tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49613498508340941452024-02-20T21:50:23.999+00:00Car Boot Vinyl DiariesA record of the records I find at car boot sales & charity shopsminibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.comBlogger218125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-15406021692898556472018-08-17T16:45:00.001+01:002018-08-17T16:45:10.458+01:00CBVD Mixcloud catch-up<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've been a bit slack about posting episodes of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries - the Mixcloud show - here on the blog, so here are the previous two, plus a special Listener's Choice episode of Charity Shop Classics, which I was pleased to guest present on Manchester's All FM last summer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To keep up with new shows you may like to follow me on Mixcloud at </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries">www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries</a></span><br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?hide_cover=1&feed=%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-20%2F" width="90%"></iframe>
<iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?hide_cover=1&feed=%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-21%2F" width="90%"></iframe>
<iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?hide_cover=1&feed=%2FCharityShopClassics%2Fcharity-shop-classics-show-172-listeners-choice%2F" width="90%"></iframe><br />
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<br />minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-73090350718504712762017-07-04T18:41:00.000+01:002017-07-04T18:41:36.258+01:00CBVD Episode 19<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The latest episode of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries is now up on Mixcloud, with an hour of all-vinyl tunes sourced from car boot sales and charity shops. Featured artists include Sylvester, The B52s, Wings, Isaac Hayes, Harry Stoneham and loads more.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Use the player below or follow the link to the show page.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-19%2F&hide_cover=1" width="90%"></iframe>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-19/">https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-19/</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-44631321921558359212017-05-06T15:10:00.003+01:002017-05-06T15:10:41.120+01:00CBVD Episode 18<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The newest episode of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries is now online, with tunes from The Bodines, Frank Sidebottom, The Fall, Nina Simone, Londonbeat, Syreeta, and loads more, including Barbra Streisand covering David Bowie.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Use the player below or click the link to go to the page. Happy listening!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-18%2F&hide_cover=1" width="90%"></iframe>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-18/">https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-18/</a></span><br />
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<br />minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-41609194307712670672017-04-21T11:56:00.001+01:002017-04-21T12:07:31.874+01:00Good Morning Good Morning<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One sunny morning over the Easter hols this year I was pleased to find this record at a midweek car boot sale, still in great condition and costing just a pound.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLAHvDIDv3dTAzAdVbSeMM9bdQoPK-Lku2D7BwS8jVbY8hGkPbF_tM88CTmx9Q02X12hFITMSHPpcokpekqjRpQxsojeTv2mYNKFYW8T6MtB1512-MPACufTwfAONrjVP-owWkMoAZHtRw/s1600/DSCN0009.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLAHvDIDv3dTAzAdVbSeMM9bdQoPK-Lku2D7BwS8jVbY8hGkPbF_tM88CTmx9Q02X12hFITMSHPpcokpekqjRpQxsojeTv2mYNKFYW8T6MtB1512-MPACufTwfAONrjVP-owWkMoAZHtRw/s400/DSCN0009.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Various Artists - Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father (1988)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father</b> was organised by the New Musical Express and put out on their own record label in order to raise money for the charity Childline, founded two years before. The NME managed to persuade a variety of artists to record covers of songs from this most beloved Fabs album, and it resulted in quite the mixed bag.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Low points are Hue & Cry's irritating jazz-funk <i>Fixing A Hole</i>,<i> </i>the two renditions of the title track by UK hip hop act The Three Wize Men, and UK no.1 single by Wet Wet Wet <i>With A Little Help From My Friends</i>. I've just learned that the latter was in fact a double a-side with Billy Bragg's <i>She's Leaving Home</i>, which as far as I remember got none of the TV or radio plays, which is a shame as it's pretty good, especially in comparison with the inescapable Pellow smugfest on the flip.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Highlights include Sonic Youth's feedback-laden <i>Within You Without You</i>, Michelle Shocked's rather lovely <i>Lovely Rita</i>, and Frank Sidebottom's bonkers cover of <i>Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite</i>. Top prize goes to The Fall, however, for an excellent effort on closer <i>A Day In The Life</i>, complete with runout groove gobbledegook. All in all a good quid's worth and an odd little sort of time capsule from when the original Pepper was just 21 years old.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Also costing £1 was <b>B.W. Goes C&W</b> by <b>Bobby Womack</b>.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bobby Womack - BW Goes C&W (1976)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">United Artists weren't happy about soul singer Womack's desire to make an album of country covers, particularly in '76 when a move into disco would have been the obvious career move. But when Bobby told them he wanted to call it "Step Aside Charley Pride, Give Another Nigger A Try", they let him go ahead with the project under the condition the title was changed to something more, er... commercial. It sold poorly anyway, so I knew nothing about it until I spied it on a blanket on the ground at a chilly car boot sale in February. As a lover of country soul I wasn't going to leave it there in the pile of Jim Reeves and Don Williams, especially with the wonderful front cover image, plus Bobby looking cool-as-heck on the back:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Photo from rear cover. A cropped version of this image was also used<br />on the country soul compilation Dirty Laundry: The Soul Of Black Country.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With Bobby's soulful takes on Charlie Rich's <i>Behind Closed Doors</i> (from the charity shop classic album of the same name), Eddy Arnold's <i>Bouquet Of Roses</i>, and an absolutely charming duet with his father Friendly Womack Sr. on <i>Tarnished Rings</i>, BW Goes C&W is something of a hidden gem, and a must-listen for country soul fans. Only <i>Big Bayou</i> jars a little, but that's due more to the comparative tone than its execution.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You can hear three tracks from the album on the latest installment of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries, since it was this episode's Featured Album.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I spotted this great record sleeve in a local hospice shop recently, so naturally had to take a closer look.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt073QOGrHBwd2L0hKmqLYoRW7czpM4QlFo8wKX6lEIzpzRlyGk0S9vCasiA5Xm7o3ORRAyVpgBHPrITaR_ydapQO5_c3qqrFQiy4nueARgucToK7PtwubcLUYusbKCIpHReoXaZhFcYXU/s1600/DSCN0070.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjt073QOGrHBwd2L0hKmqLYoRW7czpM4QlFo8wKX6lEIzpzRlyGk0S9vCasiA5Xm7o3ORRAyVpgBHPrITaR_ydapQO5_c3qqrFQiy4nueARgucToK7PtwubcLUYusbKCIpHReoXaZhFcYXU/s400/DSCN0070.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Various Artists - Surprise Partie - Tous Les Jeunes (1973)<br />"Putting young people in the spotlight", according to translation of the sleeve notes.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIIzJoaWZd3EwmjhW_jt1N7g7Lr3TCYg8s1hu8doDv-FrBGrLUbh-9vPXvAJqzUEhW2rGU_HkiU4i-OH5oyZsyj6x5UCAXTk7B9L_jwvfZ-NPWXeak26SLQddCzbSENbUHcaXMzY5BPftk/s1600/DSCN0073.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIIzJoaWZd3EwmjhW_jt1N7g7Lr3TCYg8s1hu8doDv-FrBGrLUbh-9vPXvAJqzUEhW2rGU_HkiU4i-OH5oyZsyj6x5UCAXTk7B9L_jwvfZ-NPWXeak26SLQddCzbSENbUHcaXMzY5BPftk/s400/DSCN0073.JPG" width="372" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Promotional sticker by Hennessy.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The term 'surprise partie' in France once meant much the same as it did elsewhere, but from around the 1950s it came to mean any impromptu get-together by young people, paticularly teenagers, with the "surprise" part no longer relevant. Of course the record industry made the most of this trend, in particular Disque Vogue who really embraced the concept, putting out loads of albums on this theme in the 1960s:</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJFkTDCYXgOYiDw7ZjEm2KtP2erUSLuKPJr8M-5cEofceIgcc37nnWUhSQWWlaafUeSyg8y7YdGmKvgVGezI76sf4UZcjJ62hj2xGBOB-QPCbB2p2lK_SF_-0r0ALsWwYLz2Lkm7AcdD-M/s1600/mosaic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJFkTDCYXgOYiDw7ZjEm2KtP2erUSLuKPJr8M-5cEofceIgcc37nnWUhSQWWlaafUeSyg8y7YdGmKvgVGezI76sf4UZcjJ62hj2xGBOB-QPCbB2p2lK_SF_-0r0ALsWwYLz2Lkm7AcdD-M/s400/mosaic.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A small selection of 'surprise partie' themed LPs from Disque Vogue.<br />I've no idea what the Guinea pig and penguin logos represent.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Surprise Partie - Tous Les Jeunes</b>, which cost me a pound, plunders Disques Vogue's '60s vaults for recordings by a variety of pop singers and instrumental groups. François Hardy and Petula Clark are well represented with three songs each, including a wonderful vocal version of The Shadows' Foot Tapper by Pet, called <i>Mon Bonheur Danse</i> ('My Dancing Happiness', according to Google translate) and of course François' hardy perennial <i>Tous Les Garçons Et Les Filles</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Others artists include guitar-wielding duo Les "Faux" Frères, who sound like they modelled themselves on the Everly Brothers; rock 'n' roll / surf 4-piece The "Octopus"; and a handful of solo artists, such as Stella, a teen pop singer whose songs have been described as "parodies of the Yé-yé style" and "engagingly sarcastic". (These days she's a vocalist with French proggers and Steve Davis favourites Magma, after wedding drummer and founder Christian Vander.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You can hear the Petula Clark track mentioned above on the latest Car Boot Vinyl Diaries, alongside those from Bobby Womack, plus lots more car boot and charity shop vinyl. But first, here are The "Octopus" with their track <i>Hurricane</i>, played from the original EP on a tasty looking Dansette.</span><br />
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minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-71506330270701728802017-04-13T14:12:00.002+01:002017-04-13T14:18:11.879+01:00Cloudcast Episode17<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Episode 17 of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries is now on Mixcloud for your listening pleasure, with tunes freshly plucked from the fields of Suffolk. With a country soul gem for the Featured Album, a double bill for Novelty Island and a great long song for The Boot Of Loot, there's probably something for everyone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Listen using the player below, or click the link to go to the show page. And have a great Easter weekend!</span><br />
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<br />minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-18554774992522986422017-03-11T09:56:00.002+00:002017-03-26T11:36:30.461+01:00Picture This<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On visits to car boot sales I often see LPs and singles produced to exploit the lucrative children's market, many of them relating to successful films and TV shows, and the majority featuring characters and stories from cartoon animations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At a chilly boot sale at the end of October last year I was delighted to spot this, and quickly snapped it up for £1:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">More Willo The Wisp Stories - Narrated by Kenneth Williams (1983)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This LP on the BBC's in-house record label contains the audio from twelve episodes of the hugely popular TV series <b>Willo The Wisp</b>, of which there were 26 episodes in all (if you don't include a 90s remake, which I don't). A dozen more can be found on the 1981 original release titled simply 'Willo The Wisp', but that one is seemingly a little harder to find.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The great <b>Kenneth Williams</b> voices the narrator of the title, and lead character Mavis, the very definition of an airy-fairy, with a heart of gold and a head full of not very much. Williams' astonishing array of comic voices also brings to life her friends, who include Arthur, the cockney know-it-all caterpillar; and Moog (my favourite), a friendly but brainless dog-like character who regularly demonstrates that ignorance is indeed bliss. The villain of Doyley Woods is Evil Edna; a walking, talking television set with wickedly magical antennae. This used to make me and my sisters laugh a lot, since we have a nana named Edna.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Although some of the visual gags are lost without the animation, the 5-minute stories are still as sharp and funny as I remember them, in particular one called <i>Magic Golf</i> where poor Mavis (or <i>"Mave"</i> as Arthur calls her) loses the star on the end of her wand and with the help of her chums has to wing an inspection from the Dept. of Spells & Magic in order to advance to the position of 2-Star Fairy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The collection is littered with fab BBC sound effects, including some some lovely Radiophonic Workshop-evoking "zap"s on <i>The Joys Of Spring</i>. And of course you get the theme music bookending each story, that will take those of a certain age straight back to weekday teatimes just before the 5:40pm news. Happily, a whole bunch can be found on YouTube, and since it's the appropriate time of year, here's </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The Joys Of Spring</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Be careful though; if you're anything like me you'll be drawn into a Willo The Wisp rabbit hole for the next couple of hours.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Well all right, just one more. Here's <i>The Thoughts Of Moog</i>:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bought the same day and also costing a pound was this LP from Hanna-Barbera Productions:</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yogi Bear and Boo Boo - Little Red Riding Hood and Jack & The Beanstalk<br />(1977)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Tucked up in their cave for winter, here Jellystone's smarter-than-average bear tells his old pal <b>Boo Boo</b> a couple of pre-hibernation bedtime stories. The whole thing has a fun 60s vibe, the opening theme a perfect beat group pastiche, and Jack of Beanstalk fame described by <b>Yogi </b>as a dropout who'd sold all his personal possessions, <i>"even his Beatle records"</i> - imagine that! Funniest of all is Little Red Riding Hood, portrayed as a sneaker-wearing, scooter-riding, jive-talking (she calls her Grandmother <i>"baby"</i>) teenager. Just like the original Red she takes zero nonsense from the Big Bad Wolf, but in this incarnation adds some Judo moves to subdue him, rather than relying on some random man with an axe to turn up and save her.