I can post it as well.
If you click on Marc Collin's website, please check the singers he used for Nouvelle Vague - it says that the first album of the beautiful Marina Celeste will be released next year in France. Yay!

Ollano - Partir Revenir
Hear Here

Anahy/Les Calamités

Swiss teen-singer Anahy scored a minor hit with Jardin Secret in Germany, France and Switzerland, but the best song off of her fluffy debut-album (released last year) is the sunny and innocent Premier en Amour, a song like a guilty pleasure. Reminds me a lot of the young France Gall.


Anahy - Premier en Amour
Hear Here.


And thanks to Joachim, here's a song by French eighties-trio Les Calamités, a nouvelle-yeye-band (so to speak). Here is a very good website with lots of pictures and soundclips.

Les Calamités - Le Supermarché.
Hear Here.