You'll Never Forget Those Warm Tarzana Nights

It started last year with a Comics Curmudgeon analysis of one of the most riveting high-school-sports-oriented strips, "Gil Thorpe," and a plot where '70s superstar Gail Martin comes to town. And then someone threatens her life, (spoiler) and it turns out to be a skeezy member of her own band!

We don't need to tell you what her biggest hit was.

Various members of the Kalamazoo, Mich., music community began obsessing over Gail Martin. Is she a "rock and roll Carol King"? Is she really rocking, or more soft-rocking, yacht-rocking?

So New Real People, a trio of musicians from the bands The Sinatras, Forutne and Maltese, The Seleestacks, Goldstar, and a brief reunion of the hardcore group Violent Apathy embarked on a project to capture the magic. They "covered" Martin's big hit, "Tarzana Nights," a wistful slice of '70s soft rock and quiet thunder. Literal thunder -- but it's soft thunder from storms of glistening passion that have damply receded into the past.

You can hear the magic here.

The Comics Curmudgeon raves, "...New Real People, has recorded the definitive version of Tarzana Nights for the twenty-first century."

BONUS CUT:

Here is Fortune and Maltese, late 1967, Kalamazoo, featuring two who would become New Real People in a short 40 years: