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Susan Christie - Paint a Lady (Very Rare UK Folkrock 1969) How rare can a rare record be? - medium rare? uncooked? how about unreleased? Susan Christie was a Philly based sophomore folk singer who had one novelty hit for a major label and never quite recovered - Afterwards, her psychedelic take on country standards and hand crafted tales of inner-city solitude backed by a break heavy folk-funk rhythm section was never accepted as a commercial viabilty by record company big-wigs - They obviously couldnt quite muster their nostradamus sensibilities to forsee what future hiphop producers and DJ's would be feeding into digital music-machines 30 years down the line! Luckily three -fifths of a handful (literally three!) privately pressed vanity copies were manufactured in early 1970 one of which became the source material for Finders Keepers 6th LP in their expanding library of obscure, obtuse, obsolete and obsessive vintage music from the 60's and 70's. Uber legend John Hill who penned the acid-rock floor-filler 'LOVE,LOVE,LOVE,LOVE,LOVE,' for 'Wool' and 'Pacific Gas And Electric' produced the LP which featues 9 tracks including a Johnny Cash cover and a 12 minute 'drugsploitation' epic called 'Yesterday - Where's My Mind' featuring Susan flipping vocal styles between Janis Joplin and Margo Guryan (...who was in fact a close friend of Susans at the time of recording). 30 years ago, a Philly based folk singer named Susan Christie was dropped by her record company. After one novelty song, the label bosses didn’t think her melancholy take on country and solitude would ever be of any interest. Five copies of her album were pressed and faded into obscurity. Skip forward to present time, and a small label, ‘Finders Keepers’ salvages three out of these five copies and decides to release it. Susan Christie’s album is a beautiful piece of despondent tales and folky psychedelia. The fascinating thing is that it sounds very current. The title track is reminiscent of Portishead , while other songs incorporate break heavy folk-funk, current DJ’s would die for. Don’t get me wrong, it is an obscure 70’s folk record at its heart, but highly worth listening to today. 1-Rainy Day 0:00 2-Paint A Lady 3:09 3-For The Love Of A Soldier 6:31 4-Ghost Riders In The Sky 10:26 5-Yesterday, Where's My Mind? 13:53 6-Echo In Your Mind 22:58 7-When Love Comes 26:15 8-No One Can Hear You Cry 28:34 Bass – Kirk Hamilton Drums – Jim Valerio* Performer – Susan Christie Producer – Jon Hill* Songwriter – Bill Soden
