christie allen

I was saddened to hear of the death of Christie Allen from I think pancreatic cancer. Like most of my generation she was an important figure though of course she was nothing like a radical or challenging one (except to the degree that she had the audacity to go on television even after some suggested she was overweight which for what it's worth she obviously wasn't). I remember being 15 or 16 and at the home of a family we knew wherein the father of said family had the very apparent and freely expressed hots for Christie Allen to the degree that he had bought her album of the time. She certainly set something off in people, in ways she probably did not intend.

I don't know much about the Christie-to-fame story, but I gather Terry Britten saw he singing unobtrusively somewhere in a club in WA and took her to the big time with some cunningly crafted hits and some really awful album filler (I bought a copy of Magic Rhythm a few months ago, so I know). Her/his song 'Goosebumps' was and will continue to be one of my select few of pre-party-I-want-to-go-to party records (so it doesn't get much of an airing) alongside Jo Jo Zep's 'Sweet', the Craven Fops' 'Epic Merriment', Donna Summer's 'The Deep', etc. She disappeared after a couple of albums and if I recall correctly was yanked out of entertainment by an abusive and controlling husband. She returned (abuser long gone) for one song only in 1998 at the big Mushroom concert where, I recall, the scratch backing band were highly impressed by the way she remembered all her moves; she was seen as definitely the most professional of the day. I was there covering the show for Rolling Stone, and I talked to her briefly, she was absolutely delightful.