Hymie's Vintage Records

Put yourself in … Jon David’s Mood

May 24, 2013 in Photos, Songs | No comments

When we first posted our copy of Dave Major and the Minors’ first album here on the Hymie’s blog, we heard from people all over the midwest who remembered them. They were a touring show band who played mostly pop covers and worked a circuit of hotel lounges from Minnesota to Ohio. Fan recollected residencies in places as varied as the Blue Moon Ballroom in Elgin, IL and the New Inn in Okoboji, IA. From another fan we learned the tragic story of Dave Major’s death in 2000. He was shot in a gunfight with police in Dekalb, IL after attempting to kill his ex-wife and killing two others in the process (this, of course, the same Dekalb we talked with local musician Dan Newton about just a few months ago in an interview here). Its a heartbreaking story, but its nice to know that the memories of Dave Major and the Minors still bring joy to people who saw them perform in the 70s.

Here are our original posts of the two Dave Major and the Minors albums we have found. There is a third we hope to one day share here on the blog, too:

A Classic 70s Show Band

The Return of Dave Major and the Minors, Part 1

The Return of Dave Major and the Minors, Part 2

Albums by bands like Dave Major and the Minors are fairly rare, considering that they were privately-pressed and released, but not often particularly valuable. They’re sometimes called “souvenir albums.” And with that in mind, here is a favorite souvenir album that we recently found. Get ready to put yourself in Jon David’s Mood…

This classic souvenir album doesn’t have an address anywhere. There’s no record label. The photograph on the back is credited to “Dave Schuessler Photography Chicago.” The album turned up here in a record collection somebody brought into the shop, but it could have come from Chicago or Milwaukee or any other upper midwest city.

Jon David’s Mood starts out a little funkier than the two Dave Major and the Minors records we have posted, but takes a left turn in the first track when it turns into a loveable polka standard, “In Heaven there is no Beer.” From there the album takes a number of unexpected turns, and if it weren’t for the band’s irrepressible sincerity the album wouldn’t survive the bumpy trip. Each performer on the record is credited with more than one instrument – Bob D’Innocenzo performs on eight instruments and sings – and there is no Jon David! John Farrell is listed as “leader, arranger…” Why are these guys called Jon David’s Mood? Who names a band that?!

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“Foot Stompin’ Music / In Heaven there is no Beer”

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“The Lonely Bull”

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“Mr. Bojangles”

The album features a more adult-contemporary set list than the Dave Major and the Minors albums, which tended towards jazz and rhythm and blues. Jon David’s Mood includes a fun arrangement of “The Lonely Bull” (which recalls the Ventures version on Telstar) alongside a theatrical arrangement of “Mr. Bojangles.” At the end of the first side they perform “If I Were a Rich Man” in a way that walks the line between lampoon and genuine appreciation, and then a hilariously sincere version of the theme from Shaft. These two tracks contain a few moments of brilliance, and several of brilliant awkwardness.

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“If I Were a Rich Man”

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“Theme from Shaft”

I grew up loving albums like Jon David’s Mood simply because they introduced me to standards like “If I Were a Rich Man” and “Shaft.” Growing up near a suburban Goodwill store I spent a lot of time and a fairly small amount of money on albums like this, never once considering the fact that they may have been rare and valuable (as a kid I owned and gave away more than one copy of the Lewis Connection because it was, for a time, a fairly common local thrift store find). Are they great records? I guess not. But are they a lot of fun to listen to? I guess that’s subjective. I think so.

Instrumental music

May 22, 2013 in Awesome-ness!, Events, Songs | No comments

There’s sort of boundaries to what collectors can find when they devote themselves to a single format. 8-Track collectors know what we’re talking about. We have always had a great interest in 45s, which is of course reflected in our large selection here in the shop, not to mention in the records we often play when we’re DJing at the Turf Club or other favorite venues around town. On his favorite regular gig, the third Monday every month, Dave plays exclusively 45s between sets by the Cactus Blossoms at the Turf Club – the music is mostly rockabilly, country and blues, and mostly from the mid 50s to the early 60s. Kind of a brief period of time, when you think about it.

