The Now Spinning/Recent Purchases Thread

Right album, right time. I've been listening to Courage quite a bit lately, and dabbling in other Milton Nascimento albums along the way. So many of the tunes he wrote back in those days have become Brazilian standards.
 
As is typical for me on Independence Day, I'm spinning "The Declaration" by The 5th Dimension.

 
I'll probably be streaming my Pandora mambo/salsa channel, or the Salsa Warriors Internet radio station, as I'll be working outdoors most of the day.
 
As is typical for me on Independence Day, I'm spinning "The Declaration" by The 5th Dimension.
Correct me if my memory fails me here: I recall reading many years ago in one of the 5th Dimension comps that they performed this notable selection at the Nixon White House -- and Nixon appeared please with the performance.
 
Strangely, as big a hit as the tracks on this album were, it's never had a CD reissue except in Japan. "Mama Used to Say" was a #2 R&B hit and was all over local radio. Overall it's a very strong album. Junior had a song on the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack, "Do You Want My Love." He pioneered modern British R&B a few years before other artists (Sade, Lisa Stansfield, Loose Ends, Soul II Soul, etc.) started having US hits.

Thankfully my LP copy is flawless after all these years and still sounds excellent.

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The only CD he's had released in the US was an odd Universal Funk Essentials release that was a mix of 12" single and album cuts. (Radio in my area played "Mama Used to Say" straight off the LP.)
 
These three recordings along with recent Qobuz downloads complete my House Of Mancini CD cache:

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Then there are these two memorable releases with Doc, which I file under Severinsen. (Hank originated the idea, coordinated the dates, and arranged the music; however, according to Hank, Doc's the reason these two LPs were conceived as Hank wanted to play up Doc's beautiful tone and excellent balladeer chops):

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Today I picked up Jimmie Rogers " The Windmills Of Your Mind" at the thrift store and that is on the turntable right now. It is a good condition overall.
It is also a white label promotional copy.
 
Update on the Junior album:

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I'm not around to spin the LP, so I'm trying the reissue that Qobuz has available for streaming. Thankfully I didn't buy this--they replaced the album version of his second hit, "Too Late," with the 12-inch remix. Like other recent reissues of albums, there are almost as many bonus tracks (7) as there were album tracks (8), and neither of the two alternate versions of "Too Late" are the album version either. The UK single version is the same mix, but is too short...and has some different vocals towards the end as it fades out before the where the album version's coda would have started. The one upside is that there are two tracks added that I not familiar with: "Fame" and "In Words." (IMHO, the only two bonus tracks worth keeping.)

So, I'm glad I never bought the CD version of this release. I'll just do a needle drop of the LP.

This registers the same level of annoyance of just about any version of the ZZ Top song "Legs." The original album mix from 1983 was the best and "crunchiest" version. Thank goodness the LP box set reissue uses the original mix! But any release of that song past the album has been a remix of some sort or another, some of the versions going with the mix from the popular video. Ruins the original vibe. I don't know if it was a label decision, or a band decision.
 
These three recordings along with recent Qobuz downloads complete my House Of Mancini CD cache:


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I'm due for a new eyeglass prescription. I thought the first song title in the list was "Almond Pancakes." 🤣

I had a few of these records growing up. I didn't have Mancini Country, but did have one called Hangin' Out that I believe also had a C&W flavor to it. I did find most of his RCA albums, but every so often I discover some obscurity I never heard of before. Many years ago in a restaurant, I saw an old movie poster for a film named Oklahoma Crude, and in the fine print is Mancini's name as the composer. And sure enough, there was a soundtrack album on RCA for it. I think I grabbed it, but to be polite, I'll say it was "nice enough" but honestly not all that memorable. I don't think there was much music to go with to make a soundtrack album. Similar to how Shot In The Dark only had a single (the main title theme, and "Shadows of Paris") and not a full soundtrack album.
 
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I'm due for a new eyeglass prescription. I thought the first song title in the list was "Almond Pancakes." 🤣

I had a few of these records growing up. I didn't have Mancini Country, but did have one called Hangin' Out that I believe also had a C&W flavor to it. I did find most of his RCA albums, but every so often I discover some obscurity I never heard of before. Many years ago in a restaurant, I saw an old movie poster for a film named Oklahoma Crude, and in the fine print is Mancini's name as the composer. And sure enough, there was a soundtrack album on RCA for it. I think I grabbed it, but to be polite, I'll say it was "nice enough" but honestly not all that memorable. I don't think there was much music to go with to make a soundtrack album. Similar to how Shot In The Dark only had a single (the main title theme, and "Shadows of Paris") and not a full soundtrack album.
Oklahoma Crude was not a very successful movie if I remember right. The song "Send A Little Love My Way" was a single for Anny Murray but it stalled at number 72 on the charts. It did get nominated for the Oscar but did not win.
 
the first song title in the list was "Almond Pancakes"
It was a regional hit in Broken Pelvis, Wyoming, back in '68 for Jake Raverton and the Back Stabbers. The b-side was "How 'Bout Some Warm Syrup, Babe?"😬
 
It was a regional hit in Broken Pelvis, Wyoming, back in '68 for Jake Raverton and the Back Stabbers. The b-side was "How 'Bout Some Warm Syrup, Babe?"😬
Good deal. Just ordered it from Discogs. They had another single, "Omelette in my Toolbox" b/w "The Night the Chevy Caprice Drowned," but it didn't go anywhere on the charts so it's kind of rare.
 
