Music History: Angela McCluskey

Angela McCluskey, “Times Square”, 2001, “The Things We Do”, Manhattan Records/Blue Note

Born in Glasgow in February of 1960, Angela McCluskey was a Scottish singer and song writer who performed both as a solo artist and a founding member of the Wild Colonials, an alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California. She began her music career at London’s EMI Records, first as a publicist and later employed in its video department. In London at an Indian restaurant in 1989, McCluskey met pianist and composer Paul Cantelon, whom she married.

McCluskey and Cantelon relocated to the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California. An impromptu 1992 jam session at the Irish coffee house Café Beckett brought together McCluskey, her husband Paul on violin and piano, guitarist David “Shark” Shaw, and Scott Roewe on bass, keyboards and saxophone. They were later joined by Ian Bernard on drums and percussion. This jazz session evolved into the Wild Colonials with future performances at Molly Malone’s Irish Pub and Café Largo, a popular nightclub and cabaret.

The Wild Colonials’s regular appearances at the Café Largo venue led to a contract with Geffen/DCG. Both their first two albums, the 1994 “Fruit of Life” and the 1996 “This Can’t Be Life” were released to critical acclaim. As a result of these successful releases, Wild Colonials became a headliner at the 1997 Lilith Fair. During this period, McCluskey also worked with many musical artists including Malcolm John Rebennack Jr (Dr. John); Cyndi Lauper; Michel Sanchez and Éric Mouquet (Deep Forest); and Joseph Lee Henry. In 2000, she released “Curio”, an album of torch songs recorded with Paul Cantelon, violinist Lili Haydn and cellist Martin Tillman.

Angela McCluskey relocated to Paris in 2001 and sang with the French electronic music trio Télépopmusik. She provided the vocals on Télépopmusik’s 2001 album “Genetic World” which included the successful “Breathe”, co-written with Stephan Haeri and Fabrice Dumont. Later reissued as a single in 2002, “Breathe” became a dual UK/US chart hit, a 2004 Grammy nominee, and a memorable theme song for Mitsubishi, Peugeot, and Visa Europe. McCluskey also lent her vocals to several songs on the Télépopmusik’s second studio album, the 2005 “Angel Milk”.

In 2004, McCluskey released her debut solo album “The Things We Do” through the Manhattan Records/Blue Note label. Photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber featured McCluskey and Paul Cantelon in his 2007 short film “Wine and Cupcakes” shot in New York’s Central Park. In this film, she does a spoken voice-over of “If I Ruled the World” and sings the 1934 jazz standard “Autumn in New York”. McCluskey released her second solo album in 2009, the “You Could Start a Fight in an Empty House” which included the song “Handle with Grace” backed by Télépopmusik. This album was followed by the 2011 “Here Comes the Sun” and two extended-play albums “Handle with Grace” and “Lambeth Palace”, all three recorded through New York’s Bernadette Records.

In 2014, Angela McCluskey wrote and performed “Catch a Falling Star”, a one woman play that focused on her Scottish upbringing and a brief encounter with Nina Simone. Having heard McCluskey’s vocals on Pandora in 2016, the electronic hip hop/jazz duo Big Gigantic featured her on their 2017 song “ The Little Things”. In the same year, McCluskey released through Bernadette Records “The Roxy Sessions”, a solo album recorded at New York City’s Roxy Hotel that featured a wide range of vocal styles. Her last recorded work was the January 2021 four-song EP “Between Ourselves” released exclusively on Bandcamp.

Through her career, Angela McCluskey worked with such artists as the electronic swing band Parov Stelar; rapper and songwriter Kendrick Lamar Duckworth; DJ and producer Morgan Wolf Page; Nigerian duo Kehinde Hassan and Taiwo Hassan (Christian Rich); Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber (Delirium); singer and songwriter Ambrosia Nicole Parsley; and Guns N’ Roses guitarist Richard Fortus. Angela McCluskey died at the age of sixty-four on the 14th of March in 2024 after falling into a coma following an emergency operation for a torn artery.

