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Is it so?

May 16, 2012 in Songs | No comments

For your aural pleasure we have a sort of a follow-up to yesterday’s lovably bizarre Paul McCartney B-side.

If you are a record collector you’ve likely passed this album over a dozen times in 50¢ bins.  You have probably turned down free copies.  And you were right to save the 2mm of space on your record shelves for something else, at least as far as 9/10 of Izitso is concerned.

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(“Was Dog a Donut” by Cat Stevens)

Izitso is far from the worst Cat Stevens record. Most of it is along the lines of his very best albums, Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat, if perhaps not as memorable.  And one track is unique in Cat’s catalog – in fact it’s unique in all of pop music – making this album worth a 50¢ investment next time you flip by it in a bargain bin.

“Was Dog a Donut” is an early synth pop exploration, featuring Chick Corea and longtime Cat Stevens collaborator Jean Roussel.  A&M released a “special disco mix” of the track (which was the same as the one on the album, so far as I can tell) on a 12″ single and it was an unlikely dancefloor hit in 1977.

One of our customers turned me onto this track while we were talking about Personal Space, the compilation album of experimental electronic-based soul Chocolate Industries released last month.  “Was Dog a Donut” falls right about in the middle of that album’s range (1974-84) and would have fit into any of it’s four sides.  Like “Check my Machine” it suggests there was a little flexibility in the pre-punk world for established artists to explore the boundaries of pop music, in spite of the current narrative that suggests the music industry was bloated, vacuous and incapable of adaptation.

Izitso, by the way, was not the last album Cat Stevens recorded before his nearly three decade retirement from popular music.  It was, however, the last album he recorded before converting to Islam and changing his name to Yusuf Islam.  A&M was still owed one more Cat Stevens record, and the reluctant 1978 album Back to Earth, is actually better than the average contractually-obligated album.  There’s certainly a shade of bitterness throughout (especially in “Bad Brakes” and “Last Love Song”).  His father died the day it was released and he never promoted it in any way.  He had already begun a new life as Yusuf Islam.  And so Izitso is probably the last glimpse into what direction Cat Stevens may have gone into as an artist, had circumstances been different.  Perhaps an entire album of arrangements like “Was Dog a Donut” was on the way until various circumstances – a near-drowning accident while swimming in Malibu, the gift of a Qur’an from his brother, David – led him to Islam.

“Check my Machine” and “Was Dog a Donut” provide the listener with transcendent experiences – challenging not only our pop sentiments but in effect the very purpose and nature of expressive art.  I am shocked – shocked! – to find neither one of them represented in Rolling Stone‘s list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

Maybe the lesson is that none of us knows where we’re headed, even when we’ve got our sails set strong to the wind.  The only thing under your power is those sails, and only the Lord knows where the wind will take you on it’s own accord.  Enjoy the ride.

This man is on drugs

May 15, 2012 in Photos, Songs, Weird Stuff | No comments

When I was 12 or 13 I thought John Lennon hung the moon.  It’s a predictable sort of phase – I was inspired by his short pseudo-militant activist phase in the early 70s, and too young to see it’s tragic irony.  I still love “Power to the People” and “Instant Karma!” but I they’ve lost a lot of their weight over the years.

I’m sure I pushed a lot of boundaries around this time, and I’m pretty certain I quoted the chorus of Billy Joel’s “My Life” to one parent or another.  They both gave me a hard time for my impassioned enthusiasm for John Lennon’s short-lived activism, which I now understand.  There’s a rich man naïvity to the early 70s John Lennon records that makes even his most sincere sentiments – “Give Peace a Chance” etc. – seem disingenuous.

What I’ve never forgotten is that my mother told me she wished I would like Paul’s records more.  I don’t think she ever said, “He was a nice boy,” but that would really be perfect, wouldn’t it?

My mother thought Paul McCartney would be a better role model, in spite of the time he got caught with a giant sack of weed in Japan (seriously, who travels with nearly a pound of dope?).  Paul’s image – the “quiet Beatle” – remained intact, even as his third solo project, McCartney II, was the dopiest stoner album ever recorded.

Unless you’ve been living on the moon the last twenty years you’re already familiar with the most famous post-Wings McCartney record, “Wonderful Christmastime”.  If you’re a Hymie’s Records blog reader you also know how much we hate that song.

That song wasn’t on McCartney II, but a bunch of goofy songs were.  It even came with a one-sided 7″ single that had a super-awesome live version of “Coming Up”.  It’s the stoner album of your stone-y dreams.

