YouTube Videos of Stark Naked and the Car Thieves’ songs

(Update from post in March 2011 – larryjdunlap.com/ljd-blog) An amazing thing has happened on YouTube. One of the things we all mourn is the loss of one the first music videos ever, which we did in Hawaii for “Look Back in Love” in 1968, the song was supposed to become our first big, national hit. Not only did it feature the band, but also the Hawaiian girl I met there and later married, (Things We Lost in the Night, A Memoir of Love and Music in the 60s, Book 2: Enchanted). I finally located the cinematographer who shot it but he told me it was lost in a fire.  It appears that there are many modern admirers of the band who have taken our music to YouTube. While noodling around on the web I somehow got to a wikipedia page that mentioned Jan Hutchins and Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs, and then a link to a YouTube video (below) that was weird. But first things first. Here is the first video to kick this montage off …

Look Back in Love

CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO SEE ALL THE YOUTUBE VIDEOS

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MIXED EMOTIONS, liner notes about our last record

“MIXED EMOTIONS” was written by another former member of the Atlanta coterie, Harry Middlebrooks (he’d co-written the Classics IV’s “Spooky”), who’d moved to Los Angeles some years earlier and was under contract to Heller and Cobb’s company. The song, with lyrics unheard here, had been written for a film that was never released, and was originally recorded by another Cobb-produced act, Stark Naked and the Car Thieves – their name notwithstanding, more of a smooth-rock act who became fixtures for years in Las Vegas.

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Across the Musical Universe

Caesars-Palace-1966-300x230IN AUGUST OF 1966, CAESARS PALACE, the most incredible casino/resort/hotel of it’s time, opened its doors to the public. A few months later the most improbable event imaginable happened when Trish Turner, a talented R&B singer who occasionally sang with us in early morning jams introduced me to Clyde Carson, a slight, pasty-faced guy with a mustache so thin it looked painted on ….

“Clyde made me the most inconceivable proposition I’d ever heard. “Would you guys be interested in playing across the street at Caesars Palace?” he said after we’d settled in with our drinks.

He told me he was well connected at Caesars and thought he could get us an audition to open the rumored new Nero’s Nook lounge at the opulent resort hotel. I was incredulous, it had to have been written all over my face. Caesars Palace being just across the street from the Pussycat might be geographically true, but for a band like Stark Naked and the Car Thieves that mammoth edifice was far across the musical universe from us. Only the biggest, most well known stars played there. Andy Williams, who hosted his own prime time television show, opened the main showroom to an international audience of celebrity and wealth flown in from all over the world just a few months ago. No rock star or group, no matter how famous or talented, had ever broken into a major Las Vegas Strip hotel, not even in the lounges. It would happen one day, but it was utter fantasy to imagine that event would take place now, with an unknown group like us. And certainly not at Jay Sarno’s, Jimmy Hoffa financed, luxurious Caesars Palace, already legendary among the elite for glamor and extravagance. When a rock artist did break that barrier, it would be the Beatles or Elvis, or maybe the Four Seasons, somebody famous worldwide taking the stage. Never an unknown band with no hit records, no matter how good anyone might think we were. It was laughable to think how being popular in a local rock n roll dance club would translate to a stage in the immense casino. Caesars overshadowed every other hotel on the Las Vegas strip, even the storied Sands and Flamingo. What Clyde was suggesting was like a talented Little League team being offered an opportunity to play with the Yankees in major league baseball.

And, of course, as is the case in fairy tales, there was a catch. We’d have to kiss a frog — Clyde Carson. He wanted to be our personal manager.” Continue reading…

Carol Doda, Twin Peaks and Lace Lingerie

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An Englishman’s Love Affair with San Francisco

I recently ran across this post, and even though it’s from 2012 it reflects again what an amazing phenomenon was taking place in the mid-sixties in North Beach, San Francisco. Though I’m quoted in the article as “Larry Inla”, he got the quotes right. Hope you enjoy his article at:

http://tonyquarrington.wordpress.com/2012/07/12/carol-dodatwin-peaks-and-lace-lingerie/#comment-1690

Just a reminder. Look Back In Love, + tag…

Just a reminder. Look Back In Love, + tag line, are ‘working titles’. This title has a lot of meaning to me and the guys I played with, and maybe certain close fans. It was the title of the band’s most promising single. And clearly I look back with love at these experiences and the people I played and the wonderful people I met. And there’s more personal reasons as well, but I’m having doubts about whether it’s the best title for the published work. I’ve already scratched about fifty possibilities into my journal, and when I come up with the finalists, I’m probably going to ask for some help in the final choice.

Trying to come up with a single word, or at best two word, main title. If it’s three, it’s got to be spectacular. It has to attract the right kind of attention from a browsing reader who’s looking for a good read, no matter what the topic, but not be misleading. Feel free to chime in with suggestions if you want to.

First of course, best wishes in 2014!…

First of course, best wishes in 2014! Damn, I never thought I’d live to see it!

Now that I’m on the road to recovery following hip surgery, I’d like to offer you a five-minute audible excerpt from Chapter 3 of LOOK BACK IN LOVE, the book I’m working on. It’s read for you by acclaimed voice actor, Keith Medlin. This excerpt is called RITA, and details a conversation with a cute red-headed girl I met on the RCA assembly line in Indianapolis after my life was pretty much in ruins and just before I left to join my friends and vocal group in California. You can find it at: http://youtu.be/CHBTMkzsjgs. I’d love to hear you’re responses, please leave a comment or come back and post one here.

RITA is the second in a series of these audible excerpts. The first one, FAMILY MATTERS, read by me, is from Chapter 2, and is nine minutes long. In this one, I’ve just heard from Dave, our lead singer, and he wants me to come to California, but I’m surprised to find that I really don’t want to go. I give him an impossible condition to meet, just to be certain I won’t have to. http://youtu.be/TxOyWNDkyKU

Remember, if you would like to be on the update list for the book’s progress and notified when each of the upcoming excerpts (expect a third excerpt read by Keith Medlin titled The Pharmacist soon), join us at http://eepurl.com/ln9an. I include interesting notes from items not included in the book with the notifications. Members will get a free copy of the book along with other perks. Thanks for your support everyone!

Cover art. Finding the right cover art is…

Cover art. Finding the right cover art is huge. While you are not supposed to judge a book by its cover, in fact they most often are. I’ve introduced several cover ideas over the last couple of years but I’m getting a little more serious about it. I’ve been checking out various memoirs for quite a while for cover art, and I still like Cheryl Strayed’s cover art for Wild. I decided I might like a Hammond B3 organ, like the one I played but I couldn’t find one anywhere. Finally, I ran across the picture below on a private site, House Of Hammonds, in Iowa. I contacted the owner, and the photographer and they agreed to let me use it for my book. I’m definitely considering it, it’s a 1968 model with Leslie 122 speaker, just like mine except I used two. It looks to me like we could have just walked off this stage … Anybody got an opinions?

In one of the earlier chapters of Look…

In one of the earlier chapters of Look Back In Love, before I leave Indianapolis, everything is in turmoil. I’ve started the stub of a psuedo life, working at the RCA plant on the west side assembling record players. There’s a chapter called “Rita” where I meet a girl who shores up my confidence by showing interest in me and the story of how the vocal group failed to become a band. This image is not the real Rita of course, in fact I purloined it from a Lands End ad, but it reminded me enough of her to save it as a model. Thought I’d show it to you.

POLL: 28 Percent Of Americans Have Not…

POLL: 28 Percent Of Americans Have Not Read A Book In Past Year http://t.co/ocvgvpSjLI. Friends don’t let friends not read @HuffPostBooks