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The almost constant incidental music and zippy SFX keep the stories moving at an engaging pace, and both tales are summed up in song; Jack's by a minstrel wielding a jangly guitar, and Red's in the form of a beat-style reading over a cool, finger-snappin' jazzy background. Groovy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In August last year I bought a pile of 50 pence 7" singles from one stall, among them this little beauty:</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Tweety Pie - I Taut I Taw A Puddy Tat b/w Bugs Bunny - I'm Glad That I'm<br />Bugs Bunny (1970)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This 1970 single is on Music For Pleasure's children's imprint 'Surprise Surprise', and contains two Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies songs recorded and originally released on 78rpm shellac in 1950. They feature three characters from the "Man Of 1000 Voices" Mel Blanc; <b>Tweety</b> and his nemesis <b>Sylvester</b> on <i>I Taut I Taw A Puddy Tat</i> (as played on the <a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-16/" target="_blank">latest CBVD cloudcast</a>) and our favourite rabbit on the b-side, with <i>I'm Glad That I'm Bugs Bunny</i>. Both sign off with the Looney Tunes, er, tune, which is worth the 50p alone as far as I'm concerned.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Less good value for money was this, bought for £1 the following weekend:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Scooby Doo and the Snowmen Mystery</b> was released in 1973 as part of Music For Pleasure's 'Merry Go Round' series. I was quite excited to find this, until upon listening it became clear that MfP's budget didn't run to hiring Don Messick and co. to play their parts, or even to licencing original material from CBS. Instead, a handful of British voice actors were employed, which unfortunately is glaringly obvious from the collection of ropey US accents on display. Fred actually sounds more like the original Shaggy, but worst of all is poor Daphne; saddled with a gruffer voice than the original Velma, she gives Dick Van Dyke's cockney chimney sweep a run for his money in the comedy accent stakes, as well as sounding like she's got a serious problem with tranquilisers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Still, if you can get past this, the story isn't so bad. After more beat group pastiche on intro song <i>Mystery Incorporated</i> the gang interrupt their vacation to investigate strange goings-on in Switzerland. Their adventures lead them to uncover the usual plot by a super-baddie to take over the world, and there are some decent sound effects and musical interludes to keep things fresh.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's a small taste of Scoob and Shaggy's dialogue, followed by the Bacharach-ian <i>What Would I Do Without You</i>, to play us out.</span><br />
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minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-80108154091502973802017-03-09T12:02:00.000+00:002017-03-09T12:02:28.642+00:00CBVD Cloudcast 16<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The latest episode of Car Boot Vinyl Diaries is now on Mixcloud, with all sorts of car boot bangers and chazza choons. The Featured Album is a collection of BBC Sporting Themes, there's a a great French-language Kinks cover from Petula Clark, and the rest of it runs the gamut from Tom Waits to Tweety Pie.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Use the player below or visit the CBVD Mixcloud page <a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/">https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-16%2F&hide_cover=1" width="80%"></iframe>
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<br />minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-61876397948942352642017-02-03T12:20:00.002+00:002017-02-03T12:20:47.974+00:005x7<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As I've mentioned before, I don't always have the patience to look through boxes of 7" singles, but when albums are thin on the ground I sometimes have a rummage, and somehow over the past 12 months I've amassed quite a few. Here's a somewhat random selection.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bought for 50p at a car boot sale last August was this well-known record from British vocal trio <b>The Avons</b>.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Avons - Seven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat b/w Alone At Eight (1959)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After an inauspicious start, sister-in-law duo The Avon Sisters (stepsisters Valerie and Elaine Murtagh) </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">dropped the "Sister" part of their name and </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">teamed up with singer Ray Adams. Se<i>ven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat</i> was their debut single and their biggest hit, topping out at no.3 in the UK. The song was first recorded earlier that year by US singer Paul Evans, who took it to no.9 in his home country.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm very fond of this cheeky but wholesome pop song about a frustrated motorist (driving what must be a fair sized vehicle considering the passenger load) and his polyamorous pal, especially the pleasing <i>"de-doody-doom-doom"</i> backing vox.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">From the same seller and also costing 50p was another old favourite on Columbia, this time from <b>Bobby Vinton</b>.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bobby Vinton - Blue Velvet b/w Is There A Place (Where I Can Go) (1963)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Blue Velvet</i> was a top 20 hit for Tony Bennett in 1951, then The Clovers in 1955 and The Statues in '59. Vinton had the most success with it, his piningly nostalgic rendition bagging two weeks at the top spot in the US in 1963. Although it didn't dent the UK chart, it eventually achieved a no.2 placing in 1990 when it was re-released, four years after it had been heavily featured in David Lynch's noir of the same name inspired by the song. The most recent version was Lana Del Ray's brooding interpretation, used in a TV ad for H&M in 2012.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Car boot season isn't up and running in my part of the world just yet, so I've been relying on the local charity shops for second hand music fixes. This has meant mostly CDs, but a couple of weeks ago I bought the first lot of chazza vinyl of 2017; a handful of 50p singles including this on Disques Vogue from <b>Pet Clark</b>.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Petula Clark - Il Faut Revenir (You'd Better Come Home) b/w Un Jeun Home Bien (1965)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Founded in 1947, Disques Vogue began by releasing jazz by American and French artists, expanding into pop towards the end of the '50s. Petula Clark signed with the label in 1957 and started having French-language hits in Europe as well as continuing to chart at home in the UK on Pye Records with songs sung in English. She also recorded material in Italian, Spanish and German, and her worldwide smash Downtown was released in four different languages.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Il Faut Revenir (You'd Better Come Home)</i> came out in 1965, and the b-side is a very tasty French-language cover of A Well Respected Man by label-mates the Kinks. This cover was also released as an a-side the same year on the Vogue Productions imprint, with a song called <i>Las Vegas</i> on the flip.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Also on Disques Vogue is this by <b>François Hardy</b>, bought at a boot sale last summer (another 50p-er).</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">François Hardy - Si C'est Ca b/w Je Serai La Pour Toi (1966)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Parisienne swoon-inducing pop singer Hardy joined Vogue in 1961, and like Clark sings in Italian and German as well as French and English. This single (the titles translate as <i>If This Is It</i> and <i>I'll Be There For You</i>) was a British release, made in England and distributed by Pye. Both sides are lovely; <i>Si C'est Ca</i> features just minimal guitar behind Hardy's enchanting vocal, but the slightly more produced b-side </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: center;"><i>Je Serai La Pour Toi</i> just edges it for me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: center;">Pye's association with Disques Vogue meant that they put out this next single on both imprints. I bought a copy in a local E.A.C.H. (East Anglian Children's Hospice) shop at the very end of December last year for a pound. (Sadly mine is the UK Pye version, not the rather sought-after French release.)</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Honeycombs - Have I The Right? b/w Please Don't Pretend Again (1964)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: center;">The Honeycombs were a squareish sixties London beat group, and were unusual for their time in having a female drummer; Ann 'Honey' Lantree, an ex-salon assistant to founding member and former hairdresser Martin Murray (rhythm guitar). <i>Have I The Right?</i> was written by Ken Howard and Alan Blaikely, who'd later go on to write for many other artists, including Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky Mick & Tich, Pet Clark, Lulu and, er, Rolf Harris. Produced by Joe Meek, the thumping beat of <i>HITR?</i> was bolstered by band members stomping on the stairs to the studio, to which Meek had attached a series of microphones using bicycle clips. This beefy stomp plus the novelty of a big-haired girl drummer helped propel the single to the top of the charts in the UK plus three other countries, with worldwide sales estimated at a million. Pye's canny practise of putting out multi-lingual releases was employed, with the German-language version reaching the same place in the German chart a month after the English original, and the label's penchant for artistic cross-pollination resulted in the band's fourth single being a cover of a Kinks song. It was called <i>Something Better Beginning</i>, and it flopped. Here they are with their smash hit to see us out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can keep up with all of my car boot and chazza finds by clicking the Twitter follow button at the top of the page, and hear me playing some of them on the all-vinyl cloudcast here: <a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/carbootvinyldiaries/">https://www.mixcloud.com/carbootvinyldiaries/</a></span><br />
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minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-79917939898091331902017-01-24T15:10:00.000+00:002017-01-24T15:16:14.034+00:00The good, the bad and the ugly<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the previous post on a <a href="http://carbootvinyldiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/neither-fish-nor-flesh.html" target="_blank">Terence Trent D'Arby album</a> I mentioned a hot August day last year when I returned home from a boot sale with quite a large haul of records, including several 78rpm singles. Due to their age these are often the most interesting kind of car boot record, not only giving us an idea of the musical trends of their time, but also social mores and popular attitudes. I bought ten in all on that sunny Sunday, and they cost 50p each. Let's have a look at a few.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The oldest of the lot is a slightly strange-looking disc with a raised edge at the outer rim and a rather non-shellac feel to it. It's also heavier than other 78s I've previously encountered.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The disc was produced by </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Zonophone Records</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> in 1911 and is a double-sided reissue of two single-sided records originally released in 1905 and 1906, hence "The Twin" label. At this time the recordings would have been made acoustically (i.e. into a horn), since electrical recording wasn't developed until the 1920s.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Performed by a British quartet named <b>The Minster Singers</b> , Side 1 is a version of <i>My Old Kentucky Home;</i> an anti-slavery ballad written in the mid-1800s by American songwriter Stephen Foster. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Whereas </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">My Old Kentucky Home</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> is a song sympathetic to the abolitionist cause and has evolved into an important part of American culture, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Side 2, </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">De Ring Tailed Coon,</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> is a different kettle of fish.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">From around 1880 to 1920 the in US, and to a lesser extent the UK, there was a craze for what were known as "Coon songs". Yikes. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These songs incorporated elements of ragtime and combined them with 'comedic' lyrics portraying very cartoonish stereotypes of African American people, often depicting them as lustful, lazy, dishonest and stupid with vices such as gambling and alcohol. In the UK, white "coon imitators" would perform them at music halls, and when I say there was a craze, I mean that the songs were <i>enormously</i> popular with the public at large, with sheet music selling in the millions in the English-speaking world, and the language and imagery filtering into art, film, commerce and even nursery rhymes, before eventually (and thankfully) falling out of favour. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">De Ring Tailed Coon</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> is</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> from the repertoire of Yorkshireman Alfred Scott-Gatty, who when he wasn't busy being an officer of arms spent his time as an amateur composer. He wrote a couple of dozen of these "Plantation Songs" as he called them, and they were to become his most popular works.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Both sides of the Minster Singers record are sung in a terrible accent meant to imitate that of enslaved African Americans, although to my ears sound more like dodgy attempts at a Scots accent. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's a Youtube video I found of Side 2 playing on a gramophone. I'd like to think it was actually just a song about a racoon, but.... well, listen for yourself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">No less interesting but much more enjoyable to listen to are a pair of singles by <b>Dinah Shore</b> and <b>Buddy Clark</b>.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dinah Shore and Buddy Clarke - Let's Do It b/w 'S Wonderful (1948)</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dinah Shore and Buddy Clark - My One And Only Highland Fling b/w<br />Baby It's Cold Outside (1949)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Tennessee native Dinah, born Frances Rose Shore, was a singer, actress and radio and television presenter whose recording career boasted 80 hits, mainly during the 1940s.