295 Hello Elkie Brooks - Pearl's A Singer

Chart  entered : 2  April  1977

Chart  peak : 8

Number  of  hits :  13

In  October  1976  some  savings  certificates  that   my  father  had  invested  on  our  behalf , four  years  earlier  after  the  death  of  his  wealthy  Aunt  Nell, matured  and  my  sister bought  a  cheap  mono  record  player  from  her  interest. So  it  became  imperative  to  build  up  a  collection  quickly. One  solution  was  provided  by  Bradleys  Records  in  Rochdale; they  had  "lucky  bags"  of  five  old  singles,  bundled  in  cellophane  so  you  could  only  see  what  two  of  them  were, available  for  50p  . Obviously  they  chose  the  most  attractive,  ex-chart  singles  to  be  the  bookends  and  I  ended  up  with  some  right old  rubbish  alongside  old  Sweet  hits  when  I   bought  a  few  of  them. Anyone  know  anything  about  Kon-Tiki ( "Hot  Buttered  Kissses" ), The  Armada  Orchestra ( "Conchise" )  or  Wat  Tyler  ("Gonna  Burn The Manor  Down" )  ?  By  the  end  of  the  seventies  these  had  all  been  disposed  of  to  jumble  sales  including  one  by  a  guy  called  Eddie  Howell , "Man  From  Manhattan",  which   I  believe  is  quite  valuable  because  produced  by  Freddie  Mercury  so  someone  in  Littleborough  got  lucky. I  mention  all  this  because  another  of  the  singles  acquired  in  this  way  was  "Where  Do We  Go  From  Here"  by  Elkie  Brooks. I didn't  like  the  song  and  assumed  she  was  discarded  flotsam  like  all  these  others  but  just  a  few  weeks  later  she  popped  up  in  the  charts.

Elaine  Bookbinder  was  born  in  Salford  and  turns  70  next  week. She's  Jewish though  her  mother  was  originally  a  Catholic. Her  older  brother  Tony  was  the  drummer  in  Billy  J  Kramer  and  the  Dakotas. She  started  singing  in  clubs  from 13  and  turned professional  under  her   current  stage  name  as  soon  as  she  left  school. She  made  her  first  single  for  Decca  , a  cover  of  Etta  James's  "Something's  Got  A  Hold  On  Me"  in  June  1964  with  Cliff's  old  mucker  Ian  Samwell  producing. It's  a  decent  slice  of  pop  R & B  but  Lulu  got  there  first.

Her  second  single  "Nothing  Left  To  Do  But  Cry"  is  an  early  David  Gates  song  first  recorded  in  the  US  by  Merry  Clayton. It's  a  fully  orchestrated  big  ballad  in  the  Cilla  Black  style  on  which  Elkie  lets  rip  although  her  phrasing  is  very  clumsy  at  times, betraying  her  inexperience. Her  third  and  final  single  for  Decca  was  a  version  of  Smokey  Robinson's  "The  Way  You  Do  The  Things  You  Do "  done  as  a   girl  group  number  with  Elkie  singing  in  a  higher  register  than  usual. It  was   perhaps  a  little  dated  for  1965.

Decca  declined  to  take  things  any  further  with  her  but  she  was  an  established  live  performer  touring  with  the  Beatles  and  the  Animals  so  HMV  thought  she  was  worth  a  punt. Her  first  single  for  them  was  "He's  Gotta  Love  Me"  in  June  1965  an  uptempo   Kenny  Lynch  number  with  a  restrained  Dionne  Warwick-ish  vocal  from  Elkie. I  haven't  heard  her  version  of  Lesley  Gore's  "All  Of  My  Life". Her  last  single  for  HMV  was  "Baby  Let  Me  Love  You"  in  February  1966  , another  Kenny  Lynch  song  with  an  interesting  arrangement  from  Ivor  Raymonde.

Elkie  didn't  get  another  chance  to  record  until  1969  when  she  was  paired  up  with  Owen  Gray  and  the  Rim  Ram  Band  to  make  a  reggae  version  of  "A  Groovy  Kind  of  Love". The  single  was  marketed  with  a  black  girl  on  the  front  and  only  Elkie's  first  name  missing  the  second  e  was  used  as  part  of  the  subterfuge. It's  not  very  good  but  was  a  hit  in  the  Netherlands.

By  that  time  she  had  hooked  up  professionally  with  Pete  Gage  from  the  Ram  Jam  Band   and  he  produced  her  next  single "Come  September"  on  the  NEMS  label  with  an  arrangement  by  RAH  Band  man  Richard  Hewson. Shortly  afterwards  Gage's  wife  Pauline  was  killed  in  a  car  crash  returning  from  The  Twisted  Wheel  in  Manchester  and  he  and  Elkie  became  involved  romantically. He  persuaded  her  to  join  his  12  piece  jazz  fusion  outfit  Dada. They  released  one  very  of - its- time  eponymous  album  in  1970  on  Atlantic  but  eschewed  singles.  Soon  after  incorporating  a  friend  from  art  college  called  Robert  Palmer  into  the  band  , Gage  realised  that  the  line  up  was  unworkable and  so  slimmed  them  down  to  a  six  piece, rechristened  them  Vinegar  Joe  and  with  Ahmed  Ertegun's   agreement  took  them  over  to  Island.

Vinegar  Joe  jettisoned  the  prog  leanings  of  Dada  in  favour  of  a  lean  blues  rock  sound  close  to  contemporaries  Stone  The  Crows. They  released  three  albums  in  their  lifetime  ( 1971-74 ) taking  one  single  from  each. Their  first  single  "Never  Met  A  Dog (That  Took  To  Me )"  in  February  1972   is  a  Palmer  composition  so  he  takes  the  lead. It  sounds  like  Free  with  Ry  Cooder  standing  in  for  Kossoff  on  guitar  but  the  song's  not  really  single  material. From  the  second  album  in  November  came  the  country-flavoured  "Rock n Roll  Gypsies" with  Elkie  doing  the  lead  which  is  a  bit  drab  and  dreary  to  be  honest. Before  their  final  release  Elkie  did  the  vocal  on  a  song  called  "Dr  Love"  ( later  a  big  hit  for  Tina  Charles )  by  Electric  Dolls  , a  nom  de  plume  for  disco  producer  Biddu. The  last  Vinegar  Joe  single  was  Gage's  song  "Black  Smoke  from  the  Calumet" a  bitter  lament  for  the  decay  of  hippy  ideals  set  to  the  minor  key  soft  rock  of  the  likes  of  America  or  The  Sutherland  Brothers  with  Elkie  emoting  and  at  times  sounding  like  Clare  Torry  on  The  Great  Gig  In  The  Sky.  Again  its'  not  an  obvious  single. If   Vinegar  Joe  had  happened  a  couple  of  years  earlier  they  would  probably  have  a  string  of  hits  to  their  name  but  swimming  against  the  glam  tide  they  just  didn't  get  heard

For  a  hitless  band  there's  quite  a  few  Vinegar  Joe  performances  on  You  Tube  where  you  can  enjoy  Elkie's  full  throttled  Janis  Joplin  impersonation  , throwing  her  skinny  frame  in  flimsy  dresses  around   without  missing  a  note. What's  also  notable  is  that  even when  harmonising  Elkie  and  Bob  don't  cast  as  much  as  a  glance  in  each  other's  direction.

Elkie  reverted  to  being  a  solo  artist, releasing  her  only  solo  single  for  Island   in  February  1974   before  Vinegar  Joe  confirmed  their  dissolution. "Remember  Me"  is  an  updated  but  rather  tuneless  version  of  the  Fontella  Bass  classic. Although  not  a  cause  of  Vinegar  Joe  splitting  her  marriage  to  Gage  had  foundered  and  she  went  to  America  to do  a  tour  as  backing  vocalist  for boogie  band  Wet  Willie.

When she  returned  in  1975  she  managed, despite  her  underachieving  track  record, to  get  a  deal  with  A   &  M.  Her  first  single  was  the  aforementioned  "Where  Do  We  Go  From  Here"  in  November  1975   written  by  Elkie  herself.  It  continues  in  Vinegar  Joe's  blues  rock  vein  and  is  pretty  undistinguished. The  same  could  be  said  of  the  whole  "Rich  Man's  Woman"  album  apart  from  the  cover  which  shows  a  rather  generous  proportion  of  her  left  breast.  Elkie  herself  has  said  the  album  wasn't  very  good  and  that  producers  Kenny  Kerner  and  Richie  Wise  blanded  it  out  against  her  wishes. The  second  single, a  pointless  re-tread  of  The  Crystals'  He's  A  Rebel  also  flopped  ,despite,  or  maybe  because  of, an  undignified  ( for  a  woman  of  31 ) appearance  on  Supersonic.

Then  things  finally  got  better. Her  relationship  with  Gage  improved  to  the  extent  that  he  wrote  and  played  on  her  next  album "Two  Days  Away" . Even  more  significantly  she had  Leiber  and  Stoller   aboard  as  writers  and  producers  and  they  had  a  hand  in  writing  this  breakthrough  hit  , ironically  about  a  has-been  performer. "Pearl's  A  Singer"  is   three  quarters  a  woozy  country  ballad  with  an  irritating  but  instantly  recognisable  four  note  electric  piano  motif  then  becomes  a  bluesy  number  to  allow  Elkie  to  show  her  chops  in  that   direction. She  didn't  have  a  hand  in  writing  it  but  can't  have  failed  to  match  the  lyric  to  her  own  experiences- you  can  hear  it  in  the  sad  resignation  in  her  voice  on  the  line  "it  never  made  it." It  gave  Elkie   a  persona  that  runs  through  quite  a  few of  her  hits, the  sympathetic  older  and  wiser   woman , commiserating  with  the  heartbroken  ingenues  of  "Fool  If  You  Think  It's  Over "  and  "Don't  Cry  Out  Loud"  and  declaring  her  independence  in  "No  More  The  Fool". It  just  goes  to  show  that  punk  didn't  entirely  block  the  way  for  sixties  survivors  to  come through.