I had no idea what this LP was all about when I saw this at my local Salvation Army. I did know that it was a fresh change of pace from the usual barrage of Mantonavi’s and Streisand’s that have flooded the store for the past however many years. Anyway, flipping to the back cover [...]
I believe I once read somewhere that Tedd Smith was Billy Graham’s Pianist. And record enthusiasts probably best know him for the common and less than amazing “Time to Run” soundtrack. But he also made a few very ambitious concept albums for Word/Light – this being the best of the ones I’ve heard. The album [...]
Obscure private press christian folk recording by pro-lifer Barbara Sipple, released on the Lazarus label out of Willingboro, NJ. The majority of the record is pretty deep (and good) folk music, while a few of the tracks are accompanied by a group of kids called the “Lollipop Express Chorus,” who join Sipple on some sing-a-long [...]
Here is the “highly personal story” of Mrs. Gertrude Behanna, a story of alcohol, drug addiction, three broken marriages and attempted suicide. Just look at Gertrude, doesn’t she exude the aura of misbehavior and a youth gone wild?! But who am I to know. Maybe God healed her visage of all that was ugly and [...]
This one might already be known to many people on here but it wasn’t known to me. Another blind buy (based on seeing there was a cover of “People Are Strange” and the totally cool photo of Julie on the back) and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. The cover of People [...]
Kind of a hard album to describe – a bit too horny to be “folk funk”, but a bit too whussed out to be “horn rock”. It would seem that “the Tabac” was the brainchild of producer Sonny Casella – who, in the liner notes, reminds us that “You got to dig it to dig [...]
This came as a present from a friend and the physicist in me went ape-sh*t. This is a 45 themed around recordings from Sputnik, the first satelite to make it into space (launched from the former U.S.S.R. in 1957). Side one is a recording of the data being sent from Sputnik while in space. Lots [...]
Cantor Raymond Smolover apparently wasn’t an unimportant figure in the Jewish music scene in the states, having produced and written (comic) opera’s and also teaching singing and vocal training techniques to many. Here’s a curious record he did with the youth choir The Nifty Levites for the Bell label, called “Edge of Freedom, a folk/rock [...]
Linda Rich’s first lp on the Chicago based IVR label from 1969 is an amazingly beautiful set of original xian folk-pop. Outstanding sparse production, excellent songwriting, and Linda’s understated, yet confident vocals make this a record that reaches way beyond any kind of novelty factor often used to “handicap” Christian records. In fact, like many [...]
This record comes with pretty much everything you could ask for in a Private Press Gospel album. There’s the ugly chicks, long haired dudes, tubby inbred looking dudes and a bus within which to travel and spread the word. Just as well then that there’s a choice cover shot that incorporates all the ugliness of the [...]
Fairly decent psych / pop soundtrack for this 1968 drugsplotation film. Going by the cover art alone you’re almost guaranteed at least a couple good listens on here. I’ve never seen the film but from what I’ve read at IMDB it sounds pretty bad (meaning I’ll have to see it soon). Anyway, onto the music.
Records with low budget duo-tone covers pressed by high schools with Christian kids sporting acoustic guitars pretty much haunt me in my dreams now. So, yeah, I got a full on boner when when I found this. I even like green. And it’s from Canada so it kinda has that lure of “the exotic other”. [...]
RCA Camden CAL 219 This folk record is definitely borderlining country, which is a rarity for me, even though I find myself knee deep in bluegrass 78s on a regular basis. As an admirer and collector of folk himself, John Jacob Niles took his Kentucky way of life and transformed it into a countless amount [...]
One thing is for sure: at no point during the making of this record was Jo Kondo told that he needed ‘more cowbell’. His 20 minute trance suite ‘Under The Umbrella’ is performed by an ensemble of 25 musicians, all but one of them armed with nothing but that most erotic of instruments – the [...]
Here’s a cool record. Side one consists of an audio collage covering a year in the life at the University of Southern California. Some of it is predictable — marching bands, football games, stuff like that. But then you’ve got clashes between student protesters and administrators, a glee club type song (“we will have these [...]
I have heard that this is the exact same record as the more well known Animated Egg lp. I, however, have never had them side by side to know for sure. Regardless, this is one of the best psych-sploitation cash-in albums out there. There is an epic story about these sessions which encompass, ace studio [...]
Okay, the music on this Indonesian reggae record might not be all that good, but hey, how often do you stumble into Indonesian reggae? The accompanying track, called Reggae Beat, is actually quite charming. Especially the flute parts are rather exotic, with a gamelan scale that blends in nicely. The organ sounds pretty spaced out [...]
Any discussion of Hollywood-based country rocker Ron McFarlin by a snotty record collector like myself will get around to Kenneth Higney comparisons pretty quickly. Same burnt, boozy sound; same peculiar sense of rhythm; similar downer lyrics that don’t always make sense; hell, they even look alike. Well, there’s only one Higney, but I like Ron [...]
Described somewhere on the internet as “the first gay album,” which is of course nonsense (this was 1973), this is nonetheless a milestone and beat Peter Gruzden’s The Unicorn for the title of first topically gay private press country LP by three years. And when I say it’s gay I mean explictly queer and proud [...]
This is easily the funniest and most inventive non-standup comedy LP I’ve ever heard. It’s a one-joke record, but what a joke and what a execution. It never gets old. The basic idea is that all animals ought to wear clothes, because “we’re all peeping toms of a sort” and no one should have to [...]