Spinning MP3s at 45RPM. Odd and/or excellent 45s from the 50s and 60s. Obscure Soul, R&B, Blues, Rockabilly and novelty tunes. Come here for the weird the wild and the wonderful...
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Gene "Bowlegs" Miller - Frankenstein Walk
MP3 File Gene "Bowlegs" Miller Frankenstein Walk Hi - 2161 1969 I figured I had better get this one up quick before any of my fellow bloggers had a chance to beat me to it. This is my absolute favorite Halloween 45 and one of my favorite 45s period. At the time I found this I had no idea who Gene "Bowlegs" Miller was, but the title was too great to resist. Of course when I listened to it, I stood with my mouth hanging open, not believing what I was hearing. I have since learned that Bowlegs Miller was a Hi records staffer and had a few one off singles of his own, of which this is one. Truly astounding...
A New Record!
So to speak... Thursday's hit count was 161. While this is not a big number for some of my fellow record bloggers, it's about 4 times the daily average here and the biggest number so far for a single day. Thank you "Bowlegs"!
The Monster Twist!
MP3 File Tyrone A'Saurus and his Cro-Magnons The Monster Twist WB-5305 1962 Here's another offering from the Halloween bin. This misunderstood monster (all he wants to do is twist, after all) attacks the world and is ultimately defeated by the sounds of Lawrence Welk!
Happy October...
Archie Bleyer The Rockin' Ghost Cadence 1293 - 1956
I am going to try my best to make some time this month to post some of my halloween 45s. In the meantime here is a repost from early in this blog's history. Quite excellent.
Jive Five - People from Another World
MP3 File Jive Five People from Another World Beltone - 1014 1961 First of all, let me apologize for the lack of activity around here. I'm getting married in a few short weeks and have been a little distracted lately. Anyway, since October is coming up soon, I thought I'd ease us into the Halloween season with this nice flying saucer record from the Jive Five on Beltone. R&B, Comedy and UFOs. What more could you ask for?? Next month I'll be featuring some 45s from my Halloween collection, so stay tuned!
Church Key
MP3 File The Revels Church Key Impact - 1 1960 Here's a great surf?/garage? instrumental from 1960. Nice label graphics on this one too...
Anybody Remember the Jingle Jump?
MP3 File Danny Peil and the Apollos Jingle Jump Raynard - 602 1964 As far as I can figure out, this 45 and the accompanying picture sleeve were a promo tie in for the rather lame 60's toy the Jingle Jump. For a bit of cross promotional children's advertising this song is surprisingly good! Anyone remember this one? (the toy or the record?)
Ray Sharpe - Monkey's Uncle
MP3 File Ray Sharpe Monkey's Uncle Jamie - 1128 1959 This is a pretty shameless reworking of Chuck Berry's Rollover Beethoven and while I'm not crazy about the idea of Sharpe claiming composing credit for this, it's still a great song. The Fort Worth, Texas born Ray was one of the few true "black rockabillies" and was aparrently a big influence on fellow Texans Ronnie Dawson and Bobby Fuller. This is the flip of the more well known Linda Lu. Produced by Lee Hazlewood.
Jett Powers
MP3 File Jett Powers Go, Girl, Go Design - 811 1958 I found this record at my Grandmother's house, in a box of singles that belonged to my uncle when he was a teenager. Go, Girl, Go is a rockabilly classic, produced by Bumps Blackwell and contains some of the wildest guitar you will ever hear on a fifties era recording. Jett Powers a.k.a P.J. Proby, was a songwriter and later recorded an album backed by a bunch of british session musicians who subsequently gained some success when they changed their name to Led Zeppelin...
Bobby Clanton
MP3 File Bobby Clanton The Way That You Are Van - 01664 Early 60s?
Van Records may have been based in Angleton, Texas, but this recording is pure South Louisiana! Not sure who Bobby Clanton is (any relation to Jimmy Clanton?) and some initial web searching turned up next to nothing. This is a haunting ballad in the classic Swamp Pop style. The only other 45 I've seen on this label was a garage rocker, so go figure... If you are not familiar with the phrase "Swamp Pop" go Here for a quick education.
MP3 File Nappy Brown is one of the most powerful and unique R&B vocalists of all time. His gospel drenched style was an influence on Ray Charles, who famously covered Brown's song "Night Time is the Right Time". This is a double sided killer on Savoy from 1958.
Huey and Jerry
Download Here Huey and Jerry Little Chickee Wah Wah Vin - 1000 Huey "Piano" Smith is one of my favorite artists of all time. Here he is as half of the duo Huey and Jerry on the Vin record label from 1958...
Lightnin' Slim
Download Here Lightnin' Slim I'm Tired Waiting Baby Excello - 2203 1961 Here is one of my favorite artists on one of my favorite labels. This is swamp blues perfection, with some typically oddball percussion and a great production sound by J.D. Miller.
but I digress...
MP3 File Danny Boy Don't Go Pretty Baby Kent 300 - 1958 Anyway, back to the 45s... Here's one from Danny Boy on the Kent label. This is from '58 and appears to be the first release from Kent records. Some nice Jerry Lee style piano on this one, along with a hiccupy vocal...
