🎵 AotW Classics Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 - FOOL ON THE HILL SP-4160

What is your favorite track?

  • Fool On The Hill

    Votes: 7 21.2%
  • Festa

    Votes: 5 15.2%
  • Casa Forte

    Votes: 4 12.1%
  • Canto Triste

    Votes: 2 6.1%
  • Upa, Neguinho

    Votes: 3 9.1%
  • Lapinha

    Votes: 3 9.1%
  • Scarborough Fair

    Votes: 3 9.1%
  • When Summer Turns To Snow

    Votes: 1 3.0%
  • Laia Ladaia (Reza)

    Votes: 5 15.2%

  • Total voters
    33
In case anyone is looking for a mono FOOL ON THE HILL, I see one on eBay.


It'll cost you about $40 with shipping, but hey, if it's something you really want...
Thank you, Harry. It is too much so I'll wait to find it locally if I can drag my carcass out shopping.
 
Where are your usual haunts? I miss having Sam's Jams around...
I go to Record Time in Ferndale and Solo Records in Royal Oak. I want to get out to Liberty Records in Ann Arbor, but haven't been to the latest location.
 
I haven't been to Liberty in several years, and I don't know how many of the used record shops still remain out there. PJ's I think has been gone for a few years now. There was a place on State Street (?) on the second floor of a building near the university, but heck if I can remember the name of it. (I found a used TJB Beat of the Brass there about 20 years ago.) I also miss the old Schoolkids Records on Liberty--they even had their own small record label for a while. (They reissued the two Kingbees albums on CD back in the 90s.)

It's just hard to find the time anymore to go out on record crawls like I used to. We have a newer store within a few blocks of the house, and I haven't ever found time to stop in. There's also Melodies & Memories nearby (huge store--it's a place I could spend a couple of hours in), and Weirdsville is up in Mt. Clemens. (They were the store that made national news for displaying only copies of Whipped Cream in the bins. 😁)
 
I was listening to the mono copy today on my stereo. I did notice a slight difference in the tones on a few selections. They seemed to have a bit of a richer sound than the stereo. Also, the stereo Scarborough Fair has this sort of honk that is very noticeable. On the mono, it was there but was more muted.
 
Part of that is probably due to the stereo copy using CSG, which throws off the sound in unexpected ways.
 
I actually got this album the week it was released in 1968. Even today the cover baffles me. But it worked!
When you bought your copy, did it have the singles sticker on the back to cover the hill? In this area, the shrink wrap had the sticker but I have picked up copies that have the sticker on the jacket itself. I do know of someone that had a Columbia Record Club issue that had it on the jacket and not the wrap. I bought my copy in summer 1970 and it had the sticker on the wrap.
 
I picked up my one and only LP of this album in 1986 (still have it, of course!). The two odd things about the cover that immediately intrigued me were: 1) there was no album ID info on the spine; and 2) it seemed that Sergio was seated as the fool on the hill as it were -- so I thought there was some additional inside meaning afoot that perhaps would be addressed in the gatefold or in one of the songs...
 
I picked up my one and only LP of this album in 1986 (still have it, of course!). The two odd things about the cover that immediately intrigued me were: 1) there was no album ID info on the spine; and 2) it seemed that Sergio was seated as the fool on the hill as it were -- so I thought there was some additional inside meaning afoot that perhaps would be addressed in the gatefold or in one of the songs...
The lack of information on the spine did not pique my interest. What did was that Scarborough Fair is printed in red ink and the other titles are in black. I am surprised that you were able to get the gatefold as by that time, it was gone from this area and reissued as a single cover.
 
Believe it or not. To this day, I never actually "looked" at the fully-opened exterior cover: seeing both sides as individual panels back in the mid-80s I concluded the cover art job was pretty cheesy. (Seeing it fully opened nearly 40 years later merely confirmed this.)
 
...my adolescence is a lie!

(Seriously, though---look what you could do before Photoshop)
It was a lot of work with an X-Acto knife and a very steady hand to pull off something like that. (My mother was a commercial artist and I'd seen her do similar things many times.) The shadows would often be airbrushed in.

Photoshop really wouldn't be too much easier since all the background has to be trimmed out precisely. There are "smart" selection tools that will do the bulk of the work but that also leaves "fringes" around items that need to be painstakingly removed so the edges are not seen. It's the minor touch-ups that take the most time. The bonus is that you could stick the resulting cutout on anything when you're done with it.

On the other hand, that set looks very uncomfortable. Yet it's such a good composition!
 
We used to have two record stores here called Tracks and Peaches. They would have someone paint very large versions of album covers for posting on their outer walls to show new releases. Too bad they were not in business in this area when Fool On The Hill was released. I can imaging a 5 by 5 painting of this album jacket out for everyone to see.
 
Looking again at that "full cover" pic, I'm still confused about that hill. Without getting too graphic, to me it does NOT look like the typical proportions of a human being.... the middle part is really flat, and certain bits on the left side just don't look "real" to me. I'm sure a certain amount of airbrushing and other tweaks were done to make it fit the size of the frame, and get it past the censorship division at A&M. Maybe it was composed out of two shots from different angles, or stretched in the middle, or something. I do remember getting the gatefold, opening it up, and thinking "Is it? It is! But wait...something's not quite right here." Too bad the photographer behind it isn't still among us.

Also it's too bad this album wasn't as famous as "Whipped Cream," where we know almost all of the details behind the cover!
 
I'm sure a certain amount of airbrushing and other tweaks were done to make it fit the size of the frame, and get it past the censorship division at A&M.

Record labels didn't have censorship divisions. They released what they thought would sell, and if they got a complaint from a major retailer that threatened sales (Sears did this a couple of times), they'd place a sticker over the offending part or in extreme cases (Blind Faith) cook up a replacement cover.
 
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