📷 Gallery Inner Sleeves

Threads with gallery-like content.
We had two very large record stores in this area that had huge displays of LP's and they would have tons of the reduced albums as well as many bins of cutouts and I hit those very heavily in my younger days.
Harmony House was our popular local music chain. Prices weren't always the best, but they were always lower than the mall-based Musicland stores we had in the area. (Towards the end of the 70s, they used to hold a Gran Prix sale, as the race was downtown on the Isle, and they put their entire stock on sale for a couple of weeks. It was not uncommon for me to buy a dozen or more titles during the sale.)

We only had maybe two Peaches stores in the area, but they introduced me to cutouts. Back then I didn't know what they were, other than records that were $0.99 or $1.99 and I could buy a lot of them. It was a cool, large store compared to what I was used to. I was sad when they closed up. In fact, I bought new copies of Whipped Cream and Going Places (on the white/silver label) during their closing sale, since all I'd had were my parents' beaten mono copies.
 
As I've probably written here before, in Southern California, it was Wallich's Music City from its opening in 1940 until the real competition rolled into town in the form of Tower Records and The Wherehouse (both 1969).

wallichsmusiccity.jpg

Wallich's was founded by Capitol Records co-founder Glenn Wallichs, who handed it off to his brother Clyde in 1946. The place was HUGE---taking up the entire northwest corner of Sunset and Vine in Hollywood. Records, record players, TV, musical instruments and sheet music, they were the big dog. Trouble is, they acted like it. Albums and singles sold for full list price. A sale was was a buck off an album (so, $2.98 for a $3.98 mono LP or $3.98 for a $4.98 stereo LP)---and that only happened for a few days a few times a year.

The Wherehouse and Tower both upended that. Mono was gone by the time they arrived, but stereo LPs were $3.59 at The Wherehouse and $3.29 at Tower. The Wherehouse only got traction in SoCal by expanding rapidly (they were up to nine or ten locations by 1971) and advertising constantly while Tower, for a long time, was just the one location on Sunset. Wallach's, by the mid-late 60s, had locations in suburban shopping malls, which helped a bit, but they were in trouble from the discount competition. They closed in 1978.

And---I know I've told this story here before, because we heard from two A&M Corner members who worked for this guy (Terry Lattimer and Mark Potampa), but it's been eight or nine years and there are some new members---in Inglewood, and later a couple of other neighborhoods (Torrance and Venice), there was Crane's Records.

George Crane was a rackjobber---he'd buy caseloads of records from the labels at wholesale and then service chains whose regular business wasn't records, but that had record departments (mostly department stores like Sears, May Company, The Broadway, White Front, Fedco, KMart, Zody's).

Crane realized that he could make a ton of money by selling records direct to the public at the same prices he sold them to his chain clients. So in late 1969, he leased a dingy little storefront on a side street half a block from Inglewood's main shopping district and Crane's records was born. The rent, the power bill and an employee behind the counter was pretty much the overhead. Instead of bins to hold the albums, he just stacked the boxes on the floor to about waist height and cut open the top one.

$4.98 list albums were $2.49. $5.98 list albums were $3.29. Singles were 53 cents. Literally nobody could beat the prices, because this is what THEY were paying (generally they marked that up to $2.98/$3.98---which undercut Wherehouse and Tower, but the selection wasn't as good because of space limitations). And Crane supplemented the income with full list-price items like posters and replacement phonograph needles and cartridges.

According to Terry, Crane's eventually grew as far as Isla Vista, the community that the University of California, Santa Barbara is located in before it all blew up in a messy divorce proceeding around 1974.
 
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Harmony House was our popular local music chain. Prices weren't always the best, but they were always lower than the mall-based Musicland stores we had in the area. (Towards the end of the 70s, they used to hold a Gran Prix sale, as the race was downtown on the Isle, and they put their entire stock on sale for a couple of weeks. It was not uncommon for me to buy a dozen or more titles during the sale.)

