“The Days of Pearly Spencer” — Marc Almond
Marc Almond has had an interesting musical journey. He started out as one half of pioneering synth-pop duo Soft Cell. Their biggest hit was the 1981 UK Number One “Tainted Love”, but they also racked up a series of commercial and critical successes before disbanding in the mid-1980s.
Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” was a cover of Gloria Jones’s 1964 original with a synthesiser-based makeover. The original was never a hit in either the US or the UK so it was virtually unknown before Soft Cell’s cover. Since then, it’s gone down in music history as one of the earliest foundations of the 1980's synth-driven music scene.
After Soft Cell, Marc Almond’s career went in a range of different…some might say surprising…directions.
He duetted with Gene Pitney on a revival of Pitney’s “Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart”…also a UK Number One…he recorded an album of darkly tinged French chansons and a range of even darker-themed Russian torch songs. He’s nothing if not experimental in his musical choices.
For me, though, one of Marc Almond’s best was “The Days Of Pearly Spencer”. This was also a cover of a little-known record from the 1960s…for Brits at least…written, and originally performed, by David McWilliams.
