A few rarer A&M covers...

If you could pick only one, which of these would you like to see re-released on CD?

  • George Mc Curn

    Votes: 2 25.0%
  • Dave Lewis

    Votes: 1 12.5%
  • Lucile Starr (2 for 1)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • To heck with those choices -- I want "Dore Alpert -- the Complete Recordings"

    Votes: 2 25.0%
  • All of the above

    Votes: 1 12.5%
  • None of the above

    Votes: 2 25.0%

  • Total voters
    8
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Mr Bill

Gentlemanly Curmudgeon
Staff member
Moderator
I managed to upload a few of the rarer (more rare?) covers from the early days of A&M. These are all truly worth a listen!

sp4100.jpg

A&M's Canadian partner, Quality Records, did a follow up to SP4107, but then the matter arose of "how do we number this release since the our US partner is going forward in order." Simple. We go backwards! So here's SP4100. This is where LPJim and I got the idea to come up with imaginary reversed sequence releases like SP4099, Dore Alpert's I'd Do It All Again LP, among others... I also suspect the picture of the girl with the balloons was taken the same day and at the same park as the covers for Family Portrait and B66's Look Around...

sp4102.jpg

Herb And Jerry thought they could repeat their Sam Cooke success, but aside from decent airplay in southern California (a plight similarly foisted on Dore Alpert) it was not to be. A few single-only recordings were the only follow ups to this for Mr McCurn...

sp4105.jpg

Herb And Jerry also decided to try releasing recordings by other producers, of which this was the first. Seattle native Dave Lewis' entertaining Organ and Leslie music, harkens one back to the skating rinks of the era. Alas, A&M's success with recordings produced by others would have to wait until SP4111 (a Trident Production) which would be A&M's biggest success (singles-wise) for a while.

sp4107.jpg

I don't care what anyone says. Lucille Starr is Dolly PArton before there was a Dolly Parton making records. Just listen to that forced vibrato and try not to think of Dolly!

--Mr Bill
 
How nice it is to see those vintage covers again. Lucille's FRENCH SONG was reissued on CD in Canada, but the other two albums -- which came out in the 2-LP set in that country as self-titled SP 9015 -- could logically be reissued together, along with numerous non-album 45 tracks.
Wouldn't it be great to see these obscurities reissued to celebrate A&M's 40th birthday?
JB
 
Hmmm. "None Of The Above" is winning the poll... So much for all of us being A&M lovers... :sad:

--Mr Bill
 
My vote goes to Dave Lewis, since I like the Hammond sound. My second choice would be the complete Dore Alpert, for reasons of "historical interest."


Based on what I heard on Radio Free A&M a few times last year, I have to say I really don't care much for Lucille Starr's voice. The vibrato especially. :shock:


- William
 
Based on what I heard on Radio Free A&M a few times last year, I have to say I really don't care much for Lucille Starr's voice. The vibrato especially. :shock:


- William[/quote]


Her voice kinda grows on you...part of the deal is the fact that the French language is very gutteral and breathy[my high school French teacher told us that the French really disliked the fact that the English only spoke with their mouths-I guess the French must have invented body language...] :wink:

Lucille always strikes me as more of a Brenda Lee/Celine Dion type over Dolly Parton, and she really could sing ANYTHING, as her albumSP107 proves.

It's really difficult to find much about her...I wonder if she recorded much after the albums she released on A&M...her career seemed to take off, then...poof...there's a big gap of several years that are unaccounted for, and only a couple of recordings after that, at least that's all I can find of her discography...she and Bob Regan did rockabilly in Canada during the '50's...Bob wrote some of their material, but the marriage went sour as her career took off in the mid '60's...Lucille was the yodelling voice of Cousin Pearl on The Beverly Hillbillies. I'd like to know more about her career, if anyone knows much about her.


Dan
 
Don't let it get you down, Mr. B. As I've said before, the vast majority of listeners are what I would describe as "meat and potatos" A&M fans. They like one particular artist -- usually Herb --- through whom they might have learned about Sergio, maybe Burt and whoever sold the greatest number of albums during certain eras. (ex. Carpenters, Supertramp if it was the '70s)
I say they've been missing out on some great -- if not immensely popular --music, and sales figures need not dictate their tastes.
JB -- part of a 'crusade' to help others discover what they're missing, online
 
William said:
My vote goes to Dave Lewis, since I like the Hammond sound. My second choice would be the complete Dore Alpert, for reasons of "historical interest."

More like "hysterical" interest...it's amusing, but nothing I care to listen to all that often. :confused:

The Dave Lewis may be interesting, but with all the other A&M albums I'd rather see released, there's nothing here I'd go out of my way to buy...even on vinyl...

-= N =-
 
William said:
My vote goes to Dave Lewis, since I like the Hammond sound.

Then why didn't you vote for him?

--Mr Bill
noting that despite William's statement regarding his vote, Mr. Lewis still shows a whopping ZERO votes...
 
This probably goes under SP 3015, but after all these years I'm still puzzled why only SP 3024 (Cd 824) HOT AFTERNOON got reissued, while SUMMERTIME may have only been available overseas and BRIDGE (SP 3032) has been unavailable since the vinyl went out of print.
I still need to pick up the Verve QUARTET (Horizon 2-LP) reissue, just to get that bonus track.
JB
 
Mr Bill said:
Then why didn't you vote for him?
Because on this &%!$ forum interface I can never stay logged in long enough to see voting options! I just see the poll results all the time. (White bars and percentages--no radio buttons.)

I put a check the "Log me in automatically" box every time I post a reply, but it never actually happens. Consequently I've only been able to vote in three or four polls, when, for whatever reason, the software DOES allow me to stay logged in for a few minutes.

Yes, I have cookies turned on. I figure it's a Netscape or Mac thing. :|


***

And yes, I would kill for a complete Paul Desmond A&M box! :D The bonus track on the Quartet Live CD from Verve is "Line For Lyons," and it was originally released in 1978 on Jon Snyder's OTHER label, Artists House. The other tracks on this self-titled album were "When Sunny Gets Blue," "Too Marvelous For Words," "Darn That Dream," and "Audrey." To date, this LP is the only Paul Desmond solo album that hasn't been reissued in full on CD anywhere in the world. Would've been nice if Verve had secured the rights to the other tracks as well, but I suppose they ran out of room on the CD...

Summertime and Bridge were both reissued in Japan as POCM-5066 and POCM-5067. They could both use a sonic upgrade, though.


- William
 
William said:
I put a check the "Log me in automatically" box every time I post a reply, but it never actually happens. Consequently I've only been able to vote in three or four polls, when, for whatever reason, the software DOES allow me to stay logged in for a few minutes.

Yes, I have cookies turned on. I figure it's a Netscape or Mac thing. :|

Who's your internet provider? I'm finding out that it often is a problem with a proxy server, where you're being kicked to a different IP address (a different proxy server accessing the forum, IOW) during your current session. And for some reason, Mac users seem to get it worse than others, especially those using AOL. Netscape? Possibly...although I have no experience with other than Windows versions. And for that matter, I've seen just about everyone have trouble with Netscape's 4.7x versions, which didn't adhere to the W3C standards for handling style sheets, along with having other serious problems. Best to upgrade NS to at least a 6.2 version or the new 7.0 (or Mozilla 1.0, which is functionally identical to NS 7.0).

I'm still sitting on an upgrade to the forum, which I'm attempting to install today. (Probably mid-morning when the forums see a drop in traffic.) It did have some changes in the code to IP address handling...you'll need to be one of the guinea pigs to let me know if it makes a difference or not. :)

William said:
Summertime and Bridge were both reissued in Japan as POCM-5066 and POCM-5067. They could both use a sonic upgrade, though.

Makes me wonder if they're worth getting or not. It's the old problem of buying something that doesn't sound too good just to be able to own it before it disappears, or waiting for a better version and never seeing it being released... :confused:

-= N =-
 
Rudy said:
...And for some reason, Mac users seem to get it worse than others, especially those using AOL.

I guess that's the price you pay for eliminating those difficult decisions in life like "oh dear! which mouse button do I click???"

--Mr Bill
stirring the Mac vs WinTel fires (again)
 
I'd be lost without my cordless wheel mouse--I've grown so attached to the wheel, I always make a blunder when using a mouse w/o one! :wink:

-= N =-
 
William said:
I was able to vote for Dave this time, so whatever you did seems to have helped. Thanks...

Keep me posted on the login/logout situation, too...that's something I want to monitor closely to see if the changes made any difference. I know Stefan has had problems staying logged in, but he's not using a Mac, as far as I know...but did use Compuserve (which, IIRC, now connects via AOL's network and, hence, their proxy servers).

Glad it works! :D Now you have four months of voting to catch up on. :wink:

-= N =-
 
I think it depends on which page I log in from. If I sign in from the forum listing or main forum pages, using the "Login" icon or text link, I stay logged in long enough to vote. If I'm asked to sign in as a result of clicking "post reply" or "quote," then I get kicked out immediately after posting my reply.


- William
 
So it's still doing it, then?

My next "fix" is a little more drastic, but it was recommended as a cure for ailing cookies. (It basically means everyone would have to log in after I make the change.) It's definitely an ongoing issue, though, in the phpBB support forum, although replies there have been less than helpful.

All my next fix would do, would appear to make everyone get a new cookie for the forum.

May try it later tonight, when activity dies down...

-= N =-
 
LPJim said:
This probably goes under SP 3015, but after all these years I'm still puzzled why only SP 3024 (Cd 824) HOT AFTERNOON got reissued, while SUMMERTIME may have only been available overseas and BRIDGE (SP 3032) has been unavailable since the vinyl went out of print.
I still need to pick up the Verve QUARTET (Horizon 2-LP) reissue, just to get that bonus track.
JB

Bridge Over Troubled Water actually did have a brief CD release about two or three years ago. I got my copy from Soundscape. You might try contacting Melody Blvd. to see if they can still get it.
 
LPJim said:
This probably goes under SP 3015, but after all these years I'm still puzzled why only SP 3024 (Cd 824) HOT AFTERNOON got reissued, while SUMMERTIME may have only been available overseas and BRIDGE (SP 3032) has been unavailable since the vinyl went out of print.

You can actually get Summertime from Dusty Groove--they had it in stock earlier this week. But like William said, they're due for a remastering anyway. If I recall, Hot Afternoon is probably in its third release. I have the original gatefold reissue from the 80's, along with the most recent Verve By Request reissue.

Still miss Verve By Request, though--I would bet money that at least Summertime would have been released on the label!

-= N =-
 
Afternoon has indeed been reissued on CD many times. I know that one early CD version wrongly credits Claus Ogerman with the arrangements (instead of Don Sebesky), but I don't remember which one.

VBR was a great imprint... they unearthed some truly wonderful obscurities there. I probably own more titles from that series than I do Verve's "Master Editions," "Elite Editions," and "LP Reproductions" combined. Of course, the digipaks sucked, but that's Verve for you. :|


The only place I was able to find the Bridge CD is Mundo:

http://www.mediawars.ne.jp/~mundo/collect/file/p-desmond.html

....and I'm very glad I did. :D


- William
 
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