We only had maybe two Peaches stores in the area, but they introduced me to cutouts. Back then I didn't know what they were, other than records that were $0.99 or $1.99 and I could buy a lot of them. It was a cool, large store compared to what I was used to. I was sad when they closed up. In fact, I bought new copies of Whipped Cream and Going Places (on the white/silver label) during their closing sale, since all I'd had were my parents' beaten mono copies.
As I've probably written here before, in Southern California, it was Wallich's Music City from its opening in 1940 until the real competition rolled into town in the form of Tower Records and The Wherehouse (both 1969).

wallichsmusiccity.jpg

Wallich's was founded by Capitol Records co-founder Glenn Wallichs, who handed it off to his brother Clyde in 1946. The place was HUGE---taking up the entire northwest corner of Sunset and Vine in Hollywood. Records, record players, TV, musical instruments and sheet music, they were the big dog. Trouble is, they acted like it. Albums and singles sold for full list price. A sale was was a buck off an album (so, $2.98 for a $3.98 mono LP or $3.98 for a $4.98 stereo LP)---and that only happened for a few days a few times a year.

The Wherehouse and Tower both upended that. Mono was gone by the time they arrived, but stereo LPs were $3.59 at The Wherehouse and $3.29 at Tower. The Wherehouse only got traction in SoCal by expanding rapidly (they were up to nine or ten locations by 1971) and advertising constantly while Tower, for a long time, was just the one location on Sunset. Wallach's, by the mid-late 60s, had locations in suburban shopping malls, which helped a bit, but they were in trouble from the discount competition. They closed in 1978.

And---I know I've told this story here before, because we heard from two A&M Corner members who worked for this guy (Terry Lattimer and Mark Potampa), but it's been eight or nine years and there are some new members---in Inglewood, and later a couple of other neighborhoods (Torrance and Venice), there was Crane's Records.

George Crane was a rackjobber---he'd buy caseloads of records from the labels at wholesale and then service chains whose regular business wasn't records, but that had record departments (mostly department stores like Sears, May Company, The Broadway, White Front, Fedco, KMart, Zody's).

Crane realized that he could make a ton of money by selling records direct to the public at the same prices he sold them to his chain clients. So in late 1969, he leased a dingy little storefront on a side street half a block from Inglewood's main shopping district and Crane's records was born. The rent, the power bill and an employee behind the counter was pretty much the overhead. Instead of bins to hold the albums, he just stacked the boxes on the floor to about waist height and cut open the top one.

$4.98 list albums were $2.49. $5.98 list albums were $3.29. Singles were 53 cents. Literally nobody could beat the prices, because this is what THEY were paying (generally they marked that up to $2.98/$3.98---which undercut Wherehouse and Tower, but the selection wasn't as good because of space limitations). And Crane supplemented the income with full list-price items like posters and replacement phonograph needles and cartridges.

According to Terry, Crane's eventually grew as far as Isla Vista, the community that the University of California, Santa Barbara is located in before it all blew up in a messy divorce proceeding around 1974.
Harmony House was our popular local music chain. Prices weren't always the best, but they were always lower than the mall-based Musicland stores we had in the area. (Towards the end of the 70s, they used to hold a Gran Prix sale, as the race was downtown on the Isle, and they put their entire stock on sale for a couple of weeks. It was not uncommon for me to buy a dozen or more titles during the sale.)

We only had maybe two Peaches stores in the area, but they introduced me to cutouts. Back then I didn't know what they were, other than records that were $0.99 or $1.99 and I could buy a lot of them. It was a cool, large store compared to what I was used to. I was sad when they closed up. In fact, I bought new copies of Whipped Cream and Going Places (on the white/silver label) during their closing sale, since all I'd had were my parents' beaten mono copies.

We had Peaches but prior we had a store called Tracks which eventually became Wherehouse Music long after Peaches pulled out of the area.
Peaches had a "Six Pack Deal." Buy 5 records and the 6th was free. I bought a lot from both stores in my day but most were from the cut out bins.
 
Records got hit with a double-whammy in the 70s---the price of the petroleum needed to make the vinyl and overall inflation itself.

Oil Crises I (1973-74) and II (1979) are kinda self-explanatory, but the year to year inflation in the 70s is staggering.

Start with something that cost a dollar in 1970. Here's what it cost in each year of the decade:

1971: $1.04
1972: $1.08
1973: $1.14
1974: $1.27
1975: $1.39
1976: $1.47
1977: $1.56
1978: $1.68
1979: $1.87

And in 1980---$2.12.

Obviously, oil prices are figured into those numbers, but the price of everything rose substantially.