The Angela McCluskey website can be found at: http://www.angelamccluskey.com

Frances Faye: Music History

Photographer Unknown, “Frances Faye, circa 1940s, Vintage Studio Portrait, Collection of Tyler Alpern

Born in Brooklyn, New York in November of 1912, Frances Faye was an American cabaret and show-tune singer, recording artist, and pianist. She entertained audiences at sold-out shows in major nightclubs throughout the world over a career that spanned forty-five years.

Born Frances Cohen to a working-class family in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, Frances Faye attended Girls’ High School on Nostrand Avenue and planned to become a teacher. However at the age of fifteen, she was asked to fill in for a piano player who was scheduled for a banquet. A theatrical agent, who had attended the banquet, was impressed with Faye’s performance and signed her to a contract. Despite her parent’s entreaties, Faye was playing two months later in a Chicago nightclub at a salary of two hundred dollars a week.

Originally an accompanist on piano, Faye became a solo act while working in a popular nightclub in Detroit. She continued her professional career in New York City at the Club Richman, located near Carnegie Hall. Faye quickly developed a following of loyal fans at the Prohibition-era speakeasy Club Calais where she was booked solid for most of 1931. While still in her teens, Faye went from playing in New York City speakeasies to such venues as Harlem’s Cotton Club and La Martinique on West 57th Street. La Martinique launched the careers of many singers of the era and was the location for premiere parties among which was Walt Disney’s 1941 party for the Broadway premiere of “Dumbo”.

As her popularity grew, Frances Faye began working forty-eight weeks in one year’s time. She incorporated all the popular songs of the era into her performances including “Singing in the Rain” and “Love for Sale”. Faye played the Showplace in Lynbrook, Long Island in 1929 and entertained the passengers onboard the transatlantic S.S. Belgenland of the Red Star Line in 1931. She shared billing with Bing Crosby in January of 1932 at New York City’s Paramount Theater. In 1933, Faye was performing at Chicago’s Chez Paree, known for its glamorous atmosphere, elaborate dance numbers and top entertainers.

By the middle of the 1930s, Faye was established as a New York entertainer. She sold out venues and captured the audiences with her song delivery and strong piano playing. Typically doing three shows an evening, Faye became known, according to newspaper and radio commentator Walter Winchell, as “The Syncopating Cyclone-Originator of Zaz-Zu-Zaz”. Her contracts kept being extended and her salary kept rising. In 1938 Faye played at Billy Rose’s Casa Manana, a large outdoor amphitheater and restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas, known for its fountains and large revolving stage. Booked into London’s Paradise Club for a fortnight, Faye performed for over three months due to the demand.

In 1936, Bing Crosby, who had a long-term contract with Decca Records, brought Frances Faye to the company’s recording studio for her first record, a single containing “No Regrets” and “You’re Not the Kind of a Boy”. After she finished a performance in Chicago, she traveled to California to make an appearance in the Paramount 1937 comedy-romance “Double or Nothing”. Faye plays, with her usual energetic style, the musical number “After You” and scats in duets with Martha Raye and Bing Crosby. She stayed a few months in Los Angeles and performed nightly at its Famous Door nightclub. During one of her free times, Faye heard Bruz Fletcher sing his ballad “Drunk with Love” at the Sunset Strip’s Club Bali. This song would become one of her signature works.

During the 1940s, Faye transformed both herself and her style. After losing weight, she bought a new wardrobe and appeared in public dressed more elegantly. Latin rhythms, which characterized her later work, began appearing in her songs. The frenzied piano style of Faye’s work in the 1930s was replaced with a rich rhythmic accompaniment of guitar, bass and drums. Her 1946 album “Frances Faye” for International was more lyrical than her earlier works. Among the songs in this album was her first rendition of gay singer Bruz Fletcher’s “Drunk with Love”. Over her career, Faye included this song in her performances and on three separate albums.

