title: Apples or Onions:  Another soft-serve Amusement Park pop album from BYU's Young Ambassadors

text:
Brigham Young University THE YOUNG AMBASSADORS, Private Press Lp from Provo, Utah.  Date on the back cover, bottom of the Lp, shows 1983.

The album is split between a kind of 1890s' nostalgia pop side on side one, and more contemporary titles on side two.

Side one:
It's Today/Come Follow the Band/In The Good Old Summertime/Mary's a Grand Old Name/If You Were the Only Girl/The Band Played On/After the Ball/Ma (He's Making Eyes at Me)/Be My Little Baby Bumble Bee/Honeysuckle Rose/Chiquita Banana/Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree/I See a Light

Side two:
Mountain Music/Shenandoah/Barbara Ann/See You In September/At the Hop/It's A Jolly Holiday/Step In Time/UGG-A-WUGG/America Medley (segue from Neil Diamond's movie soundtrack song to "America" and closing announcement)

Running time on each track tends toward the short side; the longest playing track is "America Medley" at 2:55, shortest runs just :29.  Most range in the 1:30-2:00 time.

The backing instrumental sound is professionally polished.  Vocals are well-recorded, but like the YA previous catalog, a plain vanilla reading, suggesting the '60s King Family albums without the "swing" feeling, on the softer side of mid-'60s white pop groups, and the easy listening pop vibe of a Lawrence Welk production from the sanitized '70s.  Best groove is "I See A Light" credited to Randy Boothe, Spectrum Music, while the, um, least satisfying track is an off-beat version of Fats Waller's "Honeysuckle Rose."  Male vocals tend to be earnestly sung, but the female vocals run to an over-the-top smiley kittenish sound; on side two, the lead female vocal on the Disney soundtrack songs, "It's a Jolly Holiday" and "Step In Time" spins out an engaging Twilight Zone vocal faux Julie Andrews' impression.

Album cover front and back is printed on a medium purple textured paper, "THE YOUNG AMBASSADORS" on both sides with color (yellow to blue) printing, back cover credits in white text.  Lp label matches the cover art, purple label, white printing.  The album doesn't have a printed release number, but the dead wax shows a "KM" mastering etching and "11746" A or B on each side.

If your tastes run to Disney On Ice pop, the Doodletown Pipers, Up With People, or Ray Conniff vanilla, you'll enjoy this album.


title: At Home with Bob Ward, recorded in his living room in Monterey Park, California.  A private press organ Lp from 1961

text:
AT HOME WITH BOB WARD AT THE HAMMOND ORGAN, "MUSIC TO LIVE BY" Century Records V12980.

The 12" vinyl Lp is recorded as four extended medleys, two per side:

Side one:
(Jump Tempo)
When You're Smiling/When My Baby Smiles At Me/The Lady Is a Tramp/Beer Barrel Polka
(Slow Swing Tempo)
Sleepy Serenade/Slow Poke/Indian Love Call/Third Man Theme
Side two:
(Waltz Tempo)
Alice Blue Gown/Fascination Waltz/Melody of Love/Tennessee Waltz
(Bounce Tempo)
Swingin' Down the Lane/Sunny Side of the Street/Penthouse Serenade/Sentimental Journey

Sound is stereo; per the liner notes, Bob Metcalf of Century Records did a field recording in Bob Ward's house.  Other than a worldless "vocal obbligato" by Martha Gilmour, or what sounds like deeply electronically echoed "humming" by "...Martha Gilmour whose voice is heard on many TV and radio programs...," the album is entirely Bob Ward's keyboard work.  The Lp sounds like it was miked between two speakers on the organ and the stereo comes via how each part of the keyboard plays through which speaker side.  Overall feeling is instrumental easy listening.

Bob Ward worked for the Alpha Beta grocery chain in Southern California and played for customers in his store; the price tag on this $4.98 Lp shows "price 2.79/Sales Tax .11/Total $2.90" from Alpha Beta (my copy; pressed on thick yellow wax).  Pictured on the cover shot in Bob Ward's home living room are Bob, Darrow and Charlene Johnson, Carol Rugraff.

Bob Ward discography:

AT HOME WITH BOB WARD, Century Records V12890 (Century Records was a private/contract press custom pressing service)
AT HOME WITH BOB WARD, ENCORES, Continental Records V 12920 (pressed by Century Records)
MERRY CHRISTMAS, Continental Records V 13868 (pressed by Century Records) -- this 12" was also pressed on 7" EP
ORGAN FAVORITES, Continental Records 15548 (pressed by Century Records)

Century Records started as a private press service specializing in LDS/Mormon albums in 1956, then branched into custom small run albums mostly by middle schools, high schools, and college student concert recordings, as well as vanity/private press albums by recording artists making their own records to sell out of their homes, cars, or bookings.  The label was based out of Saugus, California; Century pressed records showing sometimes a custom imprint, like Continental Records, numbered in the Century Records release series in the early '60s.  I can definitely date a Three D's Mormon folk album, V17451, before May, 1964.  Bob Ward's stereo albums date probably beginning in 1961, into 1962-3; stereo albums didn't become available until beginning about Christmas, 1958, generally.  Bob Ward relocated about 1978 to Rexburg, Idaho.

attachment_type: IMAGE


title: December, 1965 Provo fun children's Lp by Utah's version of the Kingston Trio

text:
The Three D's SING SONGS FOR L.D.S. CHILDREN, Continental Records C-102 mono/CS-102 "stereo"

This is a cute Lp by Provo, Utah's clone of the Kingston Trio folkies.  The Lp was originally issued with a yellow frame cover and color shot of the trio and kiddies, circa December, 1965 (Ogden Standard-Examiner), on the Provo, Utah based Continental Records (back cover upper right corner featured the logo as a beehive with two seagulls), and the album was repackaged, maybe 1970 or so, with a new purple color cover and edited liner notes--the original liner notes mentioned the album being courtesy of Capitol Records, which was more or less at the time in the mid-'60s when the Three D's put out two Capitol Lps, NEW DIMENSIONS and I WON'T BE WORRIED LONG, and a few singles which did not very much business.

The mono copy is the preferable version; the "stereo" version is rechanneled, but not very noticeable faux stereo.  The "stereo" version (the purple cover later edition, too) has a one-two second ping-pong mastering glitch at the opening of track two, side one, but otherwise the "stereo" album sounds very much like mono.  On the original yellow cover art version, the only way to tell the mono from the stereo copy is on the back cover, upper right corner, where the release number lists either C-102 or SC-102, the latter being the stereo version.  The original 1965 back cover also has a few b&w photos not found on the updated back cover slick of the 1970+ version (which was renumbered SC-106, though the dead wax area shows the original SC-102 etching scratched out, which means the 1970+ "compatible stereo" album used the same disc master as the original 1965 release).

The Lp features a gold colored label with black printing; the album was actually manufactured by Century Records, of Saugus, California.  The same label and printing was used on Lynn A. Bryson's LAB Productions releases in early 1970-71.

A little discography info:
Continental C-101 BELOVED MORMON HYMNS by Crawford Gates (December, 1964)
Continental C-103 SONGS OF OUR HERITAGE by the Three D's (1965-66).  SC-103 stereo is true stereo separation.

Bob Ward (electric easy listening organ private press albums) released a purported five Lps, AT HOME WITH BOB WARD, AT HOME WITH BOB WARD "ENCORES", and three more titles on Continental Records.  The first album was pressed with the gold/black printing label, but with fine print at the bottom stating it was a product of Century Records.


title: Eddie's budget bin RCA/Camden 1951-1958 singles' repackage/comp vinyl Lp

text:
Eddie Fisher, BRING BACK THE THRILL, RCA/Camden CAL 789 mono/CAS 789e rechanneled stereo.  Lp dates from December, 1963, on RCA/Camden's half-price $1.98 (mono) series.

Track list (referenced to corresponding 78/45 singles):
side one--
Just Say I Love Her (47-4616)
Dungaree Doll (47-6337)
Just A Little Lovin' (Will Go A Long Way) (47-4680)
That's the Chance You Take (47-4574)
Downhearted (47-5137)
side two--
Cindy, Oh Cindy (47-6677)
Bring Back the Thrill (47-4016)
I Don't Hurt Anymore (47-7135)
The Hand of Fate (47-4830)
With All My Heart and Soul (Anema e Core) (47-5675)

"Dungaree Doll" and "Downhearted" duplicate two tracks (of 11) on Eddie's HEART RCA/Camden CAL 447 mono Lp from November, 1958.  Original list price on this budget bin reissue was $1.98 mono; stereo copies' list was $2.98.  All the tracks on this Lp were recorded in mono, while the stereo Lps were in RCA's faux tile bathroom echo-echo-echo "electronically reprocessed for StErEo."  Most recent tracks on this Lp are Eddie's attempt to ride Harry Belafonte's calypso-folk fad coattails, "Cindy, Oh Cindy," RCA/Victor 47-6677, from February, 1957, and a cover of Hank Snow's C&W (or Dinah Washington, if you groove that way) hit "I Don't Hurt Anymore" RCA/Victor 47-7135 single, January, 1958.  "Dungaree Doll," RCA/Victor 6337 (Nov. 1955), is as close to rock 'n roll was Eddie Fisher came to taking on Elvis's juggernaut.


title: "I was born in Oberfrick in the Canton of Aargau, Switzerland..." from Utah's Wasatch Mountains ski resorts

text:
Track list on Lp:

side one--
Rainbow of Yodels/Vo Luzern gege Weggis Zu/Snowbird Yodel Polka/Vaters Lieblings-Jodel/Polka, Schoner Polka/DeUs-Wanderer
side two--
Fricktaler Bure-Sunntig/Walzer-Tanz-Jodel/Ich, uses Chnachtli/Schellzug-Jodel/Klavier und Jodel/Polka-Taz-Jodel

Back liner notes:  "For information on YODELING recordings, write:  Art Brogli, Snowbird, Alta, Utah 84070"

Cover shot features the mountain peaks as seen from the "...top of the Snowbird Tram in the Wasatch National Forest, Utah."  Apparently the Lp cover was produced in Switzerland, but I think this Lp and his later HAPPY YODELING, THE FINEST YODELING YOU CAN HEAR Lp (stereo 31977; October, 1977; methinks the release number is a date code for September 31, 1977) were likely recorded in the Orem/Provo area.  The Lp, here, dates 1974, purportedly sold some 20,000 copies...locally?


title: Mid-'67 lounge pysch-pop a la Righteous Bros., Phil Spector, Mamas & Papas, 5th Dimension....

text:
The Forum, THE RIVER IS WIDE, Mira Productions MLP 3014 mono/SLP 3014 stereo vinyl Lp.  Album dates maybe August, 1967?

Track list:
side one--
River is Wide/I Like What I See/Girl Without A Boy/Trip On Me/It's Sunday
side two--
We Can Make It/Look the Other Way/The Time Is Now/World of Illusion/I'm Alright Now

I found this Lp on a junking run (looking for weirdo outsider stuff, like Mormon polka yodeling albums [Arthur Brogli, a transplanted Swiss from Snowbird, Utah, anyone?]), saw the cover shot -- a generic outdoor scene in orange, and what looked like el cheapo '60s 'Vegas casino lounge singers on the back b&w photo -- and said, "meh, for a buck, why not?" when I noticed the Les Baxter references in the song credits.  Everything, all the cover/label markers, about the album says private press:  generic cover art, cheap looking black label with silver printing and no record company address credits, amateurish liner notes (the male singer is a "leopard" and "brutal" with an audience, and they "loved it."), '60s second rate stage costumes, and songs I didn't recognize.  But the Les Baxter reference, strange.  I figured some lounge singers paid him for a lounge lizard private press/vanity project after his major label projects dried up.  Uh, yeah....

Sound (mono Lp):  first track, side one, MUD; it sounds like a lot of layers, each time making the mix less "live," recorded with a towel over the microphone.  The title track sounds like an imitation of Phil Spector.  All the other tracks are brighter, especially the drums in the mix; dig that middle-aged LSD trip vibe with the harpsichord and electric organ, man.  The Lp sounds like the balance of the songs after the lead title track were closer to a live recording, less production and tape upon tape upon tape dubbing.  The overall feel comes over as an imitation of Phil Spector, Righteous Brothers, maybe into the 5th Dimension, Mamas & Papas, like a lounge-y budget imitation of 1966 BIG SOUND pop/rock, those ...singers' knockoff fake rock albums in the budget bins at the end of the '60s--get yourself an armload of Ray Bloch Singers' Lps on Ambassador and you'll get the idea.  Back cover liner notes state recorded in Los Angeles, May, 1967.  However, by the discography info I could dredge up, that May, 1967 recording only applies to the filler on the album; the title track dates back to about August, 1966.  My old Osbourne & Hamilton Lp price guides from the mid-'80s state that the title track on this Lp is rechanneled fake stereo, if on the stereo vinyl Lp.  The book lists the values of this Lp, mint condition, at $12 mono/$16 stereo, though dated about 1986.

