Kuinka voit sä kaukomailla is a groovy cover of Nancy sinatra's How are things in california. Arranged by Jaakko Salo and backed by Jaakko Salo's orchestra it can't go wrong. A-side song is a vocal version of early electronic pop classic Popcorn made originally by the great moog maestro Gershon Kingsley. Somehow Popcorn have always given me the creeps but I kind of like this version arranged by Olli Heikkilä and backed by his orchestra.
I've never been a big Dionne Warwick fan I must admit, but Say a little prayer makes an exception for me. I've always loved the song, and the way Eija Merilä did the cover version of that song gives me goose bumps. In a good way. It's a quite pompous song in a strong Bacharach-David way. Really good groover I must say. A-side song Mä tahdon teidän oppivan is a cover of The New Seekers song I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing, a song originally for a Coca Cola commercial in 1971.
"Seksikkäin" is a cover version of the song "Sexy eyes" originally recorded 1979 by Dr. Hook, a pop-country rock band from USA. The song is quite similar to the original, a nice modern soul groover. B-side song "Kesä saapuu sittenkin" is an Arto Nuotio original, a schlager song that's not that good at all. Both songs appear also on Arto Nuotio's self titled LP (Fifty-Fifty 1980) and "Seksikkäin" also appear on Timanttihitit 2 compilation (Fifty-Fifty 1980).
Danny did a pretty good job when covering the Jorge Ben classic Mas que nada. Arranged by Esko Linnavalli and backed by Esko Linnavalli's orchestra, this song is a Finnish latin music classic. The lyrics are about a nightmare Danny is having every night. Painajainen is also released on his album Danny (Scandia 1969) and also on Scandia various artists 45 EP Neljä iskelmää (1967). All these are pretty hard to find tho. This 45 also has the best sound quality of those mentioned. A-side song Alla sateen öisen is a Finnish version of Andy Williams song The Many Faces Of Love written by Doc Pomus.
Debut 45 from the world famous Finnish funk group The soul investigators released under the longer form of their name Calypso king & the soul investigators. Released in 1998 on their own Jive label (not to be confused with the multinational record corpration with the same name), it started their long lasting career as one of the leading new funk bands in the world. Side a track Calypso strut is a uptempo funk song that starts with a break and continues to bang whole way through. B-side track Party food is a downtempo funk track with a little psychedelic feel and some nice fuzz guitar working. Especially the a side track has a strong bayo funk feel in it. This 45 was realesed with a pressing of only hundred or two so it's really scarce and in demand these days.
Igor is a very raw uptempo funk song about a dog named Igor. Both songs are taken from a Jörn Donner movie 69, that was released the same year. In an interview Kirka tells that Jörn Donner was making a movie at that time and needed the music for it. So he rushed into the Scandia office and told that he needed a singer, a good one, and he knew Scandia had one. So Donner picked up Kirka to sing the soundtrack songs that were first released on a four track 45 ep and later on Kirka's self titled debut studio album. Kirka also tells that Donner already had in mind some songs made by Claes af Geijerstam that were already recorded in Sweden and he wanted Kirka to sing them in Finnish. On the other hand, Kirka's autobiography says that these songs were made for the movie 69 and later sung in English by Tommy Körberg for the international version of the movie. Anyway Igor is a great funk track that starts with a raw drum break and also features some exotic sounds made by a guitar with really loose strings that sound just like a sitar. There's two different versions of the Igor 45 with the other one (KS 811) having the song Pitkän tien pää (another Spinning wheel cover) on the flipside. KS 810 starts with an introduction of the song and the drum break fades in from the silence while KS 811 (and the album version) starts with the banging break without any fade in. B-side track Alku kaiken kauniin is a ballad from the movie. Both tracks appear also on the album Kirka (Scandia HSLP 114). Both the album and the 45s are quite hard to find.
Purema was a band from Pori, who released four albums before they were disbanded in 1984. This 45 is from their first album Eks tiä released in 1976. The b-side song Kaunis kaupunkilainen is a cover of Sweet city woman, a nice funky pop rock tune that was originally made famous by Canadian rock band The Stampeders. The a-side song Eks tiä is a quite non-interesting pop rock song.
Dirty Harry sextet is a combo from Turku who concentrate on instrumental funk, mixing blaxploitation themes, chase funk and police movie atmospheres. Their debut 45 was released in 2005, but they haven't released nothing since. Hopefully they will activate themselves again some day, because this 45 is a nice peace of cinematic funk that I like. The a-side song Go ahead! is a banging uptempo blaxploitation chase scene'ish percussion driven banger with a really hectic feeling. The b-side song Footsteps is more mellow, groovy midtempo soft porn movie theme styled song. The pressing of this 45 was only 525 copies so it's getting scarce nowadays.
Although filed under samba, "Jauhan kahvia" is actually a cover of "Moliendo cafe", a venezuelan rumba song from 1958 by Hugo Blanco. Also known as "Coffee rumba", this old standard has spawned nearly 1000 covers worldwide and Brita Koivunen's groovy version follows the original theme quite well. The lyrics are about grinding coffee to a date that never shows up. The backing band in this 45 is the always tight Jaakko Salo's Orchestra. The b-side song "Untamon sormus" is a regular 60s schlager song. This 45 though is quite hard to find these days.
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