It’s a party this Saturday, thrown by the Ponderosa Stomp in partnership with Lincoln Center Out of Doors: “She’s Got the Power!”, a girl-group extravaganza featuring Ronnie Spector, LaLa Brooks, and – yes – Lesley Gore of “It’s My Party” fame, not too mention numerous other chanteuses from the Swinging Sixties: Arlene Smith (former lead singer of The Chantels), Baby Washington, Barbara Harris (of The Toys), Beverly Warren, Brenda Reid and Lillian Walker (of The Exciters), Louise Murray (of The Jaynetts), Margaret Ross (of The Cookies), Maxine Brown, Nanette Licori (of Reparata and the Delrons), and Peggy Santiglia Davison and Jiggs Sirico (of The Angels®).
The concert takes place Saturday in New York at the Damrosch Park Bandshell from 5 to 10 p.m., preceded by a “Girl Talk” symposium, at the David Rubenstein Atrium from noon to 4 p.m., complete with star appearances, expert analyses, and rare film footage.
For a full schedule of events, click here. Come get your girl-power groove on this Saturday with this unforgettably hardcore roster female rock legends!
Beverly Warren, Brenda Reid, and Lillian Walker of the Exciters will be among the girl-group legends appearing this Saturday, July 30, as part of “She’s Got the Power!,” a joint presentation by the Ponderosa Stomp and Lincoln Center Out of Doors. The concert in New York runs from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., and is preceded by a symposium on these legendary girl groups and their influence on rock ‘n’ roll. For a full schedule, click here.
Also appearing will be Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes, LaLa Brooks (formerly of The Crystals) and Lesley Gore With Arlene Smith (former lead singer of The Chantels), Baby Washington, Barbara Harris (of The Toys), Louise Murray (of The Jaynetts), Margaret Ross (of The Cookies), Maxine Brown, Nanette Licori (of Reparata and the Delrons), and Peggy Santiglia Davison and Jiggs Sirico (of The Angels®). The artists will be backed by The Boyfriends,with Jeremy Chatzky as musical director. Don’t miss it!
Jaded ears may be crying over hearing this warhorse again. This horse can still kick however in the hands of a master. Case in point – Detroit vocalist Spyder Turner’s version.
This novelty take of “Stand By Me” includes impersonations of Jackie Wilson, David Ruffin, Billy Stewart, Chuck Jackson and Smokey Robinson and comes from Turner’s audition tape to MGM. The phrasing in the beginning demonstrates that Turner is a great singer in his own right. The masses agreed and in ’67 “Stand by Me” hit #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #3 on the Soul charts.
If you have seen veteran R&B performers live they often include a song in which they mimic other performer’s vocals and moves. They may have even done it to this song. Chalk another one up for Spyder Turner.
Spyder Turner performs at the Detroit Breakdown in NYC on July 31, 2010.
They hate CDs, but apparently they like the Interwebs okay. The mad geniuses and longtime Stomp supporters at Norton Records (label co-owner Miriam Linna moderated a memorable oral history with Question Mark at the 2009 Ponderosa Stomp Conference) have launched a new podcast to feed your ears, beaming out straight across the cyber-spaceways from their Brooklyn-based Sputnik.
Norton house band the A-Bones will also be striking out soon for the mystic East, with five dates scheduled (starting this Friday) in Japan, sharing bills with the 5,6,7,8′s and Jackie & the Cedrics.
Mystic Knight of the Mau Mau and recent Lincoln Center debutant Mike Hurtt is also dusting off his suitcase to play gigs in Portland, OR and Spain with soul legend and 2004 Ponderosa Stomp headliner Gino Washington.
Play the video below to see Gino ride his pony with Hurtt’s Party Stompers in Detroit earlier this summer.
“The third night of the inaugural Lincoln Center edition of the Ponderosa Stomp — the annual spring resurrection of forgotten roots-rock and R&B heroes and heroines, founded and held in New Orleans — was an oddly formal affair, compared to the outdoor soul and rockabilly shows presented earlier in the week. ‘Everybody get on your feet/You make me nervous when you’re in your seat,’ Robert Parker sang on Sunday night in a well-preserved voice at the start of his 1966 hit ‘Barefootin’,’ one of the many Crescent City R&B classics associated with the evening’s honoree, producer-arranger-songwriter Wardell Quezergue. But sitting down is where the otherwise delighted audience at Alice Tully Hall stayed during most of the two-hour revue. In New Orleans, when a song like that is in the air, anything short of a shimmy is against the law.
But Quezergue, who turns 80 this year, deserves the lofty setting. In the Sixties and Seventies, he earned the nickname ‘The Creole Beethoven’ for his masterful blend of New Orleans rhythms and commercial wisdom in bedrock soul recordings such as Earl King’s ‘Trick Bag’ (1962), Professor Longhair”s ‘Big Chief’ (1964) and King Floyd’s ‘Groove Me’ (1970), then on mainstream collaborations with Paul Simon and Willie Nelson. At Lincoln Center, Quezergue conducted a ten-piece band from a chair as more than half a dozen of his original charges, including Dr. John, the Dixie Cups, Jean Knight and Tammy Lynn, recreated their biggest hits with him.”
And Jon Pareles covered the event for the New York Times, writing in part that, “the Dixie Cups, the New Orleans girl group, had distributed napkins before the concert, to be waved over the New Orleans second-line parade beat, and they got the audience up and dancing for ‘Iko Iko,’ which they turned into a medley of Mardi Gras songs and ‘When the Saints Go Marching In.’ After their segment, Rosa Hawkins of the Dixie Cups turned to Mr. Quezergue and said, ‘Thanks for the hits.’”