In the late 1940s, Frances Faye was still playing to big crowds but had already begun performing on the new medium of network television. She rarely toured at this time and preferred only shows in Las Vegas, Florida, and her home state of California. Faye found a new source of income as a recording artist. She recorded for ten years with Capitol Records and then moved to Bethlehem Records, a major 1950s jazz label founded by Gus Wildi, For the four albums she recorded at Bethlehem, Faye worked with such musicians as Herbie Mann, Frank Rosolino, and Maynard Ferguson, as well as with conductor and arranger Russ Garcia. Some of the musicians were willing to record without credit due to contractual problems.

Faye’s shows became a fixture at the Sunset Strip’s Interlude and later at the downstairs nightclub Crescendo where she would be booked for months in a row. Many celebrities came to see her performances including Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, and Frank Sinatra, among others. While playing at the Hotel Riviera to capacity crowds, Faye tripped over a bath mat in her hotel room and broke her hip. For a period of eight years, she was in pain, had to endure three major operations and could not work for long periods of time. Faye used both crutches and cane to continue her performances. Due to the extent of her injury, she would appear already seated at her piano as the curtains parted. After a hip surgery alleviated her pain, Faye continued performing on tour into the early 1980s.

In 1978, Frances Faye appeared in her second film, “Pretty Baby” directed by Louis Malle; she played the role of an elderly cocaine-sniffing madam and retired from entertainment in the early 1980s. After a series of strokes, Frances Faye died at the age of seventy-nine in November of 1991 in the home she shared with her long-term partner Teri Shepherd.

Notes: Frances Faye had two brief marriages in the 1940s. The first was with Abe Frosch in January of 1942; the second was former football star Sam Farkas in October of 1944. At a nightclub in the late 1950s, Faye met the much younger, twenty-two year old woman named Teri Shepherd who became her life-long companion. Faye was very frank about her sexual orientation even as the press and her album covers referred to Shepherd as Faye’s secretary.

The majority of the information in this article was found in painter and educator Tyler Alpern’s extensive biography on Frances Faye, “Frances Faye: Let Me Hear It Now”. The article, the most complete of any of the sources I found on the internet, contains many anecdotes by friends and musicians who knew her. If you are interested in Faye’s accomplishments and life, this is the article to read. It is located at http://tyleralpern.com/Faye.html

I also recommend watching photographer Bruce Weber’s 2001 film journal “Chop Suey”. Narrated by Weber, this highly-pesonal, eclectic film looks back at Weber’s career, his subjects and the subtext of his work. Among the many archival film sections of the film are segments of Frances Faye performing aa well as segments in which Teri Shepherd discusses her life with Faye. The film is available on many venues including Tubi (free), Amazon Prime, and Apple TV

Top Insert Image: Maurice Seymour Studio, “Frances Faye”, Publicity Photo, Gelatin Silver Print

Second Insert Image: Frances Faye, “Relaxin’ with Frances Faye”, 1956, 33 i/3 Vinyl, Bethlehem Records

Third Insert Image: Theodore Reed, “Double or Nothing”, (Frances Faye and Martha Raye), 1937, Film Clip Photo, Cinematographer Karl Struss, Paramount Pictures

Fourth Insert Image: Frances Faye, “No Reservations”, 1955, 33 1/3 Vinyl, Mono, Capitol Records

Bottom Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Frances Faye”, circa 1950s, Studio Portrait, Gelatin Silver Print

Édith Piaf: Music History

Édith Piaf, “La Vie en Rose”, 1956 Film “Música de Siempre”

Édith Piaf was French singer, songwriter, cabaret performer, and film actress, noted as France’s chanteuse and one of the country’s most widely known international stars. Her autobiographical songs specialized in chanson and torch ballads about. love, loss and sorrow.

Born Édith Giovanna Gassion in 1915 in Belleville, Paris, Édith Piaf was the only child of Louis-Alphonse Gassion, a highly skilled street acrobat, and Annetta Giovanna Maillard, a cafe singer of Moroccan Berber descent. When her parents’ marriage failed, Édith Piaf lived with her paternal grandmother, who ran a brothel. At the age of seven, she joined her father, participating with him in street performances, on a traveling circus caravan to Belgium and eventually France.

