Beyond the sheer sonic wonderment contained in the grooves of this record, Sharon Tandy has an interesting story as well. Born in South Africa, Sharon appeared in a South African beat film while still a teen, and then relocated to the UK at the insistence of her management. Sharon met with moderate success, and was lucky enough to record at Stax studios in Memphis in 1966. For this track, she is backed by trhe UK's legendary psych/ beat group LES FLEUR DES LYS who turn in (in my opinion) the finest performance of their career, which was a career FULL of highlights.
The band whips up an imminently danceable psychedelic racket (which also contains one of my all time favorite guitar breaks) yet Sharon still remains on top of it all with a commanding, restrained and incredibly sexy vocal performance. This is the stuff dreams are made of, kids. Hold on, indeed.
from 1967...
SHARON TANDY - HOLD ON
8 comments:
Sharon's the best. All her stuff is worth searching out on some level - same with the Fleur De Lys' various side projects. I did a post on the Chocolate Frog:
http://schlagerlager.wordpress.com/?s=sharon
Definitely a psychadelic style raw 60s sound. Thanks for sharing.
If I'm not mistaken, the b-side of this was a cover of the great Lorraine Ellison / Jerry Ragovoy work Stay With Me. Of course, it can't match up to the original but it's sort of interesting in its minimalist approach compared to the huge production of the original. Basically Sharon singing and Bryan Haworth (?) hitting the bottom strings of a guitar.
amazing!
Most excellent!
Wow, that rocked.
There were two releases of this 45 with different flips - one being as Mike says above, "Stay With Me", the other with the over the top "Daughter Of The Sun", again with Les Fleur De Lys at their bestest - check the song and be shaken. Sharon recorded lots of other great stuff but here she is ten feet tall.
Have you seen the color clips of her at the Speakeasy on French TV from '67 on YouTube?!
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