Found Sound: My brief time with Claudine

I was going through my records the other day, and came across one I had never played. I try to listen to everything at least once before it gets shelved, but every so often one of them slips by me. That is how I came across Claudine.


It's September, for those of you with no concept of time, and with it come a few things. The start of great fall weather, studios tend to dump their bad pictures, and of course fall tv (although the new shows this year look kind of terrible). One of the newer things I have grown to love about September, is the Audio-Reader Networks annual "For Your Ears Only" record sale.




This is a sale that started around 2003 I believe, a dark time when I was gone from Lawrence, and I didn't hear of it until 2008 somehow. I didn't really know what to expect, so I went in with rather low expectations. After three years of going to this I can safely say, it is fairly amazing. It's all donated and it's for a good cause. They have CDs, LPs, VHS, DVD, record players, DVD players. In short, just about everything. It's all cheap, mostly in good to great condition, and I almost always forget about it. A year between sales is a long time, so I always forget when it's about to come up. Which brings me to my point, Claudine.



Claudine is the 1967 debut album of Claudine Longet, and I bought it at last years sale. I had no reason to pick this album up. I had no idea who she was, and had never heard of the album. But I can now say I am glad that I did. It is by no means a perfect album. She has a very odd singing voice. She's French and does an odd mixture of singing in English and French. In French, she sounds perfectly comfortable. In English, she has an odd lisp. But she knows how to use it to her advantage. She also has a knack for picking good covers. On the first side she does the Beatles "Here, There, and Everywhere", as well as a bosa nova standard "Meditation" (which according to wikipedia was her first big hit). As a whole side one isn't that impressive. Not bad, but not great either. Then side two kicks off with "Wanderlove".



This has entered the running for a coveted spot on my favorite songs list. It is just pure joy listening to that. Hearing that, I imagine both Stuart Murdoch and Isobel Campbell were big fans of that song. I could be wrong, but there is a definite line to Belle and Sebastian there. Then song to is "Hello, Hello".



Again, just pure joy to listen to. She then follows that with a take on "Sunrise, Sunset", where she has her vocals double layered to sound like a creepy robot of some kind. Unfortunately, she ends the album with a terrible take on the old Motown song "My Guy". It's just not a good fit for here vocally. But it's still a good debut, if you can get through it with just the one misstep. So I am glad I listened to this when I did, because it's kind of great and it reminded me of the record sale taking place this weekend. Stay out of my way if you are in attendance. I am not above hobbling someone if they come between me and some odd record.

After looking into her history, I found out two things. One, she shot a guy once. I don't think it was to watch him die, but found not guilty anyway. Two, I had actually heard her sing before. Although I didn't know it. She did a version of Randy Newmans "I think it's Going to Rain Today." It is an absolutely beautiful rendition, that stands as my favorite version.