DESCRIPTION:
The fabulous Evie Sands recreates her legendary mid-Sixties Northern Soul smash "Picture Me Gone", which was yet another song that we filmed for "The Strange World Of Northern Soul". This was first recorded in 1966, and then we recut it in 1999 when we were filming our DVD documentary. Evie is a Brooklyn born singer, songwriter and guitarist, whose career began as a young teenager in the mid-1960s. She was born and raised in Brooklyn to music loving parents, and fulfilled sooner than expected her mother's intuition that, "this baby will come out singing". After cutting two singles on obscure labels, she signed to Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's Blue Cat Records in 1965, and her initial single was that year's Chip Taylor/ A l Gorgoni produced "Take Me For A Little While". Her follow-up single, "I Can't Let Go", subsequently got lost amidst the post 'Take Me...' chaos, leaving Brit-invaders The Hollies clear to have a hit with a re-recorded version of the same song in the spring of 1966. That same year, Sands parted ways with Blue Cat, and moved to Cameo-Parkway Records, where she maintained her successful pairing with Chip Taylor, who penned her next single, the hotly-tipped "Angel of the Morning". However, once again, Sands was unfortunate, for a matter of weeks after its release, Cameo-Parkway went bust, allowing another version of the song, by Merilee Rush & The Turnabouts, to steal its thunder topping the charts just months later. It was here at Cameo she recorded "Picture Me Gone". In 1969, Sands moved to A&M Records, where she notched up her biggest hit, "Any Way That You Want Me", another Chip Taylor composition. Incidentally, this track had earlier been recorded by The Troggs in 1966. Evie's album of the same name came out on A&M in 1970, several months after the single had peaked. It was followed by "Estate of Mind" on Haven/Capitol Records in 1975, which was made up of ten Sands original songs. In late 1996, Sands went to see Chip Taylor perform at a club gig, and he invited her on stage to perform with him. Despite not having kept actively in touch through the previous years, the experience was so successful that the two reignited their collaboration, spawning the critically acclaimed "Women In Prison" LP, which was released in 1999 on Taylor's Train Wreck records. A more rootsy project than the blue-eyed soul of her late 1960s-70s output, the album consisted of various Sands-Taylor-Gorgoni originals. We recorded and filmed her in 1999 singing this beautiful classic, and we found her utterly lovely and charming and felt privileged to film her with this song.