And the best part is that the single had a B-side that was even goofier.

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(“Check my Machine”)

This was the B-side to “Waterfalls” – McCartney samples the Loonie Tunes and sings “check my machine” at least a hundred times over a goofy vamp.  The funniest thing about this song, if you ask me, is that there’s an extended version on a CD reissue of McCartney II.  Somebody out there, somewhere in this world, thought “Check my Machine” should be longer!

Cos: The original soundtrack

May 13, 2012 in Events, Songs, Videos | No comments

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(“Luscious Fox”)

 

Everyone here at the Hymie’s Records International Headquarters is bursting with anticipation over the show we’re sponsoring at the Triple Rock Social Club on May 27th – It will be your first chance to see Grolar Bears, the near-20-piece soul/funk ensemble that’s been the subject of speculation and mystery for more than a year.

We first heard of our soon-to-be-favorite album from our regular Stuart, who broke our hearts last year by moving out of town before he could guest DJ our monthly Record Roadshow at the Turf Club. But could it be true? A funk band dozens deep laying down tracks that could jam alongside “Superfly”?

For months, a wnile year, we wondered.  Finally, Jonathan Kramer brought copies of his record into the shop and you can hear Grolar Bears for the first time, on Cos: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack,

Unlike some other local releases, there’s no secret.  There’s no movie called Cos, and this isn’t a soundtrack.  It’s just a sweet soul/funk album in the style of the 70s Blaxploitation score: Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly, and Short Eyes, Bobby Womack’s 110th Street, and Galt MacDermots’s Cotton Comes to Harlem, for instance. Many people would name Isaac Hayes’ Shaft score as their favorite, and it’s probably the most well known. My favorite is Let’s Do It Again, which features music by Curtis Mayfield and the voices of the Staple Singers (and it’s a sweet movie, starring and directed by Sidney Poitier, by the way).

Jonathan Kramer, who conceived Cos: The Original Motion Picture Score and dedicated his life to it’s realization, admits there’s no motion picture, but he did help produce a really awesome trailer for the non-existent film:

 

Grolar Bears recorded Cos with a portable studio they called “the suitcase” over the course of a year. Sessions took place wherever they could – in churches, band rooms and auditoriums. The album features a score of local musicians who lent their talents to Jonathan Kramer’s design. The finished album is a genuine recreation of a sound and an era in cinematic and pop music history.

We at Hymie’s are honored to have the opportunity to help by sponsoring their show at the Triple Rock Social Club on Sunday, May 27th.  It’s a one-of-a-kind show.

Educational records week: Saved the best for last

May 10, 2012 in Educating you so you don't educate yourself, Photos, Songs | No comments

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The Parlour Suite in-store performance today

May 5, 2012 in Events, Songs | No comments

This week’s Sunday in-store performance is by the Parlour Suite, couple Inga and Joel Roberts, who are joined on their debut EP by percussionist/drummer Peter Anderson. They’re kind of like a hometown She & Him.  The new EP, Everybody’s Looking, is filled with the same sort of uptempo, lively pop that’s perfect for these bright spring days.

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(“We Got to Get Away”)

That’s the first track and yet, the first line mentions a record store!  Inga Roberts sings lead on all the tracks except for this next one, “Fred Astaire”, which is sung by Joel.

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(“Fred Astaire”)

Everybody’s Looking is one of several recent EPs that have been frustratingly short.  It’s exciting to hear so many new bands so far this year, but I would like to hear more from a lot of them (especially the White Whales, whose Third Coast is a Hymie’s favorite).  The Parlour Suite has just returned from an April tour of the west coast, so we can hope they’re scheduling some studio time soon.

You can check them out for yourself here at Hymie’s today at 3pm.

The amazing post in which Dave manages to work in everything from Pablo Casals to Plato’s allegory of the cave – Plus you will see Sidney Poitier slap a guy

May 4, 2012 in Photos, Songs, Videos | No comments

Fred Katz was the first prominent cellist to perform jazz. People often use the phrase “classically trained” but in Katz’s case it’s more than apt: He took lessons from Pablo Casals.

It was in jazz that he made his name, however, and in particular in the west coast scene from which performers like Chet Baker and Stan Getz emerged. Katz joined the first Chico Hamilton Quintet, which also included Buddy Collette and Jim Hall – they were a later-era west coast jazz group, but very influential. One of several innovative things about the group was Katz’s cello, an instrument previously unheard in jazz.

