Since the old lady moved out I've been trying to get things back the way I like them. It's taken three plus years but I finally rescued a bunch of records from temporary banishment in the basement back to their rightful spot on the first floor. So far I've moved about 2400 LPs and several boxes of 45s, so this time around I thought I'd spotlight a couple of my favorite picture sleeves. Enjoy!

Steve Martin used to be the funniest comedian out there way back in the 70's. I first remember him from early appearances on the 'Mike Douglas Show' where he played banjo with a trick arrow through his head while spouting non sequiturs. Even though his act left Mike and his audience more baffled than tickled, Martin persevered, and by the time I got to college he was playing university campuses across the country and selling more records than Elvis.

Born in Waco, Texas and raised in southern California, Martin studied philosophy in college before dropping out to pursue comedy full time. He worked as a writer on the 'Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour' (the staff of writers there won an Emmy in 1969), Glen Campbell's show and on Sonny and Cher's show, where he also appeared occasionally in skits.

After polishing his own routine in local comedy clubs, Martin moved up to opening for musical acts like The Carpenters and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. (Ironically, when I saw him at EMU in the late seventies, Lovin' Spoonful founder John Sebastian was opening for him and the audience could barely sit through the music, shouting 'We want Steve!' until the poor bastard finally sang the theme from 'Welcome Back Kotter' and exited stage right.)

Steve worked his way up to an appearance on the 'Tonight Show', and, along with appearances on SNL and 'The Gong Show', picked up enough steam to get a record deal. His first album 'Let's Get Small' garnered Martin a national audience and the punchline from one of his bits, 'Excuuuu-uuuse me!' became a catch phrase that swept the nation.

The single 'King Tut' came from Martin's second LP, 'A Wild and Crazy Guy' (which also became a basis for a recurring bit on SNL featuring himself and Dan Aykroyd). Both of his first two albums won Grammys for Best Comedy Record and 'Wild and Crazy Guy' shot to the #2 position on the Billboard charts, propelled by 'King Tut' , which went all the way to #17 on the Hot 100 in 1978.

After conquering the recording industry and stand up comedy, Martin set his sights on Hollywood, writing and starring in his first film, a short called 'The Absent-Minded Waiter', which won an Oscar nomination in 1977. From there he went on to be directed by Carl Reiner in 'The Jerk', Martin's first starring vehicle and probably still the funniest of all his movies.Since then, Martin has appeared in and/or written and/or served as executive producer for dozens of films, including 'Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid' (1982), 'The Man With Two Brains' (1983), 'Little Shop of Horrors' (1986) and 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' (1988). He even made it to mainstream pictures, playing straight roles in tamer stuff like 'Parenthood' (1989), 'Father of the Bride' (1991) and 'Bringing Down the House' (2003) - which also featured Queen Latifah, and recently starred alongside Beyonce as Inspector Clousseau in the 2006 'Pink Panther' remake.

An accomplished banjo player, Martin shares a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance (along with several other banjo players, including the legendary Earl Scruggs) for their 2001 recording of 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown'.

Steve's also authored several books, ranging from his 1979 comedy release 'Cruel Shoes' to last year's autobiography 'Born Standing Up'.

To this day, Martin remains a regular host of 'Saturday Night Live', and is running neck-and-neck with Alec Baldwin for most appearances as host of the popular late night comedy show, and rumor has it there will be a second 'Pink Panther' movie some time next year.

I have to be honest, though, I think Steve 'jumped the shark' with 'Parenthood', and I couldn't bring myself to even watch 'Pink Panther' (even with Beyonce in almost every frame) because the trailer for it made him look so bad compared to the late, great Peter Sellers. But you gotta love this guy! He just keeps plugging away!

Speaking of plugging away, my comedy records (including copies of Martin's LPs) are still in boxes sitting on the kitchen floor while my back recovers from moving my 78s, my jazz vocals, my country and western, my R & B and several hundred miscellaneous records last weekend. Unfortunately, all the first floor shelves are full and the comedy records have to go up one more flight of stairs.

I figure I should have everything where it belongs by the time Barack Obama starts his second term. What's that you say? I'm lazy? YOU think I'M lazy?

Well, excuuuuuuu-uuuse ME!

Love it or hate it, the 'Batman' television show was a ground-breaker in many ways. Airing on ABC in prime time, the series consisted of twice-a-week, half-hour installments instead of the traditional one-hour format, the first episode leaving the Dynamic Duo in some sort of predicament sure to get you to tune in for part two. Sort of like a miniature version of the old adventure movie serials. The show was also heavily influenced by Pop Art, the most public art movement of the Twentieth Century, and since it aired in the mid-sixties, right at the height of Pop Art popularity, 'Batman' became a sort of parody of itself. A goofy, illogical, extremely colorful romp through the pages of DC Comics' second most popular comic book, complete with flying sound effects brushed right across the screen.

More comedy than adventure, the show still worked on a lot of levels. The villains came to life thanks to wicked portrayals by some of the great character actors of all time... Eartha Kitt as Catwoman, Burgess Meredith as The Penguin, Frank Gorshin as The Riddler and Cesar Romero as The Joker. Oh, and one of my earliest crushes was on the curvy and succulent Yvonne Craig, who added some sex appeal for the good guys with her perky portrayal of Batgirl. Let's not forget the stars - Adam West and Burt Ward, who were unfortunately typecast as Batman and Robin for the rest of their careers. West continues to bank on his 'Batman' appeal as a recurring character on the FOX series 'Family Guy' and also appeared as himself on an episode of the underrated but extremely funny 'King Of Queens' television show.

