Joe Tossini - Lady of Mine

A favourite of mine for several years now, Lady of Mine is the self-funded, independently-released 1989 debut LP by self-taught Italian-American musician Joe Tossini. After only owning a poor-quality digital version of the album, I was astounded to discover that Lady of Mine had been reissued two years ago.

 

According to the accompanying press release, after being born in Sicily, Joe ‘drifted around the world between Italy, Germany and Canada, before finally settling in New Jersey. After the passing of his mother and the breakdown of a second marriage, an anxious and depressed Tossini took to songwriting as a form of therapy, crafting disarmingly candid lyrics from his extraordinary life and loves. Whatever industry savvy or musical virtuosity he lacked was made up for by unflinching resourcefulness and infectious charisma. Befriending bandleader Peppino Lattanzi at local club The Rickshaw Inn, he was encouraged to animate his singular songs with an ambitious cast of nine players and five backing vocalists, sincerely credited as his Friends.’

 

Recorded at IEA Recording Studios in Atlantic City in 1989, the album is an absolute cracker. From the defiant, Casiotone samba of If I Should Fall In Love, to the utterly peculiar Wild Dream and with its odd, jarring ‘space invader’ breaks, and the off-key vocals of the title track, Lady Of Mine hums with the inimitable magic of a true original: cabaret lounge intimacy infused with amateur lo-fi genius.

 

Issued by the short-lived IEA Records label, Lady Of Mine has, unsurprisingly, earned its own place in the outsider music canon: original copies now sell for around the $200 mark (there are a couple currently listed on Discogs, for $190 and $225 respectively). After years of enjoying a growing reputation among collectors, including being listed as one of the Top Ten Best Private Press Albums by Waxidermy, Lady Of Mine was reissued in 2019 via Joe Tossini Music, in partnership with Australian outsider reissue specialist Efficient Space, restored from original master tapes with unseen photos, extensive liner notes and Tossini’s trademark wisdom.

 

Devoutly independent, in 2016 Tossini produced the self-released album When You Love Someone, an album of instrumentals he originally composed during the 1980s but did not record until 2015, and he has also penned two books - his 2014 autobiography ‘The Accounts of My Life’ and, in 2019, a novel titled ‘The Devil In White’, which he calls ‘a fictional story about life, mystery, and murder’. Sadly his good friend and mentor, Peppino ‘Pep’ Lattanzi, passed away in 1995, far too soon for his work on this engaging album to be appreciated.

 

I am not making these downloads available for free as the album is on sale once again and I would encourage you to shove a few quid Joe's way. You can purchase the magnificent Lady of Mine on LP, CD, or digitally at https://efficientspace.bandcamp.com/album/lady-of-mine but for now, here are a couple of tracks from this engaging album.

 

Enjoy!

Beatle Babies

As I’m sure you all know, as well as writing this blog and the occasional book, I also host a weekly show, The World’s Worst Records RadioShow, on Sheena’s Jungle Room, one of the online stations available through the behemoth that is WFMU. Well, today’s disc was brought to my attention by fellow Sheena’s DJ Jan Turkenburg, my friend in the Netherlands, who hosts the fabulous Dutch pop show Yes, We Have No Mountains, as well as the brilliant Sounds Under 64 Not Allowed, where every record played has to be at least 64 years old.

 

Not only has Jan introduced me to the delights of Ronnie and the Ronnies and The Shoes, but a few weeks ago he played this, and it prompted much debate on his show’s message board, so much so in fact that I determined to go off and find out more about this ghastly little coupling.

 

Released on Artone records in 1964 and credited to De Bieteltjes (the Little Beatles), Jèh-Jèh-Jèh Gekke Pappie (Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Crazy Daddy) and its flip side Haal Die Scheiding Uit Je Haar (Get That Parting Out Of Your Hair) appear on the surface to have been performed by a trio of toddlers, but in fact – like acts including the Chipmunks, Charlie the Hamster, the Smurfs, and goodness knows how many others – the tracks were written, played and sung by fully-grown adults, the vocals manipulated to make them sound more infantile.

 

Inspired by the worldwide interest in The Beatles, the man behind these recordings was one Joop Portengen, a Dutch composer, songwriter and music publisher from the city of Haarlem who was born in December 1916. Portengen worked on stage musicals, wrote jazz, composed for orchestras and for ballet, as well as writing for countless Dutch MOR, folk and pop acts.

 

Joop Portengen had form: he had previously made similar childlike records under the names Kleine Joopie (reissued the following year as Kleine Jopie) and, as one of Drie Kleine Kleuters, scored a hit in 1956 with De Trappelzak-Boogie (Sleeping Bag Boogie). In 1966 he co-wrote the anti-drink driving hit Glaasje Op... Laat Je Rijden for Sjakie Schram. An example of carnavalschlager (or carnival songs, music popularised in pubs and at festivals during carnival season), Glaasje Op...  spent 15 weeks in the Dutch Top 40.

 

The multi-talented Mr. Portengen died in July 1981, but over a long and varied career, wrote, performed and/or arranged music for more than 100 different Dutch acts.

 

Genieten!

 

Download Pappie HERE

Download Scheiding HERE