Katz also recorded an album Sidney Poitier, who was the first African American to win an academy award for best actor, and whose career has more highlights than I can list. It’s an obvious choice but my favorite Sidney Poitier movie is In the Heat of the Night.

The scene where he slaps the old guy right back is the shit. I’m so glad that somebody put that on youtube and called it “slap scene”.

My friend Chris told me he’s worried he’ll die without having seen all the greatest movies, and so he’s been watching them. I can’t really empathize with his anxiety, because I feel like the older I get the more I get bored during movies (I would, however, encourage everyone to hear Running, Jumping, Standing Still before they die). I suppose In the Heat of the Night is probably a movie on his list. Aside from the scene where Poitier slaps the guy, and the one where he says, “They call me Mister Tibbs!” the best part of this movie is the score by Quincy Jones.

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(“In the Heat of the Night”)

Ray Charles sang the theme and also played piano on a second track. Glen Campbell sang another track – “Bowlegged Polly” – that’s pretty sweet. It’s one of the very best Quincy Jones soundtrack, but Ray Charles and Glen Campbell weren’t the reason I bought this record years ago.

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(“Whipping Boy”)

From the liner notes:

“Quincy then added the unique and startling Roland Kirk, the blind flautist from Chicago who talks through his amplified flute with a language all his own. ‘I need his anger, man,’ Quincy said. ‘And his loneliness.’”

I bought the copy of Quincy Jones’ soundtrack to In the Heat of the Night you’re hearing (here at Hymie’s, by the way) when I discovered Roland Kirk and had to hear every record on which he played. This happens when you discover Roland Kirk, and I recommend you do the same.  It’s way better than watching a bunch of old movies.

Years later, two decades after Roland Kirk passed away, his flute would again delight movie-goers – His delightful performance on the Quincy Jones track “Soul Bossa Nova” was the opening dance number to Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.

You can find it on the 1961 Quincy Jones album Big Band Bossa Nova, which captures one of the best big bands of it’s era – featuring Paul Gonsalves, Clark Terry, Phil Woods, Lalo Schifrin, Jim Hall and more. The Quincy Jones big band of the early 60s is an amazing meeting point for jazz performers who would create their own fantastic music for decades to come (We made the case it was the last great big band a year or two ago in this post).

By this time you’re probably wondering when we’ll get to the album that Fred Katz and Sidney Poitier recorded together (remember them?). Here’s a track:

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(“The Philosopher King Must Rule”)

Poitier Meets Plato is a 1964 album in which the actor reads selections by counter-culture philosophy scholar and  author Henry L. Blake (The People’s Plato).  Fred Katz wrote the jazz arrangements.

It’s an exciting collaboration, highlighted by Poitier’s impassioned performance (the man had the voice of a god, at least certainly more so than this guy).

No collection of Plato’s works is complete without the allegory of the cave, just as no entry level course in Philosophy would be complete with out it. You can find this famous dialogue (between Socrates and Plato’s brother, Gloucon) in The Republic, or you can just watch this super trippy claymation interpretation. Here is Poitier and Katz’s interpretation:

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(“Our World is a Cave”  Sorry about the skips – it’s not like you see copies of this album all the time)

You may recognize Plato’s famous analogy because it is the basis for the the movie The Matrix (which Chris has probably already seen).  It is also a narrative that explores the philosopher’s eventual role in society, one of intellectual and moral leadership.  Blake, the author who prepared the text for Poitier’s reading, approached Plato as a seminal counter-cultural icon.  Manly P. Hall, writing in his introduction to The People’s Plato, points out that “troubled generations, burdened with uncertainties about providence, have always turned to the Dialogues of Plato for comfort and inspiration.”  And so we have the influence of Platonic philosophy on generations from Thomas Jefferson’s to Sidney Poitier’s to my own.

Man I wish my name were Manly P. Hall.  How is that even real?!

