Gilbert O'Latino - Joke or Not a Joke?

Wuz dis?

"Allo? Is a funny blogga-bloke playin' wid Photoshop agin?"

Guess:

A) This a Photoshop joke

b) Gilbert is a gay old man who has a fantasy for getting a "spit roast" from two greasy Matador boys at the same time?

c) Mr. O is queerly fascinated with PEGGY LEE, who put out a similar looking album years and years and years ago?

The answer...

Is most definitely c, although "B" is quite possible.

Sez Gilbie: "I regard Peggy Lee, along with Ella Fitzgerald, as the greatest female interpreter of song."

On that statement, he's alone again, naturally.

Peggy Lee was a lot of things, but she was far from a great interpreter of song. She was mummified into a less-is-more style that was only suitable for CERTAIN songs. Given the right song (like "Is That All There Is") she was great. As to being the greatest, no, there are plenty of songs on her albums that stink and she doesn't help 'em at all. If you're a fan, then, yeah, even her close-to-the-vest and close-to-the-bra version of "Spinning Wheel" is pretty good. Sort of how Mae West might've done it. If that's you're idea of fun.

Now, Ella Fitzgerald? She was ONE OF the greatest, but for one basic reason: diction. Whatever she sang, you could hear every fucking word. Her scat-singing was pretty obnoxious, but she DID record virtually all of the "Great American Songbook," and did so with textbook precision.

Which isn't the same thing as being a stylist with a distinctive voice. On the classics, she sounded little different from Rosemary Clooney or even Doris Day. No real panache. A pure voice with, irony of ironies, no color. On the latter idiotic jazz songs, sure, you could tell it with her by all that ooby-doo-wee yaahh-bodda-bodda bullshit, which was as irritating in its own way as Sinatra's scooby-doo crap.

Did Ella EVER sing a song with the kind of empathy or intimacy, that Billie Holiday had? Nope. You couldn't even imagine Ella singing "Gloomy Sunday." You could hardly imagine Ella meaning a word of anything she sang. She just did perfect demos without any real emotion behind them.

Ella didn't do badly for herself. Despite her unappealing looks, she was still singing even when she literally didn't have a leg to stand on.

But Peggy Lee? In the same league with Ella Fitzgerald? They were contemporaries, that's about it. Lee was cool. One of the best singers. But when you talk about "Greatest" as you do with Muhammad Ali, no. Just as the "Greatest" isn't shared by Mike Tyson or Klitschko or Lennox Lewis, "The Greatest" in song isn't a share. Pick one and stick to it. Gilbie, pick Ella OR Peggy. And I'll tell you that neither were as versatile as Patti Page, who had style (like Peggy) diction (like Ella) but unlike either, could sing rock, country, American songbook, gospel, or most anything else.

But I digress.

Who knew that Grommet O'Sell-a-van was still alive? Who goes to his shows, people who didn't get in when Dennis Locorriere played the same UK town?

I mean, we're still in such fucking awe of ONE song? Can anyone name THREE hits by this guy? "Get Down" was bad McCartney. "Clair" was bad McCartney. McCartney gives us enough bad McCartney. His entire first album was offbeat and pretty good, sort of a McCartney album played at 38 1/3, but it seems like his audience would have to be nostalgic saps who think he's still suicidal about his mum, and gays who hope he still has the same fluffy hairstyle and silly sweater.

"I Love It But it Doesn't Knock Me Out." Now THAT was a good one, and nobody knows about it or cares.

If YOU want to see Gilbie, and ask him what the FUCK is with his Peggy Lee obsession, his matador fetish, or anything else, you might catch him at the stage door in FEBRUARY of 2016 when he plays...get ready...the LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC and BIRMINGHAM TOWN HALL. And as you sit in the front row, you might look around and be singing, "Alone again...naturally."