And then there was the music. Neal Hefti's catchy score for the series included what may be the most recognizable television theme song ever. You even know the words I bet. Let's all sing!

“Da-da da-da da-da da-da da-da da-da da-da da-da BATMAAAN!”

Today's featured LP isn't exactly what it looks like though. A quick perusal would lead you to believe that it's pretty cut and dried, cheaply recorded kid's stuff, pressed to take advantage of the popularity of the show. A knock-off. The only credits on the cover are for the Sensational Guitars of Dan and Dale (not to be confused with the Sleepwalk Guitars of Dan & Dale, also from the sixties). The music here is actually recorded by a work-for-hire band made up of members of The Blues Project and Sun Ra's Cosmic Arkestra, including Danny Kalb and Steve Katz on guitars and the great Sun Ra himself on the Hammond B-3! And it rocks, in a twisted, sixties, surf/garage sort of way. But, aside from the Batman theme, little else here resembles anything Hefti ever penned, the majority of it sounding like a psychedelic jam session that the cats made up on the spot. There's even one song, 'Batmobile Wheels', that is simply a thinly-disguised instrumental rework of the Lennon and McCartney hit 'She Loves You'. My research didn't turn up a name for the female vocalist who appears sporadically amidst the instrumental madness, but she ably adds some serious soul to the rocking 'Robin's Theme' which opens side two.

The great Sun Ra is a story unto himself and richly deserves his own Five Star, but briefly...

Born Herman Poole Blount in Birmingham, Alabama, Ra played the role of jazz prophet, living an enigmatic life while fronting his 'Arkestra' for decades, pressing and selling his records himself and often contributing artwork for the covers. A bi-polar Renaissance man, Ra composed most of the music, booked the band's dates and was a virtuoso keyboard player as well. The mythology of Ra tells of his abduction by aliens when he was a young man, how the aliens whisked him off to Saturn and deeply changed his outlook on life. It was after that, in a frenzy of twisted logic that Ra renamed himself after the Egyptian god of the sun. Somewhere in this mess I call home I have a copy of Ra's biography, 'Space Is The Place: The Lives And Times Of Sun Ra' by John F. Szwed. It follows Ra's kooky life (including a brief account of the 'Batman' session) in great detail and I recommend it highly.

Back to the LP... This baby's available on CD now, too. Wouldn't you know it? It was just too cool not to be, I guess. I turned up my playable copy for a single buck about a month ago and it hasn't been off my turntable since. I had been looking for a clean copy of this album since my buddy Greg played it for me in a drunken frenzy one evening, and the LP is pretty tough to come by. I'm sure you can find it on Ebay, but go out and get the CD if you have to. Just get it, get it?

I have to admit that when I first picked this LP up way back in the mid-eighties I wasn't particularly impressed by it. First off, This Cat was going through his beatnik hard-bop phase, which kept me from appreciating the rolling funk grooves, the repetitive soft jazz vocals and the electric instrumentation. I was more used to Byrd's acoustic sound from the fifties and sixties, and at the time was spending most of my nights away from the real world watching black and white television, reading and listening to older jazz, immersing myself in the past and pretending I was living in that era. To be honest, I still pretend that I am sometimes, only it's much harder these days, what with cell phones, HDTV, the World Wide Web, those Blue Ray Tooth things and such.

Shoot, even the eighties were better than it is now, ya dig?

Of course I loved the cover, and the fact that it was a wraparound gatefold made the paltry $2.99 I spent on a used copy seem worth it for the cover alone. But I pulled the album out recently and have given it a few spins along with a long-overdue second chance. And you know what? It holds up just fine.

Not really jazz and not really fusion in the same sense as those ground-breaking Miles Davis sessions, the sound here is more semi-funk and R&B, and comes off closer in feel to some lost soundtrack to a Pam Grier film that never got made. When I listen to it now, I can almost see her sashaying down the big city sidewalk in summer heat, wearing skin tight leather pants and sporting a round afro. Hang on a sec... I'm gonna flip it over and listen to side one again...

Recorded in 1973, 'Street Lady' didn't exactly set the world on fire with the critics and it didn't produce much in the hit department, either, although the album did climb the jazz charts in 1974, the same year Byrd broke through with a charting single. 'Walking In Rhythm' was recorded by a group (aptly named The Blackbyrds) that Byrd put together right after 'Street Lady' consisting of himself and a handful of his best students (Byrd has taught music and theory at Rutgers, Howard, Oberlin College and NYU, among others), and it was with this group that he finally achieved mainstream success.

Seen as a bridge between jazz trumpeter Donald Byrd of the sixties and Byrd as leader of the Blackbyrds, 'Street Lady' was a logical transition and an important step in that direction. Solo artist became completely secondary to the group sound. You can hear some Chuck Mangione in Byrd's flugelhorn playing and there's lots of soaring flute (provided here by Roger Glenn) that fits well with the wah-wah guitar and the insistent funky punch of clavinet that helps drive the rhythm. So what if it's just a bunch of lengthy, feel-good groove jams. So what if it's not particularly hook-oriented. Just sit back, turn on the black light, burn some incense and let your neck go loose. You'll be head-bobbing in no time.

Byrd was born in Detroit in 1932, graduating from Cass Tech and moving on to the Air Force (where he played in a military band) before earning degrees from Wayne State and the Manhattan School of Music. On his way up, Byrd played with almost all the heavy hitters of jazz, including Coltrane, Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk, just to name a few.

