While America had the smooth jazz of Henry Mancini, Italy the lush atmospherics of Ennio Morricone, England the bold brass of John Barry, and France the moog experimentation of Jean Jacques Perry, Germany had all these rolled into one - Peter Thomas!”

In this clip circa 1969 from German TV series 11 Uhr 20, Donna Summer sings “Black Power” written and arranged by Peter Thomas. This is Summer’s first recording and it wasn’t released commercially until it appeared on a 1998 compilation of Thomas’s compositions called Moonflowers And Mini-Skirts.

Although Peter Thomas scored countless internationally released films and German television series, it wasn’t until bands like Pulp, Stereolab and Air started sampling his work that he became a hip commodity. 

Powered by an incredible, high-wired rhythm section consisting of Germany´s best studio and jazz musicians (including Siggi Schwab of Vampyros Lesbos fame on guitar and Lothar Meid of Amon Düül II on bass!) Thomas created ‘sonic explosions with enough force to put a man (with his woman) on the moon’. John Bender

Donna was 21 years old in this clip.
 

 
Some claim the 1963 hit single Sally Go Round The Roses by The Jaynetts is the first recorded psychedelic pop tune. While this may or may not be true, it’s certainly a beautifully hypnotic, circular number with mysterious and whimsical lyrical imagery. It’s also, I’ve discovered, one of the most covered songs ever so I’ve decided to line up most of the versions I’ve found. Play ‘em one after the other or mix and match to make your own trance-inducing rose parade. Let’s begin with the original. I have no proof, but it’s claimed that the drummer on this session was Buddy Miles, later of Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsies.

 
Many more roses after the jump…

 
Before records labels like Slash and Dangerhouse came along to consume my youth, there was, of course, Casablanca Records.  With KISS, Meatloaf, Parliament and Donna Summer under its roof, the label straddled a number of seemingly incongruous musical worlds.

But as the LA Weekly’s Gustavo Turner points out in his review of Larry Harris’ new book And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records, these worlds were all linked, albeit tenuously at times, by Casablanca’s visionary-in-chief (and Harris’ cousin), Neil Bogart.  A genius at both label promotion and self-indulgence, Bogart passed away from cancer in ‘82, but not before becoming one of the defining figures of the ‘70s.  Here’s a snip from Turner’s review:

They struck gold, big-time ?

 
Childhood movie-going usually falls into two categories: Movies you want to see and do, and movies you REALLY want to see but are forbidden to.  Along with Equus and The Exorcist, Alan Parker‘s Midnight Express, for me, fell into that later category.  Drugs, Turkish prisons, male-on-male rape?  No way was I gonna talk my preteen self into that one.  That isn’t to say, though, that I couldn’t get my hands on the Giorgio Moroder soundtrack—something I played obsessively, and still hear faintly whenever I’m (not infrequently) trying to jump a wall. 

Moroder went on, of course, to even greater fame with Blondie, Donna Summer, even Japan.  The 70s synth icon turns 70 (!) next Spring, and still lives in Italy, where he scored most recently of all things the soundtrack to Leni Riefenstahl‘s last film, the marine documentary, Impressionen Unter Wasser.  You can find an excellent assortment of Moroder-related videos, here.  Or simply play the below video a few times and find a wall or two.