Note: Erik Lindgren remembers "Jacques Devat" as the pen name of James Davitt, the baker at Mount Hermon, the western Massachusetts prep school he attended in the mid-1960s. When Davitt presented him with a copy of the 45, Lindgren knew nothing of the existence of song-poem music and just assumed that Davitt, who he knew to dabble a bit with poetry, had found some music collaborators somewhere and gotten lucky. It wasn't until years later still that Lindgren became aware of the song-poem con and realized that his naïve friend had fallen victim.
Lindgren was impressed enough with the song "Sahara" to perform a version of it in the mid-'70s with his central Pennsylvania combo TNT, even recording it in '75. While that makes it perhaps the first-ever song-poem cover, they thought they were just playing a cool song, not realizing until years later that they had broken new ground.
-- Singles --
1294/1295: Jan Merlin and George Liberace And His Orchestra -- Sahara / Melodywaltz (both wr. Jacques Devat) (arr. George Liberace; c.'67 or '68)
Discography ©2004 Phil Milstein
Affiliated label:
George Liberace