Hi Hope Play & Sing
Play & Sing
1975
Track List:
A Side
1. Freedom is the Song of My Country
2. Cantamos
3. Jam in G
4. Sharing Our Song With You
5. Celebrate Today
B Side
1. Sunrise Rock
2. It's A Beautiful World
3. Sunshine
4. You Can Do
5. You Were There
Hold on to your pile of oddball records! I have the Holy Grail Of Strange Records to share today.
This record is the gem of my collection and I deem it the Holy Grail.
The Hi Hopes were a group of students (15 to 21 years of age) attending The Hope School, Anaheim, CA. The students assembled together as a band and played during the 70s (maybe longer). The idea was to help increase self-confidence and therefore "increase efforts in other areas".
At some point, and somehow, The Hi Hopes caught on and did a lot of gigs, including The Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. You can click on the third image above and read all about the many venues the Hi Hopes played.
According to one online source The High Hope made three commercial albums: Ability, Hi Hopes and Journey. I thought that this LP may be a pre-release copy of one of the existing commercial albums. But this LP is not one of those albums.
There is mention of this LP online, but only briefly and with no real information. I've seen a Hi Hopes DVD and a 45 for sale. It is hard to say what's out there.
In addition, as you've noted in the images above, the record came with lot of information including some instructional material (how to play the songs) and song sheets.
To top it off the hand-made album cover is autographed! Apparently, from a notation found in the upper right corner, this album was a gift to someone. "Thanks For A Lovely Evening – The Hi Hopes (signed by the music teacher Doris E. Walker). And from what I can tell, five members of the group.
All the songs are wonderful and I decided to share the whole LP.
Anyone who like to make fun (when I say oddball or strange music I mean this in a good way)... consider that these kids have done more, seen more and meant more to the world than most of us ever will no matter how hard we try to make a dent!
omg. You got it!! I read somewhere that they were Savants. Retarded in every other way but able to play music. This is a TRUE treasure and THANK YOU for playing the whole thing xoxo
ReplyDeleteFantastic! These kids were indeed menally handicapped ( the lead singer had cerebal palsy), a fact which doesn't appear to have prevented them from recording the greatest Fall album Mark E Smith did'nt make!
ReplyDelete!!!
ReplyDeleteDo you have Ability LP?
Not at this time.
DeletePS there seem to be two editions of this album, also released as Play Along Sing Along with a different cover. Do you know which is the first and which is the second? Also: why two editions?
ReplyDeleteThank you. So that is why I could not find mention of this album... because the release with the printed cover is titled a little differently, making for no returns when I did my search. The record is currently buried in storage... so I can't get to it to confirm how the title appears on the label. This LP came in a "hand-made" jacket (a photo copy taped to the jacket). I could make the assumption that The Hi Hopes produced more records than jackets and cobbled this jacket together as a gift. So possibly there are not "two editions"... but just a few extra records that needed jackets?
Delete