By the time the sixties rolled around, Byrd was a star at Blue Note, where he recorded a number of LPs in the traditional hard bop vein before making the transition towards funk fusion in the late-sixties (his 1969 LP 'Fancy Free' was the first of his to feature electric piano). Often under-appreciated in terms of virtuosity, Byrd has not only survived the test of time, but carved out a nice little niche for himself in jazz history and continues to be active to this day.

Oh, and if you happen to be a fan of acid jazz, you just might recognize some recycled stuff from 'Street Lady' STILL being played in clubs and on college radio.

I have to tell you that the biggest surprise I got when I pulled this LP out after so long was when I checked to see what it was going for on the almighty Internet. I found a sealed original copy with a corner cut on Ebay for $79.99! And it wasn't unusual to see other sites selling used original copies in the neighborhood of twenty to forty bucks! Ha ha! My copy is stone cold mint, cover AND disc!

I have a second copy that I picked up for 99 cents recently, too. I don't really know why I bought it. It just seemed like too good of a deal to pass up, even if I already did have another one at home. I guess I thought I'd be able to put the cover on display or something, but damn, maybe I can sell it on Ebay for five bucks, huh? Anybody interested? No?

Anybody OUT THERE? ANYBODY?!

I have to admit that I don't remember too much about this flick. I saw it in 1982 while I was attending college at Western Michigan. One of the fraternities there sponsored a weekly Friday night movie that was held in one of the bigger lecture halls on east campus, and Andy's 'Dracula' was the second end of a double-header that also featured his 'Flesh For Frankenstein' as the opener. I'm sure I must have nodded at some point.

I do remember it being very slow.

I also kind of remember the premise: Andy's version of Dracula is sickly and can only drink 'wirgin' blood, so he sets his vampire sights on the three beautiful daughters of his landlord, played by celebrated neorealist Italian director and actor Vittorio De Sica in one of his last film appearances. Dracula (Udo Kier) finds out one by one that the sisters aren't as 'pure' as his health requires, vomiting up the results of his first two tainted meals.

Somehow, handyman Joe Dellasandro (a Greenwich Village street hustler who got his fifteen minutes appearing in a number of Warhol films) catches on to Dracula's plan and takes immediate action, bravely charging in to save the third sister - the youngest and the only one who truly is a 'wirgin', by ably nailing her before the big bad vampire can get there, all the while woodenly delivering his lines in a thick Bronx accent.

Roman Polanski has a cameo.

Directed by Paul Morrissey in 1974 right after he directed 'Flesh For Frankenstein', 'Andy Warhol's Dracula' (a.k.a. 'Blood For Dracula' and 'Young Dracula') features a fine soundtrack by a practically unknown Italian composer named Claudio Gizzi, who also cranked out the score for 'Frankenstein'.

The Main Title sequence has a haunting quality, almost Satie-like in its mathematical simplicity, and the balance of the music is a satisfying listen whether you know anything about the movie or not. Oddly, though, other than these two Warhol flicks, Gizzi's only listed film work was for Roman Polanski's 'Che?' from 1973.

I don't know how rare this LP is, but I have a ten-year old price guide that lists both 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein' for around ten bucks each in mint condition (which my copies are - so there). It also looks like both soundtracks were released in 1982 (on the incredible Varese Sarabande label), which was the same year these two flicks were making the rounds again with the theater re-release of 'Flesh For Frankenstein' when I saw them in Kalamazoo.

A quick Ebay search turned up just a 1995 import CD that included both scores and when I checked the seller's price I couldn't believe my eyes. Some fool thinks he's going to get a 'Buy It Now' price of $229.99 for it! One CD! And he's going to charge fifteen bucks to ship it! Ha! I love the Internet!

Anyway, I know it's still two weeks early, but Happy Halloween!

I got invited to a Halloween party a number of years ago and spent a lot of time and thought on my costume. I went to Value Village and bought a blue lab coat and a wig. I pinned a bunch of random buttons on the lab coat, punched a lens out of an old pair of sunglasses, trimmed my beard and waxed it to make it look like my goatee was really a fake one, and I'm telling you I looked exactly like the Ghoul. But guess what. When it was time to count the votes for best costume, I came in second to a woman dressed like a Christmas tree!

SPECIAL BONUS RECOMMENDATION SECTION!!!
I've never done this before, folks, but I got turned on to this CD over the weekend and it hasn't been out of my player ever since, so I'm using the Five Star to hip you to a brand new release out there that just hit the streets.

Last Saturday I was browsing the used LPs at my favorite local record shop, Street Corner Music, and they were playing what I thought was a compilation disc of some recently unearthed forgotten soul gems from the sixties. It turned out to be the new album by Raphael Saadiq.

The print is so small on the damned booklet that I had a hard time reading it, but it looked like Mr. Saadiq pretty much did the whole shebang - writing, producing and performing. One minute he's channeling Sam Cooke and the next it's Smokey Robinson... What? You say Smokey's not dead? Whew, that's a relief! One minute he's channeling Sam Cooke and the next it's... it's... Marvin Gaye. He's dead, right?

It's brand new, but it's as comfortable as an old shoe, as familiar as your mama's face, and I guarantee you that you will love it. At least until Jay-Z starts rapping on the last song. But hey, it's the last song. You can always just skip it, right? I'd give it a few listens, though. I got used to it.

What better artist to feature here this holiday season than the man who passed away on Christmas day just two short years ago?

That's right, I'm talking about James Brown.

