The Culling XIX: Back to School

Having finished soundtracks, I’ve moved on to school bands and choirs. Here are half a dozen cuts that have charmed me and will charm you too, I hope:

Tiffany: Beatle Medley (1975)
Not the Tiffany that sang I Think We’re Alone Now, this Tiffany is an all girl group of singers from Spruce Avenue School in Edmonton.

Viscount Bennett Combined Senior Mixed Chorus and “Grad” Choir: This Guy’s In Love With You (1970)

From Viscount Bennett School, Calgary.

The Action Singers: Jesus Christ Superstar (1971)

A group of 14 to 19 year olds from Lang and Milesone, Saskatchewan.

Crossroads: Me and Bobby McGee (1971)

From Holy Cross High School, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

The Jug-a-Lugs: I’m Satisfied (1973)

I like the giddy false starts. These kids are from Coronation School, Coronation, Alberta. Besides the Jug-a-Lugs, this album has numbers by The Norfolk Avenue Singers, The Lovin’ Roomful (love that name), The Half Fast Jazz Band and Toot Sweet.

PITCH: That’s The Way God Planned It (ca. 1974)
PITCH (People In The Crowd Harmonists) and SPICE (Spreading Peace In Crowds Everywhere) were young musicians from St. Albert, Alberta. Our House was an “opera” performed by PITCH comprised of pop songs such as Father and Son, The Sound of Silence, I Can See Clearly Now and others.

Listened: 2,922
Loved: 2,438
Lumped: 484

The Culling XVIII: The Sound of Musics

I can’t believe it’s been 3 months since the last Culling update. Sorry. I’ll endeavor to be more conscientious in the future.

I’m nearing the end of the soundtrack section where I have this nice little selection of Sound of Music movie soundtracks in other languages:

French. La mélodie du bonheur translates literally as “the melody of happiness”

German. Meine Lieder, meine Träume means “my song, my dream”

Korean (just the cover, not the music, alas). Perhaps someone who speaks the language can provide a literal translation.

Does anyone have any other language versions of this album? Spanish maybe? Italian?

Curiously, all four of my copies of this version are badly scratched and I’m culling them all.

The Culling XVII: 1st Anniversary

This week marks the first anniversary of my record collection culling project. In that time I’ve listened to 2,612 albums (falling short of my goal of 10 a day), culled 459 and kept 2,153. I’m nearing the end of the vocal albums – just a few barbershop quartets to get through – and then I’m on to movie soundtracks, the section I’ve been most eagerly anticipating since I started this task.

The Culling XVI

I haven’t made a lot of progress since my last update more than a month ago – still in the male vocalists. Just finished listening to almost 20 Barry White albums (including Love Unlimited and Love Unlimited Orchestra which I’ve lumped all together).

I have to say, it was like listening to the same record 20 times over. However, it’s a pretty good record so I’m not complaining.

When Barry gets in a groove he really gets in a groove and sticks with it (more than once I had to check to see if the needle was stuck).

wtf? Barry White on the moon? Venus?

In another one of those crazy juxtapositions my record collection is full of, right after Barry White comes Slim Whitman.

If he’s remembered at all these days, I think it’s mostly for his K-tel type compilations that he used to flog on late night television in the early 80s.

A pity, because Slim is made of awesome. I love his yodeling, his whistling, and his pure, effortless falsetto. I also love that in Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks*, Slim’s yodeling was the secret weapon that made the Martians’ heads explode. Cruel, but hilarious.

*I seem to be the only person in the world who doesn’t loathe this movie.

accounting:

adored: 2060
abandoned: 449
aggregate: 2509

The Culling XV

I’m well overdue for an update on my progress culling my record collection. I’m approaching the end of the male vocalists section where René Simard and Frank Sinatra live next to one another.

I have a surprisingly large number of Rene Simard records – 8*. Simard was a child singing sensation in Quebec, sort of a Francophone Donny Osmond, making records from the age of 10. He was also very popular in Japan, recording many sides in Japanese. In English Canada he’s mostly known for his CBC TV musical variety show that ran from 1977 to ‘79. In the US he’s known… hardly at all. Simard’s early records were produced by René Angelil who had even greater success later with another precocious pre-teen singer. Simard remains in the entertainment industry – on stage (he was The Phantom of the Opera in a Toronto production in 1999) and tv (apparently he’s the host of a reality tv show).

Frank Sinatra was a singer who also made movies. My Sinatra section consists of 25* albums.

If we’re playing Six Degrees of Separation, the link between the two singers is direct: In 1974 Simard won the Frank Sinatra trophy at the International Festival of Song in Tokyo, which was presented by Sinatra himself.

*not counting Christmas records, which are in another section.

keepers: 1989
kaput: 445
kount: 2434

The Culling XIV: Jonesin’

I knew I  liked me some Jack Jones but I had no idea I had so many of his records – 22, not including Christmas LPs (I think I have 2 but they’re in another part of the collection).

Count
Considered: 2148
Culled: 416
Collected: 1732

The Culling XIII: MM

I’ve listened to 2,000 records now and culled 20% of them (compared to 25% after the first 1,000). If it doesn’t look like I’m much farther along the shelf than the last time I posted a picture, it’s because I “compacted” the rows because I was running out of room to put the “infill” records that were accumulating on the floor.

