I don't often feature the Ronnie label - I find their product particularly bland, with a production sound that is typically anti-septic enough to add another layer of disinterest to my reaction to their records.
With that background, I was particularly unprepared to hear what I heard when I put the needle on Jill Donner's rendition of "Tropical Ecstasy". Because here we have the most blatant plagiarism I think I've ever heard on a song-poem 45. Sure, I've heard songs where the musicians copped the feel, or even some of the chords and melody of another song. And I've even heard song-poems where the self-proclaimed "writer" sent in the words to an existing song as their own composition.
But in this case, the opening of this record is a note-for-note copy of Martin Denny's "Quiet Village", the biggest hit that the exotica movement ever claimed, a top ten smash from 1959. If you're not familiar with that record, you can hear it here.
Now have a listen to today's offering:Download: Jill Donner - Tropical Ecstasy
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The flip side of this record, "Bitter Tears" is exactly the kind of recording that keeps me from featuring more of Ronnie Records song-poems in the first place:
Download: Jill Donner - Bitter Tears
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3 comments:
Knowing nothing of the Ronnie label, I wouldn't be surprised to see Sammy Marshall working for them.
That Martin Denny ripoff is sure ballsy.
Hongk Dang, ifn's I aint sold.
i have two Ronnie singles and they are indeed horrible. Happy to see that I'm not missing anything on that label, I thought perhaps I had just had bad luck. What's funny about the "Quiet Village" rip off is that it sounds great and is going along fine....until the singer comes in and the record immediately falls apart into a typical unlistenable mess.
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