RIP Eleanor Barooshian AKA Chelsea Lee of The Cake

Sad to hear from Duglas T Stewart of the BMX Bandits that Eleanor passed away on August 30th at the age of 66.

Duglas T Stewart on Twitter »

Eleanor Barooshian - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia »

Eleanor centre in this image with the cult girl group the Cake, who were notable for being a psyche-era girl group who wrote their own material:



Eleanor was later a member of Ginger Baker's Airforce.


She is also famous for her gender reversed 1967 duet with Tiny Tim:

 

R.I.P.

Did that one video reach meme status? The one where the one member looked hella pissed off? That is a classic!

WTF!

 

The spaced out gal in green is Jeanette Jacobs, wife of Chris Wood of Traffic. Tragically, they both died within a year of each other. Since there is more than one clip on YouTube of her behaving in this manner on stage, it's a bit obvious that the woman clearly had issues:

 

Yeah that was a video that was kind of discovered in the YouTube era, co-inciding with their albums coming on on cd in 2007. The jury is out whether Jeanette Jacobs got stage fright or stood still as an on purpose for a kind of ice queen look.

 

An explanation of her stage "appearance", as offered by band members and associates:

The Cake: A real life Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls »

"Dressed in tailored velvet trouser suits trimmed with lace, the girls emerged to the opening strains of You Can Have Him from within a giant Dali-esque revolving birthday cake, formed from melted struts and decorated with flaming green candles. While Barbara and Eleanor skated, dipped and weaved to the rhythm, Jeanette stood stock still to their left, looking detached and aloof, holding her microphone down by her waist. When she did finally raise it to her mouth, she purposefully lip-synched the words rather than sing them.

Everyone assumed it was just part of their shtick. ‘Yeah, that was her gimmick,’ agrees Rodney Bingenheimer. Barbara recalls Greene and Stone also saying, ‘Yeah, it’s different. Keep it!’

But Chelsea thinks there was another reason. ‘Everybody said, “Why does she just stand there?’ Most of the time Greene and Stone would have her mic turned off because she couldn’t sing R&B. She felt left out."

 

Their classic debut:



Arranged by Harold Battiste, written by Jack Nitzsche and Jackie De Shannon

 

Sad news.

R.I.P. Eleanor

 

RIP

 

This is their best song imo (written by Barbara but sung by Eleanor)

 

Oh how sad. 66 is too young.

I had a few e-mail exchanges with her when The Cake CD came out, mostly asking how Cher came to sing background on one of their songs. She was really sweet and candid. Their music was very cool.

RIP Eleanor.

 

I love The Cake and have a copy of the first album. RIP Eleanor.

 

If we apply amateur psychology to physical stage appearance, most performances have major "issues". Beautiful woman.

 

RIP Eleanor. She was funny and a bit wacky (but aren't we all)... I think she once said she also did sing on a Hendrix record...

 

I found a photo that appears to be of her with Otis and Jimi at Monterey. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/95/6a/43/956a4309fa8f228c12a6342db93ca2c9.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/4d/22/8d/4d228d7f5fdc8ab669351c23febdafa3.jpg​

 

Great find, Google guided me to a bigger version.
RIP Eleanor Barooshian »

 

I never heard of them until about two weeks ago, and now to hear that she's passed on is very sad. I'm sure they had a lot of tales to tell and we may never know them. They were more victims of Greene and Stone, the guys that poisoned the Springfield's chances from the start. RIP Eleanor; your music lives on forever.