Born James Joseph Brown, Jr. in the tiny South Carolina town of Barnwell during the Great Depression (soon to be known as the 'Not-So-Bad Depression' thanks to George W. Bush), the young Brown got the first of his many nicknames as a toddler. 'Junior' grew up dirt poor, and after his parents separated he lived with various family members before his father sent him to live with an aunt in Augusta, Georgia, where she worked as a whorehouse madame.

Seriously. You think I'd make something like that up?

Anyway, the young Brown soon found himself hustling to make whatever money he could get, shining shoes, washing dishes and dancing for dollars on the street. By the time he was a teenager he'd had his first brush with the law and wound up in reform school, where he acquired another nickname: 'Music Box'.

While behind bars, Brown honed his performing skills as part of a gospel quartet, and after he was released even tried his hand at boxing and semi-pro baseball before turning to music full-time. By the end of the fifties Brown and his group the Famous Flames were scorching the R&B charts with hits like 'Try Me' and 'Please, Please, Please'.

But it was during the decade of the sixties when Brown's fame and talent peaked. In 1963 Brown recorded what is still one of the best live albums of all time at Harlem's Apollo Theater, financing the entire operation himself and catapulting himself and his group to international stardom. By the middle of the decade, Brown's sound was also beginning to evolve into the groove-driven funky style for which he would forever be remembered, culminating in what many believe to be the first actual funk masterpiece, 'Cold Sweat' in 1967.

And the rest, as they say, is musical history.

Today's LP, 'A Soulful Christmas' came out in 1968, and along with James' not-so-usual Christmas fare, you also get his ground-breaking (and Caucasian-frightening) single 'Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud' - Parts 1 and 2. (For all you youngsters out there: the reason some songs had two parts was because back then, the singles were released on 7” vinyl records and you could only get so much song on one side, therefore it was necessary to split longer songs into two parts. These records also spun at a faster speed than LPs and were therefore often referred to as '45s'.)

I have to tell you that my copy is not in very good shape, but I only paid four bits for it, so what's the big deal if it skips and pops a little? (Again, for you youngsters: a 'bit' is a quarter, as in a quarter of a dollar. Remember that old high school cheer 'Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar'? No? Never mind then. Coincidentally, though, 45s often sold for four bits in the sixties. Plus tax, of course.)

When I ran a quick check on Ebay I was astonished to find clean copies listed for anywhere from seventy to a hundred bucks! I felt pretty smart listening to my fifty-center last night, even though I had to get up twice to move the needle after it got stuck on side one.

As to the music... well, it's vintage funk and the tunes are some of the best Christmas-themed music you could hope to hear. Several songs are just dirty, organ-driven funk grinds with a few bars of recognizable Christmas melodies thrown in, and the opener 'Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto' continues to get seasonal radio play to this day.

'Say It Loud' became a mainstay for Brown's live shows as well, with the 'Hardest Working Godfather of Soul in Show Business' calling out the 'Say it loud' part and the audience chanting back 'I'm black and I'm proud!'

It seems like Brown released hundreds of LPs, and this one, like most of his King releases, is a truly nice package. In addition to depicting Brown on the cover as the skinniest Santa of all time, the back shows James posing in several photos 'With His People' as though he were a minister and not just an entertainer. Gospel and funk singer Marva Whitney (who was performing with James at the time) is shown in one photo with the caption 'Dedicated Soul Sister' below it.

Now see, this is another argument for why LPs are better than CDs. When I bought this one I didn't even know if it would play. In fact, the price tag had 'skips' written right on it next to the price. But I bought it anyway, taped cover, scratches and all. Simply because it was a cool thing. Just the cover was cool enough to justify what I paid; hell I would have gone four bits if that's what they wanted.

Now, when was the last time you saw somebody buy a CD that had scratches all over it just so they could look at the booklet?

I'll tell you when: Never.

And don't even get me started on the mp3s!

So, in closing I'd like to wish a very Merry Christmas to all of you out there, and a special R.I.P. to the 'King of Funk'... 'Soul Brother #1'... the fabulous Jaaaaames BROOWWWNNNN!!!!!

Ahh, the 'Divine One'...You'll never hear a smoother singing voice than that of 'Sassy' Sarah Vaughan. Whether swinging to a jazz combo or crooning show tunes with a full orchestra as on today's LP, her unmistakable voice was like dark chocolate (the creamy European kind, not that waxy stuff they make in Pennsylvania), rich and comforting.

Born in 1924, Sarah, like so many of her peers, started singing in church, the Mount Zion Church in Newark, to be exact, where she doubled as the church organist. Those keyboard skills worked to her advantage later when she was hired by Earl Hines, who'd gotten wind of her winning an Amateur Night at the Apollo when she was a mere eighteen years old. Hines hired her to play second piano and sing the occasional song with regular vocalist Billy Eckstine, but her singing went over so well that she became a feature, and her piano playing duties were left to somebody else. It was in Hines' band that she first met Bird and Diz. Dig?

Sarah developed a lifelong professional relationship with Eckstine, moving to his band in 1944 and recording a number of duet albums with him in the years that followed. Although she never considered herself a jazz singer, 'Sassy' consistently won reader's polls in Esquire and Downbeat in the Forties and Fifties, while recording pop hits that sold to a wider audience, like “Misty” (one of my faves), “Whatever Lola Wants” and “Broken Hearted Melody”. By the late Fifties she was in a perfect position to record whatever she wanted, signing a contract with Mercury, where she put out several albums of pop tunes much like today's featured LP, along with recording classic jazz sessions featuring backing instrumentals by the likes of trumpet legend Clifford Brown and flutist Herbie Mann, all released on Mercury's sister jazz label EmArcy.

