Don Ho- You’ll Never Find Another Kanaka like… Don Ho

This month’s records hang ’round my neck like an albatross. I have been wanting to get rid of them so I can listen to next month’s crop. So we are speeding thru these. Here is one from the kanaka Don Ho ( kanaka means native boy). I paid $1 in 2016.

This record was presented by AITS ( American International Travel Sevices), who I am sure provided tours to Hawaii back in the day. I also think they were from Boston. Not sure if they are still around or if they morphed into a bigger company. Not a whole lot of webpresence for the 3 mins I checked.

Ho’s does his part and plugs them several times during the spoken interludes between songs, which I imagine are among his bigger hits, including the song he is known for “Tiny Bubbles” and “Pearly Shells”. As cheesy as the adverts are, the album is all Ho and his smooth vocals.

I decided to go with the opening “Hawaii Theme Song” in which Ho gets real with the listener. I also decided to go “Ain’t No Big Thing.

I am not sure when this came out. I am guessing late 60’s/ early 70’s. Either way, it is a pretty decent record. Satisfactory.

Hawaii Theme Song
Ain’t No Big Thing

Charles Aznavour- ST ( Barclays Comp 80 426)

Today is Bastile Day or as the like to say in France, la Fete Nationale Francasie or simply la Fete du 14 Juliet. I feel kind of bad for screwing up the nomenclature for all these years. Je suis desole. I had a Hank Locklin album planned for today but after I remembered what day it was, I decided to pull it for this, a budget compilation from Barclay in 1972 from the ever popular Charles Aznavour. I have a bunch of Aznavour albums as I can never find Jacques Brel’s around. Well, he was Belgian anyway, so we are better off with this today.

Pretty decent record. Kind of goes over some of his bigger hits. Nice little album, which I paid $8 for. Ce record est bon.

It is kind of lame to go with a studio version of a tune I posted earlier this year on a live album, but it is one of my favorites. Here is “Les Comediens”, which refers to traveling actors in France. J’aime vraiment cette chanson.

Nice little record. Satisfactory of course. Vive la France!!!!

Les Comediens

VA- Riverside Modern Jazz Sampler

This one has no sticker on it which means I must have paid $1 way back when. The suggested , scratch that, the demanded price back in 1956 was $1.98. That would be $18.83 in March 2020 dollars. Not sure what inflation is doing now. Anyway, it was interesting enough to pick up. It also belonged at one time to a Joe Mazor.

This album contains the heavyweights I know such as Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, and Sarah Vaughn as well as the names who escape me such as Marty Bell, Randy Weston, and Don Elliot among others. Pretty good album, representative of jazz music of the period. All of these are from previous Riverside releases.

For some reason, I went with the first four songs of the album for sample consideration. This includes Monk’s “Lisa”, Mundell Lowe’s “Far From Vanilla”, Bell/ Elliot’s “S’posin'” and Ernie Henry’s “Orient”

Mundell Lowe (1922-2017)

.Well, I narrowed it down between “Far From Vanilla” (Lowe- Guitar, Dick Hyman- piano & organ, Trigger Alpert- bass, Ed Shaughnessy- Drums) and “Orient” ( Henry- alto sax. Kenny Dorham- trumpet, Kenny Drew- Piano, Wilbur Ware- bass, Art Taylor- drums), Here they are together. You can decide which one is better.

Ernie Henry (1926-1957).

Satisfactory

Far From Vanilla
Orient

Spirit- ST

Here is the debut album from the psychedelic rock group, Spirit from 1968/ Ode Records, distributed by CBS. I posted an album of theirs prior in which I explained Randy California’s last name, his relation to the drummer, and his death. You can link to it here. I did not mention the law suit between Randy’s estate and Led Zepelin over similarities between the Spirit song “Tarus” (featured on this album and a big reason for this purchase) and “Stairway to Heaven”. At the time of this writing, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals voted 9 to 2 to uphold an earlier 2016 jury verdict finding Zepelin not guilty of copyright infringement. Anyway, I paid $3. It was owned by someone named Trumble who tried to draw hair on the drummer on the cover.

This album was successful when it was released, going to # 31 on the charts and spent 6 months in a charted position. Good album with short songs for the most part. Great musicianship. As what seems to be the norm this month, the record itself was in pretty bad shape.

I really liked “Fresh Garbage” and “Uncle Jack” among others. However, it was the smooth jazz sounds of “Gramophone Man” whoch got my nod. I really wanted to add a “Mr.” to this song.

Satisfactory.

Gramophone Man

Pet Clark- I Couldn’t Live Without Your Love

Been leaning on the side of brevity this month and I do not expect that to change with this 1966 Petula Clark album from Warner Brothers. I paid $5 for this because a) it had a great track list and b) I like Petula Clark quite a bit as she has showed up quite often on this blog of quietness.

A lot of popular songs on this record and a lot of good performances including “Strangers in the Night”, “Homeward Bound”, “Come Rain or Shine”, and “Wasn’t It You”. In fact, it was probably the Beatles’ track “Rain which drove this purchase and was the early choice for a sample. However, this album has what I think is the best version of “Bang Bang” that I ever heard. Here it is as your sample.

Satisfactory.

