Le Mew!

I’ve noticed some info about 60′s girl group The Pussycats have started popping up on the
web here and there, which is great but it’s still amazing that so little info is
available on these girls. Of course, there are no photos of the group to be found! So here’s our pussycat heroine Babette instead to the rescue:

Here’s what I already knew, and what I could find out:

This single was their first release in 1965, on Columbia records. It’s quite possibly my favorite 45 of all my collection. Both these two songs have been comped (“The Rider” on Girls in The Garage vol 7 and “I Want Your Love” on Where The Girls Are vol 5 – their 2nd single, a cover of the Shangri-La’s “Dressed in Black”, is available on GITG vol 5) but the comps are not what you’d call widespread and/or available, so here they are for your downloading pleasure. My apologies for the scratchy-scratches at the beginning (meow).

Something else of note: they were produced by Shangri-Las guru Artie Butler.

“I Want Your Love” is just mind blowing, and I’ve always been fascinated by the abrupt ending on “The Rider”. So strange. Both these songs are just so fantastic.

Have a listen!

The Pussycats – The Rider
The Pussycats – I Want Your Love

Nanette

Mississippi born Nanette Workman was more than just a session singer with a good set of uh…pipes and good looks (she’s the strong female voice you hear in the background on the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Woman”). Her story is one that I find fascinating: in 1964 Nanette moved to New York City and was appearing in off Broadway musicals. She was discovered by 19 year old Québec singing star Tony Roman (later to become a Kim Fowley-esque type producer in the province), who pleaded with her to come back to Montreal with him and promised her a singing career and stardom. In love, she followed him and soon enough, became Quebec’s little sweetheart. She learned French and recorded a few albums under Roman’s supervision, albums consisting mostly of English covers (including a pretty kick ass cover of “Paint it Black”). Her strong American accent and broken French brought that much more charm to the songs and she became an instant star. In the late 60′s she left Roman and Québec and moved to England, where she appeared on tv shows like “Not Only But Also” with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and became a session singer. She later met Johnny Hallyday, fell in love and toured with him. Hallyday made no secret of their affair and would famously introduce her on stage as “the love of my life”. According to Hallyday’s autobiography, their steamy affair directly led to his divorce with Sylvie Vartan. Nanette moved back to Québec in the mid 70′s and had a string of disco hits, including a French version of “Lady Marmelade”. She is still a loved public personality and continues to be a guest on Québec talk shows from time to time.

I had no idea that while working as a session singer in England in 1968, she recorded a whole album of her own songs. Here’s the album’s single release (I couldn’t take the price tag off without ripping off the cover, so I opted to leave it on!):

Nanette – Wastin’ Your Time<br />