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Her long career on the small screen </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">included a 1970s daytime show that amongst the usual light entertainment and lifestyle guest stars also numbered the likes of Iggy Pop and David Bowie.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's slightly fuzzy clip of them both on her couch:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Born in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1912, Buddy Clark rose to fame as a popular singer, beginning like most stars of his era on the radio before moving on to a career shifting shellac. His biggest hit came in 1946 with <i>Linda</i>, a song written by Jack Lawrence at the request of showbiz lawyer Jack Eastman for his six year-old daughter, future Beatle-botherer and veggie sausage saleswoman.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The first disc I bought by this wholesome duo is a perky <i>Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love)</i> from the pen of Cole Porter, backed by a breezy rendition of the Gershwin standard <i>'S Wonderful</i>. The other is <i>My One And Only Highland Fling</i>, originally from the 1949 movie The Barkleys of Broadway. Dinah and Buddy's version features a ropey Scots lilt from both, but not as toe-curlingly bad as those of Fred and Ginger in the film. The flip is a charming rendition of <i>Baby It's Cold Outside</i> complete with sound effects of a chilly wind and slamming door.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The same year as this latter single was released, Clark was killed in a plane crash. He was just 37. During his very last radio broadcast he'd performed a comic rendition of <i>Baby Face</i> with the Andrews Sisters, entertaining them and the studio audience with his impersonation of Al Jolson. Funnily enough, among this particular clutch of 78s bought last August were discs featuring both.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Vaudeville singer and actor <b>Al Jolson</b> is perhaps best remembered for sometimes performing in blackface, a branch of minstrelsy with a complex history that played its part in the cementing of racial stereotypes as well as the popularisation of black culture.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He was born Asa Yoelson in 1886 in a small Jewish village in Lithuania, and after his mother died young he and his family emigrated to the USA where Al became a megastar of stage and screen. In addition to his musical legacy he did tremendous work during WWII with the USO (of which he was a founder member), and despite his conservative leanings was a key player in the fight against racial discrimination via the promotion of black playwrights and actors on Broadway and in Hollywood.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The record of his I picked up features songs from the follow-up to his 1927 film The Jazz Singer; The Singing Fool.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Sonny Boy</i> is a song of cloying sentimentality, which obviously had great appeal, since it sold a million copies and remained at the top of the US charts for twelve weeks. My favourite use of the song is in the "Tuppy and the Terrier" episode of the Jeeves and Wooster TV series, where it's used to excruciating effect.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's the more chirpy flip side <i>There's a Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder</i>:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Like Jolson, <b>The Andrews Sisters</b> were of recent immigrant stock, their Greek father Anglicising the family name of Andreas upon his arrival in the USA. The close harmony trio of LaVerne, Patty and Maxine sold countless millions of records in their time, and became forces sweethearts of WWII during which they entertained Allied forces on three continents with the USO.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The sisters recorded a total of 47 songs with <b>Bing Crosby</b>, including the pair on this car boot 78:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters - Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?<br />b/w Quicksilver (1949)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?</i> (not the Van Morrison single) was released in late 1949 and charted in January 1950, peaking at no. 24. It was written by country artist Scotty Wiseman and later covered by the likes of Elvis, Eddie Cochran and Ringo Starr among dozens of others. Its b-side <i>Quicksilver</i> is a lighthearted number about a fickle lover, and fared better, climbing to no. 6. Doris Day also released a version the same year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here are Bing and the gals to see us out:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I hope you've enjoyed this peep into the past. To keep up with my car boot and chazza finds in real time you can follow me on Twitter by clicking the button at the top of the page. If you'd like to hear me giving some of them a spin go to the <a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/carbootvinyldiaries/" target="_blank">Car Boot Vinyl Diaries page</a> on Mixcloud.</span></div>
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minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-91421917143455740062017-01-10T15:05:00.002+00:002017-01-10T15:05:56.914+00:00Neither Fish Nor Flesh<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On one hot Sunday in the middle of August last year the first car boot sale I arrived at was heaving </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">from beginning to end </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">with vinyl and shellac to dig through. I bought so many 45s, 78s, 12"s and LPs</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> that I ran out of time, pennies and inclination to go on to the next port of call, and so returned home with a record bag bursting with 26 discs in all, plus a multi CD set in a faux LP sleeve.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Phew. 78s weigh a <i>lot</i>.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Amongst this heavy haul was <b>Terence Trent D'Arby</b>'s 1989 album <b>Neither Fish Nor Flesh</b>, bought in excellent condition with the original booklet intact for £2.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT3RVSJ7qsTnLnZQi5F0bseQziW_txI-Qw7fRzc_O3Mt1p7eak-AskMJhHfxYDrn8CCQxRDeugkRLC4Ht7Asuk2tupAE1CHCqY-2IhYZWcLDByIG0Eip36YBe6yH7lTWFXCRl0Dm9KAgWT/s1600/DSCN0158.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="398" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT3RVSJ7qsTnLnZQi5F0bseQziW_txI-Qw7fRzc_O3Mt1p7eak-AskMJhHfxYDrn8CCQxRDeugkRLC4Ht7Asuk2tupAE1CHCqY-2IhYZWcLDByIG0Eip36YBe6yH7lTWFXCRl0Dm9KAgWT/s400/DSCN0158.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Terence Trent D'Arby - Neither Fish Nor Flesh (1989)</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Inside booklet, with rice paper pages.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGs7brR-Twwx6BRgh98yrlT2x1sAtk_qZqAFl0wVh6h5k0axm6D_XdWLhlNB2k63WOKgpkTH_6rsuO7QhDDeGKOeI8f1peB7VdxvwY5_cwTO7Nh99buZD9-oaBwuM2m1ICQIgBnHK3u4Oc/s1600/DSCN0011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGs7brR-Twwx6BRgh98yrlT2x1sAtk_qZqAFl0wVh6h5k0axm6D_XdWLhlNB2k63WOKgpkTH_6rsuO7QhDDeGKOeI8f1peB7VdxvwY5_cwTO7Nh99buZD9-oaBwuM2m1ICQIgBnHK3u4Oc/s400/DSCN0011.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Definitely looks like fish to me, Terence.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">From rear of booklet.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Subtitled "A Soundtrack of Love, Faith, Hope and Destruction", this 2nd album from the Manhattan-born singer, songwriter and musician (now releasing music under the name Sananda Maitreya) followed 1987's multi-platinum "Introducing The Hardline According To...". Unlike Hardline, NFNF tanked, peaking at no.12 on the UK album chart before dropping out entirely after just <a href="http://www.officialcharts.com/search/albums/neither%20fish%20nor%20flesh/" target="_blank">five weeks</a>. Lead single <i>This Side of Love</i> fared even worse, scraping into the Top 100 at just no.83.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It seems that a combination of ego and ambition scuppered the project, with D'Arby making wild proclamations both about himself and his latest work, with the latter sounding very different from the chart-friendly pop smashes that characterised his debut. Even today on his website Sananda makes outlandish claims, such as that NFNF was a <i>"formative influence on both what subsequently became marketed as 'Hip Hop', as well as what was sold as 'Grunge'".</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Maybe he truly believes this, but it's a huge shame that such posturing probably put a lot of fans off from buying what turns out to be a phenomenally good record; one that's perhaps borne of overindulgence and ego-led ambition, but succeeds in </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">melding funk and R&B to catchy, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">psychedelic pop. There's a huge cast of musicians, with D'Arby himself on a variety of instruments including Fender Rhodes, sitar, timpani, "scratching" and er, kazoo. He's also credited with things like "Aural Manipulations" and "Sound Manifestations", not to mention the highly intriguing and un-Googlable "Other Phaqueries". Hmm.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It starts quietly, the spoken-word <i>Declaration: Neither Fish Nor Flesh</i> giving way to the sparse but melodic <i>I Have Faith In These Desolate Times</i>, whose harp accompaniment by "The Lovely Helen Davies" (sleeve notes) in the first half is joined by Terence on bongos in the second, before an abrupt end. After the eerie and equally sparse <i>It Feels So Good To Love Someone Like You</i> it's not until the middle of Side 1 that things really get going, with the sexy pop-soul of <i>To Know Someone Deeply Is To Know Someone Softly</i> when That Voice is finally unleashed; those sweet, silken tones hitting all the right buttons and delivering the most romantic and least pretentious lyrics on an album that has its fair share of cringeworthy couplets.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">From here the tempo increases and the song titles become snappier, highlights being AIDS story <i>Billy Don't Fall</i>, its punchy percussion and whistling keyboard riff reminiscent of hit Wishing Well; the staccato funk of<i> You Will Pay Tomorrow;</i> and minor soul belter <i>I'll Be Alright</i>, with lyrical nods to Prince and the Beach Boys.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Towards the end of the album song titles stretch out again with a corresponding lowering of pace, firstly with powerful deep soul ballad <i>I Don't Want To Bring Your Gods Down</i>. Stax-y horns and D'Arby's full-throated wail contrast with an intermittent minor-key violin part; an unsettling but typical and effective TTD touch. Closer <i>...And I Need To Be With Someone Tonight</i> is a solo a cappella with layers of TTD harmony, engaging for the way in which he's clearly enjoying playing around with his voice, but spoiled somewhat by lyrics like the clunky, "<i>Though apartheid's a greater issue, I long to hear "I miss you" </i>". Erk!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's a damn shame that this album didn't sell well, and although D'Arby's posturing may have deterred potential buyers, the bigger factor may have been a lack of marketing push behind it due to the eccentric and ambitious nature of both the artist and his creation. I only say this because after loving the debut, Neither Fish Nor Flesh seemed to entirely pass me by at the time, even though I eagerly bought the follow-up Symphony Or Damn. Perhaps if NFNF had contained a sure-fire 'hit' to promote as a single it would have done better. Whatever the reasons, if you've not heard it I urge you to give it a whirl, in case like me it means you've been missing out on a massively enjoyable record all these years.</span></div>
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minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-57551084499389926782016-12-24T09:16:00.001+00:002016-12-24T09:16:11.483+00:00Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016 - Day 10<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's Day 10 of the 2016 Car Boot Christmas Countdown, which means it's also Christmas Eve, and today is the turn of the Christmas crooners. Let's begin with the King Of Cool, and a record I nabbed for a pound at a car boot sale on this year's May Bank Holiday weekend.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Dean Martin Christmas Album (1966)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The Dean Martin Christmas Album</b> was Dino's second festive offering, the first being 1959's Winter Wonderland, which shares a few tracks including the tenuous inclusion of <i>The Things We Did Last Summer</i>. Aside from this, many of the old chestnuts are here, such as a delightful <i>Marshmallow World,</i> a <i>Blue Christmas</i> to rival that of Elvis, and of course everyone's favourite, <i>Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow</i>, as so memorably used in Die Hard.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On the making of the album the sleeve notes state,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"'Twas the ninth of September, a very warm night, and we were in California. And on this hot desert night, not a sleigh or a jingle bell in sight.... Dean Martin sauntered into his friendly neighbourhood recording studio and made himself an album of song. Christmas song."</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">His vocals must have been dubbed separately, as there are plenty of bells here, as well as tinkling xylophone, jaunty strings and sweet backing vocals. The combination of these with Dino's laid back, nonchalant style results in a seemingly effortless, gently swinging, warm and breezy record that's completely </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">uplifting and</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> a joy from start to finish.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Less uplifting, despite the title, is <b>A Jolly Christmas From Frank Sinatra</b>, which I bought for 50p in August 2015.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj035AnjkuZ-lMP_e6VpGOi0ZiTnRiJLBG_0Sw5Nj8yQcU2tLwaoIX0jJjLfaW9zbhVopRnHxrCi2fuHN-emisBfca2poCVdQfNN3O7sSl4YvuWr-eNJ6cRGPAREkL_bxo6sLw7O2lmNsef/s1600/DSCN0003.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj035AnjkuZ-lMP_e6VpGOi0ZiTnRiJLBG_0Sw5Nj8yQcU2tLwaoIX0jJjLfaW9zbhVopRnHxrCi2fuHN-emisBfca2poCVdQfNN3O7sSl4YvuWr-eNJ6cRGPAREkL_bxo6sLw7O2lmNsef/s400/DSCN0003.JPG" width="395" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A Jolly Christmas From Frank Sinatra (1957)</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4PKdv6o2yHxmsawV9L271Swa5uj9x472Fj2WBQCGjnbKiOvRb6ZES67oHFhdq7g5cuehuxvaMO55DTzYb5rcCdDI7tXGE_V4OslANQTES7cvSUEuD9FIEdqvSEqFXwMNCj28GsINMgeLg/s1600/The+Sinatra+Christmas+Album.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4PKdv6o2yHxmsawV9L271Swa5uj9x472Fj2WBQCGjnbKiOvRb6ZES67oHFhdq7g5cuehuxvaMO55DTzYb5rcCdDI7tXGE_V4OslANQTES7cvSUEuD9FIEdqvSEqFXwMNCj28GsINMgeLg/s200/The+Sinatra+Christmas+Album.jpg" width="196" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Alternative cover and title</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">First released in 1957, my copy is a slightly later US issue with Capitol's "rainbow" label. Assisted by the "orchestra and chorus of Gordon Jenkins" (the chorus being the Ralph Brewster Singers), like many before and after him Frank brings us one side of popular Christmas songs and one of carols.