Evie Sands - I Can't Let Go b/w You've Got Me Up Tight

Evie Sands

Listen/Download – Evie Sands – I Can’t Let Go

Listen/Download – Evie Sands – You’ve Got Me Uptight

 

Greetings all.

I hope everyone took the chance to pull down the ones and zeros on this month’s Iron Leg Radio Show. If you haven’t, please take a moment to do so now, and while you’re at it, grab all the previous episodes from the archive (see the tab in the header).

The tune I bring you this week is a long time favorite, that I only managed to score on a 45 this very week (though I’ve been looking for years).

‘I Can’t Let Go’ – a song I first heard performed by Linda Ronstadt (when I was a kid) and then fell in love with in the epic version by the Hollies -  is one of the truly great pop songs of the 1960s.

The version you see before you, by Miss Evie Sands, is the original.

Sands was a NY-based singer who made several excellent records with Chip Taylor and Al Gorgoni, including the original versions of ‘Take Me For a Little While’ and ‘Angel of the Morning’.

Her story is a seemingly endless series of missed opportunities and bad timing (you can read more here) which kept some amazing music from reaching the audience it deserved.

The two 45s that Sands recorded for Blue Cat in 1965 are both excellent (A and B sides).

Sands was a particularly interesting singer because she bridged slightly earlier girl group sounds with what for lack of a better term might be called blue-eyed soul.

Though lesser known, she ought to be spoken of in the same breath with singers like Timi Yuro and Dusty Springfield.

Her version of ‘I Can’t Let Go’ manages to layer Sands’ rich and vaguely husky voice over a very nicely produced bit of imitation ‘Wall of Sound’. The beat is taken at a slightly slower, more deliberate pace than many of the covers.

The flip side, ‘You’ve Got Me Uptight’ is a more directly soul-influenced number with some groovy organ bubbling up underneath things.

All in all this is a very groovy 45 that you ought to take the time to stuff into your ears whenever you can.

It bears mentioning that there is a decent amount of vintage film of Sands, on shows like Shivaree and Hollywood A Go Go performing her Blue Cat era material.

I hope you dig the sounds and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

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