45s' background:

Penthouse 504  "The River is Wide"/"The River Is Wide" part 2 (arguably, it's an A/A promo; discography source is via Ken Clee's THE AMERICAN DIRECTORY OF 45 RPM SINGLES binders from Stak-O-Wax)
--note:  Penthouse 502 on the same label is as by The Regents and dates 8/13/66 in Billboard.  "The River Is Wide" was on local Los Angeles charts beginning 8/10/66, and the song first listed in Billboard on Mira 3065 on 12/24/66.  Billboard obviously referenced the matrix number on Mira 232 45 single's "B" side from 66-3065-B, while the hit side matrix was 66-3064-A on the Mira 45.  I'm reasonably certain that the original 2:45 version of "The River Is Wide" on Penthouse 504 dates early August; the label was a subsidiary of Mira Productions Incorporated.

Mira
232  "The River Is Wide"/"A Girl Without a Boy"  (reissue of Penthouse 504 with a new B-side)
232  "The River Is Wide"/"I Fall In Love (All Over Again)"  -- same release, new B-side
243  "Trip On Me"/"It's Sunday"
248  "Girl Without A Boy"/"Go Try To Put Out The Sun"

Mira 232 dates December, 1966 release, didn't initially chart in any of the trades (Billboard, Cash Box, Record World) until beginning 6/24/67, though it was on local radio charts going back to August, 1966 on Penthouse, and December, 1966, on Mira 232.  So...the folks at Mira (Les Baxter...) ran the group back into the studio in May, 1967, and knocked off an album.  One hit single, all around peak #44-45, a two month run up and down the chart listings in all three trade mags; the other two 45s did no business.

Group was, per the liner notes, Phil Campos, Rene Nole (blonde chick), and Riselle Bain (brunette chick).  Nice back cover shot, Phil Campos in a narrow lapel tux, and the two chicks with ample cleavage leer suggestively.  Phil Campos had previously been with the Les Baxter Balladeers on Reprise R9-6064 Lp (January, 1963); if you check that album cover, he's holding a guitar, bottom center, on the cover shot.  Rene and Riselle were not in the credits on that album.


title: Six tracks from three Dot 45 singles, Teen pop

text:
Debbie Reynolds, AM I THAT EASY TO FORGET, Dot DLP 3295 mono/DLP 25295 stereo.

Track list on this vinyl Lp:
side one--
Am I That Easy to Forget (15985)
Ask Me to Go Steady (15985)
Summer Romance
Aba Daba Honeymoon (15884)
I Love You A Thousand Ways
Why Not Me
side two--
Just For A Touch of Your Love (16071)
City Lights (16071)
Too Young to Love
I Can't Love You Anymore
Love Is A Thing (15884)

Note:  This 11-track Lp is comprised of six songs from Dot Records 45 singles, plus six other recordings (filler).  Each of the 45 singles' release numbers are referenced to the specific songs on the Lp.  If you're a country fan, you'll pick up that three of the songs are C&W "popped" on this album;  oddest is that Lefty Frizzell song made into orchestra teen pop, "I Love You A Thousand Ways."  And "City Lights" was Ray Price & the Cherokee Cowboy's GREAT honky-tonker!

My copy is the mono Lp.  Sound on this album is orchestra pop, aimed more or less at Randy Woods' Dot Records idea of whitebread rock 'n roll at the time--Pat Boone, Nick Todd, the Fontane Sisters, etc....  While Debbie here courts a vanilla rock audience in late '59, she does it in a style that veers between the softer rock 'n roll styling of Connie Francis on MGM and Anita Bryant's youth/pop singles' hits, "Paper Roses" and "In My Little Corner of the World," on Carlton Records.  A&C orchestra credits run to Billy Vaughn (Pat Boone's backing ork) and Jerry Fielding (big band guy who spoofed and had a disdain of '50s rock 'n roll).  Debbie's voice runs a bit weak and breathy on the ballads, while she shouts "Aba Daba Honeymoon" (A Dot recut of her February, 1951 MGM hit) quite decently.

Here's a short 45 discography on her Coral and Dot singles:

Coral
61851  Tammy/French Heels  (June, 1957)
61897  A Very Special Love/I Saw A Country Boy (ork by George Cates, Lawrence Welk's music director)
61986  Hillside in Scotland/This Happy Feeling
62030  Faces There Are Fair/Hungry Eyes

Dot Records (this album)
15884  Aba Daba Honeymoon/Love Is A Thing (Dec. 1958)
15937  Love Is A Simple Thing/I Can't Love You Anymore (April, 1959)
15985  Am I That Easy to Forget/Ask Me to Go Steady (Sept. 1959)
16071  City Lights/Just For A Touch of Your Love (March, 1960)
16119  I'll Pretend/Please (July, 1960)
16156  It Looks Like Rain in Cherry Blossom Lane/Satisfied - Part II  (Oct. 1960)
16199  Lonely People/Just A Little Girl
 --(March, 1961; "Lonely People" songwriting credit includes Jerry Capehart, Eddie Cochran's former manager and a bit later Glen Campbell's)
16225  Right Or Wrong/Are You For Real
--(May, 1961; "Right or Wrong" was Wanda Jackson's hit on Capitol)
16337  You Better Move On (answer)/People Will Say We're In Love
--(February, 1962;  A-side was an "answer" song to Arthur Alexander's Dot 16309 45 single)
16446  Tammy/Am I That Easy to Forget
--("Tammy" here is a Dot recut of the Coral hit)
16465  Home In The Meadow/My Six Loves (March, 1963)
16473  The Apple, the Wind and the Storm/Is Goodbye That Easy to Say  (April 1963)

Debbie Reynolds's Dot Lps:
DEBBIE, Dot DLP 3191 mono/DLP 25191 stereo  (May-June, 1959)
AM I THAT EASY TO FORGET, Dot DLP 3295 mono/DLP 25295 stereo
FINE AND DANDY, Dot DLP 3298 mono/DLP 25298 stereo
TAMMY AND 11 OTHER GREAT FOLK HITS, Dot DLP 3493 mono/DLP 25493 stereo  (January, 1963)  -- FOLK???


title: The original pre-LAMANITE GENERATION album from Provo, Utah

text:
Arliene Nofchissey & Carnes Burson, GO MY SON, Blue Eagle Records BE-6840 (Brigham Young University, Utah).  Lp dates approximately 1968-1970, stereo.

Tracks:

Side one--
Go My Son/Mountains Cry Out/Who Am I/Be A Man/Ute Mother's Lullaby/Soft Winds
Side two--
Desert Flower/I Walk In Beauty/Reservation Blues/Tom Trails/Sehe Nado Yodo/From the Eagle's Bed

Songwriting credits:  Carnes Burson tracks side one, #2, 4, 6; side two, #1, 4.  Arliene Nofchissey tracks side one, #1, 3, 5; side two, #2, 5.  Jean Jenkins songwriting credit on side two, track #6.  Side two, "Reservation Blues" does not list a songwriting credit; in place of the credit, the listing is "(Instrumental)"

All songs are original, Blue Eagle Music Company, BMI.  Back Lp liner notes show "BLUE EAGLE RECORDS, Box 330 Univ. Station, Provo, Utah 84601."  No date listed.

Playback:  Arliene and Carnes share lead vocals alternatively on each side; Arliene sings with the voice of an angel.  Instrumental lineup (uncredited) is a moody electric guitar --think Santo & Johnny, also Duane Eddy, played mostly on the bass strings with echo--, rhythm acoustic guitar, a upright acoustic bass played way in the background, occasional piano, tambourine, and an uncredited female backing vocal behind Arliene on some cuts.  There seems to be a lower register drum as percussion, played in the background.

The title track has been periodically recorded by BYU-connected acts since this album, the first cover being on a 1974 (?) LAMANITE GENERATION Lp (browish-red cover, five women wearing silver costumes and silver feathers), and a version --not this one-- is available via BYU recordings as by the Lamanite Generation renamed less controversially The Living Legends.

On the back cover slick's liner notes, each track has a description.  Most oddly interesting is "Sehe Nado Yodo," which is credited thusly:  "A Hopi soldier stationed in Japan learned to love those people and their land.  He came home and sang of his life in Japan.  He sang to Arliene and she adapted the song for this album."  I think this recording is in Japanese.

About Carnes Burson:
He appears on two of Brigham Young University's LAMANITE GENERATION albums credited on guitar, the 1974 brown/red cover Lp, and the blue artwork cover Lp from 1976.

Arliene Nofchissey Williams:  She predates this late '60s BYU Lp appearing on Stan Bronson's DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN, Bronson & Cooper LP 1001 album from 1966, which was a Mormon cowboy music album based out of Utah songs originating around Blanding, Utah.  Her photo and credit appear on that album's front cover, bottom center, flanked by Kathy Smith and Mary Holden, Stan Bronson's sister and cousin, respectively.  Carnes Burson is credited as songwriter on that Lp, side two, track #2, "Friendship Fire."  Bronson and Cooper (Cleone B. Cooper) Records shows an address at Box 402, Blanding, Utah.  Stan Bronson self-released another vinyl Lp, about 1970, recorded in South Korea, as DADDY BIG BOOTS, STAN BRONSON AND THE SONG JOOK WON GIRLS, B&C 1002; Arliene is not affiliated with the DADDY BIG BOOTS album.  Arliene, though does appear on Chief Dan George's PROUD EARTH album, Salt City Records, from 1975.

Arliene and Carnes also sing together on an LDS Lp from 1979, TURN UNTO THE LORD, Produced by Stan Bronson, record company credit (?) showing "The Church Educational System of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints," release number PASI-1297.


title: Oh, my!  The Clive Davis middle-of-the-road formula at Columbia Records

text:
Andre Kostelanetz PLAYS CHICAGO, Columbia C 31002.  Lp dates about December, 1971

Track list:
side one--
Wake Up Sunshine/Fancy Colours/Make Me Smile/Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?/Questions 67 and 68/Colour My World
side two--
Beginnings/25 or 6 to 4/Where Do We Go From Here/It Better End Soon/Flight 602

If you get this, get it for the pretentious orchestra cover tunes' treatment of Chicago's songs from their first three Columbia albums, and the funny slog through the copious liner notes on the back of the album.  Er, wow, the guy was IMPORTANT, by the liner notes.  This album ranks on par with SATURDAY NIGHT FIEDLER on the strange-o-meter, a taste turn into the contemporary twilight zone, a sense of exploitive desperation, commercial miscalculation.

Big orchestra sound, classical asperations, and a wordless female vocalist who channels the howling female vocal from the TV show theme, STAR TREK, in several cuts, though she's mercifully back in the mix.


title: Youth oriented middle-of-the-road pop from the U.K./Beatles-related act at U.S. Capitol

text:
David & Jonathan, MICHELLE, Capitol T 2473 mono/ST 2473 stereo.  Produced by George Martin.  Lp dates March, 1966, uncharted.

Track list:
side one--
Michelle/Laughing Fit to Cry/I Know/Bye Bye Brown Eyes/A Must to Avoid/Every Now and Then
side two--
Let's Hang On/Yesterday/'Bye Now/This Golden Ring/You've Got Your Troubles/The End is Beginning

I picked up the Lp (stereo) noticing that this is a British Invasion album, and noted the George Martin producer credit which clicked as "Beatles Related Lp" for a buck.

Sound overall is youth oriented middle-of-the-road pop, British Invasion-lite.  Think Peter & Gordon (also on U.S. Capitol), Chad & Jeremy.  The album is pleasant, but tends towards a little boring.  Better than youth-oriented Capitol Wayne Newton, but aimed fairly close to that mid-'60s market for a younger audience that didn't want screaming girls' blues-based rock 'n roll.  Seven of the tracks show songwriting to "Greenway - Cook" (and "Greenway - Cook - Martin"), which puts these two guys artistically above vocalists doing what they were told by the producer in charge of the project.

Stereo content:  British acts on U.S. Lps tended to get the stereo butchered by a sound engineer fiddling and fudging UK mono (and singles') masters for rechanneled fake stereo on Lp.  However, I was pleasantly surprised that all the tracks are true stereo on this Lp, although it's not great stereo (UK cut & paste stereo production sound from the early '60s).

Sound:

On all the tracks, the duo's vocals are centered.  George Martin put all the basic instrumental backing track on this album panned hard over at 9 o'clock:  bass, drums, piano, acoustic or rhythm guitar.  Panned hard right tends to an electric keyboard, strings, and horns.  There are three exceptions, though:
Side two, track one:  "Let's Hang On" is mono center, including all the instrumental backing; however, D & J overdub backup vocals and split the voices left-right for stereo.  The effect reminds me of the Columbia Records' the Brothers Four formula of splitting their vocals between stereo speakers.
Side two, tracks five and six, "You've Got Your Troubles" and "The End is the Beginning," respectively.  The stereo is fully fleshed out and spacious on these two songs, a bigger, better, fuller sound.

