FIRST TAKE
I was at a variety store somewhere ages ago and saw a rack of marked-down albums. They were priced at only 4 for a dollar, so I couldn’t lose there. One was an album by Meri Wilson called First Take; the songs on the record were marked as to which were recorded on the “first take”, and that was true of about half of them. Like the other three, I had no clue who she was.
But Meri Wilson had recorded a catchy, bawdy novelty song called “Telephone Man” in 1977 that I had heard numerous times – “My heart began a-thumpin’ and my mind began to fly / And I knew I wasn’t dealin’ with no ordinary guy / So while he was a-talking I was thinkin’ up my plan / Then my fingers did the walkin’ on the telephone man” – which made it to #6 on the UK charts and #18 on the US charts. And “Telephone Man” was there about halfway through the first side of First Take. I could not have been more surprised.
(December 2015)