The 1971 Ford Pinto had a base price of $1919. The 1980 Pinto, which had big bumpers, an uglier nose, and a marginally redone instrument cluster, but otherwise was the same car, had a base price of $4,605.

Record companies had another problem to go with petroleum prices and inflation. There was a severe shortage of quality vinyl during the first months of the first energy crisis because many independent labels depended on vinyl suppliers that suddenly couldn't get the quantities of vinyl that they had been able to procure before the crisis. There wasn't enough petroleum available to produce it, and what was available to many independent labels was of inferior quality...many singles from the smaller labels were good for maybe a dozen plays, and then they were junk. Many radio stations, my college station included, transferred singles to carts as soon as they got them. This wasn't a cure-all, because the carts themselves were also made of plastic. Since vinyl was in short supply, the prices for it went up. Way up...

Another thing that a lot of people forget is that transportation costs skyrocketed for nearly all goods and services because fuel prices increased dramatically during that period. Some industries were better able to absorb some of those costs better than others; other companies had difficulties shipping their goods to market. Prices went up as a result.

I bought a 1969 Dodge Monaco just a couple of weeks before the first crisis. Trips back and fort from college were a real blast for a few days(I loved to cruise with new Caddys on the freeway), then, like a bolt out of the blue, I was afraid to drive faster than about 60 mph, and once made a tank of gas last for over a month...of course, it was about 25 gallons; but still...


Fun times!
 
The "London" group of record labels also had inner sleeves depicting albums in their catalog.
Later on many companies started adding lyric sheets on the sleeves and other pictures of the artists and band members.
 
The "London" group of record labels also had inner sleeves depicting albums in their catalog.
Later on many companies started adding lyric sheets on the sleeves and other pictures of the artists and band members.
That was a thing that happened to most companies over time. The inner sleeves were advertisements for the label, like this one from Columbia in the late 60s:

columbia-31-qpt.jpg

Eventually, the artists demanded that space---and got it.

It's the same basic thing as LP cover design. The big label logos that were uniform for a label regardless of artist were shrunken, banished to the back cover or wiped away entirely to allow for the artist's vision. And it happened pretty quickly.

1969:

41n2k45V3pL.jpg

1971:

5657020_so.jpg
 
That was a thing that happened to most companies over time. The inner sleeves were advertisements for the label, like this one from Columbia in the late 60s:

columbia-31-qpt.jpg

Eventually, the artists demanded that space---and got it.

It's the same basic thing as LP cover design. The big label logos that were uniform for a label regardless of artist were shrunken, banished to the back cover or wiped away entirely to allow for the artist's vision. And it happened pretty quickly.

1969:

41n2k45V3pL.jpg

1971:

5657020_so.jpg
The Barbra Streisand album "Stoney End" had a sleeve that read like a newspaper with reviews of upcoming albums and recent releases of their artists.
 
In the early 70’s I could buy most new releases at Singer, the sewing machine company, for $3.98. That’s what I paid for the Carpenters Tan album. They had a small section for current albums and 45’s. Their 45’s were 69 cents. I don’t think they made any money on music. Especially being a store in the mall. Rents were high. I went in to buy Mud Slide Slim, and left with the tan album instead. Best chance I ever took. It changed my life too. You could buy music there, or at Broadway Department Store, Sears, Payless Drug Store, and a chain music store called Discount Records, all in the same mall. They were expensive though. We usually didn’t buy much there.
 
I just saw Michael’s post about Wallach’s Music City. We would go there before catching a movie at the Cinerama Dome across the street. I went to the back area and knocked on the door to see if they had any picture sleeves for sale. They handed me a huge box and I found a dozen or so Carpenters and a few others I wanted for 50 cents each. It was sad when they closed. Too much competition in the area. Tower, Music Plus, Wherehouse, Big Ben’s, Licorice Pizza, plus fun independent stores like Rene’s and Aaron’s on Melrose, Moby Disc in the valley, and a couple of stores in Westwood, along with a smaller 3 level Tower Records there. It took all day to hit up those stores! They had great imports and soundtracks you didn’t find at the chain stores.
 
