While I'm still debating to continue putting the Beaker Street playlist, I managed to go out and find more 45s of note. Four for a dollar from the Salvation Army and a couple from Analog Vault. A few of the forty fives have the production of Don Costa, who figures in this collection. For better and sometimes worse. Poison Ivy from the Cramps gives some sort of eye candy. Apologies to her. But if my woman posed like that, she would have my full attention.
1) Exodus-Ferrante & Teicher (United Artists UA 274) #2 1960
Many moons ago, this 45 was one of the original 10 that I remember Mom buying while stocking up on Cigarettes and Old Milwaukee at some hideaway in Lincoln. When you buy such singles like Exodus along with Gonna Send You Back To Walker (Animals), I who have nothing (Ben E King) and so on, you become to develop a love for the variety. Not exactly rock n roll. Ferrante & Teicher were that famous piano duo that would muzak the hits but they had a underlying avant garde side that people overlook. The EMI best of that came out, showcases some of their best songs but also relies too much on the muzak side of things I always thought Exodus was the best of what they offer. They would return with the number 8 Tonight and the number 10 of Midnight Cowboy bu the number 2 chart placement was the best showing of their music. I have yet to hear their version of Lay Lady Lay, which kissed the top 100 at number 99 in 1970.
2) Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out-Louie Innis (King 45-1406) 1954
A hillbilly version of the blues number that everybody has done. Innis was a musician that backed up Red Foley. From Indiana, Innis became A and R for King Records, to which he recorded a few sides, most notably Suicide, b side to I Ain't Got A Pot to peel potatoes in. B side is You're Not Happy Till You're Mad At Me, a very Hank Williams influenced song. And more fun than the Nobody Knows You....
3) Boo Goo Loo Baby- T.J.K. and his P.S. 13 Blues Band (Parkway F-998) 1966
Further research indicated that this is Thomas Jefferson Kaye, who would later record for Dunhill. He recorded a session with Jubilee under Tommy Black but this is his only Parkway release. A fun song Boo Goo Loo Baby, tho it borderlines between Nuggets garage rock and bubblegum.
4) Down In The Boondocks-Billy Joe Royal (Columbia 4-43305) #9 1965
The first of a few top 20 hits written and produced by Joe South, one of the more prolific songwriters of the 60s
5) Return To Me-Eddie Holman (Parkway F-994) 1966
Before he struck gold with Hey There Lonely Girl, Eddie was putting out Motown styled soul for Cameo/Parkway and judging from what I hear, some of Motown's finest might be working behind the scene. Note: Peter DeAngeles, hack arranger is better known for his work with Fabian, Frankie Avalon and Frankie Laine, when Laine was with ABC Records. Guess who paired up with Holman on Hey There Lonely Girl?
6) Mountains In The Moonlight-Johnnie Ray with the Four Lads (Columbia 4-43698) 1952
Ray, the big voice of the 50s still trying to find that his collective groove on this forgettable pop standard. The B side What's The Use! features a contribution from Ross Bagdararian aka David Seville. A bossa nova type of song and slightly more interesting.
7) The Beer Barrel Polka-Sid Feller with Don Costa (ABC Paramount 45-9729) 1956
Now we come to the nadir of the forty fives that we found. Sid Feller was producer and A and R for ABC Paramount and was instrumental of giving Ray Charles a shot in the arm for Modern Sounds in Country And Western. Don Costa, of course, one of the more prolific arrangers of the 50s, with Paul Anka and Johnny Nash before Nash went Reggae. This one off, includes a Mitch Miller type of singers with a whooping good time vibes. Same with the other side For Me And My Gal 45 Cat don't have a photo of this single and nobody really cares unless it is for historic value. But this is the kind of crap that would send teenagers running over to the R and B side or Elvis. Laughingly bad, even in camp this is why God invented record Frisbee. And who is whistling off key on both songs should be smacked upside the head. The 50s version of Metal Machine Music.
8) Moritat-Dick Hyman Trio (MGM K-12149) 1955
Or the Mack The Knife song from The Three Penny Opera, to which Sonny Rollins did the definite jazz number, but Dick Hyman does a fine version of this song. Hyman was one of more interesting of what I call Lounge Music, a sense of ultra cool in the songs that he would play. He's better known for his work on the Moog in the late 60s. but I do find that most of what I heard, I enjoyed.