Overall, the first two tracks on side one, "Michelle" and "Laughing Fit to Cry," are the most sparing sound, and the album evolves in a sound that approaches operatic blue-eyed soul with bigger production quality.  If you listen to UK mid-'60s pop-rock acts coming over to the 'States, your ears will pick up the stereo sound being a little backwards, choppy, vis-a-vis the U.S. studio recordings, that the final stereo version sounds like an assembly of distinctly separated pieces, while the "beautiful music" big-sounding voices like Matt Monro got the biggest studios and most modern sound equipment to capture their performances.  UK rock 'n roll sounds recorded on the cheap.

U.S. 45 singles by David & Jonathan:

Modesty/Willie Waltz, 20th Century Fox 641  (1966)

Michelle/How Bitter the Taste of Love, Capitol 5563
  (December, 1965; their one U.S. hit, a Beatles soft pop cover)
Speak Her Name/I Know, Capitol 5625  (April, 1966)
Lovers of the World Unite/Oh My World, Capitol 5700
  (June, 1966; "Lovers ..." was a UK #7 pop hit, but a stiff in the US)
Time/Magic Book, Capitol 5777
Looking for My Life/10 Stories High, Capitol 5870
She's Leaving Home/One born Every Minute, Capitol 5934
  (June, 1967; "She's Leaving Home" is a Beatles cover, not on Lp)

Softly Whispering I Love You/Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart, Amy 11012  (March, 1968)


title: An LDS cast/musical 2 Lp set from August, 1978

text:
Heather Young/Lex De Azevedo, DEBBIE, DIARY OF A MORMON GIRL, Embryo Music ER-2017 2 Lp set.  Album dates August, 1978.

track list:
side one--
Song to Solomon (Debbie; 2:24)/How Can I Know How Far I Can Go? (Debbie and Solomon; 6:19)/I Wonder If He Loves Me (Debbie; 3:42)/If Someone Really Cared (Stan Ford; 2:52)
side two--
Popularity (company; 5:45)/An Ordinary Man (Debbie; 3:29)/Closet Song (Solomon and company; 4:05)/Pure and Simple No (Debbie and Solomon; 4:10)
side three--
Once Upon A Star (Joey; 2:15)/Question to Boyd K. Packer (Debbie; 2:04)/Pomp and Circumstance (instrumental [uh, disco!]; 2:50)/Once Upon A Star (Reprise) - When A Woman Loves A Man (Joey; 3:55)/How Far Can I Go (Debbie; 3:07)
side four--
Here Comes Love Again (company - Shawn Engemann; 1:50)/Where Are You Now? (Debbie and Jana; 3:55)/New (Stan Ford; 2:54)/How Far Can I Go? (Reprise, Debbie; 2:24)/Song to Solomon (instrumental; 2:10)

The 2 Lp set is set out Lp #1 side one/side four and Lp #2 side two/side three, which meant it was sequenced with an automatic Lp changer with the two albums stacked to play side one, side two, turn the Lps over, play side three, side four.  (If you had a turntable with the changer feature, you'd know.  In the '60s and '70s, record changers could stack six album sides for continuous [and brutally abusive wear] play in your console hi-fi entertainment center.

Cast:
Debbie -- Heather Young
Solomon -- Michael Flynn
Stan Ford -- Phlip Clayton (yes, spelled "Phlip")
Jana -- Ruann Christian
Joey -- Harry Boquist

Company:
Phlip Clayton/Ruana Christian/Richard Battaglia/Margaret Francis.

The Lp cover is laid out as a gatefold two-pocket fold out,  Outside cover art front and back is the same artwork; inside flap is white with black printing.  Compared to the SATURDAY'S WARRIOR 2 Lp gatefold, this is a more basic (less expensive) packaging layout.  There's no mention of a songbook tie-in for this album.  Based on period pricing with other 2 Lp sets at the time, this album sold for maybe $12.98 in the LDS music market distribution.

Heather Young/Debbie is the principal character, and vocally she sounds somewhat like early '70s Olivia Newton-John.  The album's style overall suggests the more vanilla sounds of early '70s CCM (Christian Contemporary Music) about the time and middle-of-the-road style as Evie (Evie Tornquist Karlsson), the biggest CCM artist before Amy Grant.  Most fun tracks are "Popularity" on side two (as rock-y as Lex De Azevedo would get.  Think 1960-63 teen "Bobbys" rockers like...Bobby Vinton?  Pre-Beatles bubblegummy rock after Elvis was tamed by the Army.), and the, yes, it's true, DISCO version of the high school graduation march, "Pomp and Circumstance" on side three.  Incredibly strange and cool!

Other Heather Young on Lp:
LIONESS AND THE LAMB, Starfield 66588 (Lp dates May, 1979, and has a bizarre cover photo popular with outsider music collectors looking for STRANGE albums).  Three songs from this set were re-recorded for LIONESS AND THE LAMB album:  "An Ordinary Man," "Once Upon A Star," and "I Wonder If He Loves Me."  The album also includes the ever-present LDS pop hit from the SATURDAY'S WARRIOR album, "The Circle of Our Love."

LULLABY SONG, Embryo ER-2022.

CHARLY, A LOVE SONG, Embryo Music ER-2058 (June, 1984).  Words by Heather Young; music by Lex De Azevedo.

FYI about Lex De Azevedo's Embryo Music record label (not complete):

SATURDAY'S WARRIOR (musical), ER-2000A ($10 2-Lp set; best guesstimate date of release is March-May, 1974)
THE WARD CHOIR, ER-2001 ($5.50)
THE FIRST CHRISTMAS IN ZARAHEMLA (musical), ER-2002 ($5.50)
MY TURN ON EARTH (musical), ER-2003A ($10 2-Lp set)
AGAINST A CROOKED SKY (soundtrack), ER-2004 ($6.50)
THE FIRST EASTER IN ZARAHEMLA, ER-2005 ($5.50)
THE ORDER IS LOVE (musical), ER-2006 ($5.50)
THREADS OF GLORY (musical), ER-2007A ($10 2-Lp set)
ROBERT PETERSON - FEELINGS OF FOREVER, ER-2008 ($6.50)
CALM AS A SUMMER'S WARNING (musical), ER-2009 ($6.50) -- dated release 4/01/77
SACRAMENTO INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN'S CHORUS - SING WITH US, ER-2013
LEX DE AZEVEDO - SATURDAY'S WARRIOR, ER-2015
DEBBIE, DIARY OF A MORMON GIRL (2 Lp cast musical), ER-2017 (August, 1978)
LEX DE AZEVEDO - MESSENGERS OF LIGHT, ER-2018 (Aug. 1978)
LEX DE AZEVEDO - THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD, ER-2019
SACRAMENTO INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN'S CHORUS - SING WITH US volume 2, ER-2020
HEATHER YOUNG - LULLABY SONG, ER-2022 (1980)
LEX DE AZEVEDO - SACRED HYMNS, MY FATHER, ER-2024
MARYANN MENDENHALL WOMEN'S CHORALE - LOVE ONE ANOTHER, ER-2027 (Oct. 1980)
LEX DE AZEVEDO, HIS ORCHESTRA AND CHORALE--CHRISTMAS, ER-2030 (Nov. 1980)
MARYANN MENDENHALL WOMEN'S CHORALE - O THAT I WERE AN ANGEL, ER-2033
I AM A CHILD OF GOD - PRIMARY SONGS ARRANGED & CONDUCTED BY LEX DE AZEVEDO, ER-2034
MY FAITH GROWS LIKE A SEED, CHILDREN'S SONGS FROM THE BOOK OF MORMON BY KRISTEN RANDLE, ER-2035
AL LAMPKIN'S LATTER-DAY NIGHT LIVE (With Special Guest Stars Gordon Jump, Billy Barty, Rachel Jacobs, Debra Clinger Jensen, Robert Clark), ER-2036 (April, 1982)
MARYANN MENDENHALL WOMEN'S CHORALE - WALKED TODAY WHERE JESUS WALKED, ER-2037
MARYANN MENDENHALL WOMEN'S CHORALE - WHEN SOMEONE CARES, ER-2042
A FIELD SO WHITE (soundtrack), ER-2043
THE GOOD SHEPHERD, CHILDREN'S SONGS FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT BY KRISTEN RANDLE, ER-2045
LEX DE AZEVEDO - OUR OWN KIND OF MUSIC, ER-2046
CHARLY, A LOVE SONG (musical), ER-2058 (June, 1984)


title: Mormon/LDS humor talky comedy album on Lex De Azevedo's Embryo Records label from 1982

text:
AL LAMPKIN'S LATTER-DAY NIGHT LIVE, Embryo Records ER-2036 (Est. April, 1982)

Track list:
side one--
News (1:30) - Terrific Twosomes (1:50)/News (Con't - 2:45) - Meet Me in Kolob (1:29)/News (Con't - 4:32)/Consecration (4:10)/Magic Mount Zion (2:28)/Every Member a Bird-Dogger (3:25)
side two--
Patriarch Knows Best (1:38) - Pioneer Handbook (1:31)/Patriarch (Con't - 1:19) - Wes Wolverton Wagons (2:42)/Patriarch (Con't - 2:31)/Mission Impossible (:35)/Old and New World Series (5:55)/Ask Melba (1:04)/Grow A Garden (3:32)

"...WITH SPECIAL GUEST STARS GORDON JUMP, BILLY BARTY, RACHEL JACOBS, DEBRA CLINGER JENSEN, ROBERT CLARKE"

Other recognizeable names listed include Jim Pike (Lettermen), Fred Bock (I believe A&R credit for the three Mrs. Miller Capitol Records albums then produced by 1966 Lex De Azevedo!!!), and Cam Clarke (King Family).

"Latter-Day Night Live"...very punny, very punny....  The album opens with "news" delivered/read in a not-good imitation of Walter Cronkite as "Walter Contrite."  The humor on the Lp is flat; it's not the culture's knee-jerk "THAT'S NOT FUNNY!!!" from-the-gut explosive reaction to outsider humor, it's the style, writing, delivery are not only deadpan, but "blah...," indescribably dull, flat and not-funny, even if you get all the inside "jokes" and references.  This bore is sooooo flat that it's riotously funny for being so, well, boring and uninspired, like a pastry dough that's forgotten to add any sugar--a mouthful of worse than bland, boring your mouth to death.

The cover art drawing is courtesy of cartoonist Calvin Grondahl, from Ogden, Utah's newspapers.


title: Apples or Onions:  Put Another Log On the Fire, Cook Me Up Some Bacon and Some Beans....

text:
LATTER-DAY RUTH, A MUSICAL BY DOUG STEWART & STEVE AMUNDSEN, AS-1001.  2 Lp set dates from maybe June, 1978; original retail was $12.98.

Track list:
side one--
My Day/Babylon Will Get Us/The Show of Life/Where Is A Woman Needed Most?/Good Mormon Boys/Can't Make It On My Own
side two--
Life on the stage/Rules/Use Your talents to Build Up Zion/Whatever It Takes/The Center/Reprise:  Rules
side three--
The Vision/I Got Used to You/Reprise:  My Day/Woman of the World/Marriage Is A Room/Reprise:  The Show Of Life
side four--
Reprise:  Can't Make It On My Own (female)/Reprise:  Can't Make It On My Own (male)/Convention Production Number/Reprise:  My Day/Finale:  Mother, Where Are You?/Reprise:  The Show of Life

The concept for the album is based on a Tompall Glaser classic country music song, "Put Another Log On The Fire" on MGM 14800 45 single, from 1975.  The basic concept revolves around an attractive young woman's realization that her career goals and feminist ideology leave her feeling wanting to do more house cleaning and washing, and she follows her rejection of the feminist lifestyle to enroll in the Disgruntled Feminist Gentile Importation program:  SINGLE FATHERS WITH LARGE FAMILIES NEED UNPAID STEPMOTHERS.  This policy is laid out specifically in the song, "Rules," (Lp #1, side two, track two):

"Welcome to Zion!  Welcome to Zion!
Glad you can be here!  Glad you can be here!
...
It's a pleasure to greet a new daughter of Zion.
Now let's get down to business.
Here are a few incidental, obligational,
inconsequential rules that you must obey.

Can you cook, can you mend
Can you clean, can you sew
Can you make the broken family
Station wagon go and go?
Can you quilt, can you knit,
Can you bake a cherry pie?
Do a wash a mile high?
Iron clothes 'til you're blue?
And start all over when you're through?

Scrub the floors and scrub the halls
...
Don't forget to smile!"

Much of this fun album echoes what Rosalie Sorrels sang in her Festival Lp, SONGS OF THE MORMON PIONEERS, LB 2583 (September, 1961 vinyl Lp), "...don't you marry those Mormon boys, if you do, your fortune it will be, Johnny Cakes and babies is all you'll see...."  ("Don't You Marry Those Mormon Boys" is to the tune of "Hush Little Baby, Don't You Cry")

I was grinning at the sheer comic embarrassment of this album after cleaning it, and while it seemed like an example of Incredibly Strange music based on the usual romantic conventions of courtship, I had a jaw-dropping, open-mouthed disbelief moment with the political bombshell on side four, "Convention Production Number," which opened with a chant, "E.R.A!  A BETTER WAY!  E.R.A.  A BETTER WAY!..," set after the female lead had bolted from her one year marriage to resume her (empty) feminist life, speaking at an E.R.A. rally, and then having a rejection revelation she had erred terribly and regretted her more fulfilling home life.

