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SPECTROPOP - Spectacular! Retro! Pop!
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There are 9 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. Re: Weirdly grooved records
From: Dan Hughes
2. Subject: Hits You Missed
From: Mike Mc
3. Same A/B side in various cover versions
From: Dan Hughes
4. B.S.&T. LPs
From: Mike McKay
5. Re: Wyman's Bass
From: Richard Havers
6. Re: Songwriter credits
From: Mike Rashkow
7. End of Positively 4th St?
From: Dan Hughes
8. Re: Mono "Magical Mystery Tour"
From: Mike McKay
9. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
From: Al Kooper
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Message: 1
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 09:41:16 -0600
From: Dan Hughes
Subject: Re: Weirdly grooved records
jerophonic writes:
> Around 1980, Rhino put out "Henny Youngman's 128 Greatest Jokes",
> a live LP. The sticker on the shrinkwrap said "Special Multi-
> track (Trick Track) Mastering - The first comedy LP that never
> plays the same twice". According to which groove you hit, you
> heard a different show.
Wait a minute here! "Never plays the same song twice" isn't right!
I assume there are 128 different tracks and it's totally random as
to which track you get when the needle drops. The odds of getting
all 128 tracks in 128 tries are miniscule! You'd get tons of
repeats! Do we have a statistician in the group? How many needle
drops would it take to get all 128? You'd go nuts!
---Dan
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Message: 2
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:13:56 -0000
From: Mike Mc
Subject: Subject: Hits You Missed
To: Dan,
F.Y.I. "Donald Where's Your Trousers" was the follow up record to "A
Scottish Soldier" by Andy Stewart. "...Soldier" hit #69 on Billboard's
charts in 1961. Must've been a regional hit. I remember hearing it
while living in Canada in the early 60's. By the way, I remember those
"Hit's you missed" paks. I would really get a kick out of buying them
just to find out if I had any "hidden treasures" tucked away inside.
To: Paul
Subject: Cameo Parkway Blues
It's probably meaningless, but the newest "Collector's Choice" catalog
that I received a couple of days ago hints at the fact that "reliable
sources" have indicated a Cameo/Parkway release is slated for sometime
this year. Yeah, right ....
Mike Mc
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Message: 3
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 09:15:30 -0600
From: Dan Hughes
Subject: Same A/B side in various cover versions
Mark asks:
> Can anyone recall any other songs, where through numerous cover
> versions, the A side and B side were always the same???
Can't answer that, but the question brings to mind another situation
I've always wondered about.
Bill Hayes went to #1 in 1955 with The Ballad of Davy Crockett, on
Cadence. Fess Parker (who WAS Davy Crockett) took the same song at
the same time to #5 on Columbia.
Hayes' next charting song was Wringle-Wrangle, on ABC-Paramount. And
Parker's next charting song was Wringle-Wrangle, on Disneyland, from
a movie Parker starred in.
Was Bill Hayes a stalker?
---Dan
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Message: 4
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 12:56:11 EST
From: Mike McKay
Subject: B.S.&T. LPs
Dan Hughes wrote:
> Al, for the sake of antirevisionism (love that term), could
> you please discuss the parting of the ways between you and BS&T?
>
> (For what it's worth, I was DEEPLY disappointed in the album
> released after you left. I bought it before I knew you were
> not involved).
I find that there are very few things musical that I have changed my
mind about over the years. That is, if I loved it back then, I still
love it now -- and if I hated it back then, I probably don't feel
any differently today.
The one glaring exception is that second BS&T album. For reasons I
absolutely cannot fathom, my friends and I loved that album when it
came out, and played it over and over. Yet no more than a few years
later, I felt very differently.
No doubt some of this stems from the singles being played to death
on Top 40, and then Oldies radio. But even taking this factor out of
the occasion, I can't imagine why I thought it was any good. As a
rule, I've never liked big beefy-voiced singers like DCT, and as I
mentioned earlier, I really don't like horns in rock to begin with
(with the exception of "Child Is Father to the Man," which I very
much love to this day). I suppose objectively some of the songs on
the second BS&T album are OK, but the whole thing just seems very
calculated and soulless to me now.
Bottom line is, while the post-Kooper BS&T may have won the
commercial sweepstakes, there's no question as to the winner on the
art side of it!
