This month sees Cherry Red releasing the first expanded edition re-issue of Marc Almond’s The Stars We Are since the album’s original release in 1988. The Stars We Are is Marc Almond at his most commercial, but that is in a no way a slight. Marking the singer’s final collaboration with his musical partner Annie Hogan, the lush balladry of The Stars We Are—Almond’s 4th solo album proper (if you don’t count his Marc and the Mambas side project)—is also one of his very best, an all-killer, no-filler affair that spawned five singles, two of them international hits.

There are three amazing duets on the album that I want to call your attention to. First is “Your Kisses Burn,” an astonishing number performed with Nico, in her final studio recording. Being a big Nico fan and a big Marc Almond fan, I was awestruck by the infernal power of this song when I first heard it. It’s scary! I can vividly recall playing it over and over again at top volume the day I brought the CD home. It cannot be said that Nico didn’t go out on a high note, but according to Almond, interviewed by The Quietus, she had difficulty singing that day:

“Nico was a mysterious figure, enigmatic with that great musical and artistic connection to The Velvet Underground and Warhol, which were things I was obsessed about at school. And of course that wonderful intriguing voice, icy and remote yet warm at the same time. She made a sound I’d never heard before - maybe some sort of a gothic punk Marlene Dietrich. The first time i heard her music was with The Velvet Underground, but I bought Desertshore, The Marble Index and The End and liked them more. There was also her musical association with Brian Eno, which made her more intriguing.

“When I became a musician, she was always at the top of my wish list for a duet of some sort. I was so nervous to contact her and EMI were not really for it at all, as you can imagine. I wanted to make sure that she was treated like the legend and the star I felt she was. EMI balked at her demands, but I was insistent. It turned out she was lovely if fragile, and we played pool and drank tea and talked for ages. The song was a problem, it turned out to be a bit too complicated, too orchestral for her and she began to deteriorate as the day went on and the methadone took effect. She still managed to deliver that wonderful Nico voice. We left on warm terms with plans for a better track more suited to her.

I think this one is fucking incredible. You be the judge. PLAY IT LOUD:
 

 
And then there is the album’s BIG HIT, “Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart,” Almond’s duet with Gene Pitney on a remake of Pitney’s own top five song of 1967. The Stars We Are was originally released in late 1988 with a solo Marc rendition of the number, but the duet—with the same backing track—went to number one on the UK pop charts and stayed there for an entire month. Marc really gives it his all here, while Pitney’s vocal takes the song to a new height. There were TV appearances galore—the pair were even invited to be on Wogan—and this charming music video shot in Las Vegas.
 

 
There’s more after the jump…

 
Clean cut, All-American crooner Gene Pitney was a massive star in the 1960s—and remained popular in Europe long after that—but, oldies radio aside, he is all but forgotten today in the country of his birth. Pitney possessed one of the most distinctive male voices of the 60s, a high-pitched, quavering vibrato that made his songs of unrequited love and losers promising to prove themselves to their women particularly moving.

Starting off as a songwriter—Pitney wrote “He’s a Rebel” for the Crystals and “Hello Mary Lou” for Rick Nelson—and recording engineer, Pitney racked up an impressive string of sixteen top forty hits. Along with but a small handful of American performers (Roy Orbison, Beach Boys, The Supremes) Gene Pitney not only survived the British invasion, but practically became an honorary member of it. In fact, he played piano on the first Rolling Stones album. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards reciprocated by gifting him with “That Girl Belongs to Yesterday,” a top ten hit in Britain and the first hit song they would write together. (Pitney also had an affair with Jagger’s girlfriend Marianne Faithfull, who allegedly said he was the “best lay” she ever had. She also called Pitney pompous and a “complete asshole” in her autobiography.)

By the 1970s, Pitney’s fortunes sagged in the US, but he was still able to play to packed houses in England and Italy. In 1989, Pitney scored a month-long British #1 with a duet of his “Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart” recorded with Marc Almond and the pair famously appeared on Terry Wogan’s TV program.  (Nick Cave also did a killer version of this song on his Kicking Against the Pricks covers album.)
 