In the early 70’s I could buy most new releases at Singer, the sewing machine company, for $3.98. That’s what I paid for the Carpenters Tan album. They had a small section for current albums and 45’s. Their 45’s were 69 cents. I don’t think they made any money on music. Especially being a store in the mall. Rents were high. I went in to buy Mud Slide Slim, and left with the tan album instead. Best chance I ever took. It changed my life too. You could buy music there, or at Broadway Department Store, Sears, Payless Drug Store, and a chain music store called Discount Records, all in the same mall. They were expensive though. We usually didn’t buy much there.
I remember the Singer stores doing records, but I only remember their having 45s. Could be my memory or it could be a location-by-location thing.

Given that I could get singles for 53 cents and LPs for $2.49 at Crane's, Singer didn't have much for me in terms of records. And, for a 14-year-old boy, going into Singer's Sewing Center was a conflicting thing---it was for GIRLS----but that meant there would be GIRLS inside. Hmmmmm....

The tie-breaker---while Crane's had the weekly KHJ Boss 30 playlists available, Crane's had "The Survey of Hits of Southern California", a folded paper eight-page weekly playlist for not just KHJ, but KGFJ (soul), KMPC (MOR), KFOX (country), KBCA (jazz), KWKW (Spanish) and XERB (soul):

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I've found pages from most of the stations (from different weeks) on Google:

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KMPC-Play-list.jpg
soulsound_580.jpg
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XERB_1970 a.jpg

For a young man with eclectic musical tastes, these were killer---you get KHJ plus MOR, Jazz and two R&B stations.

Living in Bishop (where we didn't have a Singer Sewing Center) and only visiting L.A. every six weeks or so, I probably only went a few times before Singer ended its experiment in record sales.
 

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I just saw Michael’s post about Wallach’s Music City. We would go there before catching a movie at the Cinerama Dome across the street. I went to the back area and knocked on the door to see if they had any picture sleeves for sale. They handed me a huge box and I found a dozen or so Carpenters and a few others I wanted for 50 cents each. It was sad when they closed. Too much competition in the area. Tower, Music Plus, Wherehouse, Big Ben’s, Licorice Pizza, plus fun independent stores like Rene’s and Aaron’s on Melrose, Moby Disc in the valley, and a couple of stores in Westwood, along with a smaller 3 level Tower Records there. It took all day to hit up those stores! They had great imports and soundtracks you didn’t find at the chain stores.
Wallach's could have stayed alive--they just reacted way too late to the pricing pressure from the competition.
 
I worked part time at the Jolly Roger Restaurant next door, do I spent a lot of time at the mall. It was weird shopping at Singer, but the prices were great and I was only 14. Couldn’t drive anywhere then.
 
I worked part time at the Jolly Roger Restaurant next door, do I spent a lot of time at the mall. It was weird shopping at Singer, but the prices were great and I was only 14. Couldn’t drive anywhere then.
The Jolly Roger! Oh, man that brings back memories! I guess I should get over to the restaurant discussion!
 
Was this you? :wink:
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LOL! Worst fast food uniform ever? Maybe not. I nominate "Hot Dog On A Stick" (at any mall in the 1980s) as the pits. Remember their Spanky McFarland multi-colored beanie's and hot pants the girls had to wear? I'll try to find a photo and post...
 
I remember that one, rockdoctor:

columbia-19-qpt.jpg
I still have my copy of Stoney End. In the sleeve it talked about Chicago 5 and mentioned posters that were enclosed, one in color, the other in black and white. Funny thing is that when I got my copy of 5, it had a black and white poster but not the color. In stead it hace a Santana poster.
 
IH-7-CT. (CT probably means Creed Taylor). This was no doubt at the height of the A&M/CTi alliance (following SP-3018; DEC1968).

DSC01392.jpg
 
My favorite innersleeve "ads" were when Warner Bros. was advertising "Warner Bros. Loss Leaders," which were 2-LP compilations of selections (some hits, some album cuts) from recent releases. The idea, of course, being that you heard one song from Mannfred Mann's Earth Band, you might be tempted to check out their whole album. The albums sold for $2, which was quite a deal considering a regular album retailed for about 6 or 7 bucks in those days.

The ad copy on these sleeves had a sassy style to it that I really liked. Here's a sample which I found on the web:

If you're as suspicious of big record companies as we feel you have every right to be, we avert your qualms with the following High Truths:

This is new stuff, NOT old tracks dredged out of our Dead Dogs files. If our Accounting Department were running the company, they'd charge you $9.96 for each double album. But they're not. Yet.