Sarah's career suffered from ups and downs, some of them financial, some personal. Not particularly lucky in love, she allowed lovers and husbands (three over the years) to run her business affairs and nearly always got burned. But she stayed the course and kept singing, her star rising through the Sixties and on into the Seventies. She sang for Presidents Johnson and Ford, won Grammys and got her own damn star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. She continued to record up until the Eighties, including a brief but notable appearance on Quincy Jones' 'Back On The Block' LP from 1989.

A lifelong smoker and drinker (and rumored pothead), Vaughan died in 1990 of lung cancer at age 65.

From 1957, “Great Songs From Hit Shows” is a double album with a gatefold cover and features more show tunes than you can shake a stick at, from Gershwin to Jerome Kern to Irving Berlin. Liner notes by jazz author and historian Leonard Feather and some nice studio snapshots of Sassy complete the package. Hal Mooney conducts an orchestra of elite Hollywood musicians.

When I bought this record some fifteen years ago it had been pressed up against another record in a stack, the lettering from the back of the other record transferring to the cover of this LP and marring the photo of Sarah in a less than desirable way. It was only two bucks. I took it home and tried several liquids to remove the mirrored lettering, beginning with water and working my way up to pure gum spirits of ever-loving turpentine, which did the trick without marring the heavily laminated, slick cardboard cover! It's worth thirty bucks in this VG condition!

If you had told me in the '60s that Gidget would still be hanging around television in 2007 and selling Boniva, I'd have called you a liar. I guess I wouldn't have known what Boniva was, but I'd still think you had a screw loose. And if you'd gone on to tell me she'd still be cute as a bug's ear at age 60 (incredible!), I wouldn't have believed that either. But Neil Diamond didn't exactly write that song about me. I still can't believe I'm blogging.

Yes indeed, Sally Field is alive and well and working as a spokesperson for a drug that battles osteoporosis. She even has a key role in “Brothers & Sisters”, a hit drama on ABC. In the decades since she played Gidget all those years ago, Sally's also collected Oscars, Emmys and Golden Globes for some memorable serious acting roles. More serious than the Flying Nun, you ask? How about Norma Rae... how about Sybil, the schizophrenic? A far cry from her character of Sister Bertrille, the nun who learns to fly with the aid of her over-sized cornette and her under-sized ass, no?

Thanks to the “The Flying Nun” though, Sally was able to cross over into that rarefied air of 'Stardom' that allowed her to record an album even though she can't really sing, joining the lofty company of fellow golden-throated actors Leonard Nimoy, Barbara Eden and Joey Bishop, among others. She even managed to place one of the songs from this LP on Billboard's Hot 100 around the holidays in 1967 - the first year of “Nun's” three-year run. “Felicidad” crested at Number 94 before sinking out of sight after just a few short weeks on the chart. And well it should have. It was a miracle that it landed there at all, and I can't say I'd recommend this album based on an enjoyable listening experience. It's more of a curiosity than anything else, widening my 'Celebrity Vocals' section by another eighth inch. But I won't speak for you, dear reader. Some of you may actually enjoy this LP, so have at it. I couldn't sit through it twice if you were threatening me with a shotgun in my mouth and a pistol up my ass.

If you remember the series at all, you will recall that there was an odd, nearly immoral sexual tension between the sweet, innocent, barely legal Sister Bertrille (remember she's a nun!) and her costar, Alejandro Rey, the much older debonair Argentinian who played Cuban lecher Carlos Ramirez on the show. Episodes are out on DVD. Unfortunately you won't find today's album on CD, but it's probably only a matter of time.

Gidget and Sister Bertrille aside, my fondest memories of Sally were when she played opposite Burt Reynolds in the 1977 action comedy “Smokey and the Bandit”. I was just nineteen and I'll never forget those jeans she wore, the way the wind blew through her hair, her sweet little toes on the dashboard as Burt drove them down the highway...

I paid a buck for this playable but rough copy, and even though there aren't a lot of them floating around, a pristine one still doesn't have a lot of value. I'd be lucky to get five for it on Ebay, and in NM condition a stereo copy like mine goes for just five times that according to my trusty price guides. So it's just one more album that will go for a buck at my estate sale. Unless of course you want to buy the whole lot. They'd probably make you a deal.

I remember seeing this movie at the time of its release in 1979 and suffering through a lengthy intermission with the lights turned up and the herd headed towards the lobby to relieve themselves and replenish their popcorn and sugar water supply. The two-and-a-half-hour epic directed by Francis Ford Coppola didn't divide neatly into halves and there was little finesse by the house projectionist when the scheduled break occurred. End of reel...film off... lights up. It was jarring, to say the least, and interfered with the story's flow.

Of course nowadays movies routinely run over two hours without any intermission whatsoever and there's a near-constant parade of slack-jawed morons into and out of the theater the entire time. Huge, all-you-can-eat tubs of popcorn and all-you-can-drink cups of pop are refilled. Lots of bladders are emptied. Sometimes folks even arrive more than a half hour after the feature has begun, plopping their fat asses and big heads right the fuck in front of you and asking somebody nearby if they've 'missed something'. Of course you have, you idiots! The beginning of the movie! But I digress...

Even though there were some shortcomings in the screening I saw, I was profoundly affected by the film, which perfectly captured the violence, confusion and horror that was the Vietnam War experience. Saigon had fallen just four years prior to the film's release and all the pain and anxiety about the war was still fresh in the psyche of the American public. Despite mixed reviews and troubling subject matter, 'Apocalypse Now' played to packed houses around the country due in large part to the success of Coppola's earlier 'Godfather' movies.