Today I am spinning a good score that I made at a Book/Record Exchange store here in Norfolk VA.
I found Music Box and Sandpipers The Wonder Of You. I have wanted the latter for a long time as Let Go is the earliest recollection I have of a Sandpipers song that I heard on the radio. There is a third album but I am posting that under another thread.
 
Monkey House latest "Remember The Audio" (all 11 songs). Just click "Play All" or the first track to hear it on YouTube!!
 
I had a few records arrive recently. This one I played this morning:

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Being a solo piano recording, it's nice to hear it on the upgraded turntable, which has rock-steady pitch.
 
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Andre Previn. Previn's recordings were out of left field for me (and for OJC as well...given the Limited Edition label moniker). I know nothing about him. According to Wikipedia, he has three musical careers: soundtrack composer, orchestral conductor, and jazz pianist. Regarding the latter, Wikipedia states, "Previn described himself as a musician who played jazz, rather than a jazz musician". Nevertheless, the three solo piano outings he cut, 1958-60, for Contemporary are fine recordings and relevant along side any of jazz' better known pianists.
 
Previn doesn't come to mind often, but these are a few I can recall.

We had this in the house when I was growing up, but I don't remember playing much more the first track out of curiosity. It's probably where I'd first seen Previn's name. (And I don't know why it stuck with me all these years, as I remembered it as an Andre Previn album, not one by Shelly Manne.)

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I purchased this one many years ago:

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I also remember that my favorite recording of The Planets is the version that Previn recorded for Telarc in the mid 80s with the Royal Philharmonic. I had an LP copy conducted by Eugene Ormandy (RCA) but it was kind of lifeless (sonically) in comparison to this recording.

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From the composing side, he wrote the song from Valley of the Dolls (which appears on a couple of my Dionne Warwick CDs). "Like Young" (which I have on the The Mancini Touch album) is his, as are the multiple versions of "You're Gonna Hear from Me" that Bill Evans recorded (apparently first on his California Here I Come album on Verve).
 
This is just as impressive now as it was the first time I heard it. I don't play it often--don't want to burn myself out on it. It's like a classical work at times--there is something new to discover each time I play it.

 
Anytime someone mentions alpaca, I am reminded of this:



😁

My mother's cousin gave me the 45 RPM single of this track (it was on a pink Warner Bros. label) and I played it quite a bit. The TV show was before my time, though, and I never saw it show up on our local stations in syndication either.

This was, like, the B-side, daddy-o:

 
The Kookie album might be the ginchiest, but the arranger behind the album is one Don Ralke, someone I honestly haven't heard about until now. He apparently was a Hollywood mainstay and scored music for various television series, but only had a few albums under his name.

I kid you not.

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I apparently haven't heard Gershwin with Bongos, but since Qobuz strangely has this title (and another bongo album of his), I'm going to have a few laughs over lunch. I don't like Gershwin much, but this should be...interesting to say the least.

He also had this album:

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The rear cover does something I've never seen other labels do--it lists other titles I may enjoy on other labels, by unrelated artists.

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(I have the Schory LP.)
 
I'm just listening to this right now for the first time, as I was looking through some Fleetwood Mac releases on Discogs.

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The songs actually are pretty good. It's widely known that Stevie Nicks bailed prior to recording this album, and Fleetwood Mac, as a group, decided the album would be better served by being released under the Buckingham/McVie billing.

And in all honesty, the less I have to hear of Nicks' screeching vocals, the better.

But what is ruining this experience for me is the absolutely dreadful sound quality. What a frickin' mess. If they had backed off the compression and dropped the brickwall limiting, this would have sounded pretty good. But as it stands, five tracks into it and I was already exhausted, ear-wise. This music has no room to breathe.

It reminds me of the album 13 by Black Sabbath--it was the closest they ever came in recent years to a reunion of the original group (only drummer Bill Ward sat it out, as he made unreasonable demands), and the songwriting was en point. But after two tracks, that "slammed" brick wall compression was exhausting on the ears.

Same with Van Halen's original lineup reunion, A Different Kind of Truth. They brickwalled the snot out of it. By "She's The Woman," my ears feel assaulted, and that's only two tracks into it. Play their first album in comparison--it has room to breathe, plenty of space between the instruments, dynamics, and it packs an "in-your-face" punch that the continuous onslaught of Truth can't even aspire to.

Three good examples of "pretty good album" ruined by horrible sonics. Shameful.
 
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