Renowned for her voice even at a young age, Piaf separated from her father and became a street singer in Paris and its vicinities. In 1935, she was discovered by Louis Leplée, the owner of the successful nightspot “Le Gerny” located on Rue Pierre- Charron. Leplée starred Piaf as “La Môme Piaf” (The Little Sparrow)”, due to her small stature and nervous energy, and ran a major publicity campaign for her opening night. Piaf’s popularity, after the successful show, enabled her to record two albums in 1935.

After the murder of Louis Leplée in spring of 1936, Piaf worked with French lyricist Raymond Asso, who became her lover and mentor. She also worked closely with songwriter and composer Marguerite Monnot, who as a female composer of popular music in the 1930s was a pioneer in her field. Piaf commissioned songs in the style of ‘chansons réaliste’, which dealt with the lives of the French poor and working class in a realistic and emotive manner.

Édith Piaf became one of the most famous performers in France. During World War II, she went to sing for the French prisoners in Germany and posed for pictures with them. When she returned to France, Piaf had made individual passports for the prisoners, using the pictures taken in Germany during her visit. She was instrumental in helping a number of prisoners to escape. It was during these war years that Piaf wrote “La Vie en Rose”, which is remembered as her signature song.

After the war years, with her fame spreading quickly, Piaf toured Europe, the United States, and South America. In 1950 in Paris, she gave Héctor Roberto Chavero, the central figure in Argentine folk music, an opportunity to share the stage and make his debut in France. Piaf also helped launch the career of Charles Aznavour, whose songwriting and distinctive tenor voice would span seventy years, making him one of France’s most popular performers. In 1962 she married singer and actor Théo Sarapo, birth name of Theophanis Lamboukas, who would sing with Piaf in some of her last engagements.

Bruno Coquatrix’s famous Paris Olympia opera hall is where Édith Piaf achieved lasting fame, giving a series of concerts at the hall, the most famous venue in Paris, between 1955 and 1962. Excerpts of these concerts were issued on record and CD, and have never been out of print. Piaf debuted her song “Non, Je ne Regrette Rien” at the 1961 concert in the opera hall, which she had promoted to financially save the venue. Her final recorded song was “L’Homme de Berlin”, in April of 1963.

Édith Piaf’s life, while containing fame and fortune, also had many tragedies. The love of her life, legendary French boxer Marcel Cerdan, died in a plane crash of an Air France flight in October of 1929, while traveling to meet her. In 1951, Piaf was severely injured in a car crash, breaking an arm and two ribs, the resulting trauma leading to difficulties with alcohol and morphine addictions. Two more near-fatal car crashes followed, worsening the situation. After a series of surgeries in 1959, Piaf’s health, seriously affected by her alcohol use and medications, deteriorated further; by 1962, her weight had dropped to 30 kg or 66 pounds.

Édith Piaf died of an aneurysm due to liver failure at age forty-seven while residing at her villa in Plascassier on the Riviera, on October 10, 1963. She is buried at the family gravesite in Pére Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. The name inscribed at the foot of the tombstone is Famille Gassion-Piaf. Her name is engraved on the side as Madame Lamboukas dite Édith Piaf.

Denied a funeral Mass by Cardinal Maurice Feltin because of her lifestyle, her funeral procession drew tens of thousands to the streets of Paris; the ceremony at the cemetery drew one hundred thousand fans, Fifty years after her death, the Roman Catholic Church recanted and gave Piaf a memorial Mass in the St. Jean-Baptiste Church in Belleville, Paris, the parish into which she was born.

Note: The video footage behind the song includes a travel film of her vacation in Mexico entitled “Édith Piaf Au Mexique, Film de Voyage”. It should be noted that Édith Piaf sings “La Vie en Rose” in Spanish in this color video footage. This is a rarity; there are no other known films of Pilaf singing in Spanish.