If you're a fan of Twilight Zone, just Incredibly Strange music, look for this album!

Credits:

Composer/conductor:  Steve Amundsen; Author/lyricist:  Doug Stewart
--Note:  Doug Stewart is the word guy on 1974's SATURDAY'S WARRIOR 2 Lp set.

Soloists:  Denny Crockett/Margie Christiansen/Chyleen Bluth/Teri Green Crockett/Laura Whipple/Gary Neilson/Mike Perry
Children's Voices:  Paula Last/David Warner/Howard McOmber/Collette Schlappi/Christopher Jacobs
Back Up Vocals:  Margie Chistiansen/Laura Whipple/Steve Amundsen
Other Voices (spoken):  Denise Dillard/Norlan Jacobs/Dorene Jorgensen/Frank Frederick/Doug Stewart
Produced by Steve Amundsen, Doug Stewart & Larry John

All songs (p) Amundsen & Stewart/BMI


title: Sinatra says COME FLY WITH ME in the showroom, while Eddy works the lounge in 1959

text:
Eddy Arnold, HAVE GUITAR, WILL TRAVEL, RCA/Victor LPM 1928 mono/LSP 1928 stereo

Liner notes on my mono LPM 1928 states, "Recorded in Nashville, September, 1958.  Recording Engineer:  Bob Farris.  Produced by Chet Atkins."  (C) by Radio Corporation of America, 1959.  By the industry standards of the day, the mono copies outsold the stereo versions by a factor of 4:1 in 1959-60 (mono still accounted for 59% of album sales in late 1966).

Track list:
side one--
Indiana/Oklahoma Hills/Mister and Mississippi/Stars Fell on Alabama/Idaho/Kentucky Babe
side two--
Missouri/Carolina in the Morning/Carry Me Back to Old Virginny/On Miami Shore/Beautiful Ohio/Georgia On My Mind

Eddy is a lounge crooner here, working with a small combo, jazz-sounding guitar, piano, drum kit.  Backing vocals on this sounds like they are inspired by what Anita Kerr was doing on Jim Reeves's records, but they don't have that gorgeous vanilla sex-kitten Anita Kerr sound and sometimes duel Eddy for control of his recording mike in passages.  Frankly:  the songs are pop, they are treated as lounge, Eddy manages to give a lounge slightly jazzy feeling even on "Oklahoma Hills," and the backing vocals contend instead of complement Eddy's crooning.  It's a lousy record.

The original cover on this title shows Eddy wearing a charcoal suit and has his guitar in his right hand.  Three brown suitcases are placed at his feet.  WAY across the back of the picture are propeller airplanes, and Eddy's standing under the tail of a New York Air (NYA) helicopter with a Civil Defense logo on the tail.  RCA reissued the album, c. April, 1967, with a new cover (Eddy in a white overcoat next to a white wall) and new title, EDDY ARNOLD GOES TRAVELING.


title: Apples or Onions:  UTAH DISCO RULES!!!

text:
Sunshade 'n Rain, DON'T STOP THE MUSIC, Sound Column Productions SCP-02790.  Lp is a Utah private press Lp, dates 1979.

Track list:
side one--
Dancin' School/Melody/Don't Stop the Music/I'll Be The Love/Place in Time
side two--
First You Cry/Nancy Drew/No Tomorrow/Coeur D'Alene/Somewhere In Life

Frankly put, this is the BEST produced local kitsch pop music album I've found in the parallel universe record market in the 'Empire.  The sound on this private press Lp grooves, doesn't sound dated or done on the cheap, and the overall feel puts this solidly in the late '70s pop A/C by Gerry Rafferty, Styx, Christopher Cross, and the Top-40 pop before '80s synth pop bulldozed out the sound.

Three tracks are disco-ed:  "Dancin' School," "Don't Stop the Music," and "First You Cry."  There's a lot of keyboard sound, which is professionally-sounding, not the usual cheap backwards Casio feel of local music; the group's vocals are very well polished, a bit processed, but though one hears a throwback to the Lettermen, it's far more contemporary and shows a great deal of attention went into recording.  The balance of the other tracks fall more into the late '70s A/C ballad pop of the era, but this album is far and away MILES AHEAD of the usual whitebread feel of local music that thought that the Carpenters were filthy commie rock paisley-wearing hippies who were at least suspect down in Happy Valley and Stepford, Utah.  The Skousen music department folks down 'south would be rolling over in their graves if they heard this Lp.

All the tracks on this Lp are originals, not bleached and sanitized covers for the local market.  My copy still has the $6.98 price sticker from Deseret Book, hence the parallel universe distribution retail stocking (meaning: not sold in regular record stores, just like pre-'85 CCM).  The second side runs out of steam a bit on the last two tracks, "Coeur D'Alene," and especially the trite "Somewhere In Life," which is over-the-top preachy.  Like other period CCM more or less based on the same vanilla treatment of popular youth tastes, the songwriting on the album is weak ("Nancy Drew"???), leaving no impression on the listener (cotton candy lyrics), but it works on this fluff fun pop album--Donna Summer's overt dance floor pickup aggression would be too much for the local audience this album courts.

Songwriting credits show:
"Dancin' School" -- John Allen-Tom McFarland
"Melody" -- Steve Kay
"Don't Stop the Music" -- Rich Christensen-Clive Romney
"I'll Be Love" -- Steve Kay
"Place In Time" -- Todd Oldroyd-Phil Secrist
"First You Cry" -- Clive Romney
"Nancy Drew" -- Ron Simpson
"No Tomorrow" -- D. Lindstrom-C. Romney-R. Simpson
"Coeur D'Alene" -- Ron Simpson
"Somewhere In Life" -- Ron Simpson-Arnold Stringham

All selections published by Ronarte Publications (ASCAP).  Recorded by Jim Anglesey at Sound Column Studios in Salt Lake City and Stan Dacus at Young 'Un Sound in Nashville.  (Er, Nashville - disco.  Um....)

Sunshade 'n Rain is Dan Lindstrom, Jeff Gregerson, and Mel Teeples.  This Lp is their fourth album.  Two other albums that I know about by the group:

SUNSHADE 'N RAIN II, SCP 7347. Songs include "Listen to the Music" (Doobie Bros. late '72 hit) and "I Believe in Music" (Gallery, also late 1972). Lp most likely dates about 1973 into 1974.
--Sunshade 'n Rain recorded a third album, NATURALLY, SS&R 1003, [[ASIN:B00HZ817E8 Naturally]] at Sound Column Productions, c. 1975. Songs on the Lp are: (side one) Naturally/Please Turn Your Heart/My World/Printer/I've Changed; (side two) Where Would I Be/Anna Lee/I Could Never Love You More/Harmony/My Friend. All the songs on SS&R 1003 show songwriting credit to members of the group, especially Dan Lindstrom.

FIVE, yes, FIVE incredibly enthusiastic caramel-dipped onions!


title: Apples or Onions:  The Mugleston Family Band's go to SoCal for their second private press album

text:
The Mugleston Family Band's second album, c. 1977

Track list:
side one--
I'm Still Around/A Smile's the Only Way to Say Goodbye/Do Me Wrong But Do Me/If I Didn't Care/Crisp Country Morning
side two--
Stay By Me/If It Don't Make You Cry It's Not A Country Song/Lonely Love/Soft Cry/Sunshine Come My Way

Apparently 2000 copies pressed.  Record company information states:  ECI, A Product of Entertainment Consultant's International, 9121 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90069  (213) 274-7845.

Producer credit shows "Darwin Lamm."

Song styles range from disco-lite (more Jack Jones & the LOVE BOAT disco than sexpot Donna Summer disco), maybe a bit of bubblegum pop, Carpenters (especially that "country" song of theirs, "Top Of The World"), Mike Curb Congregation, The Hillside Singers, New Seekers, "rock" as hard as early Chicago.  Sound mix is some strings, drum kit held a little back, a '70s guitar sound something like period Doobie Brothers.  The Lp sounds like the producer/group sang over professional, if not top-line, backing tracks with a then-contemporary sound.  Vocals, however, are private press rough.  Desiree seems to be singing in a kind of Olivia Newton-John whispery vocal.  The guy's vocals range from competent to almost, but not quite, on the mark.  The record label (paper thing at the center of the vinyl disc) is beige color, brown printing, looks similar to the early '70s labels on BYU's YOUNG AMBASSADORS/BYU SOUNDS OF FREEDOM/LAMANITE GENERATION releases, though the vinyl is heavier.  Song titles are listed on both sides, but no songwriter credits, no publishing mention.

The first Mugleston's Family Band Lp on private press Century Records, c. 1973, was mostly covers, and it sounded like the kids played a lot of their own instruments:  drums, accordion, cornet.  This Lp, though, has one (to my ears) identifiable song, side one, track four, "If I Didn't Care," (with a disco beat, believe it or else!) which caught me with a familiarity, remembering Fred Sanford (er, Redd Foxx, from SANFORD & SON) crooning, oh, yes, the Ink Spots' song from a 1939 Decca 78.

Song guesses:
"Do Me Wrong But Do Me --Alan O'Day, from June, 1977, Lp on Pacific Records, APPETIZERS
"Stay By Me" -- The Clique, Cinema C-001 45 single.  September, 1967
"Lonely Love" -- The Sutherland Brothers and Quiver, DREAM KID Lp, Island SW 9341 (April, 1974)
I think the balance of the album is the Mugleston's own compositions, and the style ranges from easy listening country (John Denver-lite) to bubblegum disco, with a kind of garage band quality.

About Darwin Lamm:

Los Angeles early '70s DJ on CREATIVE RADIO SHOWS with Dick Clark, and on record credits:
Jerden 9, "Goodnight My Love"/"Won't You Give A Chance"  (45 single, Darwin & the Cupids; June, 1960)
Dore 659, "There Ought to Be A Dance"/"She Knows" (45 single, Darwin; January, 1963)
Dore 711, "Grounded for the Summer"/"I Cry When I Think About You" (45 single, Darwin)
Dore 743, "My Baby's Barefoot"/"Love Will Take Away"  (45 single, The Syndicate)
Dore 744, "There Oughta Be A Dance"/"You're Jolly Well Breaking My Heart" (45 single, Darwin)
Dore 828, "Would I"/"I Cry When I Dream About You"  (45 single)

Mark 56, BILL BALANCE AND THE FEMININE FORUM (Lp, March, 1972)

Apparently he also published a magazine devoted to Elvis Presley.


title: Apples or Onions:  A Spin off of Utah's pop act, Sunshade n' Rain, from 1980

text:
Justus Brothers, HAPPY TOGETHER, Bonwhit Records 122380 (Sound Column Productions).  Lp dates 1980, private press Lp from Salt Lake City.  Address on the back liner notes puts this under the U.S. I-80 freeway about 2700 South State Street.

Track list:
side one--
Music Medley (I've Got the Music In Me/I Believe In Music/Listen to the Music/Make Your Own Kind of Music/Your Song)/Hard to Believe/Everybody/You'd Be Mine
side two--
Happy Together/Love Was A Fantasy/I Write the Songs/I'm So Glad/Goin' Out Of My Head-Can't Take My Eyes Off You

Credits in the liner notes list Dan Whitley and Bob Morphis.  Dan Whitley joined a Utah-based locally popular band, Sunshade 'n Rain, in the '70s.  Other names are Ike Egan, with the Osmonds organization, Jim Pike and Bobby Engemann from the Lettermen, and Terry Rangno from the We-Five.

Songs:
"Hard to Believe" and "Love Was A Fantasy" publishing to Bonwhit House of Music/ASCAP
"You'd Be Mine" by Whole Wheat/Equinox Music/BMI -- these three songs are original to this project and two of the three list songwriting credit to either member.

Cover songs by recognizeable hit acts:
"Everybody" songwriting credit to Tommy Roe
"Happy Together" by A.L. Gordon/G. Bonner (Turtles)
"I Write the Songs" by B. Johnston (Barry Manilow's hit)
"Goin' Out Of My Head/Can't Take My Eyes Off You" (from the Letterman Lp, PUT YOUR HEAD ON MY SHOULDER, Capitol ST 111, obviously)

Big name connection, at least via publishing:
"I'm So Glad" by I. Egan/D. Crockett, showing Kolob Music/BMI--which is Osmonds' publishing interest.

Sound on the Lp is commercially very well done, and 1980 pop just a little soft-rock left of Barry Manilow.  Producer credit to Dan Whitley.  Cover shot has an oddball comic Shakespeare England costume look, which calls out "outsider music, kitsch!" to one's curiosity; however, the music is straight ahead, without the comic aspect the cover suggests.