We are not 100 per cent benevolent. It's our fervent hope that you, Dear Consumer, will be encouraged to pick up more of what you hear on these special albums at regular retail prices.

That you haven't heard much of this material we hold obvious. Over 8000 new albums glut the market (and airwaves) each year. Some of our Best Stuff has to get overlooked. Or underheard. Underbought. Thus, we're trying to get right to you Phonograph Lovers, bypassing the middle man.

Each album is divinely packaged, having been designed at no little expense by our latently talented Art Department.

They also advertised them in Rolling Stone, with equally interesting ad copy in the ads there. I ordered a couple of them.... it was where I first heard Little Feat, Chuhky Novi and Ernie, and others.
 
My favorite innersleeve "ads" were when Warner Bros. was advertising "Warner Bros. Loss Leaders," which were 2-LP compilations of selections (some hits, some album cuts) from recent releases. The idea, of course, being that you heard one song from Mannfred Mann's Earth Band, you might be tempted to check out their whole album. The albums sold for $2, which was quite a deal considering a regular album retailed for about 6 or 7 bucks in those days.

The ad copy on these sleeves had a sassy style to it that I really liked. Here's a sample which I found on the web:



They also advertised them in Rolling Stone, with equally interesting ad copy in the ads there. I ordered a couple of them.... it was where I first heard Little Feat, Chuhky Novi and Ernie, and others.
Mike -- I remember those! One of the radio stations I worked at in the '80s had Schlagers!
 
Mike -- I remember those! One of the radio stations I worked at in the '80s had Schlagers!
The radio station i work at Has A few of those loss leaders comps on vinyl and it also includes "Schlagers"! I have played a few tracks from that on my shows over the years
Yes! The station I worked at (that had Schlagers!) did not play rock music so Schlagers! was the only WB comp from that ad cycle we could have played. (As I recall, the other loss leaders featured rock music.)
 
My favorite innersleeve "ads" were when Warner Bros. was advertising "Warner Bros. Loss Leaders," which were 2-LP compilations of selections (some hits, some album cuts) from recent releases. The idea, of course, being that you heard one song from Mannfred Mann's Earth Band, you might be tempted to check out their whole album. The albums sold for $2, which was quite a deal considering a regular album retailed for about 6 or 7 bucks in those days.

The ad copy on these sleeves had a sassy style to it that I really liked. Here's a sample which I found on the web:



They also advertised them in Rolling Stone, with equally interesting ad copy in the ads there. I ordered a couple of them.... it was where I first heard Little Feat, Chuhky Novi and Ernie, and others.
That copy was written by Warners' Stan Cornyn, who turned ad copy and liner notes into an art form.

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As I've mentioned here before, the first two albums I bought with my own money at age 11 were Sergio's LOOK AROUND and FRANCIS ALBERT SINATRA AND ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM. Both had killer liner notes. But only Stan Cornyn's, on the Sinatra album, made me want to write. Here they are:

It had begun like the World Soft Championships. The songs, mostly by Antonio Carlos Jobim. Tender melodies. Tender like a two-day, lobster-red Rio sunburn, so tender they’d scream agony if handled rough. Slap one of his fragile songs on the back with a couple of trumpets? Like washing crystal in a cement mixer.

Seemed like the whole idea was to out-hush each other.

Decibels treated like daggers. The arranger tiptoeing about, eliminating some percussion here, ticks there, ridding every song of clicks, bings, bips, all things sharp. Doing it with fervor matched only by Her Majesty’s Silkworms.

And Sinatra makes a joke about all this. “I haven’t sung so soft since I had the laryngitis.” Singing so soft, if he sang any softer he’d have to be lying on his back.

Hours earlier, Sinatra & Co. moved into Studio One. Nobody much around except a couple of Rent-a-Cops. Sinatra there half an hour early, as never before. He begins running down the melody of the new songs. Softly whistling, smoothing away wrinkles.

The booth begins to fill up with gold cuff-links, Revlon red fake nails, Countess Mara ties.

Outside, through double-glass windows, musicians with black fiddle cases wander warily in, chatting about the weather in Boston, the governor in Berkeley, anything but pizzicato. Along the studio walls, the wanderings of miscellaneous Brazilians in yachting caps and silver mustaches.