Calendar: January 13

Year: Day to Day Men: January 13

Armand: Old English

The thirteenth of January in 1886 marks the birth date of Russian-born American entertainer Sophie Tucker who was known for her forceful delivery of comical and risqué songs. She received billing as ‘The Last of the Red-Hot Mammas’ due to the frequent sexual subject of her songs, an unusual topic for female performers after vaudeville’s decline. Tucker became one of the most popular entertainers in the United States during the first half of the twentieth-century.

Born Sofiya Sonya Kalish to a Jewish family in Tulchyn of the Russian Empire, Tucker immigrated to the United States with her family in September of 1887. The family settled in Boston for eight years and then relocated to Hartford, Connecticut where they opened a restaurant. In 1903 at the age of seventeen, Sofiya eloped with Louis Tuck and two years later gave birth to her son Albert. The couple separated after the birth and later divorced in 1913. After leaving her son with her parents, Tucker found work in New York City’s cafés and beer gardens where she sang for food and received tips from customers; most of her earnings were sent to her family for her son’s support.

Sophie Tucker made her first theatrical appearance at a vaudeville venue’s amateur night. A heavy-weight person, she added weight-related humor and songs to her acts. In 1909, Tucker performed in the Ziegfeld Follies and was noticed by William Morris, a theater owner and the future founder of Hollywood’s William Morris Talent Agency. Two years later, she released her first recording of Shelton Brooks’s “Some of These Days” which soon became her signature song; her 1926 version sold a million copies and stayed number one for five weeks. In 1921, Tucker hired songwriter and pianist Ted Shapiro as her musical director and accompanist. He would remain with Tucker for her entire career and often exchanged jokes with her between musical numbers.

Tucker became friends with Mamie Smith, the first African-American woman to make a blues recording, and Ethel Walters, who became the highest paid African-American recording artist at that time. It was Walters who introduced Tucker to jazz, a music form Tucker later introduced to her white vaudeville audiences. In 1925, lyricist Jack Selig Yellen wrote “My Yiddishe Momme” which became another of Tucker’s signature songs. Now a successful singer, Tucker’s fame spread to Europe and she began a tour of England which culminated in a performance at the London Palladium for King George V and Queen Mary.

In 1926 Sophie Tucker re-released her hit song “Some of These Days”. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the Recording Industry Association of America. Tucker made her film debut in 1929 with a lead role in Lloyd Bacon’s Pre-Code musical film “Honky Tonk” which featured a number of her famous songs. This early feature sound film is now considered lost, only the Vitaphone soundtrack and its trailer still exist. When vaudeville was becoming passe in the early 1930s, Tucker turned to nightclubs where she could continue to perform for live audiences.

During 1938 to 1939, Tucker had her own radio show on CBS, “The Roi Tan Program with Sophie Tucker” and made numerous appearances on such programs as “The Radio Hall of Fame” and “The Andrews Sisters’ Show”. In 1945, she created the Sophie Tucker Foundation, which supported various actors’ guilds, hospitals, synagogues, and Israeli youth villages. Tucker appeared on many popular talk and variety shows in the 1950s and 1960s among which were “The Tonight Show” and “The Ed Sullivan Show”.

Sophie Tucker served from 1938 to 1939 as president of the American Federation of Actors, an early trade union originally for vaudeville and circus performers that expanded to include nightclub performers. She continued to perform for the rest of her life with several tours to England; her singing at the Royal Variety Performance aired on the BBC. Tucker’s last television appearance was the color broadcast of the October 3, 1965 “Ed Sullivan Show” in which she sang “Give My Regards to Broadway” and her signature song “Some of These Days”.

Tucker died of lung cancer and kidney failure in February of 1966, at the age of eighty, in her New York, Park Avenue apartment. She had played shows at New York’s Latin Quarter just weeks before her death and had two years of engagements planned. Tucker is buried in Emanuel Cemetery in Wethersfield, Connecticut.

Note: Sophie Tucker’s 1926 version of “Some of These Days”, which featured Ted Lewis and His Band, can be found by entering the title in the search box.