Bang Bang

Chet Atkins- The Other Chet Atkins

I paid $3 for this record which had a pretty decent track list. RCA Victor from 1960. Country guitar master Chet Atkins. Nylon/ Spanish guitar. Nothing but sentence fragments.

There is an excellent article from Classical Guitar Magazine which talks abut Chet’s influence on classical guitar and mentions this album, which was his first foray into this genre ( or close enough to it). Good article if you want to learn more. You can link to it here.

Decent album. Good songs. A lot of variety from different parts of the world. A lot of blog staples including “Begin the Beguine”, “Peanut Vendor”, “Tzena Tzena Tzena”, “Siboney”,”Maria Elena” and “El Relicaro”. But I must go with “Sabrosa” as it is just a great tune.

Satisfactory.

Sabrosa

The Original Trinidad Steel Band- ST

Here is a record I got for $8. Ouch. Had a good track list on it.

From Electra Records in 1957, we have the Original Trinidad Steel Band, who were touring and playing extensively at the time of this record. The players on this record include Cecil Moniquette, Micahel Agostini, Lloyd Roberts, Vernon Ifill, Leo Roberts, Rudolph King, Raymond Otto, and Harold George.

Good album but had two things against it. One, it was in pretty poor shape by the time it got to me ( or perhaps I need a new record needle/ we shall find out as this month progresses). Second, the track listings were inaccurate, I believe. At least that is what I remembered when I listened to it back in November. let me know if I am wrong with this.

Therefore, I went with “Cheek to Cheek” as my sample.

$8 was quite high but good enough record despite the flaws listed above. Satisfactory.

Cheek to Cheek

Jimmy Roselli- The Best of Jimmy Roselli

I have no idea what drove me to buy this back in 2017 other than I probably got caught up in the frenzy of record buying during the Half Price Memorial Day sale, paying $1.60 for this record.

This is a greatest hits record from United Artists in 1968 by Jimmy Roselli, the second most famous Italian singer from Hoboken, New Jersey (born 1925). The World War II vet became one of the more popular Italian-American singers of his era, which included some of the greatest Italian-American singers ever. He died in 2011 of heart failure.

This album is not for the faint of heart. All of the songs are in Italian and are pretty darn authentic . That being said, pretty decent album of songs Italian-crooner style. Not much else to say as I listened to it more than 6 months ago and my memories are hazy at best.

For a sample, I could nto choose between “Catena” or “Rusella ‘E Maggio” so I am taking the easy way out and submitting both.

Satisfactory record.

Catena
Russella ‘E Maggio

Creole Cookin’ featuring “Tomato” – Musical Gumbo

Here is a record I got a couple years back ago at Cactus Records’ Thanksgiving Sale for 50 cents, mostly for the autograph. You know I love signed records. This one was signed by the female singer and percussionist of the band, Tomato. It is made out to a Bev and Oliver, and reiterates the opening line of the record, “You can take us out of New Orleans, but you can’t take New Orleans out of us.”

This is a local record from 1984 and the Creole Cookin’ Band, whose address on the back cover puts them in Kenner, LA. Not a whole lot of information on the webs about these folk but it looks like they were led by King Creole/ otherwise known as Vic Saladino who has had a decent level of success as a musician both before and after, moved to Las Vegas sometime thereafter, and has a webpage here. Saladino (guitar/ vocals/ other instruments) was joined by the before mentioned Tomato on vocals and percussion, George “Boss” Miler on sax and keys, Greg “Popeye” Little on bass. and “Hot Scott” Sherman on drums.

Pretty good New Orleans style record. I liked a lot of it . Puts you in a real party mood and the musicianship is solid.For a sample, I tried to use something shorter as I do not like posting songs over 5 mins. However, I felt the opening m”Mardi Gras Medley” really rocked so clocking in at over 7 mins, here we go.

Satisfactory.

Mardi Gras Medley

OCR- 1776

Happy 4th of July. I bought this record for the expressed purpose of using it today. I paid $5 for this musical version (from Columbia Records) of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which we celebrate today.

As a kid in Junior High School, I think, one year we watched this in class. I forget which one for sure but I am pretty positive it was history or something along that line. I did not like it back then when I saw it, nor have I really gone out of my way to re-watch when it comes up on TV (yes, I still watch programmed television) but I did much like the album when I listened to it this go around. Perhaps I should have paid more attention in Junior High and I would have learned how Congress works.

1776 , with music and lyrics by Sherman Edwards and book by Peter Stone, hit the Great White Way in 1969, running for 1,217 performances. It won three Tony’s that year, including Best Musical.

In 1972, a film version (obviously referenced above) including many of the stage actors including William Daniels as John Adams, Ken Howard as Thomas Jefferson, Howard Da Silva as Ben Franklin, and Virginia Vestoff as Abigail Adams among others.

Incidentally, Da Silva suffered a mid heart attack before the recording of this record. His understudy, Rex Everheart, took his place, both here and on stage for a brief period while Da Silva recovered.

Like a said above, I really liked this record and enjoyed a lot of the songs. I had a couple options for a sample, but I whittled it down to “But Mr Adams”.

Satisfactory record. Happy 4th.

But Mr Adams