Mike
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Message: 5
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 13:38:05 +0000
From: Richard Havers
Subject: Re: Wyman's Bass
Steve Harvey wrote:
> Richard, do you know who made that fretless bass Wyman played when
> he started with the Stones? It pops up again in the 80s in a Willie
> and the Poor Boys video I have. Kinda cool that William was playing
> one in those pre-Jaco days. Does he know how to slap on the upright
> too?
Steve, Bill made the bass himself. This is from Bill's book, with some
added bits from me.
"In retrospect July 1961 was a very important time for me. At a dance,
in Aylesbury, at an old converted cinema we saw the Barron Knights. I
was staggered by the sound of their electric bass; I realised what was
missing in our band (Bill's first band, The Cliftons). Tony Chapman (a
Clifton and later Stones drummer, pre Charlie) found me an old bass
guitar, called a Tuxedo, belonging to his drum tutor. I scraped the £8
together to buy it. With the help of a neighbour’s fretwork machine I
re-shaped the guitar body and then took all the frets out. I intended
replacing them with new ones, but it sounded so good that I kept it
fretless…...the first fretless bass. I then needed an amplifier and
speaker. We clubbed together and bought a Goodman 18" bass speaker
along with a Linear-Concorde 30-watt build-it-yourself amplifier. We
built a big cabinet and put concrete in the bottom, we'd heard that it
improved the bottom-end sound. It did but also made it almost too heavy
to lift. I had to take the lid off the amp as it overheated, I also got
a shock every time I plugged in, as the whole thing was live!"
Bill went on to use it extensively during early Stones gigs, until he
bought a Framus Star Bass in September 1963. For a long time afterwards
he used "my home made bass", as he always calls it, for recording. It
was important to Bill as he got the sound of an upright bass like
Willie Dixon. Just listen to 'I'm a Kingbee' for the bass slide. He
doesn't slap bass though!
Richard
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Message: 6
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 10:02:01 EST
From: Mike Rashkow
Subject: Re: Songwriter credits
Al Kooper:
> Now if you had $500, that would have been fair to reimburse
> arranger Pete Dino for his work. Your generosity was overwhelming
Not in reality. I think the song earned less than $50.00 for
me so I would have overpaid.
Di la,
Rashkovsky
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Message: 7
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 10:09:25 -0600
From: Dan Hughes
Subject: End of Positively 4th St?
Al, I've always wondered about the fade-out at the end of Positively
4th Street. Can't quite describe why, but Bob's voice seems to be
preparing to finish the line "You know what a drag it is to see you"
but the music just fades out at that point. I just instinctively
feel there should be another couplet coming after that.
Anybody else feel the song ends before it's over??
Thanks,
---Dan
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Message: 8
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 12:43:09 EST
From: Mike McKay
Subject: Re: Mono "Magical Mystery Tour"
Denny Pine wrote:
> And speaking of Beatles, somebody told me that the mono version of
> Magical Mystery Tour (Capitol MAL-2835) is no different than the
> common stereo version. Can anyone else expand on this?
I don't have an "official" answer to your question, but I would think
that there must be unique mono mixes of the "Magical Mystery Tour"
film songs themselves...as they first appeared on an EP in the UK,
which I don't reckon would have been stereo. I don't know whether
these mixes were used for the mono US LP, or if instead this was just
a "fold down" of the stereo mixes from two channels to one. (And I
agree that the mono LP itself is quite rare...I don't know that I've
seen more than one or two of them.)
I do know that the non-film songs that were appended to the US stereo
album release were in rechanneled stereo. In the early 70s I got a
German import of the MMT album that had these tracks in true stereo
(except for "I Am the Walrus," all mixes of which start in true stereo
and then go to rechanneled a third of the way through), and it was a
evelation! Still the best these songs have ever sounded anywhere.
Mike
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Message: 9
Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2004 12:22:53 EST
From: Al Kooper
Subject: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
> I have read variously that this song was commissioned for the movie
> but ultimately not included, or that it was written after the movie
> came out, and in response to it (as per Buddy Holly writing That'll
> Be The Day upon seeing The Searchers). Anyone know which was the real
> story?
They were considering the Pitney track. Why else would ace writers and
artists write & record a song with that title? It was not used at the
last moment. In retrospect, it seems too modern for the feel of the
film, especially if played over the opening credits. I think that was
the problem. I remember going to see the film in its first run and being
surprised the song was not in there.
Al Kooper
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