Rev-Ola Rec.
Dana Gillespie : Foolish Seasons (US,1968,re.2006)***°
After having won a national title in waterskiing at her early teens, she more and more was driven by music simultaneously until she quit sports. At 15 she was dating Donovan, something which led to her first single with the lead track “You Just Gotta Know My Mind", a song penned (and never rerecorded) by Donovan himself, which became the opener of this full LP recorded two years later, a song produced by no less than Jimmy Page who cooperated also on the full album.
The photo sessions reveal a huge sex appeal but also a strong character which just gives the knowing bit of a look, but then ambitiously strives further.
Her songs are well compared by Richie Unterberger as “Very roughly speaking, Gillespie echoed the material and vocals of fellow British woman pop/rock singers such as Marianne Faithfull and Dusty Springfield at points, though her voice was at once both huskier and smokier than the young Faithfull's, and gentler and more whispery than Springfield's."
The album is full of rather short, rather catchy song tunes, and are heavily stuffed with arrangements, like orchestrations and studio band arrangements (occasional hamming organ or trumpet/brass included). Some of these songs have a sunshine pop flavour production ; most of her vocals have equally strong overdubbed arrangements to give even more effect, like a heavy rock flavour aka Mamas and Papas mixed with Jefferson Airplane but in an easier mainstream pop frame.
Some songs stand out for certain tastes, and so for me, even though the whole album sounds rather joyful and with some grooviness. There’s lots of variation in moods, some of the songs are even charming, but always with that little bit of distance from the real thing or feelings, being a bit more vague in subject as if coming from a hippie chick inspiration with ambitions in the bigger world.
Over a few years her true ambition seem to have become to sing the blues, something which the bit of a last song, which falls off a bit, predicts. After a while a blues singer was how she was going to be known and remembered.
Fits well with Rev-Ola’s other choices for girl singer album reissues. The album in those days did not get noticed ; there was no promotional attention given.
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