The 45s really hit its peak as a format in the 60s and 70s, when millions upon millions of them were made. Fairly inexpensive to produce and market, the 45 made releasing your music accessible to most musicians through small, regional labels. Those singles that didn’t sell well, and really didn’t until the internet age leave the region where they were recorded and released, and or course now among the most collectable records of all. The idea that a band’s single represents the best thing they could fit into a one-inch band of grooves is extraordinarily exciting to us. That excitement is what keeps us digging for new singles – not just because they are rare and thereby valuable, but because we want to hear something we’ve never heard.

But the title of this post is “instrumental music” and that’s because the peak era of the 45 was also the apogee of instrumental rock. Today it is rare that an instrumental tune would become a hit, but in the 50s and 60s many did – many of these songs, like “Green Onions” or King Curtis’ “Soul Serenade” are songs you still hear on the radio from time to time. And many others, like this Link Wray single, have been very influential as well as popular.

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“Rumble”

Many 60s instrumental tracks capture a novelty, like a sound effect or an animal sound. Others invoke a mood, like “The Gallop” by the Chevelles, a really fun track that captures the feeling of a running horse.

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“The Gallop”

The best instrumental rock tracks were singles – albums by many of these artists were ultimately appealing primarily for the tracks found on their singles. The slow demise of instrumental rock might be something we could blame on disco, but the decline began earlier. We imagine it was partially driven by the rise of the singer-songwriter. When artists like Carole King or Joni Mitchell began spellbinding audiences with compelling narratives, the instrumental bands may have seemed anachronistic.

There are some good instrumentals by more recent bands, but few bands that specialize in instrumental music. You can see Man or Astroman? on their first visit to the Twin Cities in a decade next month (at the fabulous Turf Club!) – they took an innovative approach to surf instrumentals, embellishing their tracks with hilarious sound bites from B movies. We’ll certainly be there!

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“Surf Terror”

And we wish one of our favorite local bands could have a chance to open for them – Wizards Are Real is an instrumental rock group whose own description of their music captures what we love about it: “Concise, hooky songs challenge the notion that instrumental music needs to be melodramatic, bombastic and apocalyptic.”

Here is their latest EP, released a little over a year ago. It’s a 10″ record at 45 rpm, and whenever we play it we think about how we’d like to see a couple of the Wizards’ new songs released as singles.

They were the closing act for our Record Store Day block party this year, and as we were running around cleaning things up, we could hear their set. With each song, we’d think “damn, they’re playing all the hits!” But in fact, our favorite songs by Wizards Are Real aren’t really classic hits. We just think of them that way.

Rerun: Electrifying music!

May 22, 2013 in Playlists, Songs | No comments

Electric Guitar

George Barnes is credited with the first recorded performance on the electric guitar, playing the new instrument on two tracks by Big Bill Broonzy. His performance predated Eddie Durham’s recording with Count Basie’s Kansas City Five by fifteen days – a stupid distinction because Durham’s recording is so much more interesting. In fact, the very best of the early innovators in the history of the electric guitar were jazz musicians, most of all Charlie Christian who was first recorded six years later.

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(“Wholly Cats” by the Benny Goodman Sextet)

Amplification shifted the guitarist from the rhythm section to the forefront of the jazz ensemble, but Charlie Christian’s few recordings are remarkable because he was already ahead of the new fold, preforming a primordial bebop on the guitar before the horns had even imagined it.

Charlie Christian, taken by tuberculosis at the age of twenty-five, finally got his due in the early 70s when Columbia compiled his best solos into a double disc set called Solo Flight: The Genius of Charlie Christian. The set exemplified all the best of 70s archival LP releases – great sound, great selections, great notes. It also highlighted a previously overlooked innovator in the short-lived Christian, who was taken by tuberculosis at the age of 25 in 1941.