Could there be a way to tie this all together? There must be some sort of universal link between all these records, and the movies we’ve seen in clips, and the challenges Plato presents before us in his allegory…

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(excerpt from Pablo Casals: A Living Portrait)

Herb Alpert’s 9th vs. Beethoven’s 9th

May 1, 2012 in Photos, Smackdown, Songs | No comments

Our popular “Smackdown” series has been long overdue for a revival, but candidates for a worthy battle are few and far between. In fact, the reason there hasn’t been a good smackdown in a while is that this past one was hard to put together after I found these two albums next to each other when I was moving records after one of our 50¢ sales (It’s amazing what people will pass up, even for a buck).  It’s a fun idea but entirely lopsided, given my well-documented admiration for one of the two.  Still, I took the records from the 50¢ bin home, listened to them and thus began the legendary smackdown to be known as…

THE BATTLE OF THE 9′S

Herb Alpert vs. Beethoven

Let’s get to know our contestants:

About Beethoven’s 9th -  Composed in 1825.  The composer was fifty-five years old.  He passed away only two years later, making the 9th Symphony the penultimate piece in his storied career.

Length:  An hour. Ugh.

Instrumentation:  Thirty some people. Plus a whole choir. Ugh

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(Allegro me non troppo, un poco maestoso)

About Herb Alpert’s 9th – Composed in 1967.  Age of composer thirty-two.  In fact, by the age of fifty-seven Herb Alpert had recorded thirty-two albums.   At seventy-seven years old, Alpert has outlived the so-called “great maestro” by twenty years.

Length:  A lean twenty-eight minutes.

Instrumentation:  The Tijuana Brass.  How awesome are these guys?  Just the year before they had five albums in the Billboard Pop Chart’s top twenty.  A quarter of the top twenty was Tijuana Brass.  Nobody, not even Beethoven, has accomplished that before or since!  Dude’s so old they didn’t even have a top twenty.

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(“My Heart Belongs to Daddy”)

(Point for this first round goes to Herb Alpert.)

Whose music was more memorable?:

Beethoven’s 9th symphony is widely considered not only the composer’s greatest work but one of the greatest achievements in all of western art.  The “Ode to Joy” passage from the fourth movement is one of the most instantly recognizable and universal melodies in all the world, and has adopted as an anthem by various nations over the years since the composer’s death.

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(Finale – Allegro ma non froppo – allegro assai)

Herb Alpert’s Ninth was the last Tijuana Brass LP to be issued in mono and stereo.  It featured a bust of Beethoven wearing a Herb Alpert t-shirt on the cover.

(The point for this round goes to Ludwig van Beethoven.)

Which album has more unwanted copies sitting around the record store?

Today’s recordings of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony come from the 1958 Charles Munch/Boston Symphony recording.  We have a couple copies around the shop.  We have more than a dozen various other recordings of Beethoven’s 9th, including Bruno Walter’s subdued recording from the following year (one of my favorites).

There are about ten copies of Herb Alpert’s 9th kicking around the shop, excluding the inevitable few in the junk record shelves in the bathroom and the 50¢ bin in the entryway.

(The point for this round goes to Ludwig van Beethoven)

Lasting influence:

Beethoven’s 9th symphony has been recorded hundreds of times, dating back to the introduction of recorded sound (the first was conducted by Bruno Seidler-Winkler, and issued by Grammaphone in 1923).  Neither of the two original songs introduced on Herb Alpert’s 9th - “A Banda” and “Bud” – were recorded again.

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(Adagio molto a cantible, excerpt)

“Bud” was a tribute to Ervan “Bud” Coleman, who had written “Tijuana Taxi” for the group and also played guitar and mandolin on some of their records.  Herb Alpert’s tribute is touching, but a more moving recording was made by the Baja Marimba Band (“For Bud” on Do You Know the Way to San Jose?).

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(“Bud”)

(The point for this round goes to Ludwig van Beethoven)

It’s clear this is going to turn into a rout.  I was on a baseball team as a kid that had to invoke the “10 run” rule pretty often (ten runs meant the inning must end, regardless of the number of players who were out).  We’ll let Herb Alpert enjoy the same mercy, and next time we put him into a fairer fight. Maybe with, oh I dunno, Hugh Masekela…

“Mississippi Roll” by Jack Klatt and the Cat Swingers

April 29, 2012 in Events, GREAT ALBUMS series, Photos, Songs | No comments

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“Life’s a drag but not mine,” sings Jack Klatt at the outset of his lively new disc, Mississippi Roll, a fifteen track ramble up and down the great American river.   Along for the ride are four genuine Minnesota music legends – Cornbread Harris, Dakota Dave Hull, Spider John Koerner and Charlie Parr – but what’s really remarkable about Mississippi Roll is just how much Klatt’s group, the Cat Swingers, shines in prestigious company.  Whether they’re rockin’ the foot-stompin’ folk blues familiar to our blue Minnesota waters or the gritty gumbo of cajun and gypsy jazz from down the Big Muddy, Klatt and his Cat Swingers are the stars of this spontaneous, inter-generational experiment.

