Zero to 180 – Three Minute Magic
There’s something special about the song, “Dimension 5ive” by The 5th Dimension. Lush vocals from start to finish — and yet it’s technically not a “vocal” tune, as there are no lyrics. Yet, neither is it an instrumental. This song is the closing track on the 5th Dimension’s 1970 album,
For a modest sum, I picked up this Roy Orbison soundtrack for the 1967 motion picture – Fastest Guitar Alive – and was surprised by the quality of songs from start to finish. Cover art by Frank Frazetta All ten songs on the album are Roy Orbison originals – seven
If you search the web for information about a 1967 album on the World Pacific label by jazz guitar great, Joe Pass – The Stones Jazz – you will generally see uniform agreement that this album was recorded on July 20, 1966. I love that: one day to record an
I cannot imagine why anyone would let this album go, but someone obviously did, and five dollars later, we became family: The album’s subtitle is a bit of a hoot: “Country & Western supper music and Singing Rice-ipes“ (as in recipes for rice). Would you be surprised to learn that
I picked up this album primarily due to its cover art — which suggests a Peter Max/Yellow Submarine sensibility that really captivated me as a kid — but also due to this project being associated with the legendary singer, songwriter, and musician who famously signed with Atlantic Records in the
Answer: Swingy. I picked up a flexi-disc at the local thrift store, just like the ones kids used to cut out of the back of cereal boxes back when “Sugar Sugar” by The Archies was burning up the charts (click here for a discography of “cereal box records” by those
Last year in Philadelphia I picked up a 2-LP various artists compilation (of “previously released material”) called California U.S.A. – originally issued in 1981 on Columbia: Surprisingly, my buddy, Tom Avazian – a gifted record collector – had never heard of it. This hodgepodge of 60s and 70s singles/rarities that
July 2020 Update! Click here for the latest info Earliest Melodica Recording ’64 You may not know the melodica by name, but you might have seen one or, more likely, heard one at some point in your life. Essentially, the melodica is a wind-powered keyboard that sounds much like a
One of my favorite (and affordable) ways of discovering music is trawling for vinyl at local secondhand shops. Of course, you have to wade through a lot of Andre Kostelanetz and Percy Faith to find something worthwhile, but that’s part of the fun – and adventure. It’s not uncommon to
This blog’s first post is a tip of the hat to my hometown, Cincinnati, and the record label that recorded the rhythm & blues and hillbilly bop that helped give birth to rock and roll — King Records. In 1965 King’s most famous and influential artist, James Brown (along with
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