V03-T02 Sally Go Round The Roses

.....While discussing a Jim Carroll song on Volume 2 I mentioned that by the late 1960's Andy Warhol was forced to change his policy allowing many different strangers from different backgrounds to hang out at The Factory, his studio and headquarters of an art collective he sponsored. For a while the variety of people fueled the creativity of the artists working there, but after an attempt on his life he could no longer be certain of their safety or even his own. We would have to be content with what preceded that incident. In addition to the art, one unintentional side effect of having so many different people passing through an area is that you can get corroborations on some pretty far-fetched stories...

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 2

• 03:01 "SALLY GO ROUND THE ROSES" (Zelma Sanders, Lona Stevens)
• performed by The Jaynetts
• original source: A-side, 7"Tuff 369 (US) 1963
• and my source: CD GOLDEN GIRL GROUPS K-Tel CD 341-2 (US) Nov., 1989

.....As far back as when I made this mix tape (early 1994?) I was aware that Andy Warhol played this record in the Factory while working (except for the films, obviously). I've since seen that fact repeated by Lou Reed, Mary Woronov, Gerard Malanga and a few others who were there at the time. Reed in particular noted that Warhol didn't seem to own many records in all, but played this one repeatedly. It's hard to know exactly what he liked about it, but an educated guess would be the hypnotic, mantra effect it has since successive plays would emphasize that. Although supposedly written as an original it certainly sounds as though it was derived from a nursery rhyme or a rope-jumping chant.

.....The Jaynetts themselves are a bit of a mystery. Sanders' account is that she created the group as the head of J&S Records as a way to keep singers productive while they were between vocal groups. However, even if it were possible to pinpoint who was in the group at the time of the recording, it was made with multiple overdubs of whatever vocalists were on hand during an extended weekend. I can't find anyone involved with the recording who can claim to have reliable studio logs that detail the personnel. A Wikipedia entry names ten women known to have been working under Sanders' supervision at the time and engineer Artie Butler's website http://www.artiebutler.com/ describes, in his own words, overdubbing the vocals onto a finished instrumental track: "Each time when I added another element I added a different type of reverb." This approach to recording makes it a practical impossibility to even count distinct voices, let alone distinguish one from another.

.....Tomorrow, a different kind of dubbing mix-up.