This double disc soundtrack LP was designed to aurally replicate the movie going experience, so you not only get the music here, but snippets of narration and dialogue as well, all in chronological order. When I listened to it before I sat down to write this it brought back powerful images from the film and the incidental music by Coppola and pop Carmine reinforced the action to full effect. Performed on electronic instruments, including the famous Moog synthesizer, the music was then separated into quadraphonic sound and processed into the now familiar Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound, the first ever use of the format in a movie. The spooky Doors number 'The End' also perfectly matched the mood of the film and the use of Wagner's 'Ride Of The Valkyrie' called up that helicopter sequence as though I'd just seen it yesterday.

Some memorable quotes from the script that have become part of our pop culture landscape...

A couple by Robert Duvall's character Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” and “Charlie don't surf!”

One by Dennis Hopper as the crazy photojournalist: “Did you know that 'if' is the middle of the word 'life'?”

And finally, Brando as Colonel Kurtz: “The horror. The horror.”

A director's cut of the movie, 'Apocalypse Now Redux', was released in 2001, restoring more than an hour's worth of footage that was trimmed for the original theatrical release. A soundtrack is available for that version as well, but from what I've read it features music only and no dialogue.

No great shakes in the value department, this LP would still fetch thirty bucks if it were in pristine condition. My VG copy is worth about half that and cheap copies in playable shape are commonplace. Do yourself a favor and find one.

In honor of his appearance at the 2007 Detroit International Jazz Festival, the Five Star spotlight today falls on jazz pianist and composer Herbie Hancock...

Looking back over his career it seems a shame that Herbie is better known for his 1983 Funk/Fusion/Hip-Hop hit 'Rockit' than he is for this LP, his first as a leader on Blue Note. It was 1962, and the young pianist had only been on the jazz scene for a couple of years when he was invited into the studio for 'Takin' Off'. Recorded when he was a mere twenty-three years old, the album features six muscular tunes, all Hancock originals, including one of his most enduring compositions - 'Watermelon Man', which went on to be a top ten hit for Mongo Santamaria the following year, and made the charts again in 1965 when Gloria Lynne added lyrics and took it to #62.

But there's lots more than Pop to this LP. It's got Bop, too - the best kind of Bop, the Post-Bop, Hard Bop kind of Bop. The Bop that causes the slow head nod with the loose neck, eyes closed... the finger snaps... the toe tapping on the twos. Ya know? It's got a lot to do with the lineup here, which includes heavy hitters like Dexter Gordon on tenor, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Butch Warren on bass and Billy Higgins on skins. Gordon's blowing propels the mood - especially on side two's 'Maze' and 'Driftin'', and Hubbard's solo on the finale 'Alone And I' will jerk a tear if you let it.

Hancock's first few outings (including stellar LPs 'Maiden Voyage' and 'Empyrean Isles') garnered him a lot of attention in the jazz world, and it wasn't long before he found himself playing in one of THE best groups Miles ever put together, a group that included bassist Ron Carter, drummer Tony Williams and Wayne Shorter on tenor sax. Aside from Coltrane's quartet from the early-to-mid-sixties, there wasn't another jazz group that could touch them, and Herbie was a big part of the sound that dominated the music throughout the entire decade.

You can blame Miles for introducing Herbie to the electronic sound, too, getting him all juiced about Fusion music, the Moog and assorted synthesizers. Hancock had classical training, had played with the Chicago Symphony before he was even a teenager, and rumor has it he was reluctant to embrace the non-acoustic sound. But before he knew what had hit him Miles had dragged him along for 'In A Silent Way' and 'A Tribute To Jock Johnson'. Herbie was hooked.

His experimentation with electronic instruments and Fusion eventually led to the formation of his group The Head Hunters in 1973, along with some long-overdue financial success though album sales. Ten years later, 'Rockit' won a Grammy and a slew of MTV Video Music Awards in the very first year they started doling those things out. Ten years after that, the group US3 practically made their careers by cleverly looping Hancock's piano vamp from 'Cantaloupe Island' (from 'Empyrean Isles') into their Jazz/Rap hit 'Cantaloop'.

More than just a pianist and jazz composer, Hancock also had a tremendously successful second career penning scores for motion pictures and television, including his Oscar winner for the critically acclaimed 'Round Midnight' in 1986, in which he also appears alongside the film's star Dexter Gordon (Yes, the same dude who blew so much life into today's featured LP!). In it, Gordon - an ex-patriot himself living in Europe at the time, plays a part based on the tragically short life of pianist Bud Powell, who spent the majority of his last years in Paris playing to a much more appreciative crowd than he could attract in the States.

Hancock's list of film scores also includes Michelangelo Antonioni's 'Blowup' (1966), 'Death Wish' (1974) and 'The Spook Who Sat By The Door' (1973), a film by 'Hogan's Heroes' cast member Ivan Dixon based on the 1966 novel by Sam Greenlee. Herbie also wrote music for Bill Cosby's 'Fat Albert' animated television show from 1969.

My copy of 'Takin' Off' is a reissue from the eighties, but if you're lucky enough to own an original in good shape it could be worth as much as forty or fifty bucks. Cover design and photo here is by the always-right-on Reid Miles, and the recording engineer is none other than Rudy 'The Genius' Van Gelder. Add liner notes by the author of 'The Encyclopedia of Jazz', Mr. Leonard Feather himself, and you have one classic jazz package that I'm sure you can't live without.

