Motown Treasures

I can distinctly remember hearing Verdelle Smith's "Tar & Cement" being played for a few weeks on the offshore stations back in '66 (it featured in the station charts of both London and Caroline) and I was expecting it to become a big British hit but of course it never happened.

This is the song ....


It did achieve some success in The USA, particularly in Michigan (where it was listed as high as #3 on WILS in Lancing and was also a Top 10 hit in other parts of Michigan on stations in Flint, Detroit, Battle Creek and Ann Arbor) and the song got as high as #38 on Billboard's Hot-100 "Pop" chart.  In Australia it was a major hit, hitting #1 on radio station charts in both Melbourne and Sydney.

The song always intrigued me as Verdelle has a very "pure" voice and is described in Joel Whitburn's Billboard chart books as being a "Black Songstress from St Petersburg, Florida" and yet the song is miles away from "Soul" or "R&B" and has a melodic folk-rock vibe.  In fact, looking at the ARSA website it's US airplay was entirely on the "white" stations

Anyway, it turns out that "Tar & Cement" is an English Language adaptation of a song first recorded and co-written in 1966 by Italian superstar Adriano Ceientano called "Il Ragazzo Della Via Gluck" (the boy from Gluck Road).

This is Adriano Celantano's original ...


Adriano Celantano is possibly best known for his 1973 novelty song "Prisencolinensinainciusol", which was a hit throughout Continental Europe (it hit #1 in France) and I remember it being played on the radio at the time, presumably on Radio Luxembourg, but it failed to chart in The UK (probably because no-one could pronounce the title).  The song is currently having a British revival as it is being used in TV commercials for Easyjet and Poretti lager!!

This is "Prisencolinensinainciusol" ...


Roger

I'd probably not heard that version by Françoise Hardy before John, virtually everything I ever heard by her would just go over my head.  It's pleasant enough but its title is actually "La Maison Où J'ai Grandi" ("The House Where I Grew Up"), my French is extremely rusty but the lyrics, if translated directly into English, sound very different to those used for "Tar & Cement" so the original version would still have to be Adriano Celentano's "Il Raggazzo Della Via Gluck".

I've been doing some more digging and it seems that Swedish singer Anna-Lena Löfgren did a Swedish Language version of "Il Ragazzo Della Via Gluck" called "Lyckliga Gatan" ("Happy Street") and a German Language version called "Immer am Sonntag" ("Always On Sunday").

"Lyckliga Gatan"


"Immer am Sonntag"


Strangely, looking at 45Cat, "Immer am Sonntag" was released as a single on the "B" side of a song called "Dein Glück ist mein Glück" (Your Happiness is My Happiness) ... the title of which could be a reference to, or a play on, the original Italian song title.

https://www.45cat.com/record/m25037 

What we really need is a polyglot to let us know how similar the themes of the various lyrics are, and I wonder if there are any other versions in different languages out there.

And back to "Tar & Cement" ... it seems that Joe Dolan's version was a big hit in Ireland ...


Roger