Un bel di, verdremo (One Fine Day)
Marjorie Meinert At The Allen Organ
Produced by Herman Diaz, Jr.
RCA Victor LPM-2169
1960
This is an album that I struggle to define. What the cover art suggests, I have no idea. I can't figure out what the "exercise" or "weightlifting" tie-in is all about.
The music is played on an electronic organ that sounds much like a pipe organ. So the music, even though well executed, is slow... sometimes VERY slow and heavy. This is strange especially when you are listening to "pop" song covers, like A Song Of India. After some adjustment in my expectations... the recording did grow on me.
Check out the last track as found on side 2 that I've posted above. It's a long, quite, slow, strange experiment in recording.
If Sherlock Holmes were attempting to understand this album cover, he would want to know who bought organ albums back in the olden days.
ReplyDeleteMy assumption is that other organists bought them. Certainly not common folk, right? It was a very limited market.
If most organists were female, this album cover would show the artist surrounded by symbols of masculinity and muscle for the high and mighty males (John Wayne starred in The Hight and the Mighty).
"She is attractive because she is feminine," might be the selling point in 1960 to women organists.
If most organists were male, this album cover becomes incomprehensible.
Maybe instead of asking Sherlock Holmes to figure it out, we need Sigmund Freud.
I just found a LP press on a Cincinnati label that features Margie Meinert playing the Wurlitzer Steam Calliope (vol. II)... Crazy Calliope Music...
DeleteA lot of people bought organ records, including my parents. Dad built a Kinsman organ but he was a way better electronic repairman than an organist, and my mother has no sense of rhythm. ("That's why there are five of you", she'd say. A skeptical but observant Catholic, Mom later said she knew she was in for a kid every other year until she agreed to a hysterectomy.)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I have three Hammonds, an Allen and several combo keyboards-two Farfisas, a Fender Rhodes, and a couple of others. But no kids.
very funny tale. thanks for shaing
DeleteHey, I love the sample. I'm studying old circus music records and would like to download the complete album but can't find a link? Do you not post the whole album? Thanks
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by. I blog a great many records. For a number of reasons, that include ease of listening, editing, time, server space and right issues I decided to post only samples. Meinert also made several calliope albums, that I've blogged samples from. One of which is a private press on a small local (Cincinnati, Ohio) label. The links should return if you do a search. Mark
DeleteYou could upload another track as a contrast.
ReplyDeleteI wish you had also uploaded a more representative track from this LP.
ReplyDeleteSorry Bob. Organizational issues prevent me from revisiting many albums. In other words... they quickly become buried, in a box, somewhere in the basement...
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