Monster Rock
Happy House Records
Manufactured by Haddon Record Corp.
C-36
1975
Oooh Frug
Monster Rock
See See Monster
Clap Your Tenacles
Kiss Me Ooognight
An Adventure
In The Land Of Oooh
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Happy Monsters
Happy House Records
Manufactured by Haddon Record Corp.
C-36
1975
Oooh Frug
Monster Rock
See See Monster
Clap Your Tenacles
Kiss Me Ooognight
An Adventure
In The Land Of Oooh
Kilimanjaro - Quartette Tres Bein
Kilimanjaro
Kilimanjaro
Quartette Tres BienProduced by Norman Wienstroer
Decca Records DL 4548
1964
From the back cover: Kilimanjaro is not only the title song of this new Quartette Tres Bien album, it also represents the musical philosophy of the group itself – portraying the jazz musician as a "child of the times" (no pun intended): highly sophisticated, highly educated, the creative artist who is also a master technician. But because he is highly intelligent, he can freely acknowledge the rich primitive heritage from which jazz rose and soared. In Kilimanjaro, an original by pianist Jeter Thompson, the group probes deep into their cultural background, paying tribute to Africa's highest peak. Bongo-congaist Percy James narrates with three conga drums and bongos. Leading off with a subtle interplay between piano and drums, the composition draws its audience slowly away from twentieth century sophistry into a jungle of pulsating emotion. So involved does the listener become, under such hypnotic rhythm, that the impact of its explosive climax, however much anticipated, comes as a breathtaker.
Kilimanjaro
I Left My Heart In San Francisco
Secretly
I Didn't Know What Time It Was
My Favorite Thing
My One And Only Love
Ramblin' Rose
You Came A Long Way From St. Louis
The Chipmunks Sing With Children
Puff The Magic Dragon
Alvin Simon and Theodore with David Seville
Producer Don Blocker
Engineer: Bob Doherty
Cover Design: Studio Five
Photography: Rober Marshutz
Liberty Records, Inc. LRP-3405
1965
From the back cover: The making of this album has been a delightful experience for me. Unlike previous Chipmunk albums a new dimension was added – that of children's voices – and I must say I was apprehensive. Where could a group of children be found that could sing like children and behave like adults during the complicated recording sessions? The answer turned out to be the wonderful group of kids on the cover with The Chipmunks – The Jimmy Joyce Singers. My sincere thanks to Jimmy and to all his talented kids – to Bob Doherty for his fine engineering work and to Don Blocker for the great help he gave me in putting all of the elements together.
To one and all I am Grateful! – Ross Bagdasarian
From Bilboard - March 27, 1965: A throughly delightful album which should find favor among children of all ages. The kids' chorus adds an extra dimension to the Chipmunks sound. The fare is all happy and gay with cuties like "Hello Dolly," "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" and others.
Do-Re-Mi
Rag Mop
Me Too (Ho-Ho! Ha-Ha!)
Mister Sandman
Hello Dolly
Puff (The Magic Dragon)
Tonight You Belong To Me
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Tea For Two
Mississippi Mud
Down By The Old Mill Stream
You Are My Sunshine - Jimmie Davis
Columbus Stockade Blues
Jimmi Davis
All Time Hits
Orchestra Under the Direction of Owen Bradley
Decca Records DL 78896
1959
From the back cover: They are three of the nicest people you've ever met... James Houston Davis of Shreveport, devoted husband and father... former Louisiana Governor Davis, beloved by all of the nearly three million down-to-earth folks of his state... and Jimmie Davis, renowned recording star and songwriter.
Three of the nicest people rolled into one!
Jimmie, born in 1936, was one of the first artists to be signed by Decca, when the company was in its infancy. But quicker then you could say "Your Are My Sunshine" he became one of the greatest favorites in the history of Decca, or, for that matter, of any recording company.
Well known is the story of Jimmie Davis' rise from a three-room sharecropper's cabin to the governor's mansion. It was the subject of a motion picture some years ago. But what surely interests you most is Jimmie's life today. What relaxes him? What inspires him" What sparks the happiness that is so clearly in his heart as he sings for you?
Both relaxation and inspiration are Jimmie's in roaming the beautiful twelve hundred acres of his farm in Tensas Parish, 160 miles east of Shreveport. The drama of Nature, never to be fully captured by the artist's brush or author's pen, is on all sides as he surveys the scene. Young deer scamper in the thickets, roused from their hiding places by the noisy wing-flapping of wild ducks overhead. Towards the horizon, prize beef cattle amble about the green pasturelands.
Up early for the shining of a new day at sunrise... stretched out full length in the shade of a broad-leafed tree in the warmth of noontime... standing atop a rise for a magnificent view of the sunset's majesty... Jimmie bares his very soul to the whispering breezes from the nearby Mississippi, and swept away is every trace of an earthly care.
His love for roaming the farm is shared by Alvern, his wife, and their teenage son, Jim, Jr., quite an outdoorsman in his own right who was only eleven when he won his first trap-shooting championship. Together, they hunt, the fish and hike, sharing an ideal sort of companionship.
A gentle man, Jimmie Davis is truly a gentleman in every sense of the word.
"You wouldn't have any trouble convincing me," says old friend Red Foley, "that Jimmie's the one that word was invented for."
Seldom does the front cover of a record album list all of the songs within. Three of four highlights of the album are usually to seize your attention – yet this album's cover lists all twelve songs. The reason is simple. You see, seldom does an album contain an many unquestionably great hits as this!
With the music of Owen Brandley, Decca is peacock-proud to bring you the songs written and made famous by Jimmie Davis... this time, Jimmie Davis at his all-time best. – Don Richardson
From Billboard - August 3, 1959: The former governor of Louisiana handles a flock of well-known pop and c.&w. tunes, some of which he cleffed himself. Ork backing by Owne Bradley on the attractive offerings suits perfectly. This should move well in this market with some pop appeal also.
I Hung My Head And Cried
Lost Love
You Are My Sunshine
There's A Chill On The Hill Tonight
There's A New Moon Over My Shoulder
Nobody's Darlin' But Mine
It Makes No Difference Now
My Mary
Worried Mind
Columbus Stockade Blues
I Just Dropped In To Say Goodbye
Live And Let Live
Something Wonderful - The Ray Charles Singers
East Of The Sun
The Ray Charles Singers
Arrangements by Lew Davis
Originated and Produced by Enoch Light
Associate Producer: Julie Klage
Recordding Chief: Robert Fine
Mastering: George Piros
Art Director: Charles E. Murphy
Command SMAS 90193
Grand Awards Record Co.
1961
From the inside (gatefold) cover: No other vocal group sounds like the Ray Charles Singers. The sixteen voices in this group, eight girls and eight boys, blend in warm, fresh harmonies that are developed with subtle, imaginative touches that set them apart from all other vocal ensembles. The difference is the Ray Charles concept of group singing.
At the heart of the distinguishing style of the Ray Charles Singers is the fact that they sing very softly – so softly, in fact, that their actual singing is only slightly above the volume of breathing. Charles does this to maintain complete control over each voice in the group at all times.
Vocal groups usually sound like a collection of voices each of which has different, individual characteristics. This is only natural because each voice does have its own characteristics. The most pronounced of these individual characteristics is the vibrato- the way the sounds produced by the vocal cords shimmer when they are projected. Vibratos in any group of voices are almost always different – unless the singers all happen to be members of the same family when, apparently under the influence of a similarity of genes, the vibratos may also be similar.
Differences in vibrato, as well as other differences between voices, show up with increasing clarity as the volume of the singing increases. Ray Charles' goal is not to emphasize the differences within his group – he is seeking that musical togetherness that brings out the warmest, freshest sounds. So he insists on extreme softness as a means of eliminating so far as possible any differences between individual voices.
But that is not Ray Charles' only reason for having his group sing softly. He has found that this helps them to sustain a mood and that it helps to create a feeling of suspense that keeps the listener closely involved in the development of a song. And it makes possible the kind of richly sustained, skillfully woven arrangements that are the hallmark of the Ray Charles style.
His arrangements are created so as to make his group what he calls "a sixteen-mirror reflection of the way I would like to sing a song, of the way I would phrase it."
"I don't want them to sing as a group," he once said, "but as an extension of me." (Sometimes he prefers them to be even more than that. After he had written either the introduction or the coda. "But," he admitted, "the group did it beautifully.")
When they are recording, the Ray Charles Singers sing so softly that they can scarcely be heard even a few feet away. Such subtle vocal projection takes enormous skill and it also makes great physical demands on the singers. They can't move while they are singing, for example, for even a slight change in relationship to the microphones and to each other would be noticeable when the microphones are raised to the level of alertness required to reproduce fully every nuance of such delicately stated singing. They must handle their music sheets with extreme care for the least little crackle from a sheet during a particularly soft passage would ruin a whole "take."
For somewhat the same reasons, this kind of recording is equally hard on instrumentalists. The Charles singers are used to working at this extremely soft level but the instrumentalists are not. Yet they must adjust their playing to it for if they played at a normal balance they would be out of balance with the singers. The use of baffles or screens to separate the musicians and the singers might relieve this pressure on the musicians but Ray Charles does not use them because he feels they would detract from that quality which is at the very base of his work-the feeling of musical togetherness that he is seeking. So everyone, musicians and singers, is out in the studio together, playing and singing in a state of mass understatement.
Such concentrated softness poses problems for the recording engineers that are at the very opposite pole from the crackling crescendos with which they have had to cope in the Percussion series. But the same ingenuity that solved those problems has given unbelievably clear, full-bodied reproduction to the gorgeous voices of the Ray Charles Singers.
The arrangements that Ray Charles has written for this album take advantage of the opportunities offered by true stereophonic recording to give an added emotional foundation to these songs, to bring out touches of loveliness and subtleties of intonation and phrasing that could only be hinted at under other circumstances.
From Billboard - January 13, 1962: This is a lovely album, which features not only first-rate arrangements and exceptional sound, but warm, lush, and winning performances of a flock of fine standards by the Ray Charles Singers. The tunes include "East Of The Sun," "Misty," "Paradise," "Don't Blame Me" and "My Ideal." There is an original item called "I'm Over Here." The stereo sound is delightful.
Misty
East Of The Sun
My Old Flame
Paradise
For All We Know
Soft Lights And Sweet Music
I'm Over Here
Don't Blame Me
My Ideal
These Foolish Things
Embraceable You
Goodbye
At the heart of the distinguishing style of the Ray Charles Singers is the fact that they sing very softly – so softly, in fact, that their actual singing is only slightly above the volume of breathing. Charles does this to maintain complete control over each voice in the group at all times.
Vocal groups usually sound like a collection of voices each of which has different, individual characteristics. This is only natural because each voice does have its own characteristics. The most pronounced of these individual characteristics is the vibrato- the way the sounds produced by the vocal cords shimmer when they are projected. Vibratos in any group of voices are almost always different – unless the singers all happen to be members of the same family when, apparently under the influence of a similarity of genes, the vibratos may also be similar.
Differences in vibrato, as well as other differences between voices, show up with increasing clarity as the volume of the singing increases. Ray Charles' goal is not to emphasize the differences within his group – he is seeking that musical togetherness that brings out the warmest, freshest sounds. So he insists on extreme softness as a means of eliminating so far as possible any differences between individual voices.
But that is not Ray Charles' only reason for having his group sing softly. He has found that this helps them to sustain a mood and that it helps to create a feeling of suspense that keeps the listener closely involved in the development of a song. And it makes possible the kind of richly sustained, skillfully woven arrangements that are the hallmark of the Ray Charles style.
His arrangements are created so as to make his group what he calls "a sixteen-mirror reflection of the way I would like to sing a song, of the way I would phrase it."
"I don't want them to sing as a group," he once said, "but as an extension of me." (Sometimes he prefers them to be even more than that. After he had written either the introduction or the coda. "But," he admitted, "the group did it beautifully.")
When they are recording, the Ray Charles Singers sing so softly that they can scarcely be heard even a few feet away. Such subtle vocal projection takes enormous skill and it also makes great physical demands on the singers. They can't move while they are singing, for example, for even a slight change in relationship to the microphones and to each other would be noticeable when the microphones are raised to the level of alertness required to reproduce fully every nuance of such delicately stated singing. They must handle their music sheets with extreme care for the least little crackle from a sheet during a particularly soft passage would ruin a whole "take."
For somewhat the same reasons, this kind of recording is equally hard on instrumentalists. The Charles singers are used to working at this extremely soft level but the instrumentalists are not. Yet they must adjust their playing to it for if they played at a normal balance they would be out of balance with the singers. The use of baffles or screens to separate the musicians and the singers might relieve this pressure on the musicians but Ray Charles does not use them because he feels they would detract from that quality which is at the very base of his work-the feeling of musical togetherness that he is seeking. So everyone, musicians and singers, is out in the studio together, playing and singing in a state of mass understatement.
Such concentrated softness poses problems for the recording engineers that are at the very opposite pole from the crackling crescendos with which they have had to cope in the Percussion series. But the same ingenuity that solved those problems has given unbelievably clear, full-bodied reproduction to the gorgeous voices of the Ray Charles Singers.
The arrangements that Ray Charles has written for this album take advantage of the opportunities offered by true stereophonic recording to give an added emotional foundation to these songs, to bring out touches of loveliness and subtleties of intonation and phrasing that could only be hinted at under other circumstances.
From Billboard - January 13, 1962: This is a lovely album, which features not only first-rate arrangements and exceptional sound, but warm, lush, and winning performances of a flock of fine standards by the Ray Charles Singers. The tunes include "East Of The Sun," "Misty," "Paradise," "Don't Blame Me" and "My Ideal." There is an original item called "I'm Over Here." The stereo sound is delightful.
Misty
East Of The Sun
My Old Flame
Paradise
For All We Know
Soft Lights And Sweet Music
I'm Over Here
Don't Blame Me
My Ideal
These Foolish Things
Embraceable You
Goodbye
Lecuona - Jose Echaniz
Danzas Afro-Cubanas
Jose Echaniz - Piano
Westminster WL 5343
1954
From the back cover: Born in Guanabacoa, a town near Havana, Cuba, Jose Echaniz began his study of music at an early age and gave his first piano recital before his fourteenth birthday. After a series of triumph in his native land, he made his New York Town Hall debut in 1927. This was followed by a second recital at Carnegie Hall, then nationwide tours throughout the country, European engagements, and many concerts in Cuba, including eleven appearances with the Havana Symphony. Since that time, he has appeared in recital in over 200 American cities, and as soloist with many major orchestras, including the Philharmonic, the St. Louis, Minneapolis and Cincinnati Symphonies.
Andalucia (Suite Espagnole)
Danzas Afro-Cubanas
Danzas Cubanas
The Six Million Dollar Man - Volume 2
The Loch Ness Syndrome
Volume 2
Written and Produced by Arthur Korb
Power Records
1976
Operation Deep Freeze
The Haiti Connection
The Loch Ness Syndrome
To Win An Oscar
Monday, May 18, 2020
Tempestuous Trumpet - Doc Severinsen
Night In Tunisia
Doc Severinsen and His Orchestra
Associate Producer: Julie Klages
Recording Chief: Robert Fine
Mastering George Piros
Cover Art & Design by S. Neil Fujita
Command Records STEREO RS 819 SD
Grand Award Record Co., Inc.
1961
From the inside cover: Like any musician, Severinsen has been influenced by others who play his instrument but he has never allowed himself to be pinned down by the limitations of any particular style. His first idol was Harry James in the days after James had left Benny Goodman and was building a reputation for playing showy trumpet pieces with his own band. Doc's father, an amateur musician who played violin and decided to learn cornet while his son was studying trumpet, did not encourage this influence for, says Doc, "My father's a good musician and he didn't approve of schmaltz."
His next influence struck him when he was in the Army in 1945 and he heard Dizzy Gillespie's record of Groovin' High. About the same time he fell under the spell of Charlie Shavers who was then with Tommy Dorsey's orchestra. Later he was impressed by Billy Butterfield, Clark Terry and Clifford Brown but, Doc recalls, "Shavers and Did scared me the most."
Yet with all these trumpet styles buzzing around in his head, Severinsen has fallen into no set pattern.
"When I hear somebody that impresses me enough," he has explained, "it goes in my ear and stays there and eventually it comes out. But no as imitation."
After You've Gone
When It's Sleepy Time Down Sount
Night In Tunisia
Tenderly
I Can't Get Started
And The Angels Sing
Baubles, Bangles And Beads
Stardust
Mack The Knife
You Made Me Love You
Sleepy Lagoon
Sugar Blues
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Hawaiian Holiday - Hal Aloma
Mauna Kea
Hal Aloma
King Of The Steel Guitar And His Hawaiians
Columbia CL 538
Song Of The Islands (Na Lei O Hawaii)
Wai O Minnehaha (Minnehaha Falls)
King's Serenade (Imi Au Ia Oe)
Mauna Kea
Liliu E (The Queen Hula)
My Little Grass Shack
Tahiti
Sweet Leilani
Blue Hawaii
Hawaiian War Chant (Ta-Hu-Wa-Hu-Wai)
Lakelani
Maui Chimes
Aloha Oe
Stormy Monday - Lou Rawls & Les McCann Ltd.
God Bless The Child
Lou Rawls Sings
Les McCann Ltd.Plays Stormy Monday
Capitol Records
Special Reissue SY-4570
(They Call It) Stormy Monday
God Bless The Child
See-See Rider
Willow Weep For Me
I'm Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town
In The Evening (When The Sun Goes Down)
'Tain't Nobody's Biz-Ness If I Do
Lost And Lookin'
I'd Rather Drink Muddy Water
Sweet Lover
When I Look Into Your Eyes - The Dean Franconi Strings
If Ever I Would Leave You
The Dean Franconi Strings
Design Records SDLP-283
A Product Of Pickwick International, Inc.
When I Look Into Your Eyes
Where Are The Words?
If Ever I Would Leave You
Czardas
Vienna Dreams
Gold & Silver Waltz
Gypsy Love Song
March Of The Toys
Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming
Beautiful Dreamer
Hullabaloo!
Betty Everett - Please Love Me
Design Records DLP-191
1965
Roy Orbison - Problem Child
Roger Miller - My Pillow
Bobby Freeman - I Still Remember
Betty Everett - Please Love Me
Gene Pitney Cradle Of My Arms
Maxine Brown - Now That You've Gone
Lloyd Price - Such A Mess
Garnet Mimms - Let It Live
Brook Benton - Dreaming Dreams
The Clovers - Out Here
Honey, Come Back
One Red Rose
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
Design Records STEREO SDLP-315
Pickwick International, Inc.
Manufactured by Keel Mfg. Corp
Honey Come Back
Walking In The Rain
One Red Rose
Tell me Now
I Don't Need You
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
Monday Morning Blues
What Shall I Do
Night Without End
South Pacific - Hans Hagan
Bali Hai
South Pacific
Words & Music By Rodgers & HammersteinOrchestra and Chorus Conducted by Hans Pagan
Renee Guerin, Bob Stratton, Don Grilley, Patti Steele, Connie Connerly
Photography: Steve Sokol
Cover Design: Hobco Arts
Crown Records 5054
Overture
A Wonderful Guy
There Is Nothin' Like A Dame
Some Enchanted Evening
Dites Moi
I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair
Younger Than Springtime
Bali Hai
This Nearly Was Mine
Finale
He Sings And Swings - Jerry Colonna
Ebb Tide
Jerry Colonna And His Dixieland Band
Mercury Wing SRW 12500
Ebb Tide
New Orleans Cha Cha
When The War Breaks Out In Mexico, I'm Going To Go To Montreal
Waterfront Blues
The Long Long Intro
Carolina In The Morning
Mardi Gras Parade
Singin' In The Rain
Black And White Rag
Chicago Style
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