Jack Klatt, the 26 year old St Paul native you’ve never met but already know, is larger than life.  Unlike some more ostentatious contemporaries, Klatt’s affable modesty is the key to his charm.  You might drop your rear on the barstool next to him without knowing you’re sharing a rail with a genuine repository of American song, as comfortable reviving his growing repertoire of traditionals as casually conjuring new standards like “Life’s a Drag (but not mine)” and “Do You Think About Tomorrow?”

Klatt’s been likened to a Steinbeck character, and you could see where he might have a song for every struggle, like David Carradine in Bound For Glory but what he’s accomplished with the collaborations in Mississippi Roll suggests there’s a little more of Herman Melville’s mysterious Confidence Man in him than Tom Joad.  He own enthusiasm is inspirational, bringing out the best in those who play with him.  It’s only right he should be the star of his own show.

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“Do You Think About Tomorrow?” is a gem – a song he played it here at Hymie’s not long ago.  The song is equal parts Irving Berlin and Randy Newman and a case in point:  Mississippi Roll‘s guests happily lent thumbs, fingers, feet and voice to fine, spontaneous performances, and fans of West Bank music will not be disappointed, but it’s just that the originals by Klatt and the Cat Swingers are the disc’s highlights.  Tune into collaborator/co-producer Dakota Dave Hull’s KFAI program (Thursday mornings 10-12) and you’ll see why he’d back the Cat Swingers so enthusiastically.

The band swings on “Life’s a Drag” and the jaunty jumper “Must Have Been the Devil”, and Patrick Harrison shreds the washboard on the their raucous take on “Cocaine Blues”.  Klatt and Sabyre Rae Daniels, who also plays ukulele, trade verses through “Goin’ Back Home” like Lonnie Johnson and Clara Smith did on one of the finest swingin’ 78s you’re going to find (Okeh 8839) – yes, the first thing that comes to mind is a blues record from 1930.

Garsh there’s a healthy scene backing traditional music in town right now!  Some (not us) were surprised to see debut disc by Klatt’s pals and oftentimes showmates the Cactus Blossoms tagged by the City Pages as the best album of the past twelve months.  Stop by one of their Monday night shows at the Turf Club if you’re suspicious – while you’re out and about check out other traditional/country performers like Jake Manders (Thursday night at Cause Spirits and Soundbar), Caitlin Robertson (who’ll be playing up north later this month but will be back around town May 28th for a show at the Amsterdam in St. Paul), or Pocahontas County, a young bluegrass quartet that’s a favorite of ours.   They play a regular set at the 331 Club on the 1st and 3rd Mondays (an early set starting at 6:30) and host the Amsterdam Bar’s Theme Time on the second Thursday.

But what you’ll really want to do is run to your refrigerator and move the bills off the calendar.  Circle Saturday May 26th when you find it:  That’s when Jack Klatt and the Cat Swingers will release Mississippi Roll with the  big show it deserves.  They’ll be performing at the Cedar Cultural Center, joined by Dakota Dave Hull and Cornbread Harris.  The Cactus Blossoms will play an opening set.

The Cannonball Adderley Quintet: Live, 1960-something to 1970-something (A tribute)

April 27, 2012 in Photos, Songs | No comments

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(“Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”)

Back in the dark ages of my life (my 20s) when I spent nearly every day at Al’s Breakfast scrubbing the dishes that served the best breakfast in town, there was a regular named Leonard who I liked to talk to between bouts of actually working.  If memory serves, he was the namesake of “the Leonard” on the menu.

Around the same time I went through a phase where the only thing I wanted to listen to was records by Cannonball Adderley and his brother Nat.  Leonard encouraged this by telling me a story of his own dark ages – he had seen the Cannonball Adderley Quintet open up for the Who at San Francisco’s Filmore West during the years in which the legendary promoter Bill Graham experimented with pairing jazz and rock acts on the same bill.

After the Quintet played and the crew was setting up the Who’s various giganormous amplifiers and such, Roger Daltry walked out on stage to applause.  He gathered up a few of the cigarette butts that Cannonball and Nat – heavy smokers, both – had left on stage.  He told the audience he wanted to bring them back to England to prove to people that Cannonball Adderley opened up for him, and not the other way around.