Representing Christian’s contribution to the development of the electric guitar are “Wholly Cats” from a 1940 Benny Goodman session that also featured Count Basie on piano (up above) and a roarin’ take on “I Got Rhythm”, which Charlie Christian recorded with a quintet here in Minneapolis in 1940:

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(“I Got Rhythm” by the Charlie Christian Quintet)

Electric Sitar

Dozens of bands – from Yes and Genesis to the Clash and Van Halen – have used an electric sitar for color and effect. The instrument is actually closer to a guitar than a sitar, being built and fretted in a way familiar to guitarists. Most still have a “buzz bridge” to help recreate the sitar’s distinctive sound, and many also retain the sitar’s “sympathetic strings” although the electric sitar does not generate enough resonance to create the rich sound “sympathetic strings” add to a traditional sitar’s tableau.

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(“Don’t You Try to be my Baby” by Moonquake)

Joe South played an electric sitar on “Games People Play”. He is one of the most underrated innovators of his era, and we’ve already written about his awesome-ness before (click here to read it) – so I chose a track by the short-lived prog group Moonquake instead. The electric sitar is played by Havaness Hagopian,

Electric Saxophone

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(“Listen Here” by Eddie Harris)

Eddie Harris is heard here performing on the Veritone, an electronically amplified saxophone introduced by Selmer in 1965. Controls put a variety of effects at the performers fingertips, including an echo, tone control and – significant in this recording – an octave divider.

Harris reworked “Listen Here” several times in the several years that followed the success of The Electrifying Eddie Harris – My favorite record by Eddie Harris, The Reason I’m Talking Shit, features some great work on the instrument (sampled by De La Soul in “I Be Blowin’” years later – although most of the album is actually Eddie Harris talking shit).

Electric Cello

The Twin Cities own Aaron Kerr (the Sleeper Pins, the Swallows, JazZen) performs as often on the electric cello as on acoustic instruments, and often in unique settings.

His instrumental collaboration with the Swallows, Dissonant Creatures, captures the surprisingly big sound that comes from the small instrument.

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(“Doctor Phibes” by Aaron Kerr and Swallows)

Electric Violin

It’s not really fair to everyone else to end with a track from this album – Violinski’s first album was distinguished on the cover for it’s inclusion of ELO’s Mik Kaminski, but it’s not really as awesome as an ELO album. Here is the title track, “No Cause for Alarm” – Kaminski is featured on the Barcus-Berry electric violin, which I think was actually blue.

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You don’t have to leave the century to see the Twin Cities best live act

May 19, 2013 in Awesome-ness! | No comments

Sunday evenings are sort of family time in our house and we don’t think a lot about the record shop and our friends in the local music scene, but while looking through the Star Tribune we saw two of our favorite friends, Jack and Page from the Cactus Blossoms! They were included in the paper’s “Best of MN” feature!

Here’s the link.

You’ll have to click through a few things totally unappealing to us people more interested in music than in hipster night life – best late night art gallery, really necessary? – but you’ll find Page Burkum and Jack Torrey named “best live music act to make you feel like you’ve left the 21st century.”

A well-deserved nod, but don’t think of the Cactus Blossoms as a “throwback” or retro act – they are not so much reviving a tradition as carrying it forward. They have been playing several great new songs during their awesome Monday night residency at the Turf Club, and they’ve been recording lately, too. Here’s the first Cactus Blossoms album — we’re all pretty excited to bring home the next one when its finally done!

Maybe we’ll see you there tonight – Hymie’s own Lonesome Dave will be spinning country and rockabilly 45s after they finish up at 10pm.

Mozart deserves better

May 18, 2013 in Uncategorized | No comments

Here on the Hymie’s blog we’ve grumped often enough about how the movies change music once its been included, and how the movie usually wins and the song (and the artist who wrote and performed the song) usually loses. We’re talking about the dumbass Disney films that have recycled “I Got You (I Feel Good)” into a soulless routine, or movies that use “Dream Weaver” as a clumsy code for love at first sight. Even if he’s super lame, Gary Wright deserves better.