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I found the album to be rather leaden and samey, and in particular Frank's delivery isn't suited to the carols, which for me fall flattest. But as a nice bit of background music it's pleasant enough, and no doubt could act effectively as a soothing accompaniment to that post-Christmas dinner booze-snooze in the armchair.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the '60s the album was briefly issued as "The Sinatra Christmas Album" with a different cover image. When it was reissued on vinyl in 2010, the original title and artwork were restored.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Last but by no means least is <b>A Jack Jones Christmas</b>, which cost me a pound in March 2015.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDuMAfwLLD2ueu8XyWdUVwMGsjVJCSGUtb8WaF-rht7GlwIuyKSL4heXpVqVHaSFWRSsExJDl5AOr77mi9qPbaUMfvQVuumlclfziGQETFMVQd-vyhNdgeyTfSjRCv1FAK-B-RnKLSBmK-/s1600/001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="395" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDuMAfwLLD2ueu8XyWdUVwMGsjVJCSGUtb8WaF-rht7GlwIuyKSL4heXpVqVHaSFWRSsExJDl5AOr77mi9qPbaUMfvQVuumlclfziGQETFMVQd-vyhNdgeyTfSjRCv1FAK-B-RnKLSBmK-/s400/001.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A Jack Jones Christmas (1969)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Like Dean Martin, this RCA release was Jack's second Christmas album, coming after 1964's equally imaginatively titled "The Jack Jones Christmas Album" on Kapp Records. After Frank 'n' Dino's Burgundy baritones, Jack's easygoing tenor makes for a nice change, and as well as the usual parade of suspects he throws in some curveballs like gospel number <i>Little Altar Boy</i>, Bacharach and David's <i>Christmas Day</i> from the Broadway musical Promises Promises, and a look at the different ways Jesus is perceived around the world in <i>Some Children See Him</i>. There's also the inexplicable inclusion of <i>Oh Happy Day</i>; an odd choice, but it fits in quite well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The highlights for me are his a cappella version of <i>Oh Little Town of Bethlehem</i>, the aforementioned <i>Little Altar Boy</i>, and best of all his absolutely winning rendition of <i>Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas</i>, the latter making the perfect signing-off track for Car Boot Christmas 2016, which you can listen to using the player below.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-christmas-2016%2F&hide_cover=1" width="100%"></iframe>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/">https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/</a><br /><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Thanks for joining me; I hope you've enjoyed this year's countdown and the accompanying cloudcast, and I also hope you can pop back in the new year to see and hear what other records I've been liberating from car boot sales and charity shops here on the Suffolk coast.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Wishing you a happy and peaceful Christmas, whatever it is you're up to.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Minibreakfast xxx</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-46933377290232179882016-12-23T08:10:00.000+00:002016-12-23T08:10:10.368+00:00Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016 - Day 9<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Welcome to Day 9 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016. On this penultimate festive blog post we're looking at two LPs that are both over 50 years old. Both are in remarkable condition despite their age and the fact that they were found languishing at car boot sales.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">First up is <b>Ray Conniff and the Ray Conniff Singers - We Wish You A Merry Christmas</b>, which cost 50p last October.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL4t7dABly5bqrkuMhBLtR1Ldd8RhYvcL2tr24cdWAte26vTkLNktQvJCw73JySqYCXCOEyFCXC8BAcXTrNUzNrR8cZ2ULK4QlKH41gNTUeW023KEOlcooQSoxA0UyeqfJ0z8Bq5_E-pug/s1600/DSCN0259.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL4t7dABly5bqrkuMhBLtR1Ldd8RhYvcL2tr24cdWAte26vTkLNktQvJCw73JySqYCXCOEyFCXC8BAcXTrNUzNrR8cZ2ULK4QlKH41gNTUeW023KEOlcooQSoxA0UyeqfJ0z8Bq5_E-pug/s400/DSCN0259.JPG" width="398" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ray Conniff and the Ray Conniff Singers - We Wish You A Merry<br />Christmas (1962)</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikp_18hAuoKlvgygWbkBq4e8DLC3uwYY4m7WCiwBeqM0DJJhDE2RYS32BvtkO5FEl05NCzPyDqCG8VSMWy23TXm-iU_3g1sRfcvpahxZx3GSj49QkTiavrkto01gSYsYS_vFo3e_SfBs-_/s1600/DSCN0093.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikp_18hAuoKlvgygWbkBq4e8DLC3uwYY4m7WCiwBeqM0DJJhDE2RYS32BvtkO5FEl05NCzPyDqCG8VSMWy23TXm-iU_3g1sRfcvpahxZx3GSj49QkTiavrkto01gSYsYS_vFo3e_SfBs-_/s200/DSCN0093.JPG" width="195" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1970s reissue with cropped<br />image, also found last year.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Born Joseph Raymond Conniff in Massachusetts in 1916, Ray was a prolific bandleader and arranger, having 28 albums in the US Top 40 between 1957 and 1968. His most successful output was that with his "Ray Conniff Singers", numbering 13 men and 12 women at any one time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here they present all the Yuletide favourites you'd expect, plus a couple of other less commonly covered numbers; for instance <i>Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)</i> from the film White Christmas appears as part of a medley. In fact the album is mainly composed of medleys, with just two standalone songs; <i>Ring Christmas Bells</i> (aka Carol of the Bells) and a surprisingly enjoyable version of the normally tedious <i>The Twelve Days of Christmas</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Conniff was renowned for his vocal arrangements, and the harmonies here are unmatched, the highlight for me being <i>O Holy Night</i>, where the soaring layers of voice give me genuine tingles. Unsurprisingly the album went gold in 1963, and it continued to chart year after year in the 1960s. It remains a bona fide Christmas classic, and for those who grew up with it playing in their home, a veritable time machine.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Track list.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Side 1.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1. Medley: Jolly Old St. Nicholas; The Little Drummer Boy.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">2. Medley: O Holy Night; We Three Kings of Orient Are; Deck The Halls With Boughs of Holly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">3. Ring Christmas Bells.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Side 2.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1. Medley: Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!; Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep); We Wish You A Merry Christmas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">2. The Twelve Days of Christmas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">3. Medley: The First Noel; Hark! The Herald Angels Sing; O Come, All Ye Faithful; We Wish You A Merry Christmas.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I paid £1.50 for a copy of <b>Harry Belafonte</b>'s <b>To Wish You A Merry Christmas</b> in April this year.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Harry Belafonte - To Wish You A Merry Christmas (1958)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Compared to the cheery sound of the Ray Conniff Singers this album comes as a bit of a downer. Although Belafonte tackled all kinds of folk music, he's best known for hits such as Jump In The Line and Island In The Sun, but if you were expecting this album to deliver a calypso Christmas you'd be in for a disappointment. That's not to say it has nothing to offer; if you like your carols delivered solemnly with traditional, sparse instrumentation, then you'll enjoy this low-key collection. As well as the well-worn carols there are others less familiar, such as <i>A Star In The East</i> and <i>Jehovah the Lord Will Provide</i>. Harry's soft voice is matched by the gentle playing of guitar virtuoso Laurindro Almeida, and the most upbeat the album gets is the marching pipe and drums on <i>Christmas Is Coming</i>. Verdict: tender and mild.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Track list.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Side 1.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1. A Star In The East.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">2. The Gifts They Gave.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">3. The Son of Mary*.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">4. The Twelve Days of Christmas.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">5. Where The Little Jesus Sleeps.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">6. Medley: The Joys of Christmas; O Little Town of Bethlehem; Deck The Halls; The First Noel.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Side 2.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">1. Mary, Mary.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">2. Jehovah the Lord Will Provide.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">3. Silent Night.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">4. Christmas Is Coming.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">5. Medley: We Wish You A Merry Christmas; God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen; O Come All Ye Faithful; Joy To The World.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">6. I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Be sure to come back tomorrow - Christmas Eve! - for the final installment of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown, with three great albums by some beloved crooners. You can hear me playing the best selections from my festive record boxes on the family-friendly Car Boot Christmas 2016 cloudcast. Use the player below or follow the link to Mixcloud.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-christmas-2016%2F&hide_cover=1" width="100%"></iframe>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/">https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/</a></span><br />
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<br />minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-68250264861770687102016-12-22T08:12:00.000+00:002016-12-22T08:12:56.146+00:00Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016 - Day 8<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's Day 8 of this year's Car Boot Christmas Countdown, and today it's the turn of the ladies of country. Let's begin with the First Lady Of Country, <b>Tammy Wynette</b>, whose Christmas album I picked up for a pound at a car boot sale back in April.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Christmas With Tammy Wynette (this edition 1982, original release was 1970)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Like fellow pioneering country artist Charlie Pride, Tammy was also from Mississippi and a successful sportsperson before moving into music, having been a top basketball player in her high school year. Like several of the Christmas albums covered in these pages, this one is split in to two distinct sides. The first consists of reverently delivered carols including <i>Gentle Shepherd </i>and <i>O Little Town Of Bethlehem</i>, and with the Jordanaires swooning behind Tammy as she sings "no criyyb for his beyyd", </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Away In A Manger</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> never sounded more Nashville.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Side 2 is my favourite, however, where backed by The Nashville Edition Tammy lets loose the heartache on popular songs such as <i>Blue Christmas</i>, before eventually perking up when her man returns home for the festivities on <i>One Happy Christmas</i>. But he's dun left her agin by next song <i>Lovely Christmas Call</i> where she pleads with him to return for the sake of the children. He doesn't, but the reverence does for final number <i>Let's Put The Christ Back Into Christmas</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In October last year I spent 50p on a copy of <b>Christmas Day With Kitty Wells</b>.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY2yQF-poBrFaxUOuooDte0osduZf7oshk2kvjCmCyxAm-rU3gTY77D_FsnDnUXJ6LI9g2DIyQlCdxQ9jWJfUtRYv7iqsj91fSN1D3f5UgrQ5DnThwhjhkl7AridaRnSiJqj-SnSUko8Nq/s1600/DSCN0246.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY2yQF-poBrFaxUOuooDte0osduZf7oshk2kvjCmCyxAm-rU3gTY77D_FsnDnUXJ6LI9g2DIyQlCdxQ9jWJfUtRYv7iqsj91fSN1D3f5UgrQ5DnThwhjhkl7AridaRnSiJqj-SnSUko8Nq/s400/DSCN0246.JPG" width="395" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Christmas Day With Kitty Wells (1962)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Also featuring backing vocals by The Jordanaires, this 1962 release by Nashville native Wells (born Ellen Muriel Deason) is a cheerier affair than Tammy's, opening with <i>Dasher With The Light Upon His Tail, C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S </i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and a sleigh bell laden <i>Santa's On His Way</i>. As well as a great cover of Gene Autrey's <i>Here Comes Santa Claus</i> there are a couple of carols, plus the seemin</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">gly compulsory </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Blue Christmas</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and </span><i style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">White Christmas</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. Wells throws in a little heartbreak with <i>Christmas Ain't Like Christmas Anymore</i>, but jollity is immediately restored with a chirpy cowgirl rendition of <i>Jingle Bells</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As far as I can tell the album wasn't released outside the US, but these days UK folks can buy it as download.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On a freezing Sunday morning in February 2015 I splurged five pounds (now approximately half a Euro) on a copy of something I'd been hoping to spot in the wild for ages: <b>Light Of The Stable</b> by <b>Emmylou Harris</b>.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Emmylou Harris - Light of the Stable (1979)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This 1979 release was named after the title track, which had come out as a single four years earlier with Bluebird Wine on the b-side. A prolific collaborator, Emmylou is joined on this song by Neil Young and Trio partners Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Parton on harmony vocals. Other contributors include Willie Nelson and Ricky Skaggs providing vocals on <i>Angel Eyes (Angel Eyes)</i> and singer-songwriter Nancy Ahern duetting with Emmylou on <i>Away In A Manger</i>. Among the musicians contributing to the largely acoustic backing are Rodney Crowell, Albert Lee and autoharpist Bryan Bowers (misspelled as 'Brian' on the sleeve notes).</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Alternative cover art</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Emmylou's incredible voice shines particularly brightly on the a cappella <i>The First Noel</i>, but my favourites are bluegrass opener <i>Christmas Time's A-Coming</i>, an absolutely beautiful <i>Little Drummer Boy</i>, and of course the title track. The album has been reissued many times over the years on both CD and vinyl, with a few alternative covers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You can hear tracks from many of the albums featured in the countdown, plus lots more, on the all-vinyl Car Boot Christmas 2016 cloudcast. Use the player below or click the link to go to Mixcloud. Do come back tomorrow, Friday the 23rd of December, for the penultimate day of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown and two great festive records from the 1950s and '60s.