9) If I Had A Hammer-Trini Lopez (Reprise 20,198) #3 1963
But then everybody had a copy of Trini Lopez Live At PJ's, a live setting that would be part of the 4 song EP that Fresca put out. Don't you remember Fresca, a drink that tasted like Squirt. Don Costa produced this live setting and a few of Lopez's albums for Reprise, and kept them afloat before Warner Brothers threw money at them for a merger, ushering in a era of strange and great music. Collector's Choice Music put it out for a time, then Wounded Bird, both sell for big bucks on EBAY. That album remains Lopez's claim to fame.
10) Back In My Arms Again-The Supremes (Motown MT-1075) #1 1965
It's hard to find decent Motown 45s, Most have been played to the point that the grooves were gone, so it looked fairly odd for me to find this classic number in a playable shape despite no record jacket. The fifth straight number one single. Flo Ballard might have the better voice but Diana Ross had what it took to make the record hit the charts.
11) Forty Miles Of Bad Road-Duane Eddy (Jamie 1126) #9 1959
B side: The Quiet Three #46
To be honest I never heard The Quiet Three play on the radio but usually Forty Miles Of Bad Road was the instrumental that went to the top of the hour newscast on the radio. As with other instrumentals at that time. It's your typical Duane Eddy number, twangy guitar, crazy sax and a couple of folks and the back screaming and hamming it up. I always thought it was more annoying than amusing at the time.
12) Woman-Pure Prairie League (RCA 74-0742) 1972
Analog Vault still had a bunch of promo 70s singles that I picked over a few times and what remains were too moldy and too scratchy to get. However, the pickers seemed to comb over this forgotten rocker from PPL, back when it was Craig Fuller leading them and not the latter day PPL when Vince Gill scored their 1980s hits on Casablanca. Even back in 72, PPL wasn't exactly being played on the FM dial either.
13) Be Bop A Lula-Gene Vincent (Capitol F-3450) #7 1956
Yeah I know I have the Capitol reissue but finding a decent original purple copy is always welcomed. Classic Rockabilly.
14) But You Know I Love You-Henson Cargill (Atlantic Country CY-4016) 1973
Atlantic has made about three attempts to get into the country market. The first was in the 70s when they signed Willie Nelson and Cargill, who had a number 1 country hit with Skip A Rope. This song has been charted by The First Edition and Bill Anderson, who up the tempo. Cargill recorded three singles for Atlantic, produced by Fred Carter, best known for being dad to Denana Carter of Strawberry Wine fame. She Still Comes To Me (to pour the wine) was the other side and a minor country hit. Cargill would move over to Elektra for two more forgotten singles. Atlantic would make a second attempt in county in 82 with Sissy Spacek, Billy Joe Royal and Glen Campbell trying their luck at a hit. and Finally the early 90s when Atlantic succeed with Tracy Lawrence, Confederate Railroad making the Country charts. Then pulled the plug on Elizabeth Cook, who limped over to Warner Music for tax write off album but a more storied career with music on Thirty Tigers.
15) Poor Poor Pitiful Me-Linda Ronstadt (Asylum E-45462|) #31 1977
In 70's radio, you couldn't escape Linda's songs. Never was a big fan, but she knew what to cover, faves remain Love Is A Rose, Get Closer, That'll Be The Day, Somebody To Lay Down and this Warren Zevon number. Fact of the matter is, she introduced me to the late great Z. Plus it has Russ Kunkel's disco drum accent, which has dated the recording tho.
16) Superman-The Clique (White Whale WW-323) 1969
Sugar On Sunday was the A and number 22 hit but history has shown Superman to be the better side, due to REM covering it and scoring a modest hit Another Analog Vault 45 that managed to beat the odds and shuffling record pickers and for a quarter it plays like new. Sugar On Sunday is almost a carbon copy version of the Tommy James song and less hippy dippy and more bubblegum like.
Overall, a decent collection of finds this time out. I'm sure Don Costa would approved. Or maybe not.
Beaker Street Play list 9/25/2020
Complied by Tyler Vincent and submitted this morning.
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