“Dream Weaver” is sort of the nightmare scenario for a serious songwriter – Gary Wright meant the song to capture an image from a Paramahansa Yogananda poem about God. It’s seminal use as bullshit shorthand for sudden infatuation was in Wayne’s World, and Wright himself re-recorded the track to suit the film. He probably needed the work. And it went on from there.

And that’s what brings us to Mozart, as the title suggests. One of his most enjoyable piano concertos is his 21st, distinguished by its marching first movement and lazy, hypnotic andante (the second movement). It was featured in a sixties Swedish film about a nineteenth century tight rope walker, Elvira Madigan. Mozart’s masterful concerto has since – nearly two hundred years after its composition – been re-named “the Elvira Madigan”.

Have you seen the film? We haven’t – Who wants to watch a sixties art film from Sweden? But do you recognize the music you hear (scroll down and select the second movement)?

Many of the most famous pianists have recorded the 21st concerto, including marquee names like Alfred Brendel, Arthur Rubenstein and Robert Casadesus. Composer/writer Stephen Hough, who performed on excellent recordings of Saint Saen’s piano concertos, made a recording on his 1997 Mozart Album. Jazz pianist Keith Jarrett has also recorded this famous concert. Honestly, this recording was chosen because it was in a box of records we were cleaning, and caught our ear after we put it on the turntable. The awesomely-named Radu Lupu has recorded less than many contemporaries, but his performance of this concerto is graceful and moving.

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1st movement Allegro maestoso

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2nd movement Andante

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3rd movement Allegro vivace assai

It seems extraordinary that centuries after it’s composition a piece of music could still be recycled into a new role- it is both a testament to Mozart’s genius and to the often hopelessly unoriginal nature of cinematic music. Considering his great operas, Mozart would have been a far greater film score composer than any we could imagine. It’s just sad that his 21st concerto has come to be known as the Elvira Madigan, instead of the really, really good one.

Why deny the obvious child?

May 17, 2013 in Songs | No comments

The people at Saturday Night Live don’t understand they’re dooming their own legacy by not allowing people to stream clips on Youtube. Sure, we’d all watch the killer bees sketch and the motivational speaker sketch for free, but we’d also eventually sit through advertisements just to click on them and see them again. Instead they’re becoming lost to the ages, like music that was lost in the transition to 33rpm, or the transition to CDs or the transition away from them back to digital (and, ironically, 33rpm).

One of the things I’d watch would be the musical guests I remember being enchanted by as a kid. Most of the time I’d just use that time to get another bowl of ice cream but some of the performers were so compelling I’d stay in my seat. One was so awesome I never forgot it – Paul Simon’s 1990 performance of “The Obvious Child.”

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It’s still one of my favorite songs, but there doesn’t seem to be some way we can watch that live performance online.

Hymie’s mixtapes

May 16, 2013 in Songs | No comments

Not so long ago we were given, and in turn gave away, a big grocery bag full of mix tapes made by Hymie and Aame years ago in the old record shop. The tapes ran the range from blues to hot jazz and dance music to “top 10″ collections from the 50s, all recorded off Hymie’s albums, 45s and 78s. Many of them were dubbed many times over, and we’re fortunate to have a large collection of the original cassettes here at the shop, so it was fun to share them with customers.

Hymie passed away all too young in 2000 after a long illness, leaving behind as one of his legacies a lot of people introduced to the great music of the past (here’s a link to a nice story that City Pages ran after he passed away if you want to read more about him).

And ever since we put a cassette deck in our van we’ve been enjoying some of them ourselves. Here’s a Perez Prado track that Dave really loved.

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“You’re Driving me Crazy”

Mucho Puente

May 14, 2013 in Awesome-ness! | No comments

Take whatever you want — just please leave the Tito Puente records!

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i like you

May 14, 2013 in Events, Songs, Uncategorized, Videos | No comments

This is i like you – they’ll be performing here at Hymie’s on Sunday afternoon at 3pm. We like their music a lot, and also their name. It reminded us of a song from Donovan’s Cosmic Wheels…

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“I like You” by Donovan

Call your mother!