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-christmas-2016%2F&hide_cover=1" width="100%"></iframe>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/">https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-39107891341404063662016-12-21T08:34:00.002+00:002016-12-21T08:34:49.019+00:00Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016 - Day 7<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Today's festive LPs were kindly sent to me as </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">earlier this year by a dear chum; charity shop connoisseur and tat-magnet </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Beany</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. The first has already become one of my favourite ever Christmas albums; </span><b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The Swingalongs Present: </b><b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Sing A Song Of Christmas.</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Swingalongs Present: Sing A Song Of Christmas (1973)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">According to the notes on the back cover this MfP release was "Arranged and produced by the same team that made Tijuana Christmas", i.e the greatest ever Christmas album (billed as being by the <a href="http://carbootvinyldiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/car-boot-christmas-countdown-day-4.html" target="_blank">Torero Band</a>), so no surprise that it raced into my Top Ten so quickly.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Indeed, Alan Moorhouse is named as arranger and director, with Bill Wellings as producer. The "20 non-stop Christmas songs" are in fact arranged into half a dozen medleys of the usual suspects, all carols except opener </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jingle Bells</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The up-tempo stuff is totally groovy, with a swinging drummer, funky bassist, plus of course the other trademark instruments used by this set-up such as xylophone, organ and of course trumpet. The vocals are great; harmonious and sweet with faux-American accents, these guys 'n' gals are square as hell, but hugely entertaining, although by the end of Side 2 their relentlessness can be a little wearing, especially on the slower carol medleys.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are plenty of parts that put a grin on my face, including </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the bouncy percussion and farty brass of the opening medley, and</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> a brief but sexy organ flourish between </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ding Dong Merrily On High</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We Three Kings</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. Another album I now need to look out for is the only other one released under The Swingalongs' name; a double with Bert Shorthouse and his Glenlomond Band called "Merry Christmas And A Happy New Year". It has Bert and co. on the second disc playing 20 non-stop New Year's party tunes, and presumably on the Christmas-themed first disc by The Swingalongs the same non-stop recordings as on my album, having an <a href="https://www.discogs.com/The-Swingalongs-Bert-Shorthouse-And-His-Glenlomond-Band-Merry-Christmas-And-A-Happy-New-Year-/release/8902098" target="_blank">identical track list</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Also in the surprise package from Beany was </span><b style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">The Julie Andrews Christmas Album</b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Julie Andrews Christmas Album (1983)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here Julie is backed by a symphony orchestra as she makes her way through a clutch of familiar favourites plus a few more unusual songs such as French carol <i>Patapan</i> (the English translation rather than the Burgundian original), Christian folk hymn <i>I Wonder As I Wander</i>, and a goosebump-inducing version of Bing Crosby's <i>The Secret Of Christmas</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Julie has several Christmas albums in her discography, but this particular set of songs has been issued more than once (this 1983 edition is a Reader's Digest release), firstly in 1975 (minus two tracks) as "The Secret Of Christmas", then in 1982 as "Christmas With Julie Andrews", and again in 1987 as "The Sound Of Christmas" complete with Sound Of Music rip-off cover art:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The lush, movie soundtrack-style orchestration suits her crystal clear soprano beautifully, and with Julie you can relax safe in the knowledge that she's never going to miss one of the high notes - and there are plenty of those here!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Join me again tomorrow, Thursday the 22nd of December (getting close now!), for Day 8 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown with Yuletide albums from three ladies of country. Hear me playing over an hour of car boot and charity shop Christmas music using the player below or by following the link to Mixcloud.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-christmas-2016%2F&hide_cover=1" width="100%"></iframe>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/">https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/</a></span><br />
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<br />minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-68074510416920525052016-12-20T07:33:00.001+00:002016-12-20T07:34:35.486+00:00Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016 - Day 6<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Welcome to Day 6 of this year's Car Boot Christmas Countdown. After yesterday's parp-fest it's time to look at a couple of different seasonal albums, starting with <b>Merry Christmas Baby</b>, bought in June 2015 for £2.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Various Artists - Merry Christmas Baby (1985)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stanley Lewis worked as a record distributor and jukebox operator, until in 1963, encouraged by none other than Leonard Chess, he founded <b>Jewel Records </b>in Shreveport, Lousiana, recording gospel, blues and jazz. Six artists in all are featured on this 1985 compilation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Jazz pianist Ronnie Kole was born in Chicago and found success in New Orleans, eventually opening the now famous club Kole's Korner. Here with his Trio he provides two great instrumentals in <i>Winter Wonderland</i> and <i>Silent Night, Holy Night.</i> Louisiana-born singer and pianist Bobby Powell moved from playing gospel in the 1950s, through blues in the '60s to soul and R&B in the '70s. Here he's represented by two versions of the same piece, a Deep Soul vocal ballad called <i>The Bells</i>, and the instrumental version called <i>Bing Bong</i> that graced the b-side of the 1971 single release.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />The star of the show is Charles Brown, a blues singer and pianist from Texas City whose hit <i>Merry Christmas Baby</i> lends its title to the album. This R&B Christmas standard was first recorded in 1947 by Johnny Moore's The Blazes, and featured a young Charles Brown on piano. Perhaps the best known version today is that by Bruce Springsteen, as heard on the <a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2014/" target="_blank">2014 Car Boot Christmas cloudcast</a>. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Brown's million-selling </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Please Come Home For Christmas</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> is here too, as well as his sublime </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christmas In Heaven</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Merry Christmas Baby has been reissued on CD in various guises since 1985 with later re-recordings and additional tracks, although I gather that they don't add much to the original US-only LP, which is all killer and no filler.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Costing £1 in October of 2015 was <b>Noël</b> by <b>Joan Baez</b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span id="goog_922844004"></span><span id="goog_922844005"></span>Arranged by Peter Schickele a.k.a. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._D._Q._Bach" target="_blank">PDQ Bach</a>, here Joan delivers a dozen songs, her crystal clear soprano taking centre stage. Rather than her usual folky style the orchestration is classical with a medieval feel in parts, thanks to instruments like harpsichord, recorder, lute, baroque organ and a "consort of viols". With delicate enunciation she sings <i>Ave Maria</i> in German and an absolutely gorgeous <i>Cantique de Noël</i> in French, as well as the English translation of Catalan traditional <i>Carol of the Birds</i>. Other seldom-heard traditionals include <i>Down In Yon Forest</i> and <i>Mary's Wandering</i>. A handful of instrumentals are slotted in; three as short intervals, and <i>Angels We Have Heard On High</i> as a standalone piece.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The material suits her </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">bell-like</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> voice well, and though the album feels a little staid in places it's still very enjoyable, especially when compared to some other artists' more syrupy Christmas output. It's quite a common sight at car boot sales and charity shops, and certainly worth picking up next time you see it. You may also be able to find the 2001 CD remaster, issued in 2001 with 6 extra tracks.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You can hear picks from both of these albums and lots more on Car Boot Christmas 2016; listen to the cloudcast on the player below or click the link to go to the Mixcloud page. Shares, comments and likes will be most welcome. Be sure to come back tomorrow, Wednesday the 21st of December, where I'll be looking a couple of very special charity shop finds!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/" target="_blank">https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/</a></span>
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minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-41146028145229804292016-12-19T07:25:00.000+00:002016-12-19T07:25:18.003+00:00Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016 - Day 5<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's Day 5 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown, which means that we're halfway to Christmas Eve already. As promised, today we're going Totally Tijuana with a trio of budget label Yuletide parp-fests.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Let's start with this, bought at a car boot sale during the summer of 2015 for a pound.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Released on Hallmark the same year as Herb Alpert's festive offering, <b>Tijuana Christmas</b> by <b>The Border Brass & Singers</b> is a fun collection of twelve familiar tunes in a pseudo-Mariachi style. The title track that opens Side 1 is not especially Christmassy, but it's very jaunty, with clip-clop percussion, a neighing horse (obviously) and some breathy "pah-pah-pah" female vocals. In fact the clean cut chorus of guys and girls provide a slew of <i>pah-pah-pahs</i>, <i>da-da-das</i> and even some<i> bum-bum-bums</i> to go with the <i>fa-la-la-la-las;</i> and with all the bells, chimes, maracas, and of course that twin trumpet sound, this record is a kitsch delight. <i>Deck The Halls</i> features strident harpsichord, as does the rattling arrangement of <i>We Wish You A Merry Christmas. Angels We Have Heard On High</i> incorporates ringing barrelhouse piano, and the clip-clopping reappears for the one-horse open sleigh in <i>Jingle Bells</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The album was released without the overlaid vocals as by just 'The Border Brass' in the US and 'La Nouvelle Génération' in Canada:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In addition, there are a couple of other versions the same as the UK release i.e. with vocals, but with variations of title, band name and cover art. These are a US release called 'Tijuana Voices With Brass Sing Merry Christmas' and an Australian one named 'Jingle Bells Tijuana Style':</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bought last summer for 50p is another album called <b>Tijuana Brass</b>, this time by <b>Louis Gomez Mexican Brass</b>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was released on Chevron Records, a </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">UK budget label</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> exclusively licensed to the Woolworth's chain. There was no Loius Gomez of course; the arranger was one Pete Winslow, who also played trumpet, and he's accompanied here by session musicians on Hammond organ, marimba, twangy guitar and jazzy percussion.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Although the sleeve notes claim <i>"Louis Gomez and his Mexican Brass play some of those songs that will always be associated with Christmas"</i>, there are quite a lot you wouldn't, including ones called <i>Snowbird, Post Horn Rock, Londonderry Air</i> a.k.a. 'Danny Boy', and <i>There Is A Tavern In The Town</i> which you'd most likely recognise as 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes'.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some are perky and some mellow, but they're all groovesome and the jazziest of the Tijuana cohort, especially their arrangement of the perennial <i>Winter Wonderland</i>. If you see it hanging around in a charity shop try not to let the cover put you off buying it, as it's a really fun, swingin' record.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Not quite as swingin' is the album by the genre's originator, <b>Christmas With Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass</b>, sent to me last December by dear pal and fellow car boot botherer Beany.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This 1971 reissue of what was originally titled "Christmas Album" is on the Mayfair imprint, a budget series belonging to Herb's own label A&M. It was distributed by Pye, and when held up to strong light the otherwise black-looking vinyl disc becomes red and translucent, like much of Pye's output in the 1970s.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The voice and string arrangements on this mixture of mostly secular standards are by Shorty Rogers, with brass arrangements by Alpert, and include <i>Winter Wonderland, Sleigh Ride</i> and <i>Jingle Bells</i>, along with Herb giving voice to <i>The Bell That Couldn't Jingle</i> and <i>Christmas Song.</i> More unusual are <i>Las Mañanitas</i> (a traditional Mexican birthday song that translates as "The Little Mornings"), Bach's <i>Jesu, Joy of Man's Desire</i>, and the rather odd choice of <i>My Favourite Things</i> from The Sound Of Music.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's a pleasant enough record but a little too... well... <i>tasteful</i> for my tastes; far more restrained and even muted in comparison to his usual Tijuana Brass albums, and often not even very Christmassy. But it still reached no.1 on the US album chart every year between 1968 and 1970, so it clearly hit the spot for many.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'll be back tomorrow (Tuesday the 20th of December) with more festive car bootery, but until then you can listen to me introducing and playing over an hour of all-vinyl Christmas tunes on Car Boot Christmas 2016. It's totally family-friendly, and you can use the player below or click the link to go directly to Mixcloud.</span></div>
