Music Monday ~Aries-type Crispian St. Peters & Pied Piper. And unrelated, the annoyingly catchy Zou Bisou Bisou

Crispian St Peters - now there's a blast from the past! He was an English singer, his birthday would have been this week, April 5 (1939), but he died in 2010. My husband has never heard of him, although I thought the singer did have at least one hit record in the USA. Best known for Pied Piper (a catchy but repetitive number) and the quieter You Were On My Mind. The latter written by Sylivia Tyson; Pied Piper written by Steve Duboff and Artie Kornfeild.

This is another singer with natal Sun in Aries (several more in last Monday's post). St Peters had 3 planets closely clustered in the sign: Sun/Mercury/Saturn. His song "Follow me I'm the Pied Piper" is oddly fitting for a triple Aries - Aries the leader, initiative-taker, bright, implulsive and enthusiastic.

Wikipedia indicates that his real name was Robin Peter Smith, changed on the suggestion of his manager, EMI publicist David Nicholson, who also reduced the singer's age for publicity purposes. Nicholson's influence may or may not have been advantageous:
Wiki~

Under David Nicolson's tutelage the shy star was momentarily transformed into arrogance incarnate and astonished the conservative music press of the period by his suggestion that he had written 80 songs of better quality than those of The Beatles. Other stars were also waved aside as St. Peters announced that he was better than Elvis Presley: "I'm going to make Presley look like the Statue of Liberty . . . I am sexier than Dave Berry and more exciting than Tom Jones . . . and the Beatles are past it". Outraged readers denounced him in letters columns. However, St. Peters' comments were meant to be tongue-in-cheek as he explained in an interview....

No subsequent release would ever match the success of "The Pied Piper," although its success helped boost "You Were on My Mind" into the US Top 40. Thereafter St. Peters was remembered more for his idle boasts than his music.

Shadow side of Aries?

The singer was weakened by a stroke in 1995. After several battles with pneumonia, and following a long illness, he died in 2010.

Unrelated to the above except by another song that was/is catchy and sticks in the head as Pied Piper tends to do. This one was performed by Jessica Paré during the opening episode of Mad Men's new season. It's a 1960s French ditty: Zou Bisou Bisou, originally recorded in 1961 by British actress and pop star Gillian Hills, star of Beat Girl and a Roger Vadim discovery. Sophia Loren sang it too, in the movie The Millionairess - in English - titled, oddly, Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo. It's really just a "kissy kissy" kind of song: bisou = kiss in French. Dang! It will keep going around in my head.

Sophia Loren sings it (not certain whether visuals are from The Millionairess.)

Jessica Paré's version while playing Megan Draper in Mad Men