Credits state recorded at Bonwhit Studios/Studio City, CA; Devonshire Sound/North Hollywood, CA/Sound Column Studios, Salt Lake City, UT, and mixdown (at Ron Simpson's) Sound Column Studio, Salt Lake City, Ut.  The release number indicates this was given a release number, 122380, from SCP Records' series, and the dead wax stamp/etching, KM 6198 A/B, is the same series as the master stamp as on Janeen Brady's 1980 Lp, I'M A MORMON, on Brite Records.


title: Apples or Onions:  The BYU LAMANITE GENERATION singers from the 1970s:  American Indians rock & roll pop

text:
The blue cover LAMANITE GENERATION vinyl Lp is the third album from the group, and dates about 1976.  Similar artwork (blue-gray border and painting art cover) were used on the same period SOUNDS OF FREEDOM and YOUNG AMBASSADOR albums, sold by BYU (Brigham Young University).

Back cover liner notes state:

"The LAMANITE GENERATION is a Brigham Young University Program Bureau musical variety show, co-sponsored by 'The Tribe of Many Feathers."  It features talented Indian students in both modern and traditional productions.  The program also includes Polynesian and Mexican students and the word "Lamanite' is used to describe all these cultures."

Track listing:
side one--
Have a Happy Day (soloist:  Rayemanette Boots)/Sunshine Medley (soloists:  Al Armenta/Rayemanette Boots)/Billy Goats Gruff (soloist:  Carnes Burson)/Indians & Cowboys (Soloist:  Ellen Cook)/I Am Hawaii (soloist:  Carnes Burson)/Malaguena (Spanish guitarist:  Erasmo Fuentes)/Eres Tu (Soloist:  Martha Chavez)
side two--
Go My Son (soloist:  Susan Seneca)/Traditional Indian Chant (Soloist:  Lena Judee)/Indian Summer (vocals:  Lena Judee)/American Medley - America the Beautiful-This Is My Country-God Bless America-What's More American/Like Unto Us (Soloist:  Julia Ann Cook)/I Am A Child of God-Brown Balloon Story (narration:  Pauline Sanchez)/Beauty is Heard (Soloist:  Chuck Blake)

Running time on the Lp is roughly 19 minutes on side one/17 minutes side two.

Sound of most of the tracks is early '70s contemporary:  Carpenters, Hillside Singers or Ray Conniff Singers, soft-rock, a white girl group pop vibe, sunshine pop, a bit of Brady Kids' bubblegum rock.  The "Sunshine Medley" track is based on songs via John Denver and Stevie Wonder.  Carnes Burson is a pretty decent guitarist on parts of this album; the chick singers equip themselves quite well in their turn.  Overall sound on the Lp is AAA-ball, a little below the big leagues, which is very decent for a regional school private press album.  It's a fun pop album.

One track on the Lp brought out a grin when I heard it:  side one, "Indians & Cowboys."  I heard the opening, toms toms beating, "...In The Land of the Sky Blue Water" and it immediately brought back the memories of those Hamms Beer commercials (recall the cartoon bear) from the '70s.  Songwriting credit shows Janie Thompson.

Vocals on the Lp are credited to Lena Judee, Susan Seneca, Julia Ann Cook, Virginia Boyd, Rayemanette Boots, Dawnena Walkingstick, Charlie Stewart, Al Armenta, Carnes Burson, Ken Sekaquaptewa, Bimmer Jones, and Jessica Rojas.  Band credits are Carnes Burson, lead guitar; Ralph Crane, rhythm guitar; O.K. Meservy, bass; Mark Gaudette, drums; Randy Johnson, organ/synthesizer; Janie Thompson, piano.  Musical Directors and arrangers:  Carnes Burson, Janie Thompson; Assistant Musical Director:  Richard Martin.  Engineer:  Merrill Jensen.  Produced by:  Program Bureau, Brigham Young University; Cover design:  BYU Graphics; Recorded at the BYU Recording Studio.

This album is apparently the third vinyl Lp by the LAMANITE GENERATION in the '70s.  Two prior Lps were issued with some great kitsch cover art--one with a black or navy background and five of the young women wearing bright red costumes, headbands, and feathers, and a 1974 Lp, same cover shot, except with the five young women wearing silver costumes, headbands, and feathers, against a brownish red background.  The 1974 Lp has the following tracks:

side one--
Hello To You/Everybody's Reachin' Out For Someone/You Gave Me A Mountain/Cancion Mexpecia - La Malaguena/The Big Mouth Frog/Singing Along Together
side two--
The Mountains Cry Out/Navajo Baby/Friendship Fire/Ancient Days - Go My Son/I Walk In Beauty/The Lord's Prayer

Songs:  "Go My Son" was originally released on a 1968(?) BYU Lp, GO MY SON, by Arliene Nofchissey (Williams)/Carnes Burson on Blue Eagle Records BE-6840 [[ASIN:B00NBO9FW6 Go My Son - Arliene Nofchissey & Carnes Burson]], showing songwriting credit to Burson/Nofchissey (Blue Eagle Music Company BMI), vocal by Arliene Nofchissey, and THAT recording is a gorgeous vocal.  The whole GO MY SON album is a great album, and the guitar work is moody and outstanding.  The 1974 LAMANITE GENERATION album also had versions of "I Walk In Beauty" and "The Mountains Cry Out" from the 1968 GO MY SON Lp.

Carnes Burson and Arliene Nofchissey also are credited/appear on a 1966 Lp from San Juan County, Utah, STAN BRONSON, DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN, Bronson & Cooper BCL-1001.  The 1974 LAMANITE GENERATION Lp listed above also includes a song from that Lp, "Friendship Fire" from Stan Bronson's Mormon cowboy 1966 Lp.

Arliene Nofchissey's credits also appear on a 1975 Lp recorded by Stan Bronson, CHIEF DAN GEORGE, PROUD EARTH, on Salt City Records.


title: An American Institution (repackage) --cover tunes from late 1954

text:
Eddy Arnold, A DOZEN HITS, RCA/Victor LPM 1293 (mono)/LSP 1293e (rechanneled stereo).  The 12" vinyl Lp dates about October, 1956

Track list on the 12" Lp:
side one--
Don't Fence Me In/Tennessee Waltz/Shame On You/Someday (You'll Want Me to Want You)/You Can't Be True Dear/I Love You So Much It Hurts Me
side two--
So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed/Cold, Cold Heart/Sixteen Tons/I Don't Hurt Anymore/Slow Poke/(Now and Then There's A) Fool Such As I

This tracks for this album were recorded in New York between 9/13/54 - 9/16/54, and the album was originally released on a 10" RCA/Victor Lp, EDDY ARNOLD, AN AMERICAN INSTITUTION, LPMX-3230, as well as on the same title on a series of 7" 45RPM EP albums.  All the songs on this album are cover recordings of other artists' hits (Patti Page, Merle Travis, 2x Hank Snow, Hank Williams jump out immediately; this "Sixteen Tons" version pre-dates Ernie Ford's Capitol pop song).

More or less the songs on this Lp are in Eddy's "old" Tennessee Plow Boy style, if more restrained (late '54 was about the transition of the Tennessee Plow Boy to Perry Como style crooner with orchestra) and the Lp is an enjoyable listen.  On Eddy's 12" Lp catalog, this is the second best album of the period, after the hits comp ANYTIME, LPM 1224.

RCA papered over Eddy's '50s catalog 12" Lps with reissued new, updated cover photo slicks with his mid-'60s middle-of-the-road suburban persona, updated the original mono sound with inferior fake rechanneled stereo versions (LSP-1293e) in April, 1967, and put a gold-colored "COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME" logo in the top right corner of those later album covers.  RCA's 1964+ rechanneled faux stereo is less abusive than the January, 1962 "Electronically Reprocessed for StErEo" doubling.  The rechanneled version of this Lp has treble (high) frequencies on the left channel, the bass (low) on the right, and a little ghost echo on the right.  On headphones, the playback "stereo" sounds like a balance shift to about the 11 o'clock left, with a little more bass and some whisper echo on the right.

If you like Eddy's pre-pop '50s style on Lp, here's his 10" albums to look up:

COUNTRY CLASSICS, RCA/Victor LPM 3027
ALL TIME HITS FROM THE HILLS, RCA/Victor LPM 3031
ALL TIME FAVORITES, RCA/Victor LPM 3117  (tracks on this were recycled into ALL TIME FAVORITES 12" Lp, LPM 1223, c. April, 1956; they were 1952 recordings.  Er, not so good, some of those tracks had an easy listening electric organ in the mix. Pew)
WHEN IT'S ROUND UP TIME IN HEAVEN, RCA/Victor LPM 3219
AN AMERICAN INSTITUTION, RCA/Victor LPMX-3230  (repackaged on 12" Lp LPM 1293)
--Note:  RCA didn't begin releasing "albums" in this series on 10" Lp (4 songs each side; 8 songs total), until maybe March, 1952.  Previously, "albums" were compiled from a book binder with 78RPM shellac discs, then 45RPM EPs after 1949.


title: Apples or Onions:  Up With People with a twist!

text:
The Grand Land Singers, DISCOVER YOUR AMERICA, GL-1001 (private press).  Lp dates a bit after August, 1974.

Track list:
side one--
"Discover Your America" (theme song)/Great Country/Valley Forge/He Ye Greer/Declaration/People Gotta Be Free
side two--
They Dreamed of Freedom/Freedom Medley/You Stand Tall When You Kneel to Pray/One Way Ticket to Anywhere/Let Freedom Ring

The Grand Land Singers ( Grandland Singers) are plainly based on the 1968 Provo, Utah Brigham Young University Singers, from the Lp, SONGS OF FREEDOM, MGM Records E/SE 4546 (March, 1968).  DISCOVER YOUR AMERICA is the second Grand Land Singers album, which was recorded more professionally and, based on the liner notes, is (might be?) the soundtrack to a SoCal TV special filmed in Burbank, California.  Based on media/newspaper accounts that I've read, the Grand Land Singers toured extensively, especially at youth conferences, and gave concerts since 1968 or so based on the theme, "Discover Your America."  If there was a TV special, it would likely be as entertaining as the Brady Bunch (Variety) Hour series and well worth searching out!  The Lp cover photos show video cameras; however, no TV station initials nor network logos are on them.

Songs:  "One Way Ticket to Anywhere" shows "...(Courtesy Osmond Brothers)" and should make the Lp quite collectible to Osmond fans ($$$ if they have deep pocket$ for an almost impossible album; the song comes from the Osmond Lp, THE PLAN).  Two UP WITH PEOPLE - Moral Re-Armament songs from the 1966 UP WITH PEOPLE SING OUT! THE MUSICAL ALBUM are sampled on side two, track two, in "Freedom Medley," the UWP songs "Freedom Isn't Free" and "The Ride of Paul Revere."  The rest of the album has a pro-flag waiving patriotism theme, which was lining up at the time (mid-'74) with the upcoming Bicentennial celebrations a little under two years later.

Liner notes:

arranged by Dick Grove; conducted by Claude Gordon.  Producer shows Dave Graham.  "The Grand Land Singers operate under the auspices of the L.D.S. Institute of Religion at Cerritos College in Cerritos, California.  Special thanks to John & Thelma Whitaker & their family, who have given so freely of their time and talent in making the 'Discover Your America' television special possible."  The recording is credited to THE BURBANK STUDIOS.  Johnny Whitaker, from the TV show, FAMILY AFFAIR, is plainly pictured on the front cover, mid-bottom right.

The album sounds like some budget money was spent; the band is top-notch, as are the vocals.  Backing music sound and vocals are far fuller and more professionally polished than the 1970 Lp prior--

Two prior albums:

THE GRAND LAND SINGERS PROUDLY PRESENT PROJECT PATRIOTISM, A TRIBUTE TO AMERICA, Century Records 33191 (probably later 1968 into 1969).
Track list:
side one--
Where in the World?/Small World/Liberty/Onward Christian Soldiers/Mighty Big Ways/Fifty Nifty United States/Drum Solo
side two--
Mount Rushmore/Paul Revere/Americana/Battle Hymn of the Republic/I Am the Nation/Which Way America?/This Is My Country

THE GRAND LAND SINGERS "IN WASHINGTON D.C."  Century Records 38900.  The Century 38900 Lp suggests it was recorded at a performance for a cherry blossom festival in Washington, D.C. on July 4, 1970, but the sound of the recording suggests the audience participation was faded in and out between tracks, sounding like a "fake" live album.  Three UP WITH PEOPLE/BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY SINGERS songs are on the Lp, originally from the UWP SING OUT! THE MUSICAL Lp on Pace Records from 1965-66, "Freedom Isn't Free," "Which Way America," and "The Ride of Paul Revere,"

Track list on Century 38900:
side one--
This Is a Great Country/The Ride of Paul Revere/Americana Medley/The Battle Hymn of the Republic/Fifty Nifty United States/Special Drum Solo (by Bill Ctibor)
side two--
Discover America/Mount Rushmore/Cranberry Corners, U.S.A./Child of God/Freedom Isn't Free/Gold Bless America/Which Way America/This Is My Country/Closing Narration.  (actually, on playback the last two tracks are flipped, via the song listings.  The Narration begins, then "This Is My Country" is the final track on side two.)