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-christmas-2016%2F&hide_cover=1" width="100%"></iframe><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/" target="_blank">https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/</a></span><br />
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minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-18228792395463306082016-12-18T09:13:00.001+00:002016-12-18T09:13:53.744+00:00Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016 - Day 4<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's already Day 4 of this year's Car Boot Christmas Countdown, and after yesterday's trio of country gents it's time for something completely different.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Budget labels abound at car boot sales and charity shops, and <b>Non-Stop Christmas Disco</b> by <b>The Roller Disco Orchestra</b> is on Pickwick Records, a subsidiary of Pickwick International Inc. (GB) Ltd.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Roller Disco Orchestra - Non-Stop Christmas Disco (1979)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I know that for some folks the words budget + disco + Christmas = nightmare, but in my world the sheen and glitter of disco go well with the joy and triumph of Christmas music, and are a match made in Greenland. This two-disc set is all I'd hoped it would be, i.e. funky orchestral disco with the</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> whiff of fromage and </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a liberal sprinkling of sleigh bells. I'll let the slightly deranged sleeve notes explain more:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">"A chance to whiz round the disco in your own living room!... Could you ever believe you'd be bopping to GOOD KING WENCELAS (sic) or WE THREE KINGS?</span> </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">THE ROLLER DISCO ORCHESTRA present 10 tracks to roll into your hearts and leave you steaming on the carpet. Hang on to your mistletoe lovers - this one's guaranteed to keep you floored!</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">HAPPY CHRISCO TO YOU ALL!"</span> </blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjW2zKSTCxA58NDiAvqY382aaEep-u8Cz0_VLd5VqLFGSBEKXMae-ZOjmpwqd421XV7Ia5z98kUnMJ3tisZjQf54IsVCGkRLo8ZroLWODPP292q3nh_z6YCo9lwvT472KDRgzcA9pBk720/s1600/roller+disco+orchestra+modern+cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjW2zKSTCxA58NDiAvqY382aaEep-u8Cz0_VLd5VqLFGSBEKXMae-ZOjmpwqd421XV7Ia5z98kUnMJ3tisZjQf54IsVCGkRLo8ZroLWODPP292q3nh_z6YCo9lwvT472KDRgzcA9pBk720/s200/roller+disco+orchestra+modern+cover.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Reissue cover image</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The non-stop segued set is a mostly frantic affair aside from </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Deck The Halls</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> with its reggae beat and fart-along Moog, plus a few chilled grooves like <i>Little Drummer Boy</i> with whispered "rum-pum-pum-pum", and a sort of bump 'n' grind <i>We Three Kings</i>. It's largely instrumental apart from some occasional breathy vocals as decoration, and has become a firm favourite in the Car Boot Vinyl household, being one of the first records I reach for when December arrives.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's now available on CD as well as to download or stream. The updated cover art is rather generic, but thankfully the music is untouched and just as batshit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I picked up <b>The Bells of Christmas </b>by <b>Eddie Dunstedter</b> back in April of this year for a pound.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Eddie Dunstedter - The Bells of Christmas (1959)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">American composer and organist Dunstedter was active through the 1930s to the 1960s, and The Bells of Christmas was recorded after he'd already established a career scoring and playing music for TV and film. This version of the album was reissued in the UK in 1965 by Music For Pleasure. Eddie presents 18 carols played on a "4-manual, 24-rank organ containing approximately two thousand separate pipes", accompanied by xylophone, glockenspiel, celeste, marimba and vibraharp.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Original US cover art</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The sleeve notes claim <i>"Any voice, even the thin wavering tones of a child, can give meaning to Christmas carols; but the majestic voices of a great pipe organ* give them the most fitting expression of all."</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's a curious recording, quite muffled and very slow-paced, except for a brief step up in tempo on second track <i>March of the Three Kings</i>, after which it returns to a ponderous plod for the remainder. It might be quite good for lowering the blood pressure, but I find it far too samey to maintain my attention, and I'd say it's probably best enjoyed in small doses (and perhaps accompanied by large doses of cherry brandy).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Do swing by the blog tomorrow (Monday the 19th of December) for Day 5 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown where we'll be going Totally Tijuana! Until then you can hear me playing tunes from Eddie, The Roller Disco Orchestra and loads more on the 2016 cloudcast; use the player below or click the link to go to Mixcloud.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-christmas-2016%2F&hide_cover=1" width="100%"></iframe><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/" target="_blank"> https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/</a></span><br />
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minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-80883666943689456132016-12-17T08:39:00.000+00:002016-12-17T08:39:13.075+00:00Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016 - Day 3<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's Day 3 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown, and today's albums are from three male country artists. Let's start with this, bought in June of this year for £1.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Charley Pride - Christmas In My Home Town (1970)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Charley Pride</b> was born in in Mississippi and enjoyed a successful career as a baseball player before moving on to one in singing, becoming huge in the 1970s, mainly with the nana crowd. A pioneer in the world of African-American country, he remains one of only three black artists (all men) to be inducted into the Grand Ole Opry.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1998 CD cover</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1970's <b>Christmas In My Home Town</b> opens with the tinkling of bells and the cheerful title track, which is among the handful of pop-country Christmas songs here, the others being <i>Happy Christmas Day</i>, and of course <i>Santa And The Kids</i> which featured on <a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2014/" target="_blank">Car Boot Christmas 2014</a>. More traditional country style tracks such as <i>The First Christmas Morn</i> and <i>Christmas And Love</i> benefit from the dreamy backing vocals of The Jordinaires, but the carols work less well, his renditions of <i>Deck The Halls</i> and <i>Silent Night</i> falling a bit flat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The album was reissued on CD in the US in 1998 with a different cover and the title "Happy Christmas Day". It was remastered in 2013 with three bonus tracks and the original cover image restored. Charley is still going strong today at the grand old age of 82.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sadly no longer with us is the legend that was <b>Johnny Cash</b>, and I picked up his 1963 LP <b>The Christmas Spirit</b> at a boot sale in May of 2015 in a 3-for-a-fiver deal.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Johnny Cash - The Christmas Spirit (1963)<br />Mother in law Maybelle Carter plays autoharp</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This was Cash's first Christmas album and four of the twelve songs are written by the man himself, including the spoken-word title track where over piano and choir Johnny dreams of travelling the world. His journey begins in London where he's greeted by a chestnut seller in Piccadilly, and here Johnny's cockney "Hello mate!" is priceless.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Poverty and Jesus always seem to have gone hand in hand in country music, and there's plenty of both here, the storytelling both sung and narrated in Cash' echoing boom. <i>The Ballad of the Harp Weaver</i>, a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, is probably the most depressing track amongst a rather downbeat collection. While this isn't exactly a party album, it's still full of Christmas spirit, just not the kind that comes decked in tinsel or slathered in sleigh bells.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I found a slightly battered copy of <b>Gene Autry's Christmas Cracker</b> at a car boot in August of last year, for the princely sum of 25p.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Gene Autry's Christmas Cracker (1966)<br />What a great cover!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Gene "The Singing Cowboy" Autry hailed from Texas and found fame singing on the radio after being refused a recording contract with RCA Victor in 1928. He eventually signed with Columbia and his career spanned movies and TV as well as the music industry. In all he made some 640 recordings, over 300 of which were self-penned or co-written.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Like many Christmas albums, one side of this consists of secular songs, with the other devoted to carols. His 1949 US no.1 <i>Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer</i> gets Side 1 off to a gallop, followed by other child-friendly favourites such as <i>Up On The House Top</i> written in 1864 by Benjamin Hanby, and an adaptation of the American rhyme 'Ten Little Indians' called <i>Nine Little Reindeer</i>. Like Charley Pride, Autry's country style is better suited to these than the mostly solemn Side 2, at the end of which an uncredited male lead is joined by a choir for <i>What Child Is This?</i>, rounding things off quite nicely even though Autry's sudden disappearance is quite odd. There are short spoken sections between some songs, and it's here that my 25p record really shows its age, but I just close my eyes and pretend the crackles are coming from a nice log fire.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You can hear Gene and a whole host of other artists on this year's Car Boot Christmas cloudcast below. Join me again tomorrow, Sunday the 18th of December, for Day 4 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown, where I'll be taking a look at two very different seasonal records.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-christmas-2016%2F&hide_cover=1" width="100%"></iframe>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/" target="_blank">https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/</a></span>
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<br />minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-33490787248964489932016-12-16T07:19:00.001+00:002016-12-16T07:19:44.272+00:00Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016 - Day 2<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hello and welcome to Day 2 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown, where I'm digging out some of the festive albums I've found at car boot sales and charity shops over the last couple of years. If you missed the first installment yesterday you can find it here <a href="http://carbootvinyldiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/car-boot-christmas-countdown-2016-day-1.html">http://carbootvinyldiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/car-boot-christmas-countdown-2016-day-1.html</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Today's seasonal duo were both found in charity shops, beginning with the <b>Scrooged Original Motion Picture Soundtrack</b>, for which I paid 50p.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Scrooged - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1989)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Scrooged was a 1989 update of A Christmas Carol, and stars the wonderful Bill Murray as Frank Crass, a TV exec who's forgotten the true meaning of Christmas and who needs his icy heart warming up a touch. The soundtrack features a couple of Yuletide standards in Natalie Cole's version of <i>The Christmas Song</i> and a cool-as-heck rendition of <i>We Three Kings</i> by Miles Davies, Larry Carlton, David Sanborn and Paul Shaffer, who also appear in the film as a group of street musicians insulted by Frank:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The rest is a mixture of pop covers and original material, the best being Annie Lennox and Al Green's feelgood <i>Put A Little Love In Your Heart</i> (as opposed to the also very good version sung by the cast as the credits roll, with Bill shouting "Feed me, Seymour!"), U2's <i>The Sweetest Thing</i> performed by gospel group New Voices of Freedom, and the lightweight but fun <i>Get Up 'N' Dance</i> from Kool Moe Dee. Low points are Robbie Robertson's <i>Christmas Must Be Tonight</i> and Dan Hartman and Denise Lopez's <i>The Love You Take</i>, which both display the worst kind of eighties bland forgettability.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">From rear sleeve</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Even with the weaker tracks, if you're a fan of the film this LP is a must-have. If you've never seen Scrooged before, for goodness sake go and watch it this Christmas! It's guaranteed to appear somewhere on the schedules, usually on Film 4 in the UK.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For some reason I don't have this next record written in my car boot notebook, but I'm fairly certain that it cost a pound.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhftmZ-NCRZJW1B7tzt1Ua_uYOrjarH0w93hPcgvGTPQyMsfgkuAqFJkOM9ivfgh_nmuAb8eV6oAYUxNDCBAr3ugNZj9yz8SIjMmE-y2sRZb4jHPe4Z6OZNpUEy1tK0CL0JgWT3RT8dOrSe/s1600/DSCN0250.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="393" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhftmZ-NCRZJW1B7tzt1Ua_uYOrjarH0w93hPcgvGTPQyMsfgkuAqFJkOM9ivfgh_nmuAb8eV6oAYUxNDCBAr3ugNZj9yz8SIjMmE-y2sRZb4jHPe4Z6OZNpUEy1tK0CL0JgWT3RT8dOrSe/s400/DSCN0250.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Christmas And James Last (1973)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Christmas And James Last</b> is one of several Christmas LPs from this most prolific of easy listening bandleaders and composers, but the only one I've seen so far, despite the seemingly endless supply of J-La at car boots and chazzas. It features mostly traditional tunes, plus four pieces written by "Hansi" himself, and is all instrumental except for the choir's charming but wordless contributions. It isn't in his trademark "non-stop dancing" style, but many tracks segue into the next in a totally non-cheesy fashion, including a version of German folk song Heidschi Bumbeidschi known here as <i>Cheidschi Bumbeidshi</i>, which flows sweetly into German carol <i>Tomorrow, Children Is The Day.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The whole album is a thing of tinkling, swoonsome loveliness, stately in parts, but always giving off a warmth just perfect for December evenings by the fireside with a large Baileys. Grab it if you see it, especially if it's only a pound!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Join me again tomorrow (Saturday the 17th of December) for Day 3 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016, this time for three albums by some country gents. In the meantime you can hear me play over an hour's worth of all-vinyl Christmas music on the Car Boot Christmas cloudcast via the player below, or click the link to hear it on the Mixcloud page.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-christmas-2016%2F&hide_cover=1" width="100%"></iframe>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/" target="_blank">https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/</a></span>
