I've always had a soft spot for The Fleetwoods, loving the song or three I would hear here and there, but never really followed up on it until this year, when I finally ordered a Best Of collection that I'm still going through.
And when I've seen pictures of them I always assumed the "star" was the lead singer (Gary Troxell) and wondered why he had selected a duo of, let's be nice, less-than-hot-babe-quality backup singers.Lo and behold, as I read about them I discovered that the two girls (Gretchen Christopher and Barbara Ellis) were the originators of the group. They started it in high school in Olympia, WA and eventually asked Gary to join - to play trumpet. (Is there anywhere more whitebread than Olympia, WA? I'm guessing no...)As I'm going through the CD I discover an a capella version of one of their bit #1 hits "Come Softly To Me", which I really prefer because you can hear Gretchen and Barbara up in the mix, which I think really adds to the mix.Call me wimpy, call me soft...but I think this is absolutely gorgeous.
And, by the way, it took FOUR tries, over the course of an hour, to finally get the MP3 to post. I thought this was the new, improved MOG.WTF?
Locating MOG account...
Comments (10)
Gretchen Christopher was a guest on our radio show for almost three hours and she was wonderful! She told us about the uproar when they sang that song back in high school and how the lyric "...come..." was taken by many in the audience. Gretchen was so innocent that she had never heard the sexual slang ever and was horrified that her song was getting that reaction.
B