Friday, November 20, 2009

PRETTY MAID - TONY MARSHALL

In 1973 in Australia one of the biggest hits of the year was "Pretty Maid" by Tony Marshall. Tony's song was first a hit in 1971 in Germany (his homeland) where it was called "Schöne Maid". The original German version had tweeting birds at the start but the musical arrangement was basically the same.

Pete Bellotte who wrote the English lyrics for "Pretty Maid" has been churning out hits for many years. Pete was a British lyricist and producer, most notable for his collaborations with Giorgio Moroder. His hits include "Hot Stuff", "I Feel Love", "Love To Love You Baby" and "Son Of My Father".

Tony Marshall was born February 3, 1938 in Baden-Baden as Herbert Anton Bloeth. He changed his name to Herbert Anton Hilger before changing for a third time to Tony Marshall. He settled on the name Tony Marshall in about 1965 when he started training as an opera singer at Karlsruher College of Music.

Before his opera career took off Tony made the German top 40 with his first single "Schöne Maid". Since then he has had many hits in Germany but is considered a one-hit-wonder in Oz.

In 1976 a disco version of "Pretty Maid" was issued by Pretty Maid Company (click label at right).

Here is the English version of "Pretty Maid" by Tony Marshall:

http://rapidshare.com/files/309782714/Tony_Marshall_-_Pretty_Maid.mp3

1 comment:

  1. "In 1976 a disco version of "Pretty Maid" was issued by Pretty Maid Company (click label at right)." - does 'click label at right' mean have a look at the record label or is there a download link to the disco version...its a pretty damned cool track so I am fascinated to hear it if you have it that is....

    ...hope you are enjoying our English weather ;) look forward to some more uber-rare posts and amazing re-edits (yet to hear a bad 'Tom Mix' which is saying something) when you get back to Oz.

    Now that every DJ & his dog is churning out a disco edit (I hear there are only 23 disco tracks from the 70s left in the entire world that have not been given the 21st century edit treatment..or maybe thats 22...) I wish more people would take a leaf out of your book and spend some time and effort creating something special rather than a quick 'beatmatch and loop' splice approach with something drearily predicatable!

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