 
In 2002, Gene Pitney was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He died in Cardiff, Wales in 2006 after a performance there. If you’re interested in a good “greatest hits” collection, you can’t go wrong with Rhino’s Gene Pitney Anthology 1961-1968.
 

“She’s a Heartbreaker”
 
Much more Gene Pitney after the jump…

Boozing it up (L-R): Phil Spector, Gene Pitney, Brian Jones, Andrew Loog Oldham, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, and Mick Jagger

On February 4th, 1964, the Rolling Stones entered Regent Sound Studios in London for a session. The group had released a couple of singles at this point, and the studio was quickly becoming their go-to spot. For this recording, the band was joined by some special guests: singer/songwriter Gene Pitney, Graham Nash and Allan Clarke from the Hollies, as well as genius record producer Phil Spector. By night’s end their combined efforts resulted in a few completed tracks, including one called “Andrew’s Blues,” which is quite possibly the raunchiest song the Stones have ever committed to tape—yes, rivaling even this infamous number.

In his autobiography, Stone Alone: The Story of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Band, bassist Bill Wyman wrote about the wild session, which was produced by their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, the subject of “Andrew’s Blues”:

We’d become friendly with Phil Spector and attended a star-studded party in his honour thrown by Decca a week earlier; so he continued the friendship by dropping in our recording. Graham Nash and Allan Clarke of the Hollies also came and later Gene Pitney arrived direct from the airport, with duty-free cognac. It was his birthday, and his family custom was that everyone had to drink a whole glass. Pitney played piano while Spector and the Hollies played tambourine and maracas and banged coins on empty bottles. We recorded three songs, ‘Little by Little,’ ‘Can I Get a Witness’ and ‘Now I’ve Got a Witness,’ which we invented on the spot. The session then degenerated into silliness, but everybody had a great time cutting ‘Andrew’s Blues’ and ‘Spector and Pitney Came Too’-—both of which were very rude.

Though officially unreleased, “Andrew’s Blues” changed hands for years before the Internet and is now readily available via YouTube. The tune is a twelve-bar blues and very much resembles another number with the same structure, Tommy Tucker’s “Hi-Heel Sneakers,” which had been released just weeks earlier (the song was part of the Stones’ live sets for a time, and a studio take has been leaked).

The main vocalist on the track is Gene Pitney, who became the first artist to cover a Jagger/Richards composition when his version of “That Girl Belongs to Yesterday” was released as a 45 in January of ‘64. Pitney was introduced to the Stones by Oldham the previous November and promptly demoed the song with the band. Oldham, in addition to his duties managing the Stones, would soon become Pitney’s publicist.

The boys lovingly take the piss out of Oldham in “Andrew’s Blues,” but they also mock the hell out of Sir Edward Lewis, the founder and chairman of Decca Records—the Stones’ label—and the track as a whole can be seen as a commentary on the music business. Or just a drunken lark.

Here’s a lyrical sample:

Yes now Andrew Oldham sittin’ on a hill with Jack and Jill (Jack and Jill)
Fucked all night and sucked all night and taste that pussy till it taste just right
Oh Andrew (yes Andrew), oh Andrew (yes Andrew)
Oh suck it Andrew (go on Andrew), fuck it Andrew (go on Andrew)
Oh Andrew Oldham (yeah), a guy who really know his way around (down down down down)

In his book Phil Spector: Out Of His Head, author Richard Williams called the track “startlingly obscene,” and fifty years on it still manages to shock. This is partly to due the fact that the lead vocals are largely handled by Pitney, who had a very straight-laced public image.

As for “Spector and Pitney Came Too,” a song with that title has been bootlegged, but is essentially an instrumental version of “Andrew’s Blues” with some hot lead guitar added.

Okay, escort your mom out of the room, ‘cause here comes “Andrew’s Blues”: