Category: Dad’s 45s

I’ve said a few times before that as the 70s progressed toward their end, some of the singles that Dad bought earlier wound up in the hands of me and my sister. Thus, to give a full accounting of his 45 collection, I must paw through my stacks of 7″ vinyl in the basement (and as it turns out, the catacombs of my memory). Some of these were mentioned along the way in this series, but hey, let’s assemble them all in one place, by artist in alpha order. Unsurprisingly, I can’t resist commenting, occasionally noting the quality of the single’s flip side. An asterisk (*) means I didn’t find the record a couple of days ago; maybe I let them get away from me, into my sister’s hands?

Badfinger, “Come and Get It” No doubt Dad loved this one for its Beatlesque sound. The B-side, “Rock of All Ages,” is truly epic.
*The Beach Boys, “Surfin’ U.S.A.”/”Shut Down” Yeah, I said last month that I liked “Surfin’ Safari” more, so I can’t explain why only this one migrated over. If Dad ever expressed bemusement when one of the very first 45s I bought, in the summer of 1976, was the Boys’ “Rock and Roll Music,” I don’t recall it.
Jim Croce, “Bad Bad Leroy Brown”/”One Less Set of Footsteps” I’m thinking that this one, as well as the Helen Reddy below, may have been purchased in part because Amy and I loved to sing along with them on the car radio.
*John Denver, “Annie’s Song” and “Back Home Again” Dad would have bought both of these for my mother, I’m pretty sure.
*Neil Diamond, “Sweet Caroline” Mom went by Caroline, her middle name, so this one was an automatic purchase. It took me years to realize it was “touchin’ me, touchin’ you,” not “touch in me, touch in you.” Of course I could make no sense of that, but it’s hard to unscramble a first impression, especially if it comes at the age of five.
*The 5th Dimension, “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine in” An inner-circle Hall of Fame song.
Norman Greenbaum, “Spirit in the Sky” Also an all-time classic. However, the B-side, “Milk Cow,” is pretty dumb.
*Elton John, “Crocodile Rock” I would have expected this to be Dad’s top tune from Reg, but he ranked “Philadelphia Freedom” higher on his list of all-time favorite rock songs. The B-side, “Elderberry Wine,” is very good.
Helen Reddy, “Delta Dawn” I grew up thinking that the song takes place at the visitation of the title character after she’d died, and that the man she had been looking for was Jesus (taking her as his bride being only metaphorical, of course). I imagine the gospel-y nature of the arrangement only reinforced that thought.
*Billy Swan, “I Can Help” I imagine this one attracted his favor with its retro sound. The B-side, “Ways of a Woman in Love,” is just okay.

And that’s a wrap. In case you missed one or more of the previous installments, here are links to all of them:

Part 1: Early #1s
Part 2: 50s Greats
Part 3: 1968
Part 4: The Fab Four
Part 5: The EPs
Part 6: Double-Dips
Part 7: Early 60s Minor Hits
Part 8: 1970-71
Part 9: Obscurities
Part 10: Local Legends
Part 11: 60s Miscellanea
Part 12: Back Where We Started

We’ve reached the bottom of the stack of singles I found among my father’s effects. It’s been a fun ride, and I’ve learned some things about decades-old songs, popular artists of long ago, and maybe Dad, too. I started eleven months ago with a few big hits from what I tend to think of as the golden era (late 50s/early 60s) of IRH-approved tunes; as the end neared, it felt right to have the final installment feature some rockin’ songs from that same period. In chronological order:

Gary U.S. Bonds, “New Orleans” (#6, November 1960)

Two of the artists today were also featured in Part 1. “New Orleans” was the first hit for Gary U.S. Bonds. Boy, is it a smokin’ hot track.

Dion, “The Wanderer” (#2, February 1962)

Is there a more brazen case in rock music of the double standard applied to the behavior of men and women than Dion’s back-to-back hits of “Runaround Sue” and “The Wanderer”? (Dad paid no mind, ranking the former at #23 on his list of all-time favorites, the latter at #36.) Maybe it’s not such a shock that they were written by the same man (co-written with DiMucci in the case of “Sue”); as you can see above, it was…

Ernie Maresca, “Shout! Shout! (Knock Yourself Out)” (#6, May 1962)

Maresca wrote a few other hits, but this was the only time he charted as a performer (and he actually sings precious little on it, leaving a lot to the backups). If this had been written ten, even five, years later, would one have still yelled “loud and swell”?

Chris Montez, “Let’s Dance” (#4, October 1962)

Montez had five Top 40 hits, four of them middle-of-the-road numbers in 1966. The other was the biggest, the decidedly more uptempo “Let’s Dance.” The organ really makes this one go. (And now you know the address of the house we lived in when I was born.)

The Beach Boys, “Surfin’ Safari” (#14, October 1962)

Growing up, I favored this one over “Surfin’ U.S.A.” Dad did, too: he had “Safari” at #14 on his hit parade, while “U.S.A.” clocked in at #37.

Joey Dee and the Starliters, “Hot Pastrami and Mashed Potatoes (Part 1)” (#36, June 1963)

We wrap up Part 12, as we did Part 1, with a jaunty little number from Joey Dee. This sleeve is fascinating, with class from Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan, Murray the K pitching ‘golden gassers’ of (in some cases) just five years previous, and How to Strip for Your Husband: Music to Make Your Marriage Merrier. I must say I didn’t expect the last history lesson on this journey to be focused on Ann Corio, a burlesque performer of the 20s, 30s and 40s.

I hope everyone has enjoyed the series. I guess, though, this isn’t quite the final installment; next month, a postscript.

I got almost to the end of this journey before I came to a set of records with no obvious theme to impose upon them. So let’s just take a look at a (very) disparate collection of five cuts that essentially span the entire 1960s.

Hayley Mills, “Let’s Get Together” (#8, October 1961)

Sometime in the first half of the 1970s I saw The Parent Trap on television and instantly started crushing on Hayley Mills. That said, “Let’s Get Together” isn’t a great single (one reason is that Mills doesn’t have too much of a voice). Yet, two things still happened: 1) it got propelled into the Top 10, and 2) my father was compelled to purchase it.

Henry Mancini, “Moon River” (#11, December 1961; #32, May 1962)

Jerry Butler had a version of “Moon River” that also peaked at #11, two weeks prior to Mancini making it there on Christmas weekend of 1961. It won an Oscar for Best Original Song, in addition to Song and Record of the Year at the Grammys–I guess all that hardware led to a re-release the following spring.

It’s one of those songs that takes me back to a very young age; for whatever reason, it evokes a feeling of wistfulness, I assume for days long gone.

Marv Johnson, “I Love the Way You Love” (#9, April 1960)

Produced and co-written by Berry Gordy, Jr. A very nice piece; has a Sam Cooke feel to me. It was Johnson’s second and last Top 10 hit. He died of a stroke at age 54 in May 1993.

Donovan, “Atlantis” (#7, May 1969)

Dad has managed to surprise me over and again as I’ve listened to the songs in his stash of 45s, and he’s done it one more time here. “Atlantis” is an odd duck, with a long spoken intro leading in to a repetitive chorus. I’m guessing it’s the only U.S. Top 10 hit to feature the phrase “antediluvian baby.”

It was originally the B-side: “To Susan on the West Coast Waiting,” an anti-war song told from the point of view of a Vietnam soldier writing home to his girlfriend, made #35 a few weeks before “Atlantis” rose from the depths.

Barry McGuire, “Eve of Destruction” (#1, September 1965)

Speaking of protest songs…

Dad was too old to have worried about being drafted for Vietnam (he turned 33 in the middle of 1964). While I don’t recall having many general conversations with him about war, my overall sense is he was more peacenik than hawk; the presence of “Eve of Destruction” here lends credence to that thought. The sleeve suggests he bought this a few years after it was a hit, though.

Just two obscure entries for this themed episode, but folks from my neck of the woods will know the singer of the first and the subject of the second.

Bob Braun, “‘Til Tomorrow”

Cincinnati was home to perhaps the first daytime television talk/variety show, The 50 Club (there were 50 seats in the audience), hosted by Ruth Lyons beginning in the late 1940s. A few years later, capacity was doubled and the show was rechristened The 50/50 Club. When Lyons retired suddenly in January 1967, her protégé Bob Braun took command and kept the show going until the mid-1980s.

I guess it was during the summers of my youth that I would regularly catch bits of the hour-long 50/50 Club, enough at least so that Braun and his cast became familiar. The format was pretty set by the mid-70s: a couple of guests (often entertainers whose tours had taken them to Cincy), a few songs, and oodles of bonhomie.

Braun was an almost exact contemporary of my parents. Like them, he was raised in the northernmost tip of Kentucky, mere miles from Cincinnati. Mom was a year younger than Braun, and she told us more than once about seeing Braun showing off in his convertible, cruising around Frisch’s Big Boy on a weekend night, back when they were in high school. Maybe I’m misremembering, but I also seem to recall that Braun’s parents were parishioners of the church my father was serving when I was born.

Bob Braun was born to entertain, a natural schmoozer. He made a number of attempts at a recording career, and even had one Top 40 hit: “‘Til Death Do Us Part,” a treacly, mostly-spoken-word piece, peaked at #26 on Labor Day weekend, 1962. His work was decidedly in the easy-listening vein (an exception is 1954’s “Rock and Roll Country Girl“); as you might imagine, this didn’t work out so well as the 60s progressed. (Check out this fascinating clip of a March 1964 appearance on American Bandstand: Dick Clark is trying to help break Braun’s current release, while Braun clearly is sucking up to Clark, both seemingly oblivious to the tidal wave hitting popular music at that instant.)

Another of Braun’s releases wound up in Dad’s stash. “‘Til Tomorrow” is from the Broadway musical Fiorello! (Did you know there was a Tony Award-winning production about the life of Fiorello LaGuardia in the late 50s?) It was released in 1961, while my dad was at that church in Braun’s hometown (lending credence to my speculation above). Braun’s version is not on YouTube, but other recordings are available if you’re curious enough. By the way, Cliff Lash was the bandleader on The 50/50 Club, and the B-side was written by Ruth Lyons.

I’ve gone on long enough, but one more thing–there’s a strong chance non-Cincinnatians are familiar with Braun. After The 50/50 Club ended in 1984, he headed to LA to try his luck as an actor. Braun did score a few parts, including a scene in Die Hard 2, but he made his biggest mark in late 80s/early 90s commercials for Craftmatic beds:

Be Merry, “The Ballad of Adolph Rupp”

Throughout his life, Dad was an ardent (and I do mean ardent) fan of University of Kentucky men’s basketball. Their ascendancy as a national powerhouse came toward the end of my father’s high school days; since he went to college in Lexington, he was able to see them play often during their peak (though a point-shaving scandal led to the cancellation of their 1952-53 season). Somewhere around here I’ve got his ticket stub from the 1958 NCAA Championship game in Louisville, when UK beat Seattle for their fourth title in a decade.

Adolph Rupp was the architect of this dynasty, coaching UK from 1930 to 1972. As Rupp’s career was winding down, a local fan wrote and recorded “The Ballad of Adolph Rupp” under the name Be Merry. It’s typical of the genre, both specific in some of the details yet bland and generic in its praise. Fortunately for you, it is available on YouTube:

There’s no date on the 45, but circumstantial evidence points to it being released in 1970. The B-side is “Kentucky Basketball ’69,” a recap of the mostly successful 1969-70 season delivered by Caywood Ledford, UK basketball’s radio play-by-play man, and a legend in his own right.

While a substantial majority of the slabs in my father’s 45 stash are songs I know at least a little bit, there are several that are completely unfamiliar. I’d venture that a few are likely unknown to very many folks today, either. Here are four that didn’t come close to scoring big nationally–only one of them even sniffed the Hot 100. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to say, though.

Ralph Marterie and his Orchestra, “All That Oil in Texas”

Marterie was a big band conductor, born in Italy but living most of his life in the States. This is from 1954, so I can’t tell for certain that it didn’t chart, though I’m not finding it in any mentions of his band’s work. To my ears, the music isn’t that far off from what Bill Haley was doing.

Why is it here? I have a theory. My father’s maternal grandfather bought a plot of land not far from Lubbock, TX way long ago–probably in the latter years of the 19th century. It stayed in the family until maybe 15-20 years ago, split among around a dozen heirs. Oil companies drilled on it for several decades, to no avail. It wouldn’t surprise me if the title just happened to catch Dad’s eye in the record store one day.

Two other notes:
–the flip side is the band’s take on the March from Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges;
–the disk is notably heavier than the typical 45 made a few years later.

Jerry Lee Lewis, “Cold Cold Heart”

I’m not wholly certain that this cover of the Hank Williams classic is actually the A-side; Discogs lists the other song, “It Wouldn’t Happen with Me,” first more frequently. The latter has more of that Jerry Lee bravado you expect, comparing himself favorably to Elvis, Jackie Wilson, and Fabian, but I can understand why neither song charted.

While we were living in Stanford in the early 70s, Lewis made an appearance at a tiny theater in Crab Orchard, another small town tucked away in a corner of the county. Dad always regretted not driving down the road fifteen minutes to check out the Killer (Lewis receives mention in the linked article).

The Grandison Singers, “Little Liza”

There’s very little out there about the Grandison Singers. Depending on where you look, they’re either a trio or a quartet, originally a Black gospel group. This is the standard better known as “Little Liza Jane,” and it’s pretty rousing, decidedly informed by the group’s gospel roots (unfortunately, I can’t find anything from the Grandisons on YouTube). The flip is “Grandison Twist,” an attempt to cash in on the dance craze of the day (the single appears to be from 1962). It’s not bad at all, name-checking “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Long Tall Sally,” “Sweet Little Sixteen,” and “Willie and the Hand Jive.” I want to know more about what happened to the folks in the group; based on this single, I’d like to hear more of their music, too.

Dr. Feelgood and the Interns, “Doctor Feel-Good”

Willie Lee Perryman was better known as Piano Red, with a career that began in the 30s; that linked Wikipedia page indicates he had a couple of songs make the national R&B charts in the 50s. Somewhere along the way Perryman also acquired the moniker Dr. Feelgood. He and his band reached #66 in June 1962 with this song, which one might consider to be in the vein of “Baby Got Back” (the opening lines are “Hey all of you women, now don’t come around unless you weigh around four hundred pounds”). As with the others featured today, I’m really curious how this wound up in Dad’s collection.

The B-side is the original recorded version of “Mr. Moonlight,” later covered by the Fab Four.

Let’s wrap up the 70s portion of this series with the last seven singles from that decade. For some now unknowable reason, my father pretty much stopped buying 45s around the end of 1971 (though there are a few from later–“Crocodile Rock,” “Annie’s Song,” “Back Home Again,” and “I Can Help”–that wound up in the kids’ stash). I’m surprised to see a couple of these here.

Johnny Cash, “What Is Truth” (#19, May 1970)
Next-to-last Top 40 hit for the Man in Black. Honestly, I was unfamiliar with this one, but I can see why Dad might have liked it.

Ray Stevens, “Everything Is Beautiful” (#1, May/June 1970)
This one stirs old, old memories–it had to have gotten decent play in the house. I know that Stevens and I don’t remotely see eye to eye on any number of things, but I’ll admit to being a fan of both of his #1 hits.

Ray Price, “For the Good Times” (#11, January 1971)
Very nice song; it’s another one, though, that just doesn’t match what I’d consider the Platonic ideal of an IRH fave. Fifty years ago this week, it was already on the way down, at #16.

Elton John, “Your Song” (#8, January/February 1971)
Another one that was charting half-a-century ago, sitting at #11. Dad liked quite a bit of Reg’s catalog, so I can’t be shocked that he got on board from the very start.

Janis Joplin, “Me and Bobby McGee” (#1, March 1971)
Our second Kristofferson-penned piece. It would debut on the Hot 100 at the end of January. A true, pure classic; glad to find it here.

Lou Rawls, “A Natural Man” (#17, December 1971)
I love Rawls’s voice, but I did not expect this at all. Kudos, Dad.

Don McLean, “American Pie” (#1, January/February 1972)
Part II is on the flip side, of course. I remember one morning a few years later hearing an interpretation of “American Pie”‘s lyrics on WLW’s James Francis Patrick O’Neill show, while eating breakfast–whatever ‘expert’ was in the studio with JFPO simply talked over the record as it played. I presume the commentary was at least semi-accurate–I’m pretty sure that’s when I learned that Bob Dylan was the Jester.

I’d say there are maybe four installments to go; hope you’re ready for lots of 60s action.

It wasn’t just big sellers in my father’s 45 collection (though there are still more of those to come). Here are a few songs that only made the lower reaches of the Top 40 in the first half of the 1960s. We’ll start with the most famous one.

Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, “The Twist” (#28, September 1960)
Last month we saw two of Chubby Checker’s other hits in this space. It’s at least somewhat curious to me that Dad bought the original rather than the cover (which peaked at #1 the very week this reached its high spot). I don’t know about you, but I might like this take better. Ballard’s “Finger Poppin’ Time” was on the chart at the same time.

Bobby Freeman, “(I Do the) Shimmy Shimmy” (#37, October 1960)
Sandwiched between Freeman’s two #5 hits, “Do You Wanna Dance” and “C’mon and Swim.” I was today years old when I learned about the role that Cincinnati’s King Records played in promoting country and R&B records in the 50s and 60s, including getting James Brown’s career off the ground.

Wanda Jackson, “Let’s Have a Party” (#37, October 1960)
That’s not a typo–Freeman and Jackson occupied #37 on consecutive weeks. This was the first of three trips that the Queen of Rockabilly would make to the Top 40. Wikipedia says she’s still around, and was performing up until last year. Her voice is going to have to grow on me, though.

Stan Kenton, “Mama Sang a Song” (#32, December 1962)
Yes, my father was a minister for quite a few years, but I don’t recall country-flavored gospel (or is it gospel-flavored country?) being among his musical loves. Though I could see him digging on Kenton’s jazz, I’m wondering if one of his parishioners from Bromley gave this 45 to him. It was nominated for Best Documentary or Spoken Word Recording the following spring.

Millie Small, “Sweet William” (#40, September 1964)
The arrival of a certain bundle of joy seven months earlier is no doubt the reason for this record’s presence in the collection. This was Jamaica native Small’s second and final U.S. hit, a follow-up to the #2 “My Boy Lollipop.” She passed away in Britain just this past May, at age 72.

A few artists (in addition to the Beatles) have multiple representatives in my father’s 45 collection. We won’t see a couple of them in this post (I showed you records from Gary U.S. Bonds and Joey Dee and the Starliters early on; a second from each will crop up some other time). Here are the other four acts whose work Dad dug twice.

Chubby Checker, “The Fly” and “Let’s Twist Again”

You might be as surprised as I am that CC’s biggest hit isn’t here–it was my father’s #15 song of all time. Instead, we get two Top 10 hits from the summer and fall of 1961, right around the time that my parents met. Pretty sweet sleeves.

Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Down on the Corner” and “Run Through the Jungle”

Two double-sided hits–“Fortunate Son” and “Up Around the Bend” are on the flip sides here.

Johnny Rivers, “Rockin’ Pneumonia-Boogie Woogie Flu” and “Sea Cruise”

I’m not sure how much of a fan Dad was overall of Rivers’s 60s hits (though I’m pretty sure he liked “Secret Agent Man”), but he definitely jumped on board in the 70s when Johnny started doing covers of early rock-era hits. It wouldn’t have been a shock to come across “Help Me Rhonda” in his stash. This is not a PastBlast post, but I’ll note that “Rockin’ Pneumonia-Boogie Woogie Flu” is debuting at #38 on this weekend’s 11/11/72 rebroadcast.

Nilsson, “Everybody’s Talkin'”and “Without You”

Eight-year-old me loved “Without You,” but somehow it escaped me for eons that Dad had bought the single back then. These are both quality picks.

Nilsson is also on the 11/11/72 show, and I’m hoping to put together a little something about that in the next few days.

For a few years at the beginning of the rock era, extended play 45s were a reasonably popular item. A quick jaunt through the Billboard archives at worldradiohistory.com indicates that for just about exactly three years (October 1957-October 1960, as best I can tell without heavy digging), they published a list of the Top 10 Selling Pop EPs. My father apparently was not immune to the charms of this format; let’s take a tour of the four I discovered in his collection.

Here’s Little Richard, Part 1

The twelve tracks on Richard Penniman’s debut album were also broken up into three EPs, SEP-400, -401, and -402. The same photo appears on the cover of each, with orange, yellow, and red backgrounds, respectively. This one contains his biggest hit, the #6-peaking “Long Tall Sally,” along with “Miss Ann” ( the B-side to “Jenny, Jenny”), “She’s Got It,” and “Can’t Believe You Wanna Leave.”

Dave “Baby” Cortez, The Happy Organ

We had an organ not entirely unlike the one pictured above, though I never heard either of my parents give it a whirl. Forced to guess, I’d say my father was responsible for its presence; maybe Cortez’s #1 hit was the inspiration?

“Love Me As I Love You” was the B-side of the original 45, which had been released on Clock Records.

The Kingston Trio At Large, Part 1

This one was on the Pop EP chart in the final months of its publication. “M.T.A.” had reached #15 the year before. “All My Sorrows” was the B-side then–perhaps it was a standard practice to supplement the original single with two extra tracks?

I think I have vague memories of my father singing (along with) the chorus of “M.T.A.”

Elvis Presley, A Touch of Gold Volume 1

My dad liked early Elvis plenty (rockin’ edition, anyway), so perhaps it’s a little surprising this will be our only encounter with the King in this series. Presley released a slew of EPs at the beginning of his career, but neither volume entitled A Touch of Gold charted. Two of these songs hit #1–not bad for approximately $1.29 (that’s the price I found on the backs of the Cortez and Kingston Trio jackets). I’m going to embed the one he almost certainly enjoyed less.

My Dad liked the Beatles quite a bit. Not a “played them frequently in the house while the kids were growing up” like; it was more of a “make your kids aware of how good they are when a song of theirs comes on the radio” like. I believe there were Beatles LPs among his collection that I carted off to the Cincinnati Public Library, though I couldn’t tell you now which ones or how many. I do know there were several of their biggest albums on CD in the box under the bed in their townhouse basement, as I used some to fill gaps in my collection.

As for singles he purchased that featured one or more of John-Paul-George-and-Ringo, I found five. Here’s a quick tour.

“I Want to Hold Your Hand”/“I Saw Her Standing There”
The one that kicked off Beatlemania here in the States. I never thought to ask my father if there was any connection between his love for these and the fact that the A-side was #1 when I was born. I’ve noted before that he rated these #3 and #2, respectively, on his all-time hit parade.

During winter break of my junior year in college, I must have come across his collection of 45s, as I borrowed this for a few weeks, and played “I Saw Her Standing There” on the radio show I recorded for my cousin.

“Hey Jude”/“Revolution”
This is one that Dad did play for us, at least in the late 60s/early 70s when we were living in Stanford. Like “Harper Valley P.T.A.,” it’s a song that feels like it’s always been a part of my life. I definitely dig the sleeve; the next entry has one just like it, too.

“Come Together”/“Something”
So, he had their first, biggest-selling, and last double-sided U.S. singles. Not bad.

George Harrison, “What Is Life”
I love this song, too, and wish I could talk with him now to learn what endeared him to it.

Paul & Linda McCartney, “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey”
Another delight to discover here. When I think of Dad and McCartney singles, though, it’s the Wings Over America version of “Maybe I’m Amazed” that comes to mind first. He’d quit buying singles long before the spring of 1977, however.