Smokey, 1853 hr

I had Smokey for company in the study as I was working earlier this evening, and I thought I'd try the Tough's 'Dramatic' filter effect on him. He wasn't so keen.

Since I acquired the TG-1 I have only blipped three pictures using a DSLR. This has been partly because the poor weather and long nights has meant far less opportunity for trips out with the camera, but this has given me the opportunity to get to know the new camera in its various modes, even though its prime purpose is to provide GPS location data, and I have especially enjoyed exploring its Macro modes. This was taken in Macro mode but I couldn't see the LCD screen as I was holding the camera close to Smokey and the autofocus has settled on the CD shelving instead - I quite like the effect, though.

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Jackie DeShannon - Needles and Pins (1963)
I was a great admirer of the girl group sound in the early sixties, especially groups like the Ronettes, the Marvelettes, the Supremes and the Shangri-Las. I include Jackie DeShannon in this genre although she was a solo artist. She was a songwriter as well as a singer, and so could be classed alongside the likes of Carole King and Ellie Greenwich, who also sang, and she wrote hits for people like Brenda Lee. I preferred her early, less middle of the road years, when she sang forcefully against a crack team of Hollywood session men, often the same people who backed Phil Spector's singers such as the Crystals, the Ronettes and Darlene Love.
Needles And Pins is a song written by Jack Nitzsche (Spector's arranger) and Sonny Bono just prior to one of her recording sessions. Sonny Bono has said that he sang along with Jack Nitzsche's guitar, improvising the tune and the lyrics from the chord progressions. It always struck me as ironic that a songwriter's first big success should be with a song written by someone else, especially as it bears a similarity to her own song When You Walk In The Room, but in the sleeve notes to a CD that came in the post today, Jackie DeShannon says that she had a hand in the writing of the song, but was not given a writer's credit - this was unfortunately a fairly normal procedure in those days.
The CD was You Won't Forget Me: The Complete Liberty Singles Volume 1 (Wikipedia page) and contains the original mono mixes of the singles she made between 1961 and 1963. These were often punchier and brassier than the stereo album mixes that had been used on the albums and compilations that I had before.


L.
3.12.2012

Blip #863
Consecutive Blip #076
Day #984

Olympus Tough TG-1 series
Smokey series