And then, casually, at eight, exactly eight, Sinatra looks over at the conductor and “Well let’s try one, huh?”

At first, it does not groove right. This is not ring-a-ding-ding. Sinatra mother-hens the session closely: “Let’s have an ‘A,’ huh?” as he snaps the orchestra.

The “A” passes quickly around the infield: piano to strings to reeds.

They run through the song once. Then . . . pause. Long. Long. Like standing there while the Judge opens up the verdict envelope. The arranger-conductor, not made of asbestos, sensitive in his position, there between Jobim and Sinatra, looking over at Sinatra, worrying “Tempo?”

“No, it’s a good tempo. It’s the only way you can do it. You have to hang with it.” Sinatra’s assurance: there is only one tempo for this song; any other tempo would be wrong. Have been, are, and forever shall be wrong.

One more exploration of the song, to catch more wrinkles. Sinatra himself, at a rough spot in the bridge, stops cold. Long. Long. He points to himself as the culprit. “That was an old Chesterfield that just came up on me. Around 1947, it felt like.”

You feel for anybody who will blow it on the next take. It begins. The long, long. About a minute and a half in, then the trombonist braaacks a note. Braaack. That obvious. He can’t look over at some other trombonist; he’s the only trombonist. So he sits there, a blutch-colored felt hat sagged across the bell of his horn, hung there to keep it Soft. Poor Trombone Player knows: his music said B and it came out F and Jesus was it wrong.

Sinatra looks over. “Don’t sweat it,” he says.

The trombonist tries a joke back: “If I blow any softer, it’ll hafta come out the back of my neck.”

Next to Jobim perches Jobim’s personal drummer, a Brazilian who can look simultaneously alert and stoned. Flew in to Hollywood specially for this, but not from Rio. From Chicago, figure that out.

“Soft, son, hold it down.” A bronze-colored sofa pillow slumps back against his bass drum.

This drummer, named Dom-Um Romao, looking like he should be selling weird rugs in Arab doorways. Looking like a tricky one, Martha. Between takes, the way he keeps the tips of his fingers warm under his armpits. His arms crossed that way, the fuzzy goatee, looking like a road company Buddhist.

In contrast, the Conductor, a German. Claus Ogerman, speaking always Germanic phrasing. “Yes the introduction, I will slow down each time the fourth beat.” There in his blue cardigan sweater, fully buttoned. So starched even his sweaters have creases.

The buzzing continues, with grey-templed producer Sonny Burke conferring on last-minute scoring changes, standing by with vats of oil lest troubled waters rise. To the side, Jobim’s goateed producer, Ray Gilbert, soothing softly in Portuguese.

On the next number, Jobim will sing duet with Sinatra. “Tone,” as Sinatra calls him, bends in close to his microphone. His hair undressed, finger combed. His jaw moving with precision, moving to each new vowel, his lips moving like yours do when you write a check for over $1000. The slight and tousled boy-man, speaking softly while about him rushes a world too fast. Antonio, troubled not by the clamor in the world. Troubled more by the whisperings from his heart.

The song’s last note. Keep quiet until the cymbal stops ringing. Dead quiet. Only Sinatra, a born peeker, can’t wait. He liked that take. He bends over, peeking into the control booth, unwilling to wait for the endless cymbal overhang to end. Peeking in at the engineers, as if daring them to reveal any Electronic Irreverences.

They reveal none.

“That,” says Sinatra, “should be the record.”

During playback, Sinatra leans on the conductor’s vacant podium. The only parts of him you see just popped white cuffs and worry lines in his brow. He’s Worry personified, like he’s in the last reel of “The Greatest Birth Ever Given.”

Around him circle the rest. The circle, too, listens to the playback.

Grown men do not cry. They instead put on faces gauged to be intent. They too listen hard, as if half way through someone whispers buried treasure clues.

It’s over. Sinatra walks away. “Next tune,” he says. Around him, the circle. Half-stammering, half-silent, because they can’t think up a phrase of praise that’s truly the topper.

Except for Jobim.

He walks up to Sinatra. A peculiar walk, like he’s got gum on one sole. He puts his arm around Sinatra. He hugs Sinatra. Both men smile.

Jobim turns out to look at the circle around them. His face alight, proud of his singer. His face triumphant. As if to say, and all along, you thought he was Italian.
 
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