Nino Tempo and April Stevens

[dachshundonstilts]

I've been a fan of this brother-sister act from the Sixties for the last five years or so, and thought I'd share some of my favorite tracks of theirs here over the next few days.

You may well have heard their 1963 reworking of the 1933 song "Deep Purple," which won the 1964 Grammy for Best Rock and Roll Recording (because the Grammys are never exactly on the cutting edge)... but April Stevens' recording career as a solo artist stretched back to the mid-1940's. She had a top-10 hit in 1951 with Cole Porter's "I'm in Love Again," and in 1959 she caused a minor scandal with the highly suggestive song "Teach Me Tiger," which was banned on many radio stations.

Stevens teamed up with her younger brother Nino Tempo in the Sixties to record in more of a rock and roll vein, including pepped-up versions of several old standards from decades past. Their #1 chart success with "Deep Purple" was followed up in 1964 by this yodely recording of the 1920 jazz standard "Whispering," which went to #11. This was the first Tempo/Stevens record I heard, probably 25-30 years ago, and I was intrigued.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03gPthtpk10

One unusual thing about Tempo and Stevens, which probably hindered them from greater success, is that they were working in a "youth" genre of music in the Sixties even though they were part of the "over-30" crowd. (Tempo turned 30 in 1965, and Stevens in 1959! It's no wonder that she used to lie about her age.) Both are still alive today, Stevens aged 91 and Tempo 86.

[dachshundonstilts]

That was probably Tempo on harmonica. He was a multi-instrumentalist who played saxophone on records by Bobby Darin, Phil Spector's groups, and others, and was a member of the famous "Wrecking Crew."

Before moving on from 1964, here's an arrangement they did that year of 1924's "Tea for Two."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agGlZDGYKjQ

[dachshundonstilts]

Tempo was also proficient on piano, guitar, and drums, and succeeded Jack Nitzsche as musical arranger for Phil Spector. That arranging skill naturally translated into his records with Stevens.

Moving on to 1965, I want to do this for contrast, just to show how off-the-wall creative these arrangements could get. "I Love How You Love Me" had been a 1961 hit by the Paris Sisters, produced by Spector, that sounded like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOP7ssSHAss

Hearing that, would anyone expect the song (or any song, for that matter) to become a duet between bagpipes and fuzz guitar? But that's what happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgVqnZejUwc

[dachshundonstilts]

[deleted]

[dachshundonstilts]

This cover song from 1966 was on the White Whale label and closely tracked the arrangement of the original by another White Whale artist called "lyme & cybelle" ("Stephen Lyme" being a young Warren Zevon in his recording debut). This track always reminds me of the Monkees, but the song slightly predates them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fWK0hs6r7M

More later...

[dachshundonstilts]

"All Strung Out" was a moderate hit for them, charting at #26 in 1966. All the drug-related double-entendres in the lyrics are in reverse, as it were... not to convey a hidden drug message but using the language of drug addiction as a metaphor for a romance.

Reportedly the production of this record was troubled because, although the Wrecking Crew performances were fine, they couldn't get the Spectorian "Wall of Sound" they were shooting for. In the end they brought in the renowned recording engineer Bones Howe, who drenched everything in reverb to get the desired sound.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ogtsaXmxK0

[dachshundonstilts]

The best records from Tempo and Stevens in 1967, to my mind, were their solo singles. Tempo's "Boys Town" (co-written by Stevens) was about a mythical place where boys could hide from the danger of getting their hearts broken by girls. The atmosphere was so reminiscent of Pet Sounds that there were false rumors Brian Wilson had secretly produced the record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6_NDz90tFM

Meanwhile, Stevens released "Wanting You," a Motown-flavored song whose instrumental break almost certainly contained the first rock bassoon solo on record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av9hdLhOTt8

[dachshundonstilts]

I'm going to round this out with a couple of later Nino Tempo releases. In 1973 he collaborated with Jeff Barry on a project called "Fifth Avenue Sax," which included the funky groove "Sister James."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4I5YLG0szc

And in 1993, he released the mostly instrumental album "Nino," which included this vocal by April Stevens on "Amazon River."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twHfOHN-2lw

There have been other projects here and there, including Stevens' 1990 album Carousel Dreams, but I hope this presents a good sampling of their work, and I'll leave you alone now.

[donnie]

Thanks for these posts! I'd actually never heard of them. They certainly had a good and interesting sound. Two that stand out to me are "Follow Me" and "Wanting You" (including the bassoon break ) and I really dig that sound in "Amazon River." Cool cover, too.

[dachshundonstilts]

I think what fascinates me most about April Stevens is that she was a very rare phenomenon, a singer from the pre-rock era who ventured into rock and roll and wasn't a total washout at it. The only other one I can think of right now is Petula Clark, but she had sort of disappeared in the Fifties because she was living in France or something.

Usually what we got was something disastrous like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn9nEJUP_aE