Wall of Sound lost and found

With a sound that sometimes seemed a combination of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, the Velvet Underground and ‘80s pop-noir duo Suicide, the Raveonettes earned a lot of buzz with their 2003 debut album, “Chain Gang of Love.”

For the follow-up, the Danish team of Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo thought that they could take the next step by actually using people who were part of the Spector sound, the Velvet Underground and Suicide.

And that’s exactly what they did. “Pretty in Black,” due for April 26 release, features prominent guest appearances by Ronettes singer (and Spector’s ex-wife) Ronnie Spector, Velvet’s drummer Mo Tucker and Suicide member Martin Rev.

“We set high standards for ourselves and came up with three people we wanted on the record,” says Wagner. “So happy it came through. We couldn’t ask for better people to have on the record.”

The biggest coup may have been getting Tucker, who has performed only sporadically since leaving the Velvet Underground in the early ‘70s and rarely with other bands.

But in this case she wound up becoming almost an auxiliary Raveonette, appearing on five songs.

“Mo was the first one we asked,” Wagner says. “We played a lot of places in the United States where her manager started showing up and said, ‘I’ve got a greeting from Mo. She wished she could be here, but she’s doing this or that.’

“We were like, ‘You’re talking about the Mo Tucker?’ At one point her manager gave us this nice present which was an old recording of a Velvet Underground show that only she has. ‘She really likes us!’ We were so excited.”

Even though they had still not met Tucker, it seemed a natural step to ask if she would sit in on a recording session. So an invitation was extended for a studio date in Atlanta, where Tucker lives. It was Tucker’s 60th birthday, and a note from Raveonettes producer Richard Gottehrer convinced the drummer that this would be a perfect way to celebrate.

“She came down and played on five songs and was truly amazing, such a sweet woman,” Wagner says. “So cool like you’d expect her to be, still that Velvet Underground cool.”

Four of the songs will be on the new album and the fifth, a version of Buddy Holly’s “Everyday,” will be used as a B-side release. It’s also one of the tracks that features Rev.

“We called him up and he said he remembered seeing our name from an interview where we mentioned Suicide as one of our biggest influences,” Wagner says.

Spector’s presence was also a thrill for Wagner, given that the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” was one of his biggest inspirations.

“We had a new song. ‘Ode to L.A.,’ which was very Phil Spector-ish and thought it would be funny for her and Sharin to trade off on vocals,” he says. “She came to the studio when we were mixing at Sony in New York. I was awestruck, so nervous about meeting her. She is sort of the reason I do the music I do.... She was so sweet. She was giggling and came in running, saying it made her feel like she was 15 again.”

Wagner hopes that perhaps all three of the guests will sit in with the band somewhere during its tour, which will start in the U.S. around the time of the album release and include an April 30 appearance at the Coachella Festival.

He adds that there was a fourth major influence he would have loved to have had on the album.

“If Buddy Holly had been alive, we would have had him too,” he says. “That would have been perfect. Totally our style.”

Two albums at once? That’s nothing

Michelle SHOCKED is putting together an all-female project to pay tribute to vintage blues great Memphis Minnie, with Lucinda Williams and Victoria Williams (no relation) joining as core participants.

The singer-songwriter has invitations out to a number of other women and hopes the album and related concert performances will bridge genres (from old-style blues to neo-soul artists) and generations.

Lucinda Williams is doing “When the Levee Breaks,” Victoria Williams has recorded “Bumble Bee” and Rickie Lee Jones, Anne McCue and onetime Frank Zappa associate Alice Stuart are among others already signed up.

It’s just one of three ambitious albums that Shocked plans to release June 7. She’s also finished a singer-songwriter collection much in the mode of her 1988 breakthrough “Short, Sharp, Shocked” made with producer Dusty Wakeman and a collection of classic Disney songs done in Western swing style under the guidance of producer Nick Forster of bluegrass band Hot Rize.

The two completed albums were done in a one-week burst of activity in mid-December. The pace continued in January with work commencing on two more albums, one with songs written in what Shocked describes as “bastardized Spanish” and another an “electronica-gospel” experiment.

And soon she will start recording an album of songs relating to New Orleans, her home for much of the ‘90s. The second batch of three will be released together later.

This is all possible, she says, because she runs her own label, Mighty Sound, which has recently secured distribution by Rykodisc.

For better or worse, most of these projects would be anathema to a major label, let alone the concept of releasing three at once.

“We were originally going to release five at once,” she says. “No one thought that was a good idea and are still not convinced it’s good with three, but I’m running amok. But no one’s telling me I can’t. I’m working without adult supervision here!”