The 1970 "IN WASHINGTON D.C." is pure Nixon administration for-youth music:  Nixonian Rock-Alternative kitsch BAD music.  It's a great outsider Vietnam War-era patriotic pop album.  Additionally, the front cover color photo of Century 38900 is a riot of Doodletown Piper-ness of 1970 Silent Majority political correctness:  matching uniforms in glorious LOST IN SPACE primary colors, red, white & blue, MY THREE SONS' haircuts, peg-leg pants, and 1966 or so puffy perfect hair-sprayed women's perms.

Five full caramel dipped onions!


title: Apples or Onions:  Utah private press pop-country vocal group from 1981

text:
THE ROBINSONS, WHEN I THINK OF HOME, Sound Column Productions SCP-11981.

Back cover print at the bottom states P & C 1981.  The release number suggested this might be a Capitol contract press number series, about early '79, but no.  I will venture a guess that the release number is code for the recording or release date, 1/19/81 or 11/9/81, as a local small market label with limited distribution.

Track list:
side one--
Home/Mommy, What If/Circles/Lullaby at Sixteen/Let's Take the Long Way Around the World
side two--
Family/Butterfly for Bucky/Look at the Baby/Too Good to Throw Away/The Feelin' That We Had

Song choices:

"Mommy, What If" -- A Shel Silverstein kiddie song (I LUUUV Shel Silverstein's songwriting, usually) popularized by Sharon, Lois & Braun.  However, this song suggests a tip of the hat to the Lundstroms' "Why Doesn't Daddy Come Home" staple on the Jim Nayder ANNOYING MUSIC SHOW.

"Circles" by the Captain & Tennille -- an odd song choice for a country-leaning album, however.  Yes, odd.  Odd.

"A Butterfly for Bucky" -- Bobby Goldsboro's hit from mid-1975, his last for United Artists.  (Comment:  The lousiest song in the entire Bobby Goldsboro publishing catalog.  Treacle would be a charitable description.)

"Let's Take the Long Way Around the World" -- Ronnie Milsap

"Too Good to Throw Away" -- Crystal Gayle

"Lullaby at Sixteen" -- The producer's publishing credit on this one

"Look at the Baby" -- from Janeen Brady's 1976 children's album, SONGS FOR A MORMON CHILD.

"Home" and "That Feelin' That We Had" -- written by Charlie Smalls, Fox Fanfare Music.  From the Michael Jackson/Diana Ross musical, THE WIZ.

"Family" -- songwriter credit showing "Westlake" "PRS."

The Robinson's biographies and names are notably absent on this Lp and the enclosed lyric sheet inside the Lp cover, and whatever information about the performers seems to have been erased by the 30+ years since this album was made/sold.  The Lp cover is very thin and flexible card stock, rather like flexi European album covers.

Thoroughly recommended for a decently produced semi-pro private press music album.

SCP label vinyl era releases:

Sunshade 'n Rain II, SCP 7347.  Songs include "Listen to the Music" (Doobie Bros. late '72 hit) and "I Believe in Music" (Gallery, also late 1972).  Lp most likely dates about 1973 into 1974.
--Sunshade 'n Rain recorded a third album, NATURALLY, SS&R 1003, at Sound Column Productions, c. 1975.  Songs on the Lp are:  (side one) Naturally/Please Turn Your Heart/My World/Printer/I've Changed; (side two) Where Would I Be/Anna Lee/I Could Never Love You More/Harmony/My Friend.  All the songs on SS&R 1003 show songwriting credit to members of the group, especially Dan Lindstrom.

Ed Pratt, LATE SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON, SCP 7602

The Salt Flats, LIVE!, SCP 4077

Alan Marsden, FEELINGS, SCP 4277.  A ten song covers' Lp, probably dates early 1977.  Songs:  "Feelings," "The Most Beautiful Girl," "For the Good Times," "The Way We Were," "Pass Me By," among others.

Sunshade 'n Rain, DON'T STOP THE MUSIC, SCP 02790  (1979 Utah disco!)
45 single:  "Beyond the Sea"/"Rainbows" SCP 7752.  A-side is the Bobby Darin Atco hit; B-side "Rainbows" songwriting credit Dan Lindstrom.  Neither song appeared on the DON'T STOP THE MUSIC Lp.

Vernon Rose Chorale, YE OLDE CHRISTMAS CAROLERS, SCP 07980

Dave Lemmon, TOO GOOD TO BE THROUGH, SCP ?.
45 single:  "Too Good to Be Through"/"Maggie" SCP 9781.  Minor chart C&W single, 1/29/83 at #89, 2/05/83 at #89.

Also recorded by Ron Simpson at Sound Column Productions, a private press Lp:
Carole Christensen, GOD MADE A COUNTRY GIRL, LUV Records (release #?), which dates from mid-'74.  Pressing run was maybe 500 copies.

Not on the SCP label, but a contract press Lp by one of the members of Sunshade 'n Rain, mixed/mastered by Sound Column Productions, circa 1980 (release number suggests a December, 1980 date, also):

Justus Brothers, HAPPY TOGETHER, Bonwhit Records 122380.  Note the release number (122380) relationship to the Robinson's Lp release number (11981).  The Justus Brothers are Dan Whitley and Bob Morphis.  Credits on the Lp reference the Lettermen's Jim Pike and Bob Engemann, and Osmonds' employee, Ike Egan.


title: The black cover album on Corinthian is a repackage of the first album on Columbia Records, c. 1957

text:
To the best of my knowledge, here's a Jonathan & Darlene Edwards Lp discography:

THE PIANO ARTISTRY OF JONATHAN EDWARDS (and Darlene Edwards) -- Columbia CL 1024 (July, 1957)
JONATHAN & DARLENE EDWARDS IN PARIS -- Columbia CL 1513 mono/CS 8313 stereo, October, 1960 (Grammy 1960 winner: BEST COMEDY PERFORMANCE MUSICAL)
Note: I've never found a stereo copy of ...IN PARIS CS 8313; I can't say if the stereo CS 8313 is true stereo or an example of Columbia's hi/low frequency rechanneled stereo.
SING ALONG WITH JONATHAN & DARLENE EDWARDS -- RCA/Victor LPM/LSP 2495 (March, 1962)
JONATHAN & DARLENE EDWARDS SONGS FOR SHEIKS & FLAPPERS -- Dot Records DLP 3792/25792 (April, 1967)
THE AMERICAN POPULAR SONGBOOK, ABC Records WGAP 68014 (budget bin repackage Dot 25792, mid-'70s)
DARLENE REMEMBERS DUKE (SOMETIMES); JONATHAN PLAYS FATS (ALMOST), Corinthian COR-117. "Duke" meaning Duke Ellington; "Fats" meaning Fats Waller. (Late 1982, the title is original to Corinthian Records; not a reissue of their '50s-'60s catalog)

On vinyl, the two Columbia albums have been reissued/packaged by Paul Weston/Jo Stafford's label, Corinthian Records, as COR-104 and COR-103, respectively, with the Corinthian ...IN PARIS COR-103 title being given special treatment in gloriously putrid rechanneled, er, "out of phase" stereo, listed on the back cover as "SYNCHRO-KINETIC SOUND"; the Corinthian fake stereo version suggests the Columbia CS 8313 was also rechanneled from a mono recording. (If you've heard Elvis screaming at himself in RCA's 1962 period rechanneled albums on the old mono stuff, you'll get the joke.) SING ALONG WITH... was reissued as Corinthian COR-120 in late 1982 or early 1983.

To my perverted ears, the best album is the SING ALONG WITH... 1962 Lp, which parodies those massed testosterone-soaked deep male SING ALONG WITH MITCH MILLER chorus albums that have since clogged yard sale crates for several decades.

Note:  I spun my ...ORIGINAL PIANO ARTISTRY ... Corinthian COR-104 Lp, and the sound is mono, as is the original Columbia CL 1024 album.  (I'd thought, suspiciously, after playing my rechanneled COR-103 ...IN PARIS Lp, that the Edwardses/Westons might've fiddled with rechanneling the 1957 title, too.  Nope, ya get good and clear MONO on this album.)  The Corinthian COR-104 Lp is pressed on a deep red label.

About the original press 1957 Columbia Lp (CL 1024):  the bulk of the copies are pressed on the 1957-June, 1962 Columbia "six eye" red & black mono label; however, the album was still in print till sometime after June, '62, pressed on the red Columbia "2-eye" record label, with bottom print on that label in black letters.  Liner notes on the back of the Corinthian repackage Lp are entirely different than the liner notes on the Columbia Lp.


title: A stand in for the Kingston Trio, with drums

text:
The 3 D's, I WON'T BE WORRIED LONG, Capitol T 2314 (mono)/ST 2314 (stereo).  Lp dates May, 1965.

This follow up to T/St 2171 (September, 1964), [[ASIN:B005KZRYPY New Dimensions in Folk Songs (Vinyl)]] , played it safe:  cover tunes.  And Capitol added a drummer, Earl Palmer, to update the sound.  But it still sounds like a stand-in for the departed Kingston Trio, G-rated folkie albums were stiffing everywhere, and those that kept going tended to court the supper crowds on album releases, chirping peppy showtunes for Beatles fans' parents.

Track list:
side one--
I Won't Be Worried Long/Leavin' Blues/See What You Have Done/Trials/Me and My Woman/Troubles
side two--
Skinner's Blues/When the Sun Goes Down/Lonesome Home/Dangerous woman/Lonesome Whistle Blues/Trouble in Mind

"I Won't Be Worried Long" is a cover of the Kingston Trio's "Worried Man" hit single, Capitol 4271, c. 1959
"See What You Have Done" is a cover of "C. C. Rider." (lotsa R&B on that one)
"Trials" is a cover/version of "All My Trials" or "All My Sorrows" (PP&M or K-Trio)
"Skinner's Blues" is a cover of "Muleskinner Blues." (legendary bluegrass song)

Most of the tracks show songwriting credit to (Davis-Haitt-Sorenson), but these are old songs.

"Train Whistle Blues" has a good groove.  Title cut cooks!  But the rest, not so much; this album is a by-the-numbers project, the safe (and declining) play for a sophomore effort.  A noticeable downside to this album is the lack of good guitar work:  no guitar breaks with good licks between choruses.  The backing is workmanlike, but basic rhythm driving the songs.

By mid-'65, even with the drums and brushes, this kind of sweet white folk-pop was dated, and the album didn't do much business.  The most obvious symptom of the album's dating (by mid-'65 folk-rock standards) is "Muleskinner Blues," which strongly suggests it was borrowed from the Brothers Four's MORE BIG FOLK HITS Columbia CS 9013 Lp, August, 1964, a year earlier.  For the mop-top paisley mid-'60s, this album cover photo shouts, "Dick York, from the TV show, BEWITCHED!"  The staid severe 3-button suits are a blast of conformity on the cover shot, that "wholesome family entertainment" look!  Shaggy was the "in" look, but the cover looks five years dated.

Mono copies of this Lp predominate --they were a buck cheaper and also used for radio/promo service; get the stereo, if you can find one.


title: Jack Weigand STAIRWAY TO THE STARS, Cameo SC 1012 vinyl Lp

text:
The Lp dates September, 1961. (stereo copy)

Track list:
side one--
Tara's Theme/Stella By Starlight/Shangri-La/Satin Doll/For Heaven's Sake/Street Scene
side two--
Stairway to the Stars/Land of Dreams/I Let A Song Go Outa My heart/Little Girl Blue/Pompton Turnpike/Prisoner of Love

Recognizable songs are "Shangri-La" (Lettermen), "Prisoner of Love" (Perry Como), "Little Girl Blue" (songwriter credits are to Rogers-Hart), "Street Scene" (songwriter credit Alfred Neuman, who I believe is notable for '50s movie soundtracks).

Stereo copy:  four piece band, bass and drums on the left channel, Jack Weigand plays a white jazzy organ on the right channel, and a tenor sax trades with him on the lead voice, also (mostly) on the right stereo channel.  General feel of music is a lounge jazz combo, as the liner notes on the back, bottom-center state, "Listen as Jack Weigand gives his personal touch to the standards...hear the full orchestra of sounds produced by the sweetest organ in the world...and understand why this instrument has become so pleasing to the ear while still retaining its majestic aura."  The overall vibe of the songs is, well, lurid, tawdry, cheap, burlesque (that's a solid recommendation; the worst of all worlds is "boring," and this album has style!).  The tenor sax buzzes and moans along in a sleazy manner that reminds me of lying in bed in a dark room with a BIG black hairy fly buzzing around the room suggesting the sound of a bumble bee, or that of a large prop-driven airplane powered by lawn mower engines circling droning overhead -- "ZZZZZzzzzzZZZZZ....."  Think the kind of combo jazz in a sleazy rundown smoky dive bar, populated by overripe loose floozies waiting to be romanced for the night by overweight guys in LOUD checked polyester sport coats and clashing pants, shirts, and loud thrift shop ties.  Apparently at the time, early 1960s, Jack Weigand was having some small club success in the Northeast and Midwest.

