Friday, October 19, 2007

HEY MRS. PEEL - and CATHY and TARA


"She stood in my living room holding a gun on me, saying 'How could we let you go free?' Hey Mrs. Peel!"
Is the subject of The Cretones' early 80's tune "Mrs. Peel" really the spy from The Avengers? "We set up a surveillance...supported quite discreetly by the CIA..."
Yes and no. The song might be going for a contrast between TV spy glamour and the real thing, or taking a daydream about Diana Rigg into the day's cold war headlines.
Whatever, the tug-job chorus is clear enough: "Hey Mrs. PEEL! Hey Mrs. PEEL!"
The Cretones, led by Mark Goldenberg, were a perverse band during their short career, capable of turning peculiar thoughts into acceptable new wave pop. More acceptable as sung by someone else. Their version of "Mad Love" didn't make it, but Linda Ronstadt's cover did. Linda also recorded Mark's song "Justine." I have a Japanese CD Mark did a while back, "The Spiders Web," and he's just recorded a new solo effort (details at his dot.com). He's been Jackson Browne's lead guitarist since 1994.
Since the average Rapidshare or Megauload links tend to die after four or six months, especially if folks don't go back into the archives here, I'm adding a few old favorites that had previously been posted: "Could I Leave You," a Sondheim number sung by Diana Rigg, "Kinky Boots" as done by the original Avengers duo of Honor Blackman (Cathy Gale) and Patrick MacNee (John Steed) and "Here I Am," performed by Linda Thorson (Mrs. Peel's replacement, Tara King).
MRS. PEEL
KINKY BOOTS
DIANA RIGG SINGS
HERE I AM: LINDA THORSON

2 comments:

mike weber/fairportfan said...

I'll be darned - first time i've gone looking for "Mrs Peel" in months and there it is.

Don't suppose you'd have a line on the video for Alex Call's "Just Another Saturday Night", would you? (And, if you do, Call needs a copy himself...)

Actually, Honor Blackman as Cathy Gale was Steed's second or third partner - when the show began, Ian Hendry was the main character, and Steed was the sidekick.

As TV Guide remarked, people started wanting more of the henchman and less of the hench, so...

(Ironically, Hendry and Rigg were to play antagonists/lovers in the horror film "Theatre of Blood"...)

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