KATRINA AND THE WAVES for Gary

Genre:
Electronic, Rock
Style:
Synth-pop ,New Wave


















KATRINA AND THE WAVES (1985)

Credits :
Ray Beavis - brass/Alan Chaney - organ /Alex Cooper - synthesizer, percussion, drums, background vocals /Vince de la Cruz - bass, guitar, rhythm guitar, background vocals /
John Earle - brass /Nick Glennie-Smith - organ /Dick Hanson - brass /Katrina Leskanich - guitar, rhythm guitar, vocals /Wendy Nicholl - background vocals /Kimberley Rew - organ, guitar, background vocals /Eamon Fitzpatrick - brass arrangement "Walking on Sunshine"

Tracklist :

01 Red Wine And Whiskey (3:43)
02 Do You Want Crying (3:35)
03 Que Te Quiero (3:20)
04 Machine Gun Smith (3:03)
05 Cry For Me (4:58)
06 Walking On Sunshine (4:00)
07 Going Down To Liverpool (4:30)
08 Mexico (3:17)
09 The Sun Won't Shine (3:38)
10 Game Of Love (3:18)

Link to download :
http://rapidshare.com/files/8026370/katrina__1985__192_kbs.rar.html

"Walking on Sunshine" was the hit and the rest went nowhere, but that perfect summer single wasn't the alpha and omega of the cheerful belter Katrina Leskanich's band with songwriter (and former Soft Boys guitarist) Kimberley Rew. This self-titled album (the group's third, but first in the U.S.) has a handful of other terrific songs on it--notably the exquisitely wistful "Going Down to Liverpool," a minor hit for the Bangles, and the spirited downer counterpart to "Sunshine," "Do You Want Crying" (written by bassist Vince De La Cruz). The disc's also got some not-so-hot filler, but it's way more fun than the band's one-hit-wonder status would suggest." --Douglas Wolk

"Great flippin' mid-eighties album here. 6 classics and 3 other strong to very strong songs. From the handful of Chuck Berry-inspired rockers to the sweet, sweet twin ballads, this CD packs a super punch. K&tW were never close to this consistant or catchy again, but for one moment they were...walking on sunshine. "Sunshine" has been played to death in movies and on radio stations, but is a fine cut. From the opening harmonies of "Red Wine & Whiskey", to the Bangles-covered "Goin Down to Liverpool", to the Stone-sy licks on "Game of Love" that closes this rockfest, this recording should be part of your collection. Amazingly solid. Perfect for driving down the highway on a summer day. "

"One of the great injustices of the music world was the failure of this terrific band to sustain the popularity brought to them by the glorious top ten single "Walking On Sunshine."
Although incorrectly dismissed as a "one hit wonder" (the band had four other hits crack the U.S. charts) this album alone has a slew of cuts to make future music historians wonder just what was wrong with the musical priorities on the mid 1980's. "Do You Want Crying," "Que Te Quiero," Going Down To Liverpool," "The Game of Love" and the blistering "Mexico" are just a few of the highlights of this magnificent example of power pop song craft.
I guess we just did not deserve Katrina and the Waves!"

"Only a handful of Katrina and the Waves' songs reached my ears, primarily from this album and one single from their Waves album. From listening to their eponymous 1985 album, they seem to be a combination of the Bangles, Pretenders, with some clever pop hooks thrown in. And Katrina Leskanich's voice seems a smoother, poppier rendition of Chrissie Hynde and Vicki Peterson of the Bangles rolled in one. While displaying the hallmarks of 80's new wave, there are some nods to 50's and 60's sounds with a fiery guitar in spots."O



















ORIGINAL RECORDINGS 1983 - 1984 (2003)

Tracklist :

01 Dancing Street
02 Spiderman
03 Going Down To Liverpool
04 Machine Gun Smith
05 Walking On Sunshine
06 Brown Eyed Son
07 Que Te Quiero
08 Don't Take Her Out Of My World
09 I Really Taught Me To Watusi
10 Ain't No Money (Buy You Love)
11 Do You Want Crying?
12 Maniac House
13 She Loves To Groove
14 Cry For Me
15 Red Wine And Whiskey
16 Mexico
17 One Woman
18 The Sun Won't Shine
19 He's A Charmer
20 The Game Of Love
21 That's Just The Woman In Me
22 River Deep Mountain High
23 Hearbeat
24 Walking On Sunshine (live)

Links to download :
http://www.filesend.net/download.php?f=44651c6e52240cee4ca2cce66d6d5ad1 (1-14)

http://rapidshare.com/files/8037831/orig_records_15-24.rar.html (15-24)

