Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Tryin' hard to look like Gary Cooper.

"Puttin' On The Ritz (Extended Version)" - Taco

You got your beef, chicken, bean, soft and hard variety but this is the Taco that is the best. Ba-dump-bump. Yes, it's been a long day. Born in Indonesia, Taco (minus last name Ockerse) recorded this cover of Irving Berlin's 1929 song, "Puttin' On The Ritz" (retro slang for dressing very fashionably) in 1982 for a German release. Early the next year the song broke into the US reaching #4 on Billboard's Hot 100. RCA liked it so much they funded an entire album for Taco, "After Eight". The "Ritz" video was in heavy rotation on MTV and the LP went on to sell over 500,000 copies here in the USA. It sold all over Europe like hot damn. Sadly, this is the only real success he ever had though he tried a few more times before calling it quits. Mel Brooks' 1974 film "Young Frankenstein" featured the song performed by Gene Wilder and the late Peter Boyle. Benny Goodman, Clark Gable and Fred Astaire have all performed the song also. Hollywood legend Gary Cooper, who's mentioned in the song, appeared in 100 movies in his career from 1924 to 1961 when he died. The American Film Institute ranked him at #11 on it's list of "Greatest Male Stars Of All Time". Gary Coleman was #1. Are you paying attention? I just totally made that up about Gary Coleman. Gary Coleman was cool because he was short and...not very tall. I'm done. This version runs 6:00 and feel free to crank this and tip your top hat to your heart's content.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi, I couldn't find an e-mail address for you but would be grateful if you could add a link to my blog "A Kick Up The 80's". I'll have a link to yours on it shortly.

THANK YOU

http://kickup80s.blogspot.com/

Uncle Mike said...

Done and congrats. You're off to a good start!

Camarillo Brillo said...

Another coo xtended remix post!
Thanks!

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