Cameo Records issued two 45s by Jack Weigand that preceded this album by several months or more:

Cameo 178, Stairway to the Stars/Shangri-La (June, 1960)
Cameo 185, Prisoner of Love/Sixteen Candles (January, 1961) --this was an almost-hit, right at the bottom of the Record World charts.  (Plug for Joel Whitburn's books:  buy them.  He publishes chart books via RECORD RESEARCH)

Tracks from this Lp were reshuffled and retitled on a junk label album, SHANGRI-LA, on Wyncote W/SW 9071, about May, 1964.


title: Guy Lombardo is a honky-tonker???

text:
Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians, LOMBARDO COUNTRY, Capitol T/ST 2777.  June, 1967

My copy is the mono.

Lombardo fans at the time (he was a '20s-early '30s icon) got a new album, the Lombardo sound "sweet" big band white alto saxes, restrained brass, steady clock-like drum kit, no hot swing white-hot solos, just steady, predictable dance music.

...with 1960-65 Nashville Sound country songs.  Er, strange, strange, strange, if you're a C&W fan like me.  Strange....

Track list:
side one--
Anytime (the crooner Eddy Arnold song.  Or 1953 Eddie Fisher, if you lean that way.)
He'll Have to Go (the crooner Jim Reeves song.  Opens with muted trumpets.  Oh, ...!)
Invisible Tears (Sonny James on Capitol)
Your Cheatin' Heart (a Hank Williams weeper as an instrumental...with Lombardo alto saxes....)
Cool Water (Kenny Gardner and the Lombardo Trio stand in for the Sons of the Pioneers)
Wabash Cannon Ball (what would Roy Acuff think???)
side two--
You Are My Sunshine (Governor Jimmie Davis's Great Depression oldie)
Tennessee Waltz (the Pee Wee King or Patti Page hit)
Under Your Spell Again (BUCK OWENS!?!)
Slipping Around (Floyd Tillman)
San Antonio Rose (Bob Wills)

For the most part, the songs work, but sound strange...if you're a country music fan of the old stuff.  The Lombardo Great Depression sweet dance band take on "He'll Have to Go" works on that song, but then I really don't care for the Jim Reeves' snore factor on his 1958+ style.  Best fits are "Any Time," which sounds like it should date from the early '30s, and the early '30s Jimmie Davis "You Are My Sunshine" standard.  Worst don't-fit is "Your Cheatin' Heart," which just does NOT transfer to background ballroom speakeasy dance sound.  And Bakersfield Buck Owens' "Under Your Spell Again" working class honky-tonker--UGH!

Kenny Gardner vocals on "Any Time," "Invisible Tears," "Cool Water," "You Are My Sunshine," "Under Your Spell Again."  "Wabash Cannon Ball" gets a vocal from Cliff Grass.

One other Lombardo song choice "OOPS!!!" album runs the gauntlet with the later '60s pop (rock-lite) song era, and you gotta look it up if you like DOES NOT FIT:  Guy Lombardo, THE NEW SOUNDS, Capitol ST 128 (early 1969).  It has an excruciating funny take on Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson," as well was versions of "Honey" (Bobby Goldsboro), "Folsom Prison Blues" (yeah, right, Johnny Cash as a Volstead Act dance tune!), "Scarborough Fair/Canticle" (Simon & Garfunkel, again), and the "Harper Valley P.T.A." tell-off song.


title: Apples or Onions:  BYU singers rock out on a private press Lp?  Who wuddah thunk it???

text:
Brigham Young University Lp, SOUNDS OF FREEDOM, Private press Lp SF-1 (bluish label)

The Lp dates approximately mid-1972+, based on the song selection, cover tunes for the most part:

Track list:
side one--
What's That I Hear Now (Phil Ochs song, also by Joe & Eddie; the song dates early 1964)
Light Sings (5th Dimension)
No Man Is An Island (VanDykes)
Save the Country (5th Dimension)
Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel)
One Tin Solder (Coven)
side two--
Teach The World to Sing/Everything Is Beautiful (New Seekers/Ray Stevens, respectively)
Easy to Be Hard (Three Dog Night)
Declaration/People Got to Be Free (5th Dimension)
Child of God (LDS song)
Thank You Very Much (Scaffold)

I've referenced the cover songs on the Lp by the group/artist most identified having the popular more or less current hit with the song.  Most recent song on this Lp is the New Seekers' November, 1971 hit, "I'd Like to Teach The World To Song (In Perfect Harmony)," as part of the beginning track on side two of the Lp.

I'm almost amazed at the Lp song choices.  BYU at the time was not caught up in the liberal left college '60s goings-on and had issues booking popular acts of the period on taste (?) grounds that ran afoul of the Bircher-conservative ideology on the campus (W. Cleon Skousen was a lecturer on the campus, and Earnest Lynn Balmforth completed his master's thesis in the BYU religion department that paralleled Bob Jones University's music teacher Frank Garlock's THE BIG BEAT, A ROCK BLAST anti-filthy-hippie rock 'n' roll broadside, about the time this album was current).  Standout song choices -- BALLSY choice of theme, songwriter/artist identified with the song -- here are Phil Ochs' "What's That I Hear" opener (David Noebel had particular revulsion for anything Ochs wrote/performed, and Noebel's politics were in-line with W. Cleon Skousen's about eeevil folkie revolutionaries), the 5th Dimension r&b-pop songs (r&b...at BYU???), and Coven's "One Tin Soldier" ("Coven" -- witchcraft...)???

music quality:  stereo.  Emphasis is on the vocal group (25 male-female) sound, a very '60s King Family sound, more or less stylistically in line with the Doodletown Pipers, Young Americans, Mike Curb Congregation, etc..., Nixonian for-youth "rock-alternative" groups getting Lp releases and abysmally lousy album sales from 1965-1971 or so.  The choral sound is decently polished, though when the featured solo vocalists (Paul Wilde, Karen Jepson, Jackie Stapley, Diane Hill, Marynell Sant, Bryant Horne, Janice Blair, Haven Thomas) stand alone, they don't generally have a feel for the pentacostal pop "churchy" material (especially Paul Wilde's vocals on "Light Sings" --ouch).  The instrumental backing is piano, bass, and drums, but the piano's timing and cues are often flubbed or behind catching up, and periodically can't synch with the bass player--I get a Jonathan & Darlene Edwards feel out of the piano work.  The overall feeling on this album sounds much in common with the Ray Bloch Singers on Ambassador Records.

Four solid caramel-dipped onions. Ya gotta get a look at the girls' costume choices on the b&w photos on the back cover, too.  If you remember the early '70s' excruciating polyester fashions (day-glo pastel colors, velour, wiiiiiiiiiide lapels on men's suits, puffy sleeves, etc...), just "wow".


title: One of the two BEST WORST country ...AT THE HAMMOND ORGAN instrumental albums ever made

text:
The Fabulous Hank Turner, THE GOLDEN COUNTRY & WESTERN HITS, Columbia CL 1958 (mono)/CS 8758 (stereo)

The Lp dates mid-late March, 1963.

Song list on CL 1958/CS 8758:
side one--
San Antonio Rose/I Fall to Pieces/Sentimental Me/He'll Have to Go/Cold, Cold Heart/I Can't Stop Loving You
side two--
Moon River/I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love with You)/Please Help Me I'm Falling/Rose Are Red (My Love)/Tennessee Waltz/I Walk the Line

Playing time for this album is about 31:30.

Small combo group, just incredibly basic lead instrumental work, played like background muzak for a roller skating rink.  The style is utterly dreadful, the blandest imaginable, sophomoric, lousy.  No swing, no groove, just whitebread, child's simplistic white pop.  Note that the album includes some not-country pop songs:  "Sentimental Me," "Moon River," and "Roses Are Red" (I'm sure you get the Andy Williams-Bobby Vinton theme on two out of three; out of place on a country record).

Taking a look at the credits, here's the explanation for the overall sound:  Arranged, Conducted, and Produced by early '60s middle-of-the-road boring pop guy, Robert Mersey.  If this were a country album for Columbia, the credits would run through the great Don Law & Frank Jones (Ray Price, Little Jimmy Dickens, the good stuff).  This ain't an album for honky-tonk fans.  Frankly, I think it's Columbia's pop A&R's all-out April Fool's 1963 joke album on country fans: there's no other Hank Turner records extant, only this and the 1968 chopped up Harmony repackage (HL 7435 mono/HS 11235 stereo, dates June, 1968, missing "I Can't Stop Loving You" and "I Walk The Line" cut off the 1963 full list Lp.).

It's inexplicable that the marketing guys at Columbia thought enough of this dreadful album to put out the mid-'68 Harmony junker Lp, then some time in the early '70s (?), put it out again on a Columbia Special Products budget reissue as CRSP 8758.  If there was a marketing reason for this album, it may have been as closer music when radio stations need a generic instrumental to close/fade out a music program segue into news or other programming (Starday Records made a ton of money with that marketing niche).  -???

If you're a fan of really, really HORRIBLE easy listening "...at the Hammond organ" muzak and the deliciously perverted C&W song choices, this is a real treasure.  In my searches for music this BAD, I've only found one other country "...at the Hammond organ" album that makes me both spastically cringe and laugh so hard that tears run down my cheeks:  JIMMY RHODES GOES COUNTRY.  If you can ever find that album (has a classic cheap private press Lp "headstone" front cover art), grab it!


title: Apples or Onions:  Salt Lake City bubblegum rock 'n 'rollers private press album

text:
The vinyl Lp dates probably about mid-1973, due to the most recent cover cut on the album, "Ben" dating from late 1972 (Michael Jackson's ode to his pet rat) as well as the 1972 Neil Diamond song "Song Sung Blue", the back cover liner notes listing the groups' ages at Bob (18), Desiree (16), Blaine (15), Troy (11), Lance (9), and what biographical information I can gleen from period newspaper accounts.

Track list:
side one--
Little Red School House/People/Song Sung Blue/I'll Be Hanged/Joy to the World/Mame/Ballin' The Jack
side two--
Ben/Mellow Yellow/Sweet Caroline/Tears on the Supper-Tablecloth/Medley:  Second Hand Rose-Baby Face-Shoo Fly-Smiles

Lp is pressed on a private press contract label out of SoCal, Century Records, which specialized in contract pressings (you supply the master, pay the fee, they master and press the records, and you sell them at your gigs/bookings/concerts) mostly for high school and college marching bands.  Release number is 41975, so anyone familiar with the Century Records discography can put a definite date at mid-1973 in this release number range.

Back cover has a B&W photo the same as the front cover photo, briefly touches on each member's comment (Lance, age 9, plays the cornet), states "We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints..." in the upper right, and the bottom left includes a short bio stating they'd been performing since 1966.  "Little Red School House" credits "Arrangement by Dale Terry" and "Tears on the Supper Tablecloth" as "written by Dale Terry."  Below that is a small box that states, "Mr. Jim Hickman, a music lover and gentile man, has given of his time and talents to help develop our music.  We would like to dedicate this our first album to him.  Whom we love."

Most of the album is cover pop-rock songs, notably two by Neil Diamond, two by Barbra Streisand, the Michael Jackson pet rat song, Three Dog Night (or Hoyt Axton, your choice), "Mame" showtunes song, "Ballin' The Jack" which I recall from mid-'50s white pop shouter Georgia Gibbs on Mercury, and Donovan Leich's "Mellow Yellow" tune from 1966.  I can't place "I'll Be Hanged" at the time of this writing, but it's a country corn comic reading with a funny-awful fake "Western" accent.

Um, the performances here are straight up outsider kiddie kitsch, very entertaining.  The voice I pick up as "Bob" is, well, unschooled (flat, tin ear, tone deaf), but that adds to the charm.  Desiree has a decent if unpolished voice, and on her reading of Babs Streisand's 1965 hit, "People," has trouble hitting bottom in the low ranges (she would have done better in a slightly higher key arrangement).  Instrumental lineup is an enthusiastic drum kit, prominent piano, an accordion playing as a backing instrument in chords only and squeezing the bass, a sometimes cornet solo, and a trombone.  The overall feeling of the album might be the Cowsills, poppy Partridge Family, DeFranco Family, and mix in some of the Shaggs' atonal feel.

Four enthusiastic caramel-dipped onions!


title: Welk's last contemporary vinyl Lp pop album on Ranwood R-8179

text:
The cover shot sold me:  check out the front cover photo on BARRY MANILOW'S GREATEST HITS 2 Lp set, from late 1978.  They could be fraternal twins.  This Lp predates the Manilow hits set by several months.

Tracklist:
side one--
I Won't Last A Day Without You/Laughter In The Rain/Feelings/I Know I Need to Be In Love/What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life
side two--
The Way We Were/Breaking Up Is Hard to Do/And I Love You So/If/Speak Softly Love/Only You (And You Alone)

Cover tunes all:  Carpenters (x2), Neil Sedaka (x2), that absolutely dreadfully rotten Morris Albert "Feelings" turkey, Babs Streisand movie hit, Perry Como's 1973 hit written by Don McLean, a cover of Telly Savalas's "If", Al Martino's Mafioso song, and Tony Williams's soaring Platters' standard.

