News from the darkest corners...

Alan Gordon, 64, a songwriter who with his writing partner Garry Bonner penned the Turtles’ No. 1 hit “Happy Together” and other catchy pop songs in the 1960s, died of cancer Nov. 22 at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Besides “Happy Together,” which topped the charts in March 1967, the songwriting duo also wrote “She’d Rather Be With Me,” “You Know What I Mean” and “She’s My Girl” for the Turtles, as well as “Celebrate” for Three Dog Night.

On his own, Gordon wrote “My Heart Belongs to Me” for Barbra Streisand, who recorded it for her 1977 album “Streisand Superman.”

Hard-core Frank Zappa fans will have to wait a little longer for revamped versions of two of the late composer’s seminal works from the ’60s.

An ambitious box set combining rare studio tracks and new mixes of both Lumpy Gravy and We’re Only In It for the Money, dubbed Lumpy Money, will not meet its slated Nov. 25 release date.

The project is set to include two separate versions of each album to celebrate the records’ fortieth anniversary. An alternate mix of Lumpy Gravy will feature Zappa’s original, “ballet” vision of the orchestral project.

News of the delay did not hit Zappa.com until yesterday, and the Zappa Family Trust provided no clues as to why the project stalled. Nor did they provide an updated time frame for release:

“We will notify you here as soon as we have a real date. Which should be soooooon!”

A new free album download is waiting for you on our label WM Recordings:

Thee Contortionists vs. Jeff McLeod – Electronics

“An electronic deep listening experience that will make your head spin in an overwhelming digital/analog delirium”.

Spinal Frog Music, a.k.a. Daniel Corral from Alaska, has released his first digital-download album on his website. It is a 17 minute collage comprised of entirely endings taken from all styles of music. From Modest Mussorgsky to Modest Mouse or from Iannis Xenakis to Xavier Cugalis, these endings have come from all corners of the musical world to be re-contextualized as a part of a larger linear continuum.

Daniel’s Cadential Variations is only available as a download at www.spinalfrog.com.

Yma Sumac, the Peruvian-born singer whose spectacular multi-octave vocal range and exotic persona made her an international sensation in the 1950s, has died. She was 86.

Sumac, who was diagnosed with colon cancer in February, died Saturday in an assisted living facility in Silver Lake, said Damon Devine, her personal assistant and close friend.

Bursting onto the American music scene after signing with Capitol Records in 1950, the raven-haired Sumac was known as the “Nightingale of the Andes,” the “Peruvian Songbird” and a “singing marvel” with a 4 1/2 -octave (she said five-octave) voice.

After Sumac performed at the Shrine Auditorium with a company of dancers, drummers and musicians in 1955, a Los Angeles Times writer observed: “She warbles like a bird in the uppermost regions, hoots like an owl in the lowest registers, produces bell-like coloratura passages one minute, and exotic, dusky contralto tones the next.”

Sumac’s first album for Capitol, “Voice of the Xtabay,” soared to the top of the LP charts. A handful of other albums followed during the `50s.

With her exotic beauty, elaborate costumes and singing voice that could imitate the cries of birds and wild animals, the woman who claimed to be a descendant of an ancient Incan emperor offered Eisenhower-era audiences something unique.

During her 1950s heyday, Sumac sang at the Hollywood Bowl, Carnegie Hall and Royal Albert Hall. She reportedly made $25,000 a week in Las Vegas and turned down offers to sing with New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

She was featured in the 1951 Broadway musical “Flahooley” and appeared in the films “Secret of the Incas” in 1954 and “Omar Khayyam” in 1957.

Although details of her birth date and early life vary widely, Devine said Sumac was born Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo in Cajamarca, Peru, on Sept. 13, 1922. She later said she began singing when she was about 9.

After joining Vivanco’s large group of native singers, dancers and musicians, she made her radio debut in 1942; she and Vivanco were married the same year.

In Argentina in 1943, she and Vivanco’s group recorded a series of Peruvian folk songs. By then, she was known professionally as Imma Sumack (Capitol Records later changed the spelling).

In 1946, she and her husband moved to New York City, where they performed as the Inca Taky Trio, with Vivanco on guitar, Sumac singing soprano and her cousin, Cholita Rivero, singing contralto and dancing.

After making her name as a solo artist, Sumac toured around the world for several years in the `60s, but her popularity in America had waned by then.

In 1971, she recorded a psychedelic rock album that was not widely released, “Miracles,” and “semi-retired” to Peru later in the decade – at least that’s what she always said.

Sumac did return to performing in 1984 at the Vine Street Bar & Grill and the Cinegrill in Hollywood. In the early ’90s, she toured in Europe and continued to perform until 1997.

Jimmy Carl Black (real name James Inkanish), former drummer and vocalist for Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, passed away on october 31st. Black recently worked as a guest vocalist with The Muffin Men, a Frank Zappa tribute band based in Liverpool, England, and with Jon Larsen, on the surrealistic Strange News From Mars project, featuring several other Zappa alumni, such as Tommy Mars, Bruce Fowler and Arthur Barrow. He was also a member of The Grandmothers and he formed a duo with Eugene Chadbourne.

Black was diagnosed with lung cancer in August, 2008. A benefit will be held on 9 November 2008 at the Bridgehouse II in London.

Jimmy Carl Black was 70 years old.