As far as his appearance here in Detroit at the Jazz Fest... well, it was a bit of a disappointment to me. Not so much because of what Herbie did or played, but because of the venue - a packed, closed stage area crawling with people on a warm Friday night downtown. It was like a freaking ant farm. I didn't get down early enough to be inside with the cool folks, so all I could see of the performance were live shots fed to large LED displays to the right and left of the stage, which left me completely at the mercy of the cameramen for visuals. I couldn't hear it very well, either, the music blasting through the speakers and mixing mercilessly with other tunes being played on the street and in booths along the strip. It was a lot more 'Rockit' than 'Watermelon Man', too, and I decided to head home after just a few tunes. But the crowd who was inside seemed to dig it, so don't mind me. My experience was also colored by the fact that a twelve-ounce Budweiser cost eight tickets, which amounted to $6.66! Not only is that the Mark of the Beast, but it's damn unfair.

If you're not familiar with George Clinton, think of him as the Frank Zappa of Funk. Take that concept one step further, and that makes Funkadelic George's Mothers of Invention, both bands coming into their own in the late sixties and early seventies and both blending elements of Psyche Rock, Doo Wop, Jazz, Blues, Soul and R & B to produce music the likes of which had never been heard before.

Today's Five Star features the second LP the Clinton gang recorded for the Westbound Label, and one of the juiciest in terms of flat out genius guitar work, courtesy of Eddie 'Maggot Brain' Hazel. Recorded in 1970, the same year Jimi Hendrix died, 'Free Your Mind...' seems to pick up where Hendrix left off, with Hazel scorching the tunes with fuzzy feedback as though Jimi himself, still tripping on acid, were directing the action from beyond the grave. Other musicians in the lineup include Bernie Worrell on keyboards, Tiki Fulwood on bass and drummer Billy Nelson. Vocals are provided by George, Clarence 'Fuzzy' Haskins, Ray Davis, Grady Thomas and Calvin Simon - all members of The Parliaments, George's original Doo Wop group that dates back to 1955.

There's a real one take, 'jam session' feel to the cuts on this LP, and rumor has it George challenged the band to see if they could come up with enough material for an album in a single day, all while being high. I wasn't there, but it sure sounds like that's what happened.

Over the years, lineup and name changes (due to contractual and legal reasons, besides The Parliaments, George's bands have been known variously as Parliament, Funkadelic and P-Funk) have led to different permutations of the band, but George has maintained a firm hand on the rudder of the Mothership, directing the flow and bringing the Funk throughout. Funkadelic managed to place a handful of singles in the Top 100, most notably 'One Nation Under A Groove' (1978), and '(Not Just) Knee Deep' (1979); while the more dance-oriented sound of Parliament scored a number of charting hits including 'Up For The Down Stroke' (1974), 'Chocolate City' (1975), 'Tear The Roof Off The Sucker' (1976), 'Flash Light' (1978) and 'Aqua Boogie' (1979). As The Parliaments, they took '(I Wanna) Testify' to #20 in 1967, and later albums credited to 'George Clinton' (still featuring much the same group of musicians as the Parliament and Funkadelic sessions) produced a series of successful singles, 'Atomic Dog' topping that list and reaching #1 on the R & B charts in 1982.

Over the years Clinton has influenced and worked with a number of musicians, from Prince to The Red Hot Chili Peppers to Outkast, and next to James Brown may be the most sampled artist of all time. He even wrote the theme song to the Tracey Ullman Show!

Unfortunately, drug problems plagued many of the members of George's bands, including George himself, who was busted for cocaine possession as recently as 2003. Guitar great Hazel did some serious jail time and died in 1992 at the age of 42.

George and the gang were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, and George continues to be active in the music world both as a performer and producer.

My pristine copy of this LP is a reissue from the eighties, and if you don't mind I would like to toss in my two-cents' worth as to how much I believe the gatefold cover adds to an album package, especially when there's a photo like this one to wrap around to the back. Hold one of these babies in your hands and the inferior nature of CDs as collectibles will immediately become apparent. The gatefold cover was also used to great advantage by The Ohio Players, another superior Funk band in their own right who were also signed to the Westbound label, their album covers infamous for kinky, bondage-influenced photos of nude women. Hmmm, I wonder if it's too soon to do an Ohio Players LP for the next Five Star...?

Don't get me started on Halloween.

Since when did it become a holiday? And since when did we celebrate it for a full two months prior to the 31st of October, decorating the front yard with cheap, plastic Chinese junk - from giant inflatable jack-o'-lanterns to strings of orange and green lights that run up the light bill and rival the most intense outdoor Christmas display?

I'll tell you when... Since retailers decided that it was the second biggest merchandising opportunity this side of Jesus Christ's birthday. That's when. All over America, Spirit Halloween Superstores spring up in late August only to fold up tent in November after moving billions of dollars worth of costumes, candy and crap to consumers, their temporary fluorescent banners being replaced yet again by FOR LEASE signs once the evil holiday has passed.

It's almost as if Wal Mart, K-Mart and Target want to extend the Christmas shopping season all the way back to late Summer. Why, last year I remember seeing a pair of adjacent houses in one of the suburbs here in early November, one decorated for Halloween and the other decked out in Christmas lights with plastic candy canes pushed into the muddy lawn.

