Cha | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 22 October 1982 | |||
Recorded | June 1982 | |||
Studio | Richmond Recorders | |||
Genre | Rock, pop | |||
Label | Mushroom, A&M | |||
Producer | Peter Solley | |||
Jo Jo Zep chronology | ||||
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Singles from Cha | ||||
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Cha is the seventh studio album by Australian band Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons, but first and only to be credited as Jo Jo Zep. It is also the final studio album by the band until Ricochet in 2003. The album was released in November 1982 and peaked at number 28 on the Australian Kent Music Report. David Nichols called Cha primarily a "latin-based dance record". [1]
In a 2014 interview with Carol Duncan, Camilleri reflected on the album saying "I had this really beautiful 13-piece band and we went around the country and we had two hit singles... but I wasn't very happy with the record. It could have been so much better and it was my fault that it wasn't as good as I wanted it to be, but anyway, it yielded these two songs and we got to play and I got to do something that I wanted to do which was play with the cha band and six horns and high-heeled boots and gay cavalier and all that nonsense, but it just left me wanting. It was nice, but it wasn't what I wanted to do." [2]
Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons disbanded in 1983.
Cha was reviewed in January 1983 (Volume 7) of the Countdown Magazine, in which they said the album sees Jo Jo Zep "breaking away from his R&B base and exploring reggae, jazz, techno-pop, Joe Jackson-type big ballads, Caribbean rhythms and more. The result is a heady potpourri, a frothy brew of style and substance." adding "The strong vocal contributions of Jane Clifton give this work a dimension" [3]
Australian track listing
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Walk On By" | Burt Bacharach, Hal David | 3:51 |
2. | "Taxi Mary" | Jeff Burstin, Joe Camilleri, Tony Faehse | 4:02 |
3. | "Sherrie" | Camilleri, Paul Kelly | 3:50 |
4. | "Slave For Love" | Camilleri, Kelly | 4:39 |
5. | "You're Gonna Get It Boy" | Burstin, Camilleri, Simon Gyllies | 3:11 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Lonely Man" | Arthur Harris | 3:36 |
2. | "Man is Just a Boy" | Camilleri, Kelly, Gyllies | 4:24 |
3. | "Spirit of the Land" | Martin Kellock | 4:30 |
4. | "Can't Decide" | Camilleri, Kelly, Gyllies | 3:55 |
International track listing [1983] (A&M Records)
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Losing Game" | Joe Camilleri, Simon Gyllies, Stephen Clarke | 4:12 |
2. | "Walk On By" | Burt Bacharach, Hal David | 3:51 |
3. | "King Kong" | Camilleri | 4:01 |
4. | "Taxi Mary" | Jeff Burstin, Camilleri, Tony Faehse | 4:02 |
5. | "Flexible" | Camilleri | 1:59 |
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Sherrie" | Camilleri, Paul Kelly | 3:50 |
2. | "Man is Just a Boy" | Camilleri, Kelly, Gyllies | 4:24 |
3. | "Spirit of the Land" | Martin Kellock | 4:30 |
4. | "Competition" | Camilleri, Lawrence | 4:20 |
5. | "Slave For Love" | Camilleri, Kelly | 4:39 |
6. | "Can't Decide" | Camilleri, Kelly, Gyllies | 3:55 |
Chart (1982) | Peak position |
---|---|
Australian Kent Music Report [4] | 28 |
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ) [5] | 33 |
Stephen Donald Cummings is an Australian rock singer and songwriter. He was the lead singer of Melbourne-based rock band the Sports from 1976 to 1981, followed by a solo career which has met with critical acclaim but has had limited commercial success. He has written two novels, Wonderboy (1996) and Stay Away from Lightning Girl (1999), and a memoir, Will It Be Funny Tomorrow, Billy (2009). In 2014 a documentary film, Don't Throw Stones, based on his memoir premiered as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival.
Joseph Vincent Camilleri, aka Jo Jo Zep or Joey Vincent, is a Maltese Australian singer-songwriter and musician. Camilleri has recorded as a solo artist and as a member of Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons and The Black Sorrows. Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons' highest-charting single was "Hit & Run" from June 1979, which peaked at #12; Jo Jo Zep's "Taxi Mary" peaked at No. 11 in September 1982; and The Black Sorrows top single, "Chained to the Wheel", peaked at No. 9 in March 1989.
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Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons are an Australian blues and rock music band that features the singer, songwriter and saxophonist Joe Camilleri. The band was active in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and had several Australian chart hits including "Hit and Run", "Shape I'm In" and "All I Wanna Do". The Falcons dissolved in 1981 and the group's biggest Australian hit, 1982's "Taxi Mary", as well as the New Zealand top ten hit "Walk on By", were both credited simply to "Jo Jo Zep". In 1983, Camilleri and other members of the Falcons formed the Black Sorrows.
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"Taxi Mary" is a pop song written by Jeff Burstin, Joe Camilleri and Tony Faehse and recorded by the Australian musicians Jo Jo Zep and Jane Clifton. It was released in September 1982 as the lead single from Zep's seventh studio album, Cha (1982).
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