Ellen Foley Ellen Foley, who was born in St Louis, made her living as a background singer in the New York sound studios for years, before in 1977 Jim Steinman selected her for Meat Loaf's first LP "Bat Out Of Hell" to be the duet partner of the "heavy weight" sound-acrobat. The duet from the song "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" made the tiny singer a star overnight.   She was also an actress appearing in fims such as Cocktail,Fatal Attraction,Tootsie,King Of Comedy and Hair.   Ellen met Mick Jones in 1980 at "The Venue" in London a couple of days before her own gig, and became a part of the Clash entourage for almost two years. She wouldn't tour with the Clash, but she appeared with them in Martin Scorsese's film The King Of Comedy (1981...but not released until 1983)) where Joe,Mick and Paul appear as street scum to mock Sandra Bernhard in a scene with Robert De Niro. According to the final credits of the film, the "Street Scum" include, Ellen Foley, Mick Jones, Joe Strummer, Paul Simonon, Kosmo Vinyl, Jerry Baxter-Worman, Don Letts ("The Clash " and friends from their album "Sandanista!") and Pearl Harbour (who was Paul Simonon's girlfriend and is also a singer) and Gaby Salter (who was to become Joe's first wife). Ellen Said : "He was there (at "The Venue"), so I started to talk to him. Then I had to go away, and he came to America just as I was leaving for Japan and Australia, so I didn't see him for about a month. I really liked him instantaneously. I saw a unique person from another country, someone with a whole new set of ideas, from the way he looked to the way he thought. The whole style that he had was really attractive to me." Mick Jones caused a radical change in Ellen's life. They spent a lot of time together, Ellen said: "I saw the real Jamaica, and spent a lot of time in England and was exposed to ideas and attitudes I'd never known. We decided to record an album together." They called the album The Spirit Of St. Louis, and recording evolved round the same time of the final Sandinista! sessions (the new Clash album on which Ellen contributed both lead and back-up vocals on Hitsville and later on the Combat Rock  track Car Jamming), in the summer of 1980. Sandinista! was released in December 1980 (March 1981 in US), and it was followed by Hitsville UK, a single with a duet vocal from Ellen and Mick. The same duet vocal were utilised on several tracks on Ellen's album, which Mick Jones produced in North London's Wessex Studios (which were under siege earlier that year from recordings which fostered the completed Sandinista!, a Pearl Harbour album, several Mickey Dread cuts and Ellen's album. Clash personnel were involved in them all). Spirit of St. Louis credits as backing players all four members of The Clash, as well as several of Ian Dury's Blockheads and Tymon Dogg. Dogg in fact also wrote three of the songs on the album, while Joe Strummer and Mick Jones collaborated on another half a dozen; Ellen only contributed one of her own songs, Phases of Travel- it was almost a Clash album, in everything but Ellen's singing and the fact that she was the featured artist. (The production is credited to "my boyfriend," who happened to be Mick Jones at the time) Ellen Said: "Mick and I had a few ideas for songs. We were in New York but wanted to do them in England.We went to England to record the album; the record company thought we did demos. When we'd finished they needed a lot of convincing. Mick had ideas for the music and Joe would miraculously appear with these lyrics. From not a lot of conversation he was able to write the songs for me and he wrote lyrics he wouldn't normally sing himself."   Track Listing The Shuttered Palace Torchlight Beautiful Waste Of Time The Death Of The Psychoanalyst Of Salvador Dali M.P.H. My Legionnaire Theatre Of Cruelty How Glad I Am Phases Of Travel Game Of A Man Indestructible In The Killing Hour Le Palais Secret Info Ellen Foley solo album, released 1981. Recorded and mixed by Bill Price. Assisted by Jeremy Green. Produced by Mick Jones at Wessex Studios, London. The line up is as follows: Vocals - Ellen Foley Guitar/Vocals - Mick Jones Violin - Tymon Dogg Keyboards - Micky Gallagher Drums - Topper Headon Bass - Norman Watt-Roy Bass - Paul Simonon Sax - Davey Guitar - Joe Strummer Guitar - J.G.T. Review This is often known as the 'lost Clash album', and seeing that it's basically performed by them and a fair few of the songs are written by Mick and Joe, it's easy to see why. It's an interesting and quite an enjoyable listen. Torchlight in particular is a great song. Chris Knowles (well known Clash expert) wrote a lengthy, rather unfavourable, rant about it on his page, which I have including a section of below so you can read a bit more about this album: "After the Sandinista! sessions were wrapped, the Sandinista! band; Mick, Micky Gallagher, Norman Watt-Roy, Topper, Tymon Dogg, and Gary Barnacle went to work on tracks for an Ellen Foley solo album. Joe, Mick, and Tymon wasted, er, wrote a number of new tracks for the project. Tymon followed his own craft driven muse, but Joe and Mick displayed a new and strange influence-Jacques Brel and other 50s French pop writers. Accordians, flutes and strings made their entrance (presumably all played by Tymon), and images of cafés, legionnaires, bicycles, and other European puffery flew about. One particularly awful track - "The Death Of The Psychoanalyst Of Salvador Dali" (I'm serious) vomited up disjointed lyrics in an unpleasant foreshadowing of "Earthquake Weather". Unfortunately, Joe and Mick were trapped in that mode for a while after the album - if you don't have Spirit of St Louis, listen to Midnight To Stevens and Death Is A Star to get a feel for the sound of it. Ellen just wasn't up to the material at all. When she isn't screeching, her tone is soft, muffled and deep, and utterly bereft of character or distinctiveness. There is a reason she never had a solo career. But Mick didn't help either. His production is blurry and dull, much like Joe's production on the Janie Jones single (House Of The Ju Ju Queen). The playing is good though. Topper and the Sandinista! boys are hard to fault and Mick really stretched himself and came up with some good voicings and licks. I would even go so far to say that this record has some of his best playing. And a handful of songs are really top-flight, albeit ruined by the lousy singing. Shuttered Palace and Theatre Of Cruelty would have been good Linda Ronstadt or ABBA songs. Tymon's Beautiful Waste Of Time (or in this case Pitiful Waste Of Song) would have been a great thing for Dionne Warwick to do in the 60s between Bacharach-David numbers. And two songs Torchlight and MPH really should have been saved for a Clash record. Torchlight is a classic Joe-Mick call and response track that you just imagine some South American arm of the Spartacist League adopting it as their anthem. And MPH would be a great Clampdown like rocker if sung by Joe and Mick. And Ellen's own Siouxsie-like Phases Of Travel is well-written, even though Mick uses too much flange on it."     Another 1981 album in which Mick Jones and Ellen was involved, Ian Hunter's Short Back 'N Sides, co-produced by Mick Ronson and Mick Jones, and with backing assistance from Mick Jones and his associates, certainly faired better commercially in America, although its showing in Britain was no better than Ellen's. Ellen did back-up vocals when Ian came to England to complete the album in the first months of 1981. Hunter had heard tapes of Ellen's album and invited Jones "to add noises" to his own album! In the spring of 1981 Ellen also sang back-up on a Mickey Dread album Ellen got back together with The Clash who were recording Combat Rock in London and Ellen contributed backing vocals to Car Jamming and Over-powered By Funk. The album was released in May 1982.  Ellen's relationship with Mick and The Clash ended in the summer of 1982.                                               Spike   Thanks to, and more information available from http://www.users.bigpond.com/ptybisla/index2.html