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(“Work Song”)

There’s a string of albums on Capitol from the late 60s and early 70s by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet that were recorded live, each featuring “my brother Nat” (Adderley, trumpet and cornet) along with pianist Joe Zawinul.  The rhythm sections is nearly always Walter Booker (bass) and Roy McCurdy (drums).  Until the Adderleys begin producing the records themselves, all are produced by David Axelrod.  The records are an amazing confluence of artistry and ambition.  Like most of the great Capitol jazz records they’re out of print (on vinyl, anyway) and underplayed on jazz radio (here in town, anyway) and under-played (our record shop, anyway).

The Quintet’s studio albums are consistently fun but there’s something unique about the live recordings.  For years I’d buy any record I saw with “The Scene” – the Cannonball Adderley Quintet’s theme, written by Joe Zawinul and Nat Adderley.

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(“Walk Tall”)

“Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” was a hit for the group at a time when jazz was producing very few hits for the major labels – Joe Zawinul wrote the song, which was re-recorded with lyrics from time to time. Here’s a classic one:

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(“Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”  by Larry Williams and James Watson)

I think that “Walk Tall”, from the 1969 album Country Preacher, is an even more memorable melody.  It was co-written by Zawinul, who would be a co-founder of the spacier, more ambient Weather Report just a few short years later.  Zawinul’s contributions to the Cannonball Adderley Quintet include bluesy songs with unconventional structures, like “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”, straight pop tunes like “Walk Tall” and modern pieces along the lines of what his future Weather Report bandmate, Wayne Shorter, was recording with Miles Davis.

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(“Rumpelstiltskin”)

The Zawinul song “Rumpelstiltskin” on The Cannonball Adderley Quintet In Person captures his range as a composer and arranger, and also his intuitive ability to bring out the best in the other members of the Quintet.  One reason why the Quintet seems to have thrived even as each pursued side projects is that each contributed material to the group.  On Country Preacher the second side is dominated by “Afro-Spanish Omelet”, a four part suite featuring original compositions by 4/5 of the group, for instance.

Cannonball also appeared on an episode of Kung Fu along with Jose Feliciano and David Carradine. Lord, how did I miss this when I was collecting goofy jazz performances on television?!

Julian “Cannonball” Adderley died in 1975 after a stroke, and Nat Adderley passed away in 2000.  Joe Zawinul lived until 2007, and recorded his first symphony near the end of his life.  Walter Booker passed away the year before.  The only surviving member of the Cannonball Adderley Quintet is drummer Roy McCurdy, who is an Adjunt Professor in the Jazz Studies Department of the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

One of the last Cannonball Adderley Quintet albums was The Price You Got to Pay to be Free, recorded in 1970 and named for a song written and sung by Nat’s son, Nat Adderley, Jr.  On the same album Cannonball wails on his horn before crooning “Bridges”, about the silliest, sappiest thing a jazz legend ever recorded.

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(“Alto Sex / Bridges”)

Jazz, of course, was getting its ass kicked by rock and R n’ B around the same time.  Fusion’s all right in my book (especially when Zawinul’s involved) but it’s not the most memorable music of the era.  The Cannonball Adderley Quintet walked a fine line between pop, R n’ B, and fusion but never abandoned their roots.  In fact, they recorded some of the best jazz of the times.

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(“The Scene”)

One way to make sure nobody plays a record

April 25, 2012 in Songs, Vandalized Records | No comments

I love a written-upon record but it seems like ages since we posted on here on the website.  Here’s a single by Ronnie McDowell from a radio station library that came through the shop recently.  Those blue lines are all ballpoint pen.  Somebody must have been awfully bored while working the third shift…

The same collection had several singles I was excited to hear, only to find “no!  no!  no!” written on one side and razor marks cut across the grooves.  I suppose that’s one way a station manager could make sure a cut never made it on the air.  The destroyed sides included “Up Goes the Bottle” and “The Girl at the End of the Bar” by Conway Twitty, not particularly inappropriate songs but a little gloomy I guess.  George Jones redid the second one on his 1983 album Jones Country, but I haven’t found a copy of the original. “Up Goes the Bottle” of course is on several Conway collections, but I’d like to have a nice 45 of it to play every third Monday of the month when I spin records for the Cactus Blossoms at the Turf Club.

Another record I’d like to have for those sets was in that collection but also cut and marked – it was “Bleep You” by one of my favorite country singers, Cal Smith.  This one broke my heart because it’s near the top of my 45 “wish list”.  Ironically, this one doesn’t need to be edited for radio.  Guess the station manager was just a jerk.

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