Needle Time

  Blue Rondo À La Turk - The Heavens Are Crying [VS 516-12 UK 1982 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] Already featured on my rip of the Chewing The Fat album, but felt I needed to give this full length 8 minute epic a post of it's own. I last ripped this twelve-inch single for ESWA in April 2012. What starts off as a pretty ordinary jazz-pop ditty develops into a monster latin percussion jam much akin to Candido's (or maybe even Santana's) Jingo . It's not as commercial and catchy as the previous two singles, it is actually quite dark however it does show the band to be fairly competent musicians plying their trade. I have just one more Blue Rondo single to re-rip which I will plan in later this year. A1 The Heavens Are Crying B1 The Cities Are Dying

  Blue Rondo - Bees Knees & Chickens Elbows [V2311 UK 1984 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] When Blue Rondo À La Turk splintered in 1983, Mark Reilly, Kito Poncioni and Danny White formed the million selling Matt Bianco, the remaining key players Chris Sullivan, Geraldo D'Arbilly and Christos Tolera became just Blue Rondo. The shortened line-up managed just one album and two singles before giving up the day jobs and concentration on their more fruitful night jobs running The Wag Club in London, just before this record hit the stores. The 'new band' modernised their sound, dipping into eighties pop & soul but still maintaining that latino flavoured tinge. The 1983 single Slipping Into Daylight failed to tickle the hit parade but its classy & cool pop/soul sound did come close to what Paul Weller was then doing with The Style Council. Masked Moods was slick night club jazz but the 1984 love of new British cool jazz failed to help sales.  A1 Samba No Pe A2 Slipp...

  Blue Rondo À La Turk - Me And Mr. Sanchez [VS 463-12 UK 1981 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] Flicking back through my fifteen years of ripping and blogging, I don't think that I have ever ripped the twelve-inch edition of  Me And Mr. Sanchez - I may be wrong, but I am sure that I only every ripped a crackly seven-inch back in July 2011. Regardless, if I did, it won't sound as good as this! Blue Rondo À La Turk's debut single, and biggest hit brightened up everybody's day back in those dark days of 1981, including in Brazil where it was allegedly number one for three months, although I can find no details of a Brazilian pressing on Discogs. Let's hope it now brightens up everybody's day 42 years later. A1 Me And Mr. Sanchez (Club Mix) B1 Me And Mr. Sanchez (Extended Version) B2 Sarava

  Blue Rondo À La Turk - Chewing The Fat [V2240 UK 1982 24-Bit 176.4kHz FLAC] As a young lad with a passion for percussion based music, Chris Sullivan's Blue Rondo À La Turk ensemble caught my attention, firstly with their barnstorming samba-pop single  Me And Mr. Sanchez (which actually topped the charts for three months in Brazil) and then the somewhat unusual  Klacto Vee Sedstein .  The band was a multi-national group, based in London, with exotically named members such as Christos Tolera, Kito Poncioni,  Geraldo D'Arbilly,  Segona Peter Tholo & Moses Mount Bassie. Guitarist Mark Reilly was eventually to splinter off and become the Matt Bianco hit-machine. Sullivan was a leading light in the new wave of London jazz-dance and a key player involved in the famous Wag Club. Chewing The Fat was their debut album, it is a fun listen and stacked full of singles including the gentle samba-pop of  Carioca and the epic & apocal...