I’m now well into the male vocals. Right now I’m listening to Donovan after finally getting through the large C-section (ha) which seemed to take forever: Glen Campbell, Keith Carradine, Wilf Carter, Johnny Cash, Tommy Cash (Johnny’s brother), George Chakiris, Richard Chamberlain, Robert Charlebois, Ray Charles, Chubby Checker, Maurice Chevalier, Jimmy Cliff, Bruce Cockburn, Joe Cocker, Leonard Cohen, Michael Cohen (no relation, as far as I know), Nat King Cole, Jerry Colonna, Perry Como, Stompin’ Tom Connors, Sam Cooke, Bill Cosby (singing, not comedy), Johnny Crawford, and Bobby Curtola.

Grokked: 2002
Groovy: 1605
Gone: 397

The Culling XII: File under “cat”

The Culling XI: Faithfull Forever

The second most popular search term that brings people to this blog is “Marianne Faithfull” and it refers to this post. I feel a little guilty that so many faithful Faithfull fans have been drawn here for so little, so here’s some more lovely young Marianne for you to gaze on, from the covers of her 1965 self-titled album.

I’m fast approaching the end of the female vocals section. As you can see in the picture below, I’ve managed to shelve a lot of the records that were piling up on the floor (there are more records on the floor just out of frame, but still a lot less than before).

Score
sampled: 1672
salvaged: 1305
scuttled: 367

The Culling X: Organic

I’m well into the instrumental section of my collection. I survived accordions, banjos, carillons, drums, flutes, guitars, harmonicas, harps, harpsichords, and kazoos (only one LP thankfully) and now I’m into organs (go ahead, make your jokes). I’ve subdivided organs into electronic and pipe sections (I used to have street organs here too but I decided it made more sense to put them in a section of their own along with music boxes and other mechanical instruments).

The electronic section is dominated by Hammond players but includes many other makes from Allen to Yamaha.

Johnny Dupont: All Stops Out!

Does “Johnny Dupont” exist? I have yet to find any biographical info on him on the internet. Maybe he was a fictitious identity made up for some anonymous studio musician for some obscure reason. The liner notes claim Dupont was a native of Troy, New York, a graduate of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, and still a teen. I really like his swinging versions of Caravan, Bluesette and others.

Walt Reneker on The Electrohome Console

Electrohome was a Canadian electronics company that mostly manufactured televisions, but they also made home organs into the 1970s. This record demonstrates many of the special effects possible with the Electrohome Richelieu organ.

Walt Reneker

The “Rhythm King” – a device with 17 different rhythms which could be used manually as a metronome with the organist following the beat, or automatically with the beat following the organist’s lead.

Demos Pay Off

Another demonstration record, this one for salesmen selling Lowrey organs.

Click here for an audio except (MP3) – Mr. Virtuoso “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”

“Lookee here!”

“Don’t display too much musical ability.”

Maurice Montez: The Groovy Organ Goes Romantic

The young lady is leaning on an Italian-made Panther Combo 300 organ. Maurice’s jazzy version of Moon River rocks my world.

George Wright: Encores

George Wright, dean of theatre organists, next to a Wurlitzer organ console. This was George’s look circa 1956.

George Wright: Now’s The Right Time

And this was his look in 1969 – keeping up with the times, both sartorially and musically. Songs include Light My Fire, Mission: Impossible, Time Is Tight, and the theme from Mannix. Inasmuch as anything played on a pipe organ can rock, this record totally does.

Jonas Nordwall: Omnificent

It seems a lot of 1920s movie palace organs ended up in pizza parlors.The Wurlitzer console on the left, originally in the Metropolitan Theatre in Boston, made its way to the Organ Grinder Restaurant in Portland, OR, which closed in 1996. The one on the right, in the Organ Grinder in Denver CO, was from Portland’s Paramount Theatre. The Denver Organ Grinder opened in 1979 and closed a few years later.

Richard Ellsasser: The Thundering Pipe Organ

The instrument on this record is a 10,000 pipe organ built for John Hays Hammond Jr. (no relation to Laurens Hammond, inventor of the Hammond organ). Hammond Jr. was a wealthy inventor (something to do with radio control) who used part of his fortune to build a medieval-style castle on the New England coastline near Gloucester, MA. The organ is housed in and around a great hall dating from the 13th century. Today, Hammond Castle is a museum. To clarify: even though it’s called the Hammond pipe organ, it’s not a Hammond organ.

Wolfgang Oehms: The Historic Bamboo Organ of Las Piñas (Philippines)

The world’s only bamboo pipe organ (only the trumpet stops are made from metal). Built by a parish priest, completed in 1824. In the 1880s, earthquakes and typhoons rendered the organ unplayable. Many unprofessional repairs were done on it throughout the 20th century. In 1973 it was shipped to Germany for complete restoration and it was returned to the Philippines in 1975. To my (untrained) ear it doesn’t sound much different from a conventional pipe organ.

The listened: 1323
The loved: 1005
The lamented: 318