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minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-85648643293610620922016-12-15T08:01:00.000+00:002016-12-15T08:01:08.699+00:00Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016 - Day 1<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Welcome to Day 1 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown 2016. Over the next ten days, leading us up to Christmas Eve, we'll be looking at some of the seasonal records I've found at car boot sales and charity shops since the last countdown in <a href="http://carbootvinyldiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/car-boot-christmas-countdown-day-1.html" target="_blank">December 2014</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We'll start with an absolute belter, <b>The Ventures' Christmas Album</b>, for which I paid an entire fiver (I know!) in April of this year.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Ventures' Christmas Album (1965)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Don Wilson, Bob Fogle and the rest of the guys bring a touch of summertime to Christmas, packing twelve festive standards into under half an hour of glorious surf rock instrumentals. Each one has a snippet of a 60s pop hit expertly melded to it, so <i>Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer</i> opens with the unmistakable riff from 'I Feel Fine', their wonderful rendition of <i>Blue Christmas</i> has the Searchers' 'When You Walk In The Room' lick applied, and one classic meets another on <i>Sleigh Bells</i> where their own 'Walk, Don't Run' appears throughout.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The sleeve notes talk about the adaptations the group made to these well known songs "to suit their own power-packed style". This youthful power, the twang-tastic racket it produces, added to the sleigh bells a-go-go from start to finish, make this jingle bell rock an essential December listen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bought from a charity shop and sent to me by a dear chum (thanks Matt!) is <b>Mary's Boy Child: The Christmas Album</b> by <b>Boney M</b>.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Boney M - Mary's Boy Child: The Christmas Album (1981)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Known throughout the rest of the world simply as "Christmas Album", the extra bit in the title was added to the UK version due to the success of the single <i>Mary's Boy Child/Oh My Lord</i>, a medley of the Harry Belafonte song and and one written by BM mastermind and real male vocalist Frank Farian, which sat atop the chart for four weeks in 1978. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The album is just how you'd expect it to sound: lightweight melodic Europop with a mildly Caribbean flavour. Things are upbeat and feelgood for the most part (<i>Jingle Bells, </i>a reggae-lite <i>White Christmas, </i>José Feliciano's <i>Feliz Navidad</i>), with most of the second side given over to more solemn fayre such as the boldly named <i>Christmas Medley</i>, the much-covered <i>When A Child Is Born</i>, and a version of Handel's "Tochter Zion" translated to </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Zion's Daughter</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. The solemnity doesn't last though; the album ends with the bouncy bubblegum of <i>I'll Be Home For Christmas</i> - no, not <i>that</i> one, but a song written by Farian, who also supplies the lead vocal (under Bobby Farrell's name of course).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">An enjoyable record, its effect is probably best summed up by the following customer review on Amazon:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: large;">"I bought a Xmas (sic) vest and actually danced with my mom."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There can be no higher recommendation for a Christmas record!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You can hear tracks from both of these albums and much, much more on Car Boot Christmas 2016, over an hour's worth of vinyl-only car boot and chazza Christmas tunes introduced and played by yours truly. Use the player below to stream, or click on the link to go directly to it on Mixcloud. It's totally family-friendly (no swears), and your shares and likes will be much appreciated.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Don't forget to come back tomorrow (Friday the 16th of December) for Part 2 of the Car Boot Christmas Countdown and two more albums.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-christmas-2016%2F&hide_cover=1" width="100%"></iframe>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/">https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/</a></span><br />
<br />minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-51303151871363871732016-12-06T07:24:00.001+00:002016-12-11T20:07:55.267+00:00Car Boot Christmas Giveaway 2016<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">EDIT: Congratulations to winner Darren Betts! I'll be in touch, Darren.</span></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Car Boot Vinyl Diaries is delighted to be giving away a copy of <b>The Snowman</b> original soundtrack to one lucky winner this Christmas.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">First published in 1978, <b>Raymond Briggs</b>' wordless illustrations told the story of a boy and his adventure when the snowman he built came to life. The book was transformed into a 26-minute animation first broadcast on Boxing Day in 1982, and the soundtrack album was released the following year. Scored by composer and conductor <b>Howard Blake</b>, Side 1 consists of the story narrated by the great <b>Bernard Cribbins</b> over the backdrop of the music, plus of course the original version of Walking In The Air by chorister Peter Auty (as opposed to the Aled Jones version that was released as a single). Side 2 contains purely the score and song. Whether you've got children or not, it makes for enchanting fireside winter listening.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This car boot vinyl copy is the second pressing from 1983, i.e. the normal sleeve as opposed to the gatefold on the first pressing. It's in excellent condition and plays absolutely beautifully, and I'll also throw in a pair of Snowman coasters I forgot to use last Christmas, plus whatever other tat I can find lying about the house. In addition, I'll even make you a special Snowman-themed Christmas card. With my own bare hands!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To enter, simply fill in the contact form at the top right of the page, with your name (real or internet) in the first field, your email address in the second, and the message "<b>Snowman</b>" in the third, then click "Send". My glamorous assistant will be drawing the winning name from the hat at 8pm this Sunday (11th December). Due to postage costs and delivery times the competition this year is open to UK entrants only.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Good luck! And in the meantime you can hear this year's festive cloudcast <b>Car Boot Christmas 2016</b>, where I present over an hour's worth of Christmas music, all on vinyl and all found at car boot sales and charity shops. Use the player below or click the link to go to Mixcloud. Shares, likes and comments welcome!</span><br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="60" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-christmas-2016%2F&hide_cover=1&mini=1&light=1" width="100%"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/">https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/</a></span><br />
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<br />minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-18661649963492109272016-12-05T08:30:00.002+00:002016-12-05T11:32:11.725+00:00Car Boot Christmas 2016<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">December is finally here, and this year's Car Boot Vinyl Diaries festive cloudcast is now on Mixcloud! Whether you're in the car, out on your bike, at home wrapping presents and decorating the tree, or otherwise in need of some cheering Christmas music, it's all here; soul, pop, jazz, carols, surf and more - there's even a bit of cheesy disco.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's all family-friendly too (i.e. no swears), so ideal for entertaining the kids on a long car journey or at home on a grey December day. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hear me playing over an hour's worth of fab tunes, all on vinyl and all dug up from car boot sales and charity shops, using the player below, or click the link to go to the CBVD Mixcloud page. Your shares, likes and comments would be most welcome.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I hope you enjoy listening as much I did putting it together.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Minibreakfast xxx</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><iframe frameborder="0" height="400" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-christmas-2016%2F&light=1" width="100%"></iframe>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/">https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-christmas-2016/</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">P.S. Be sure to pop back to the blog tomorrow for an exciting Car Boot Vinyl giveaway!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-64106200327394140172016-09-07T12:35:00.001+01:002016-09-07T12:37:31.277+01:00Cloudcast Episode 14<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Episode 14 of the Car Boot Vinyl Diaries cloudcast is now online. As well as a double-disc Novelty Island and a bulging Boot Of Loot, there's also a featured album from Transatlantic Records, plus a special record for one of our regular listeners. Listen using the widget below, or click on the link to go to Mixcloud. Enjoy!</span><br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FCarBootVinylDiaries%2Fcar-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-14%2F&hide_cover=1&light=1" width="100%"></iframe><br />
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<a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-14/">https://www.mixcloud.com/CarBootVinylDiaries/car-boot-vinyl-diaries-episode-14/</a>minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-45382730690264382872016-07-30T12:33:00.001+01:002017-08-13T15:19:35.973+01:00High voltage rock 'n' roll<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I picked up a couple of <b>AC/DC</b> albums this year, both costing 50p, and both for good reason. The first was 1978's If You Want Blood (You've Got It), bought on a freezing cold Sunday in February.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AC/DC - If You Want Blood (You've Got It) (1978)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was missing both inner and outer sleeves and therefore not in the best of shape, skipping on a couple of tracks, but will do until I find a better copy, and is played with an old stylus reserved for "dodgy discs".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Recorded at Glasgow's Apollo Theatre in the spring of '78, If You Want Blood contains 10 of the 14 songs the group played that night, including cuts from Powerage, Let There Be Rock, T.N.T. and Dirty Deeds Done Cheap. It was their first live album (and their only with Bon Scott, who died two years later) and reached no.13 on the UK album chart.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">An absolutely thrilling document of a band arguably at their peak, it's a real shame that this otherwise great-sounding record skips multiple times on my favourite song </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whole Lotta Rosie.</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Here's a skip-free version - note the audience having an absolute ball, and their chant of <i>"Angus.... Angus.... Angus!".</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A copy of For Those About To Rock We Salute You turned up at a boot sale in May in a box of damp, filthy crap that irritated my throat for the rest of the day. Still, it was 50p and despite the state of the sleeve (which was quickly binned) the record itself was in remarkably good condition. Apparently the box of records from which it came had been stored in a shed for some years. The LP was covered in a film of black mould, so I gave it a good wipe with some antibacterial er, wipes, before putting it through the <a href="http://carbootvinyldiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/cleaning-vinyl-records.html" target="_blank">usual cleaning process</a>. It came out sparkling, although a</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">s you can see from the photos the labels didn't escape the damage.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AC/DC - For Those About To Rock We Salute You (1981)</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Wet, mouldy sleeve - binned.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The album was the follow-up to the gigantic, 50 million-selling Back In Black, which had been the group's first with Bon's replacement Brian Johnson. This isn't in the same league as BIB; the lyrics and song titles seem more corny than cheeky, more stale than playful. The tempos are slower too, and although there's plenty of noise and riffage going on, there's also a lack of energy compared to its predecessor. Having said that, it's still a very enjoyable record, just one with a lot to live up to, I suppose. Both singles from it reached the top 20 here in the UK, and the album even topped the US chart, something BIB hadn't managed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In October last year I bought a copy of <b>Art Garfunkel</b>'s solo debut Angel Clare for £2.50. It's quite a common sight at car boot sales and charity shops, but I'd recently read a glowing recommendation of it so decided to finally take the plunge.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Art Garfunkel - Angel Clare (1973)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Angel Clare is made up of cover versions, traditional folk songs and original material, and it boasts an impressive group of contributors such as JJ Cale and Jerry Garcia, plus a string of session musicians that includes members of the Wrecking Crew and the Nashville A Team. Art on his own tends to be rather sickly without Paul Simon as bitter counterpoint, and this is particularly true of Jimmy Webb's <i>All I Know</i>, which although moving, suffers from a syrupy approach with strings laid on thickly. Much more enjoyable is the simpler <i>Mary Was An Only Child</i>, which not only suits Garfunkel's pretty, airy voice better, but also features an appearance from Simon on backing vocals and acoustic guitar.