Another trip to Davenport since Bob sent me a email about 30 percent off music at Ragged Records, so I took the long way, stopped at Iowa City and picked up a couple of CDs.
Lester Flatt-RCA Legends
The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads
Floyd Lloyd-Tear It Up The Ska Album
Usually Stuff Etc doesn't have much in CDs but I found three of note
Faron Young-20th Century Masters
Johnny Horton-Country Legend
The Troggs-Athens and Andover
Muscatine simply has no music stores to speak of, so I took highway 22 that runs along the Mississippi River up to Davenport. Ragged Records had a four sale and got there at around 6 and they had a acoustic dude playing and he was awful as I made my way into the 45's room and stayed there throughout that and the Puddle Jumpers, a local band who was doing their first show since releasing an EP and I would say that they were entertaining and LOUD. But I guess I lost track of the time for by the time I got done, I ended up getting about 25 dollars worth of forgotten forty fives but found a better copy of Tallahassee Lassie by Freddy Cannon and The Cricket's Not Fade Away fairly cheap, the latter replaces a warped reference copy and the former replaced a forty five that I wore the grooves off. And was the long version.
Had time to stopped at Best Buy and picked up Frank Zappa Hot Rats and Freak Out. Donno why I bought Freak Out since I had the original Rykodisc version but a slight variation on the booklet differs a bit. The Rykodisc had a bad picture of Frank being blacked out, The UM/Zappa version has a clearer picture and chops Help I'm A Rock to the beginning of It Can't Happen Here. The Son Of Monster Magnet, which takes up side 4 on the album is a throwaway I think but Freak Out is still worth getting, one way or another.
Finally, I did go up to pay final respect to Evelyn Schminkey, Duwayne's mom who adopted us as one of her own when we were in a band over there, and using their house as a practicing place and got to trade stories with Duwayne and Tom LeHew who used to listen to our attempt at music. A slight band reunion as Doug Bonesteel, our former guitar player came all the way from Des Moines and we chatted for a bit. I can still recall Momma Schminkey being so proud of us when we played at the old Pink Elephant years ago, telling and poking everybody "that's my boys!" I'm sure going to miss her like everybody else will.
And that's the weekend that was.
Looking at the week's ratings, there's seems to be a spike of interest coming up on Samantha Fish, whose latest album came out last year but the folk at HP Books didn't think it would sell so they put it in the dollar bin. While Runaway (Ruf) may have her as eye candy, this girl with guitar can play the hell out of it. In a different era and age, Sam Fish would be just as well known as Susan Tedeschi-Trucks but since we live in a era of overplayed classic crock and autotuned top forty Corporate Radio shit by either/or Clear Channel/Cumulus, you'll never know how great she is unless you rely on a blogger who hoards things and has a love of finding and playing the unknown. I'd call up Bob Dorr and bug the hell out of him to play Sam Fish Runaway on Blues Avenue but he not taken any of my calls or requests. For now, you can probably catch Samantha at around the Kansas City area or select blues fest around town. I think she's still on for a show in Evanston Illinois and Davenport in October. Also it was three years ago I started seeing Nicole and three months ago we called it a day. Time flies.
The Londoner was a bar/diner in Cedar Rapids which enjoyed a good clientele and a FB friend of mine that worked there, closed up without any explanation from the owner which caused a bit of outcry from the now unemployed FB friend of mine. This does sound fishy, without the fish and chips http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/Popular-British-Pub-The-Londoner-Closed-in-Cedar-Rapids-165989206.html
Finally, going through a set of tins, I came across a bunch of records that even I didn't know that I had or maybe my mom picked up at a garage sale but I was in the process of donating the tins when it felt and i looked in and ....More records! Mostly the shape of them were dusty or too damn scratchy but thought I post the findings and the noted.
Paul Petersen-My Dad (Colpix CP 663) not suitable for play, too many scratches.
Billy Duke-Ain't She Pretty (20th Fox 301) Ugh, jive finger popping crap that I played about a minute and couldn't take anymore.
Piney Brown-Bring It On Home (Sound Stage 7-SS7-2644) Tough soul music with plenty of UH! and All Right to go with it. Might be worth a keeper if the needle holds up.
Mitch Miller-Trapeze (Columbia 4-40715)
Slim Whitman-Rainbows Are Back In Style (Imperial 66283) Whoever had this must have been into pop music or was combating a Martian invasion.
Dave Clark Five-Over And Over (Epic 5-9863) Larry Bartels must have loved this song, Grooves are wore off.
Earl Jean-I'm Into Something Good (Colpix CP-729) Record looks okay but I have a better copy somewhere around here.
The Diamonds-My Judge And My Jury (Mercury 70983) Lots of dust making it unplayable.
Stonewall Jackson-Don't Be Angry (Columbia 4-43076) Great song but record is poor condition.
J. Frank Wilson-Six Boys (Josie 45-929) This guy sucks. Had a big hit with Last Kiss and follows it up with another crappy tragedy song. Surprised I didn't use this as a frisbee.
Abba-Dancing Queen (Atlantic 3372) Seems like everybody had this in their collection except for me.
Kelly Gordon-Let Me Tell You Jack (Mercury 72215) Nothing more annoying than having some three year old write all over the record that so you can't play it.
Major Wiley-Rockin Chair (Verve Forecast KF 5110) Uninteresting soul music
In the end, I came up with the best three out of the can:
Dave Kirby-Her And The Car And The Mobile Home (Monument 1168) Honky tonk from the trailer court which might have been a very minor country hit.
Mary Wells-Use Your Head/Everloving Boy (20th Century Fox 555) She had major hits for Motown but somehow fell out of favor and moved over to 20th Century for a series of Motown soundalikes and maybe some of the Motown funk brothers does play on this. Good Motown sound although not as inspired.
Mary Wells- Ain't It The Truth (20th Century 544) Probably the best pre Motown song Wells ever did although 20th Century Fox Records didn't know how to promote Wells at all. If Berry Gordy had produced this one, you'd be hearing this all over oldies radio like My Guy or You Beat Me To The Punch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAprYEk6frE
Dunn & Mc Cashen-Hitchcock Railway (Capitol 2563) They sound a bit like Brewer & Shipley with a bit of CSN thrown in for good measure but I don't think I ever heard this on the radio back in the late 60s when this came out. However Joe Cocker did and he covered it.
Probably the best of the bunch, although I noticed that There Ray Charles, Rolling Stones and Muddy Waters in the can but those were mine and wore the grooves off them.
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