Misogyny Mix & Mystery Song Contest! Warning: Offensive Content Alert
Extended Misogyny Mix
MP3 File As a furtive baby step toward creating an official podcasting blog, I have prepared the above extended mix MP3. This is a compilation of songs from my collection that are all related to misogyny, wife beating and/or murdering one's baby. Note: I am in no way condoning these sentiments. I only put this together because I thought it would make an interesting mix. Oddly, over half of the songs here are from Louisiana and/or New Orleans. Hmmmm, makes you think... Track List: 1. Smiley Lewis - Jailbird 2. Lonesome Sundown - You Better Learn to Treat Me Better 3. Raymond Lewis - I'm Gonna Put Some Hurt on You 4. Bobby Bland - Cry, Cry, Cry 5. Aaron Neville - Over You 6. Blue Charlie - I'm Gonna Kill That Hen 7. Pat Hare - I'm Gonna Murder My Baby 8. Sugarboy Crawford - Watch Her Whip Her 9. The Crystals - He Hit Me (and it felt like a kiss)
CONTEST!! Bonus Mystery Song ????????????
MP3 File As a bonus, I submit to you the following mystery song in the same theme. This is a song that I put on a cassette tape many years ago, the title of which I can no longer remember, nor the artist. The first listener to correctly identify song title and artist will win a mystery prize pack (basically whatever stupid crap I have sitting around my desk) Good Luck! (with apologies to Red Kelly for stealing his bit, from Soul Detective)
*Editor's Note* Many of these songs are outrageously offensive. Not for the overly sensitive. Listen at your own risk!
Hip Pocket Records
MP3 File Syndicate of Sound Little Girl HP-29 1967? Hip Pocket Records were a short lived record format introduced by Philco in 1967. These flexi discs were about 3 inches wide and played at 45 RPM. Apparently they only lasted a year or two and never took off commercially. After buying this one recently I can see why. The thing is so small, thin and flimsy I can't get it to work on any record player in the house (I have 3). A little aggravating but still a nice curiousity. The music file provided here is taken from a reissue 45.
*Edit* I tried this again using the coin trick mentioned in Comments. Here is the actual sound file from the hip pocket disc. It works (sort of). See what you think...
MP3 File p.s. this sounds pretty good if you synch up and play both files simultaneously...
McRecord
MP3 File McDonald's $1,000,000 Menu Song Here's another cardboard record that McDonald's put out as part of a sweepstakes contest in 1988. Sadly, this is not the winning record. Also, this song is very annoying...
Cardboard Records: A Part of this Balanced Breakfast (pt. 3)
Here are a few vintage tv commercials featuring ceral box records. Anyone remember these?
And... an excellent book with info on cereal box records and bubblegum music in general can be found Here
Cardboard Records: A Part of this Balanced Breakfast (pt. 2)
MP3 File The Archies Boys and Girls Cardboard Cereal Box Record 1969-72? This one is a lot more successful in terms of sounding like a real song. The sound quality is also much better. Check this link for a discography of cereal box records: Here
and go Here for more info on the Archies. p.s. Warning: Exremely Catchy Tune. Earworm Alert. Download at own risk!
Cardboard Records: A Part of this Balanced Breakfast (pt. 1)
MP3 File The Sugar Bears You Are the One Cardboard Cereal Box Record - Song #2 1972 These are fun. Remember those little cardboard records you used to cut from the box of your favorite breakfast cereal? Well, me neither, actually, but here's one from The Sugar Bears. The record indicates that this is song #2 (among 5 that you could collect) and remarkably, it actually rose to #51 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart in 1972. The Sugar Bears are also known for employing Kim Carnes of "Bette Davis Eyes" fame. I found a few of these recently (more to come soon) and I must say that they are in surprisingly great shape for their age. This one is a rather bland but upbeat pop tune that sounds like is was written and performed by a commercial jingle company (probably not far from the truth.) The sound quality is decent, considering the source, although you can here the record slip occasionally. Pretty neat! p.s. Check out the Internet Museum of Flexi Records in the links list on the right side of the screen for more examples...
p.p.s. Doobee Bear? (ahem)
Blast Off with Walt!
MP3 File Nobel "Thin Man" Watts Blast Off Baton - 251 1958 Apparently, Walt was a DJ at KJIM (Sherman, TX) and this was his theme song. I found this disc among a collection of radio promo discs, a lot of Atlantic stuff from the fifties/early sixties. I was intrigued by the grease pencil writing around the edge of the label. The other side is similarly marked, but says: NO over and over with a lot of X's. Pretty cool...
Mambo Baby
Jim Brown and the Four Bells Mambo Baby
MP3 File This is an odd little number. It's a 7 inch 78, from Bell records. I've seen some of these Bell 7-inchers before and always thought they were kind of curious. Some of the later ones have color picture sleeves which feature some exceptionally great artwork, however the music is often rather lackluster. This one didn't come with a sleeve (that I know of) but when I played it I was surprised to find this nice, rollicking R&B tune. Very appealling... From 1954. For (much) more info on Bell Records go Here
Shootin' The Grease
Jesse Gresham Plus 3 Shootin' The Grease
MP3 File Wow, I don't know who the hell Jesse Gresham is and I've never seen the Head label before, but this is one seriously terrific track! This thing starts off strong and just keeps getting better and better as it goes along. Dig it! p.s. the flipside is Robert Parker's "Barefootin'"
You Are So Rare!
The Three Haircuts You Are So Rare to Me
MP3 File I first saw the above clip, from Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows," on some music documentary that was discussing the cultural impact of rock and roll. In it, Sid Caesar, Karl Reiner and Howard Morris do their impression of what they think rock and roll is about. I love this bit, it's a classic. When I recently found this 45 I was surprised to learn that RCA actually released the song as a single in 1955.
The Gaturs
The Gaturs Cold Bear
MP3 File I'm not a big fan of Funk. As a rule, it just doesn't really do it for me. I generally prefer an earlier sound, but in the case of Willie Tee and the Gaturs, I can definitely make an exception. The Gaturs put out a total of 3 releases* (see comments) on 45. This one is by far the most affordable...