Tom's vocal takes on this album suggest the sound of crooner Pat Boone, but with the defects of Telly Savalas's narrow range, and frankly more than a hint of Telly's style when he tried to sing instead of talking the lyrics (a decidedly bovine vocal feeling, "Moo!").  Regis Philbin's narrow range.  A bit less than Richard Chamberlain's pipes....  Tom Netherton has a warm low speaking voice, but vocally not much room--less than an octave.

Backing instrumental work is a kitschy synthesizer sound that more than suggests an early '70s moog, some piano (I'm not sure if the piano sound is programmed through the synth keyboard), muted bass, muted drum work, though as with the piano work, it's unclear if the drums are synth-programmed or real.  The liner notes state, "featuring Bob Smale at the electronic keyboard."

Oddest standout track is a WEIRD reading of the Platters' "Only You."  In place of Tony Williams vocal soaring ballad reading, Tom's version has a walking bass run (think Lynn Anderson's "Rose Garden" groove) and a restrained disco beat.  Tom's vocals border on talking the lyrics.

A great kitsch album.  Recommended!


title: Columbia Records answers the Beatles?  A kitsch classic!

text:
The Brothers Four, SING JOHN LENNON/PAUL MCCARTNEY, A BEATLES SONGBOOK, Columbia CL 2502 (mono)/CS 9302 (stereo) -- June, 1966

Track list:
side one--
Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)/Yesterday/All My Loving/Nowhere Man (4-43621 B)/I'll Follow the Sun/And I Love Her
side two--
If I Fell (4-43621 A)/Help!/Michelle/We Can Work It Out/Girl

Something was brewing in the sales & marketing department at Columbia when this album came out.  Columbia Records was probably the most backward (only Decca was worse) major label in rock 'n' roll on Lp, but had recently dipped its toes in to test the waters with the Raiders (Paul Revere & The Raiders) and starting with this album, more or less the Columbia CS 9300 (stereo numbered releases; corresponding monos were CL 2500+), began to accommodate the 1960s...by putting out some arguably STRANGE mismatch singers/styles-songs albums:  NEW CHRISTY MINSTRELS IN ITALY...IN ITALIAN, CS 9331, MEL TORME' RIGHT NOW, CS 9335, NEW CHRISTY MINSTRELS NEW KICK, CS 9342, but this album is the beginning of that block--if ya can't stomach selling anything to the kids, sell it to their parents for their kids?

The vocals here are professionally polished; the Brothers Four segued from a preppy whitebread "folk" group, Columbia's first answer to the Kingston Trio's explosive sales on Capitol Lps in the late '50s, towards a showbiz middle-of-the-road easy listening vocal group sound with the TRY TO REMEMBER Lp, and then this album.  In the mix, the instrumental lineup features a consistent acoustic guitar --on "Norwegian Wood" the guitar stands in for the Beatles' sitar--, strings' dominated orchestra, an occasional oboe, flutes ("I'll Follow The Sun" as a bossa nova?), and harmonica ("And I Love Her," "All My Lovin'," and "We Can Work It Out") that suggest either a mid-'60s Henry Mancini vocal group sound or SING ALONG WITH MITCH '58-'61 vibe.  But it doesn't work, or maybe it works too well.  Pleasant, recognizable, but strange, Strange, STRANGE.  Considering the period and later Columbia releases by middle-of-the-road vocalists, it appears that Columbia's marketing and A&R departments woke up to the realization that the label had a catalog roster of dinosaurs.  The label reacted by choking retail bins everywhere going into 1971-73 with aging crooners bellowing the most vanilla "rock" cover tunes that appeared on the easy listening charts.  By '73, Columbia was the dominant MOR Lp giant having Jim Nabors sing reggae, Stevie Wonder songs, and "Tie A Yellow Ribbon"; Jerry Vale hollered the Beatles' "Let It Be," Tony Bennett shatnered "Eleanor Rigby," Barbra Streisand covered Laura Nyro, and Jim Nabors made his last Columbia Lp a Glen Campbell album covering Charlie Rich's songs (VERY SPECIAL LOVE SONG, with GC's producer, Al DeLory) before moving over to Lawrence Welk's Ranwood Records.  ...And Columbia bid Neil Diamond over from MCA/Uni to make even more Jim Nabors albums (HEARTLIGHT).

Columbia rolled out a 45 and aimed it at the easy listening charts:  Columbia 4-43621, "If I Fell"/"Nowhere Man."  That 45 stiffed on the mainstream pop singles chart, but dragged the cellar on the Top 40 Easy Listening chart, from 6/4/66 (pos. #40) to 7/16/66 (second week at #30)...and disappeared.  Columbia issued a second 45 with one of the tracks from the album, Columbia 4-43811, "We Can Work It Out"/"Ballad of Alvarez Kelly," which did no business.  The album debuted on the Billboard Lp chart at #147 on 7/31/66, topped out at #97 on 9/3/66, dropped back to #104 on 9/10/66, and gone.  No traction at all on the Cash Box charts.

Thereafter, the Brothers Four put out more comfortable releases, but the early '60s folkies were long over.

Credits:  Produced by Ted Macero; vocal arrangements by Milt Okun; orchestrations arranged and conducted by Peter Matz.


title: The magic of the Clive Davis pop formula (Columbia Records) ...well, Jimmy Bowen and Amos Records

text:
Jerry Vale ALONE AGAIN (NATURALLY)  Columbia KC 31716  November, 1972

Songs:
side one--
Song Sung Blue/Speak Softly Love/Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast/The Candy Man/He
side two--
Alone Again (Naturally)/Goodbye to Love/Ev'ry Day of My Life/This Is All I Ask/Run To Me

This is mostly a covers' album by recent (within a few months) hits, referenced to the following songs:
"Song Sung Blue" by Neil Diamond on Unit 55326  (May, 1972)
"Speak Softly Love" by Andy Williams on Columbia 45579  (April, 1972)
"Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast" by Wayne Newton on Chelsea 0100  (April, 1972)
"The Candy Man" by Sammy Davis, Jr., on MGM 14320  (March, 1972)
"He" -- Jerry Vale's own then-current 45 single, Columbia 4-45797
"Alone Again (Naturally)" by Gilbert O'Sullivan on MAM 319  (June, 1972)
"Goodbye to Love" by the Carpenters on A&M 1367  (July, 1972)
"Ev'ry Day of My Life" by Bobby Vinton on Epic 5-10822  (January, 1972--produced by Jimmy Bowen)
"Where is the Love" by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway on Atlantic 2879  (June, 1972)
"This Is All I Ask"  --an early '60s oldie pop tune, best known by Tony Bennett in mid-'63 on Columbia 4-42820
"Run to Me" by the Bee Gees on Atco 6896  (July, 1972)

The A&C credit is to Larry Muhoberac, excepting "This Is All I Ask" by Joe Mazzu; produced by Jimmy Bowen for Amos Productions, Inc.  This suggests that Jerry Vale went outside of Columbia's A&R guys to Jimmy Bowen.

If you're into easy listening - middle-of-the-road cover songs for that Bad music listening experience, this is a trippy psychedelic experience for middle-aged hipsters' album (recall 40-something guys in Nehru jackets in '68?).  Bowen had come off as Reprise Records' MOR/Pop producer for Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, then went to Amos Records, most notably for several country/pop oriented easy listening albums for the GREAT Frankie Laine, and one gawd-awful mistake album by Bing Crosby, HEY JUDE, which is SOOOOO BAD record collectors are grimacing and laughing about it since 1969.

As a "straight" Jerry Vale pop Lp late in his career, it's a nice album as well.

Three and a half stars for both experiences.


title: So overplayed whack job BAD it's insulting...and brilliant!

text:
The Alan Copeland Singers COOL COUNTRY  ABC Records ABCS 583  vinyl Lp

Hoo, Man!  The recording industry concocted ...SINGERS albums in the early '60s with a perverted vengeance, and while you get a surreal LSD trip listening to the Doodletown Pipers or the New Christy Minstrels destroying Beatles, 'Stones, and Bob Dylan tunes with whitebread and mayonnaise, these ...SINGERS albums doing faux insulting, horrible suburban "country" albums (the Billy Vaughn Singers on Dot, anyone?) usually were just boring dull Hank Williams' songs.  But this turkey!

Songs:
side one--
The Yellow Rose of Texas/I Walk the Line/Singin' the Blues/Night Life/Jump Down, Spin Around/San Antonio Rose
side two--
Oh, Lonesome Me/Cotton Fields/Way Out West/Just A Little Lovin'/Soul Dance

There's a ludicrous counterpoint, here:  the molasses and maple syrup male/female (6 each) chorus interplays with a hot jazz big band playing REALLY BRIGHT hot arrangements, and the drummer is way up on speed.  The jazz backing is WAY UP AND GROOVING HOT, MAN!  The vocal crooning is a kind of with-it, hip, finger-snapping version of that mass beautiful muzak vocal chorus on the maudlin Henry Mancini morose '60s movie soundtrack songs ("Days of Wine and Roses"?), the Anita Kerr Singers, Ray Conniff Singers, and mix in some of the mid-'60s King Family.  Emphasis is on the high-voiced women.  The women have that HOT blonde sex-kitten smiley sound, and the guys flirt unabashed, goosing them along.

On playback, "The Yellow Rose of Texas" went nowhere (tip of the hat to Stan Freberg), but from the smiley-est, happiest, most wide-eyed, insane whitebread version I've ever heard for a Johnny Cash song, "I Walk the Line"-on, my jaw dropped wide open and stayed that way all through the side.  And the other side, scooba-la-loobadee-doo....

The liner notes show references to Alan Copeland's work on the (Red) SKELTON HOUR, April, 1967 Dick Van Dyke special, Jim Nabors, February, 1967 Andy Griffith Specials, and plus (Count) BASIE SWINGIN' VOICES SINGIN' on ABCS 570.  That's middle America bad TV.

I've never heard "Cotton Fields" played in a way that makes me want to start scatting, shoo-bee-dooby-ooby-doo-wah.  "San Antonio Rose"???  But Ray Price's (er, Willie Nelson's) "Night Life" smokey honky tonk blues, too?!?

This is the lowest, most brilliantly lousy ...SINGERS "country" album I've ever come across.  If you think the Cliffie Stone Singers' Hank Williams' album is an insult, a smiley joke, get a load of this Lp!

Brilliant!  Big Recommended!  BAD TASTE!


title: December, 1966 Third RCA/Victor Lp by Barry Sadler

text:
Barry Sadler's last RCA Lp (that I've found) is a C&W attempt sans his military rank, BARRY SADLER BACK HOME, RCA LPM/LSP 3691; the back cover shows "Barry Sadler sings love themes in a country mood," albeit credits showing recorded in New York City (like Eddy Arnold's POP HITS FROM THE COUNTRY SIDE 1964 Lp). Uncharted album and a TOUGH album to find.  The mono version of this should be far easier to locate than the stereo due promo copies sent to service AM radio.

The odd thing about this album is that none of the songs were picked up as covers (45s or Lp filler) by other artists, while at the time most pop and C&W albums tended to have one or more current hits and the balance of the album fleshed out with filler cover hits of the day, which is why major label albums tend to have themes like "Andy Williams SINGS JERRY VALE'S VERSIONS OF TONY BENNETTS' LATEST HITS RECORDED BY JIM NABORS."  Sadler-penned songs on this Lp are "I Walk Alone," "Wind, Take a Message," and "Come With Me."  One odd track does stand out, Bobby Goldsboro-penned "Jigzaw Puzzle," which was never recorded/released by Goldsboro on record.  The other industry recognizable songwriter credit is "Anymore," by Bob Crewe and Sid Bass, the latter the arranged & conductor credit on Sadler's three RCA Lps.  Some albums tended to showcase as demo sources with songs cherry-picked by other artists for singles, B-sides, and album cuts, and this album seems to be full of those songs, unused.  As a "country" album recorded in New York, it had the worst of both worlds to be noticed for placing songs on either vocalist with-orchestra pop Lps or Nashville country albums.

Songs:

Side one:
One Day Nearer Home/I Walk Alone/Not Just Lonely/The Biggest Pair of Fool/Anymore/Wind, Take a Message
Side two:
Back Home/Come with Me/True Love Comes But Once/Outside Values/Jigsaw Puzzle/Tell Me Quick, Tell Me True

"I Walk Alone" (side one, track two) is NOT the Marty Robbins hit.  RCA put out a 45 single preceding this Lp with two tracks, "One Day Nearer Home"/"Not Just Lonely," RCA/Victor 47-8966, about September, 1966, which did no business, and a Christmas 45 (oddball?), "I Won't Be Home This Christmas"/"A Woman Is A Weepin' Willow Tree," RCA/Victor 47-9008, which dates November, 1966.