May 11, 2013 in Events, Photos, Songs | No comments

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That’s the cowboy’s cowboy, Roy Rogers, reminding us that today is Mother’s Day. His rambling, cynical commentary is missing the history of our annual observation of maternity, even if its elsewise right on the mark:

Well we’ll just give her a day and it will be all right with Mama, and then in return she’ll give you the other 364.

You may have already heard a story on the radio or read something in Reader’s Digest about the history of Mother’s Day. The American Mother’s Day begins with an 1870 essay by Julia Ward Howe, inspired in part by the savage violence of the Civil War. It is both a pacifist document and a feminist document. I heard Julia Ward Howe also called for the government to require the use of compact florescent lightbulbs and low-flow toilets. Woodrow Wilson was the first President to recognize the day, and as his long form birth certificate remains hidden from the public, it seems only reasonable that we examine the ancestry of his mother. Jessie Janet Woodrow was, in fact, not an American mother at all but one of English descent – That’s right, the United Kingdom, where some still have the audacity to recognize “Mothering Sunday”, and place the Holy Virgin Mary above your mother. Your mother.

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This second track you’re hearing is “Love Your Mother” by Johnny Prophet, recorded with the Tommy Oliver Orchestra. We save it to share with you every year on this special Sunday. We also hang onto this promotional album called M is for Mother’s Day.

Here’s the Banjo Barons performing “My Mother’s Eyes / M-O-T-H-E-R”:

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Everybody knows that country music is all about lovin’ yer mama. From Hank Williams’ “I Dreamed About Mama Last Night” (Recorded as Luke the Drifter) to Johnny Paycheck’s “I’m the Only Hell Mama Ever Raised”, every great country songwriter had something to say about his mama. We’re including a recording of Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried” for all of our lonely readers in prison – Heard here as performed by the Grateful Dead on the self-titled live album (In our system of naming untitled records by what’s on the cover this one is Skeleton and Roses).

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Dolly Parton’s “Coat of Many Colors” is one of the best country songs ever written about anybody’s mama. Folksy, yet epic in its biblical illusions, this simple song written on Porter Wagoner’s tour bus ends with a moral only Dolly could deliver without irony:

One is only poor / Only if they choose to be

You can, incidentally, see the coat itself, along with the dry cleaning receipt on which the famous song about it was written, if you go to Dollywood. Maybe that’s where you’ll take Mama next year.

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When I was a kid my mother let me have any record from her collection I wanted (I didn’t want very many of them at twelve years old). Even now I still have copies of Alice’s Restaurant and Teaser and the Firecat with her familiar handwriting on them.

I am pleased to present a song from this album, There Will be a Light, by Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama, because its a favorite of mine. This 2004 disc was included in the recent vinyl reissue of Ben Harper’s catalog, but the LPs have become hard to find over the past couple years. If you bought an LP reissue of There Will be a Light (I could only afford one and chose Welcome to the Cruel World) you’re always welcome to come into Hymie’s and play it.

“If I Could Hear my Mother Pray” was written by John Whitfield Vaughn based on a piece by an English settler named James Rowe. A 1934 recording by Thomas Dorsey established it as a standard in gospel music. Pretty much everything Dorsey touched was gospel gold, and he is fairly regarded as the father of American gospel music. Meanwhile, although There Will be a Light is a very traditional gospel album, this is the only standard included. Most of the remaining songs are originals written by Ben Harper.

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The next song on our Mother’s Day playlist is by Bill Withers, one of Ben Harper’s key influences. His heartfelt song is not about his mother, but his grandmother. Grandmothers are, of course, mothers too. Here is his live recording of “Grandma’s Hands”:

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Bill Withers Live is one of the best live albums you’re ever going to find.

Grandmothers are mothers, too. There are a lot of other people who have to take on the roll of mother and hopefully there’s a special gift of homemade card greeting them this morning too. This last song by Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt (Originally by Sinead O’Connor) expresses not only the love of a surrogate mother but of any mother.

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This whole playlist is dedicated to my mother, who probably isn’t interested in most of these weird songs. I think she would rather hear one of the Cat Stevens records she let me have when I was a kid.

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