Gregory Abbott - Shake You Down (1987)
** (of four)
One of the more noxious mid-'80s slow jams is "(Mama Let Me) Shake You Down" from two-hit wonder Gregory Abbott, who looks kind of like Ted Danson in blackface. Odd, since a quick artist bio search on the Internet just revealed that Abbott was considered one of the sexiest artists in pop at the time. Competition wasn't so fierce in those days, I suppose - the REO Speedwagon frontman was years away from his life-altering visit to Dr. 90210.
This video reeks of a bad senior portrait session. Images of Abbott - posing solo with chair in front of white backdrop, looking austere in front of the sepia-paisley backdrop, et al - and various multiethnic female models roll across the screen from right to left. Abbott, for his part, is dressed like Tubbs from "Miami Vice," with suit coat atop white T-shirt. The models are hit and miss - one strange-looking white girl keeps singing intently into the camera and eventually pulls her sweater up over her head to reveal some forbidden white bra strap. That one's a miss, methinks.
Hang in there until the end and you'll be rewarded with Abbott's pair of nursery rhyme ad-libs: "Roses are red and violets are blue / I'm gonna rock this world for you," and, "Eenie meenie miney moe / I'm gonna let my love flow." When I'm bored and this song comes on somewhere I can't change the channel, I sing my own ad-libs. My favorites so far are, "I do not like green eggs and ham / I'm gonna give you a lumberjack slam," and, "In fourteen hundred and ninety-two / Columbus beat your beaver blue."
One of the more noxious mid-'80s slow jams is "(Mama Let Me) Shake You Down" from two-hit wonder Gregory Abbott, who looks kind of like Ted Danson in blackface. Odd, since a quick artist bio search on the Internet just revealed that Abbott was considered one of the sexiest artists in pop at the time. Competition wasn't so fierce in those days, I suppose - the REO Speedwagon frontman was years away from his life-altering visit to Dr. 90210.
This video reeks of a bad senior portrait session. Images of Abbott - posing solo with chair in front of white backdrop, looking austere in front of the sepia-paisley backdrop, et al - and various multiethnic female models roll across the screen from right to left. Abbott, for his part, is dressed like Tubbs from "Miami Vice," with suit coat atop white T-shirt. The models are hit and miss - one strange-looking white girl keeps singing intently into the camera and eventually pulls her sweater up over her head to reveal some forbidden white bra strap. That one's a miss, methinks.
Hang in there until the end and you'll be rewarded with Abbott's pair of nursery rhyme ad-libs: "Roses are red and violets are blue / I'm gonna rock this world for you," and, "Eenie meenie miney moe / I'm gonna let my love flow." When I'm bored and this song comes on somewhere I can't change the channel, I sing my own ad-libs. My favorites so far are, "I do not like green eggs and ham / I'm gonna give you a lumberjack slam," and, "In fourteen hundred and ninety-two / Columbus beat your beaver blue."
posted by daytime at 6:04 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home