"Purveyors of one of the ultimate summer singles, "Walking on Sunshine", Katrina And The Waves have been sadly marginalized, because that one song of is ubiquitous to this day. In some respects, the song was definitive, as it came from the classic KATW template -- meld Motown and power pop, get the band hopping and let Katrina Leskanich unleash her spectacular blue eyed soul vocals. While it's true that very few guitar pop bands ever have a massive hit, and thus, KATW already got more than similar bands ever dreamed of, it's equally true that they deserved so much more. Then again, the band came of age when many of the best power poppers could barely get the attention of the major labels -- The dB's first two albums only came out in England, for example. This context explains why the first two Katrina And The Waves albums, featured here on CD for the first time, only came out on Attic Records in Canada. They weren't even reissued after the band's success on major. That it took so long for them to come out again is a shame, as both albums are littered with fantastic songs, mostly from the pen of Kimberly Rew, who already knew undeserved obscurity from his tenure in The Soft Boys. Rew was (and still is) also an ace guitarist, as shown by the bubbling fretboard work that is evident throughout. So delight to the original versions of songs that appeared on the band's major label debut like "Sunshine", "Going Down to Liverpool", "Mexico", "Do You Want Crying", "Que Te Quiero" and "The Game of Love", which may be Rew's golden R & B songwriting moment, as it sure sounds like a Stax classic. Whether you prefer the original versions is up to you -- there's no incorrect preference. And if you only know the big hit album, well, there's plenty more tracks of that quality on here. "Spiderman" is a superb power pop song that grabs immediately, "She Loves to Groove" would have been a perfect song for Nick Lowe and Rockpile to cover, and "I Really Taught Me to Watusi" is rhumba-dumb fun. There are also some fine bonus tracks, including a live "Sunshine" and a smoking cover of "River Deep Mountain High", which, along with the Waves original "Cry for Me", serve as proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Leskanich was a top rank soul shouter"

"i'm probably biased (been on a major katrina kick lately, for some reason) but this cd is just fantastic. it's an interesting contrast to the first u.s. katw cd in that even though many of the songs are the same the guitar parts aren't as pronounced and the production isn't as slick. but the tunes are still fantastic, upbeat masterpieces and katrina's voice is in fine form.
the bonus dvd is the real keeper though - simply the band ripping through about a dozen numbers in front of a studio audience. if you missed them when they were hot back in the day, seeing them here is a worthy consolation prize."

Biography :
Katrina and the Waves were a pop rock band of the 1980s, best known for their smash hit "Walking on Sunshine" and their 1997 Eurovision Song Contest victory.
Formed in 1981 in Cambridge, England, the Waves were fronted by American-born singer Katrina Leskanich until she left the group in 1999. Their lead guitarist is Kimberley Rew, formerly of the Soft Boys.
In 1985 the group had a worldwide hit with the song "Walking on Sunshine", a Top 10 UK success, still popular today as a feel-good summer track, used in numerous feature films and advertisements. A Grammy award nominee for "Best New Artist" followed, and several seasons of touring were followed by moderate sales of new releases. "Sun Street" was a UK Top 30 hit in 1986, though subsequent releases, including the infectious "Rock'n'Roll Girl" in 1988, failed to chart.
By the late nineties, the band had all but disappeared, but briefly surged back into the limelight by winning the Eurovision Song Contest for the United Kingdom on 3 May 1997 with the song "Love Shine A Light". Reacting to the win, Katrina said it was the second landslide victory in a week; the song won by a record points margin, and Tony Blair had won the 1997 British general election two days previously.
Six years after the original band split up, Katrina formed a new group in an attempt to repeat the Waves' Eurovision triumph, this time in Sweden. At the 2005 Melodifestivalen, the competition to select Sweden's entry, the group failed to qualify directly from the fourth semi-final of the competition, and were eventually eliminated in a 'second-chance semi'. Having planned to call themselves "Katrina and the New Wave", they dubbed themselves "Katrina and the Nameless" after legal objections from the original Waves.
In 2005, the storm surge of a storm named Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the Gulf Coast, including the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. The MSNBC news program Countdown with Keith Olbermann dubbed its coverage of the hurricane "Katrina and the Waves", referring to the storm itself and its storm surge, and that name also appeared in numerous headlines and blog posts. As the Waves lead singer Katrina Leskanich now shares her name with the devastation, she was quoted in the New York Times as saying the following:
"The first time I opened the paper and saw 'Katrina kills 9,' it was a bit of a shock. It's a very sad situation, but I'm sure the strength and good will of the survivors will turn it around. I hope that the true spirit of 'Walking on Sunshine' will prevail. I would hate for the title to be tinged with sadness, and I will have to do my own part to help turn that around."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waves_(album))


More info :
http://www.katw.com/

http://www.katrinasweb.com/

http://www.katrina-leskanich.net/