Kim Wilde’s first records were written and produced by her father and brother, Marty and Ricky. The three of them have had a great influence on the music world, as this regular series ‘Wilde World’ shows.
It’s inevitable that some songs get recorded multiple times. This has happened to Marty Wilde, as this series of blogs will show you in forthcoming installments. A remarkable example of this is presented in this week’s entry. We featured the Shang-a-lang song’ in a blog dedicated to Ruby Pearl and the Dreamboats three months ago. While the song didn’t chart, it was picked up by French singer Sylvie Vartan in the very year the song was originally released, 1974.
Born as Sylvie Georges Vartanian in Iskrets, Bulgaria on August 15, 1944, she moved to Paris with her parents when she was eight years old. In 1961 she released her first hit, ‘Panne d’essence’ which earned her her first appearance on French television. Between then and now, Vartan released dozens of albums and even more singles. Her version of ‘The Shang-a-lang song’ appeared on her 1974 album ‘Shang Shang a lang’ along with cover versions of songs like Elton John’s ‘Rocket man’. It was also released as a single in France, although its chart success is unknown. As far as we know, Sylvie Vartan never recorded another song written by Marty Wilde.
With thanks to Gérard Soubrié
{“preview_thumbnail”:”/new/sites/default/files/styles/video_embed_wysiwyg_preview/public/video_thumbnails/WW1Z8iDqV4o.jpg?itok=bX9fBJCs”,”video_url”:”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW1Z8iDqV4o”,”settings”:{“responsive”:1,”width”:”854″,”height”:”480″,”autoplay”:1},”settings_summary”:[“Embedded Video (Responsive, autoplaying).”]}