Music Reissues Weekly: Norma Tanega - I Don't Think It Will Hurt If You Smile

After scoring a hit in 1966 with the distinctive folk-pop of her jazz-inclined debut single "Walkin' my Cat Named Dog," US singer-songwriter Norma Tanega (1939–2019) seemed to melt away. Three follow-up 45s weren’t hits. Her album wasn’t a strong seller. Latterly, though, one of its tracks, “You're Dead,” has been heard as the theme of the TV and cinema versions of What We Do In The Shadows.

There was, despite the lack of subsequent commercial success, a second album. I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile was recorded in the UK and issued in 1971. Sales were low and it ostensibly attracted little, if any, attention when it came out. Up to 2019, original copies sold for £20 or £30. That year, prices began rising: £100, then £200. In 2021, the current going rate of anywhere from £250 to £400 became the norm. Now, it is reissued.

It was the promotion of "Walkin' my Cat Named Dog" which, in time, led to Tanega moving to the UK and the release of I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile. With a hit to her name, Tanega was on the British weekly pop show Ready Steady Go! on 26 June 1966 performing "Walkin' my Cat Named Dog" and its follow-up single "A Street That Rhymes at Six A.M." A week later, RSG regular Dusty Springfield was on, promoting “Bring Him Back” and “Goin’ Back.” Springfield and the programme’s producer Vicki Wickham were friends: the singer was often in the TV studio for filming and at the post-wrap gatherings, whether or not she was on the show. When Tanega appeared, she met Springfield for the first time. They became a couple, and the move to the UK followed.

At that time, the nature of Springfield and Tanega’s sexuality had to remain a secret. The music business might have known, but if it had come out Springfield’s career would have been over. However, there were hints of a link: Tanega wrote “Morning,” heard on 1968’s Dusty ... Definitely album. She also wrote or co-wrote the Springfield B-sides “No Stranger am I” and “The Colour of Your Eyes” (both 1968). Further songs of hers were recorded in the UK by, amongst others, Blossom Dearie (another of Springfield’s friends) and Springfield’s former Springfields colleague Tom Springfield. Tanega also co-wrote with him: their song “Charley” was recorded solo by Tom as the B-side of a 1970 Dusty Springfield and Tom Springfield single. The US singer Jane Morgan then recorded a version of “Charley” as a B-side. It was issued by RCA. Which is where I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile comes in.

I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile was released by RCA and, presumably, the Jane Morgan single had brought Tanega into the label’s orbit. As she’d had an international hit in 1966, Tanega could again be a commercial proposition. The then-recent releases of records with her songs may have reinforced this perception. If this is the case, it is bizarre that the album was only issued in the UK and (also bizarrely) New Zealand.

While the path to the release of I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile is traceable, there appears to have been no promotion of it and the accompanying “Nothing Much is Happening Today” / “Antarctic Rose” single. Five years on from "Walkin' my Cat Named Dog" Tanega’s return as a singer-songwriter on RCA was overlooked. In his contextualising essay in the booklet coming with the album’s reissue, author and Saint Etienne band member Bob Stanley quotes interviews which suggest the album’s fate was predestined: promoting an album by a lesbian would have been problematic and, compounding this, promoting an album by a lesbian in a relationship with Dusty Springfield may have, if the relationship was uncovered, upset the star’s status. Whatever it was that hobbled I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile, it raises the question of why go to the trouble of recording it and then releasing it?

Thankfully, it was released. It is terrific. Listening to it now, it feels as if it may have been more at home on the Island label, which had on its books a raft of idiosyncratic singer-songwriters, rather than the pop-inclined RCA. Album opener “Now is the Time” is a groovy, gospel-edged mover with a sing-along chorus. As fabulous as it is, it does not telegraph what is to come (although “What More in This World Could Anyone be Living For (Version 2),” which closes Side One, is along these lines but weirder). Next up, after “Now is the Time,” is the wistful, cor anglais-suffused “Beautiful Things” – Nick Drake, Vashti and the John and Beverly Martyn of “Auntie Aviator” come to mind as fellow musical travellers. This is high-end folk-inclined baroque pop which sounds totally British. The following track is the similarly slanted and just-as great “Illusion.” The album includes four short instrumentals named after places in Britain: “Hampton Court,” “Clapham Junction,” “Upper Osterley” and “Cowfold” (a village in Sussex). Tanega had really scrutinised her adopted nation.

Interestingly, “Cowfold” had also been included on a 1971 music library album released by the Standard Music Library (the two other Tanega track from this, “Alternator Man” and “Barrel Organ,” are collected here as bonuses along with a couple of demos). That Tanega was also contracted to a music library suggests songwriting was her main focus, and that I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile may have been an adjunct release. Whatever the ins and outs of the album, it was and is fantastic.

After the release of I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile, Tanega moved back to California. The relationship with Dusty Springfield was over. She was a graduate in painting and print-making, and returned to painting, co-ran an art gallery, taught and made low-key albums every now and then. But I Don’t Think It Will Hurt If You Smile was her last brush with the mainstream music business. It’s quite the farewell note.

• Next week: Too Far Out - Beat, Mod & R&B From 304 Holloway Road 1963-1966. Joe Meek gets to grips with changing musical trends
  
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