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Other high points are </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Traveling Boy</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> written by Paul Williams, and the haunting murder ballad </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Down In The Willow Garden</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. A curious mash-up of Haitian folk and Bach called </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Feuilles-Oh/Do Spacemen Pass Dead Souls On Their Way To The Moon?</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> makes for a twee but pleasant listen, but the traditional </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Barbara Allen</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> requires a more robust voice than Art can muster, and the children's choir on </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Woyoya</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> is as sick-making as you'd expect. The good outweighs the bad by a long way, however, and I'd definitely recommend you grab a copy if you see it in a charity shop, for which the odds are quite high.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">An unexpected find in a hospice charity shop back in May was <b>Doctor Who and the Pescatons</b>, costing four pounds.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Doctor Who and the Pescatons (1976)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Featuring the voices of Tom Baker, Elisabeth Sladen and Bill Mitchell, this is more a dramatised audio book than a play, in that it's mostly Baker narrating, with a small amount of dialogue here and there. The contents of the BBC sound effects library combine</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> with the talents of the Radiophonic Workshop and incidental music by Kenny Clayton to create a mildy scary and very charming production that relates a story of alien invasion (mostly set in central London, naturally) by Zor and his half-man half-fish comrades.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_rNrwLsedSewCAN-B6qOt6-8rcl9y2FGGJxRseAi2lhMYZBHixa-DEXYL1c1EDQqQ4PvwXxhxvErt6ENHrG0dUtZ95aMAyvZsKm9RqSJOqyAm-ciAdM4opNFSpPgepxSO5JKi6GQmd8g4/s1600/DSCN0448.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_rNrwLsedSewCAN-B6qOt6-8rcl9y2FGGJxRseAi2lhMYZBHixa-DEXYL1c1EDQqQ4PvwXxhxvErt6ENHrG0dUtZ95aMAyvZsKm9RqSJOqyAm-ciAdM4opNFSpPgepxSO5JKi6GQmd8g4/s400/DSCN0448.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">From rear sleeve.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And of course you get a bit of the wonderful Doctor Who theme at the beginning and end of each side of the record, which is worth the price of admission alone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At a car boot sale last month I bought a copy of the self-titled debut album by vocal duo <b>Two Tons O' Fun</b>.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Two Tons O' Fun (1980)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Martha Wash and Izora Rhodes (later Armistead) met as members of a gospel choir and later became backing vocalists for husband and wife team Paradise Express and disco star <a href="http://carbootvinyldiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/do-ya-wanna-funk.html" target="_blank">Sylvester</a>. This was the first of two albums released in 1980 under the Two Tons moniker, after which they changed their name to the Weather Girls, best known for the hit <i>Its Raining Men</i>. They had huge voices to match their personalities, and this debut is a fun record of soulful disco pop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A previous owner decided for whatever reason (perhaps an art project) to customise the sleeve with a fake description and imagined list of credits, as well as some cartoon speech bubbles:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Front cover</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Wash was later the voice on hits for Black Box (</span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everybody Everybody</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">) and C+C Music Factory (</span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">) via some demo recordings. Like many singers of her calibre who either contributed vocals to dance hits or were sampled for them (e.g. Loleatta Holloway, also for Black Box), she went uncredited at the time. She later sued and was given credit, if not royalties. Rhodes died in 2004 aged 62.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This caught my eye at a boot sale last autumn, and cost me a pound.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The International Sweethearts of Rhythm</b> were a pioneering swing and jazz band formed in the late 1930s at Piney Woods Country Life School for poor and orphaned African-American and mixed race children. Originally the all-female group were beginner musicians put together to raise funds for the school, but as their popularity increased, several professionals were added to their ranks in order to capitalise on their success and they began traveling out of their home state of Mississippi, eventually being invited to play for the USO in France and Germany during the war. Because the Sweethearts also took on white members it can lay claim to being the first all-female integrated jazz band, as well as just an absolutely shit-hot bunch of musicians.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This group of recordings (some from 78rpm discs, but most from radio broadcasts) was compiled by feminist writer and historian Rosetta Reitz on her label Rosetta Records, which put out several other vintage recordings during the 1980s by women from the worlds of jazz and blues: <a href="https://www.discogs.com/label/73474-Rosetta-Records">https://www.discogs.com/label/73474-Rosetta-Records</a></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Illustrated sleeve notes begin on rear cover, then continue on 4-page<br />booklet.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The album package includes extensive sleeve notes and photographs, and I think I'll be very lucky to find any more from this series, clearly a labour of love, for as little as a pound again. Here's a taste, the first video featuring Tiny Davis on vocals and trumpet, and the second fronted by Anna Mae Winburn.</span><br />
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minibreakfasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01456685289902969363noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4961349850834094145.post-48803361429735145062016-07-13T15:13:00.002+01:002016-07-13T15:21:01.452+01:00Teenage Wildlife<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rooting through a box of records at a car boot sale in May last year I enquired as to their price, only to be told by the very nice lady seller that they were "Two pound for the big 'uns, a pound for the little ones". I bought two "big 'uns", the first of which was Reproduction, the debut album by <b>The Human League</b>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Reproduction came out in 1979, before Martyn Ware and Ian Marsh split to eventually form Heaven 17, and pre-dating the addition of vocalists Susan Ann Sulley and Jo Catherall. It's an austere album with equally bleak song titles e.g. <i>Circus Of Death, State Human, Blind Youth</i>, the latter containing the dreadful couplet,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"Dehumanisation is such a long word,</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>It's been around since Richard the third"</i>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yikes! The mood is overwhelmingly dystopian, with themes of fear, isolation, frustration and disappointment explored. Although dark in tone there's sufficient melody, and it ends with the restrained minimalism and sweet bleeps of <i>Morale... You've Lost That Loving Feeling</i>, a deadpan but surprisingly effective cover version.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Reproduction didn't chart on release but climbed to no. 32 when reissued in August 1982 on the back of singles <i>The Sound Of The Crowd</i> and <i>Love Action</i> from the upcoming Dare. 1980's Travelogue also returned to the album chart.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The second big 'un, also two pounds, was released the following year:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Scary Monsters..... And Super Creeps returned <b>David Bowie</b> to the charts in 1980, following the critically lauded but relative commercial failure of the Berlin trilogy. The phrase "his best since Scary Monsters" has been trotted out in reviews of his albums ever since, probably for good reason, as it's pretty blimming great.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It opens with the sound of a film projector, a "one-two, one-two-two", then the voice of Michi Hirota speaking Japanese, the English translation of which Bowie shrieks back at her; "<i>Silhouettes and shadows, watch the revolution, no more free steps to heaven, it's no game</i>". What follows is a dense art rock, glam-pop revolution, shot through with astringent percussion and Robert Fripp's squawking guitar. Bowie's past is referenced time and again; <i>Scream Like A Baby</i> features Laughing Gnome vocals, Major Tom makes his return in <i>Ashes To Ashes</i>, and the intro to Panic In Detroit also returns during <i>Up The Hill Backwards</i> - but backwards!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Side 1 is ridiculously good, so the second half was always going to be a let down, however accomplished. The weakest link is a cover of Tom Verlaine's <i>Kingdom Come</i>, but by any other standard Side 2 is still excellent overall. <i>Teenage Wildlife</i>, with its dig at the new wave movement set to a "Heroes"-echoing backdrop, encapsulates the way in which Bowie uses his past to reflect on the present. His first broadcast of the new decade concludes with an exhausted reprise of <i>It's No Game</i> featuring Pete Townsend on guitar and ending with<i> </i>the sound of the projector's tape cascading noisily onto the floor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">During another May car boot sale last year I picked up a few records from a stall selling them at 3-for-£5, always a good way of shifting stock quickly. One of those in the stack I bought was True Jit by Zimbabwean group <b>Bhundu Boys</b>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now signed to Warner Bros, this was their first major label release following a pair of albums on Discafrique Records. It was seen as a departure from their original sound, with lyrics in English as well as their native Shona, plus the incorporation of more Western-sounding production. The follow-up Pamberi was even less well received and then a series of terrible disasters befell the group, including the deaths of three members from AIDS-related illness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I can't comment on their earlier work, but I really like this album; its ringing guitars, infectious polyrhythms and cheery brass make for great summer listening, whether or not they in fact constitute <i>true</i> jit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've been building up my 70s <b>Elton John</b> collection over the past year, and I bought Rock Of The Westies a few months ago for £1.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Elton John - Rock Of The Westies (1975)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This was Elt's 10th album and his last studio release on Dick James Records (and MCA in the US) before joining his own label Rocket Man Records the following year in time for the release of Blue Moves. It reached no.1 in the US, as did lead single <i>Island Girl</i>. The inner sleeve sports amusing bios of all eight band members, including Caleb Quaye, half-brother of Finley.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />Elton's reads,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"A boring little musician who has risen to fame without the aid of payola. He only has four chords ('People' Magazine) and he is prone to getting fat at Christmas. Supports Watford (H-E-L-P!)."</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The album is a rockular affair with just two ballads, and some sterling riffs and solos from guitarists Quaye and Davey Johnstone. It isn't as tight or as driven as </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Captain Fantasic,</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and must have come as a bit of a letdown after its immense </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">predecessor</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, but considering it arrived just five months later this can be forgiven. In any case it's a decent addition to his 70s canon, and very much worth having.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At a car boot last month I found a very nice crop of 1970s albums, all in lovely condition and reasonably priced. One of them was <b>Derek and the Dominos</b> In Concert, and it cost £3.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Derek and the Dominos In Concert (1973)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This double LP was recorded over two nights at New York's Fillmore East in 1970, and consists of long jams and shorter cuts (not that short, though - the briefest is <i>Presence of the Lord</i> at 6:10) ranging from energetic, soulful, and dare I say it even funky R&B, to Clapton's familiar slow blues rock. The powerful rhythm section of Carl Radle on drums and Jim Gordon on bass drive things along, with Clapton's thankfully widdle-free guitar supported by Bobby Whitlock's invigorating playing on piano and Hammond (I do love an organ). It may be an Allman-free zone, but I'm thankful it's also free from the over-familiar Layla. Be warned, though, there's a veeeeeeery extensive drum solo on <i>Let It Rain</i>, but despite this, the 17 minute long version remains astonishingly good. Six of the nine tracks were later included on 1994's Live At The Fillmore, along with four other recordings.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'll end with a record I bought last summer for a pound, Tamala Meets Tijuana by the <b>Tequila Brass</b>:</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Tequila Brass - Tamla Meets Tijuana (1971)</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When Tamla met Tijuana they seemed to get on quite well, as this Music For Pleasure recording by the usual anonymous session musicians isn't half as bad as I'd <strike>hoped</strike> feared. Despite the tacky cover it's one of the more restrained examples of the genre, beginning with a very smooth <i>How Sweet It Is</i> and an equally Easy <i>Tracks of My Tears</i>. The version of <i>My Guy</i> is more comical with a 70s sitcom theme kind of vibe, and <i>The Happening</i>, which opens Side 2, is a great fit for the Tijuana treatment. Not so <i>Dancing In The Street</i>, which due to the nightmarish arrangement doesn't sit happily at all, but luckily it's followed by another Supremes winner <i>Stop In The Name Of Love</i>, which works really well within the format.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The album can be found for mere pence on Discogs, and if you've a taste for Tijuana or a penchant for parping, this groovesome disc belongs in your collection, filed under 'C' for cheese.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The sleeve notes boast of Tamla Meets Tijuana, <i>"A more exciting combination would surely be difficult to find"</i>. They've obviously never heard the Torero Band's Tijuana Nursery Rhymes.</span><br />
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