Don't get me wrong, though. I love Halloween and used to look forward to it with wild anticipation as a kid. It was all the stuff that I liked rolled up into a single day... horror movies, monsters, scary stories, candy and mischief. Let's not forget the mischief. Back then the celebration lasted just a day or two, but the spirit of Halloween lived year round on local television thanks to the horror movie hosts - grown men dressed up like ghouls and vampires who emceed television broadcasts of monster movies. Giggling their way through lame bits that were sillier than they were scary, these hosts would perform briefly before and after commercial breaks and sometimes during the movie itself.

John Zacherle was one of the first and best of the lot. Originating in his home town of Philadelphia during the late fifties, Zach practically defined the horror host, developing a huge fan base before moving to New York and on to syndication. Known originally as Roland (pronounced Ro-LAND), Zach's character eventually adopted his own last name of Zacherley, the 'y' added to make the pronunciation easier, his costume a surplus grave digger's coat he inherited from the wardrobe of a locally broadcast Western-themed show in which he had appeared as an extra.

Nicknamed the 'Cool Ghoul' by buddy Dick Clark, Zacherley eventually tried his hand at novelty recordings, his first big hit being 'Dinner With Drac'. Rumor has it that Clark wouldn't play the song on his own 'American Bandstand' show because of too raw content, so Zach cut a version more suitable for airplay and the single took off, cracking the top ten. His initial recording success led to a series of LPs, today's featured album 'Monster Mash', from 1962, being the second he recorded for the Cameo Parkway label. It features Zach's version of Bobby 'Boris' Pickett's famous 'Monster Mash' along with a bunch of satirical takes on popular songs of the day ('Let's Twist Again' and 'The Pistol Stomp') plus his own 'Dinner With Drac'.

My copy is a reissue on Wyncote from the mid-sixties and is in excellent condition. Original Parkway discs in similar shape go for fifty to sixty bucks, but I think I only paid three for this one. Of course, the cover is worth as much as the disc is to me, suitable for framing with a slick illustration and some bloody lettering. Speaking of blood... when Zach first started his broadcasts in Philly, the show was seen only in black and white, so all the special effects blood they used to make severed heads and body parts look more real was actually... chocolate sauce!

Naturally, we had our own horror host here in the Detroit area. Sir Graves Ghastly dressed like a vampire and showed all the Universal Studios monster movies over and over again... 'Frankenstein', 'Dracula', 'The Mummy'... as a kid I never grew tired of them. And as a kid I always enjoyed Halloween, right up until the time when that first evil bastard pushed a razor blade into an apple.

It's been all down hill since then.

Alright! The end of another demon year from Hell!

Just kidding, folks. I like the holiday season. Time was before global warming we'd be covered in snow by now here in Michigan. There were snowmen in every front yard where kids lived and BB guns and sleds were the big gifts that we all looked forward to come Christmas time, not Play Stations and X-Boxes. Shit, speaking of boxes, we had more fun with the one the new refrigerator came in than I've ever had playing video games. But I digress...

Back then we had a hill next to the house that seemed to slope forever, the ride down filled with thrills as we narrowly avoided several tall maples at the bottom, steering and leaning hard, our heads right up front, the skulls like tender eggs waiting to be cracked. Of course, that same hill when seen with adult perspective is a gentle four foot drop that covers maybe thirty feet in distance, but we rode it down and trudged back up it, our sleds in tow, as though we were luge champions in the Winter Olympics.

Ah, those were the days.

So in celebration I'm sharing one of the rare gems in my collection, a novelty 45 by Mexican funnyman Jose Gonzalez-Gonzalez. 'Pancho Claus' is actually the B-side of this single, but it's a scene stealer, with Jose reciting a Mexicanized version of 'Twas The Night Before Christmas' in a thick accent, not unlike the one that Freddie Prinze used to put on for his stand-up act. Instead of Santa, though, Jose had Santa's brother, Pancho from 'south of the border', who drove a team of donkeys and wore a sombrero. And there were definitely creatures stirring at the Gonzalez-Gonzalez household on Christmas Eve, most notably his 'Oncle Pedro' who was 'drunk as a louse', playing guitar and singing 'Guadalajara'. Ha ha.

Jose's version starts out with 'Twas thee night before Chreesmas and all through thee casa, Mama che was busy preparing thee masa, to make thee tamales for thee Tamalada, and all thee ingredients for thee enchiladas...' Actually, if I had my druthers, I'd just as soon eat Mexican food at Christmas myself. Sounds damn good to me.On the flip side, we have the infamous 'Tacos For Two', a send-up of the famous 'Cocktails For Two' (words and music by Arthur Johnston and Sam Coslow) originally butchered by the great Spike Jones way back in 1944, complete with sound effects. Written a decade earlier for a movie soundtrack, the tune didn't make much of a splash until Spike's notorious version of it hit the pop charts, and it's been largely known as a novelty song ever since.

Jose gives it the same treatment as 'Pancho Claus', with tacos instead of cocktails allowing for lyrics that describe 'those darn tortillas' as being 'hard' and 'dripping so much lard'. He and his date are heated up by 'hot sauce' and reach for the water in pain, only to find at the end of it all that poor Jose has 'no dinero' to pay the bill and winds up going to jail. Sounds like my luck.

Hmm... even with hard tortillas and too much lard tacos are sounding pretty good to me right now. Maybe I will eat Mexican for Christmas dinner. Or maybe I'll just head over to Senior Lopez and have it for lunch today... a little Tecate with lime in a salted glass, some chips and salsa, and of course the tacos...Oh and how could I forget that cute waitress with the big brown eyes and the amazing ass and legs packed into those tight, tight jeans who runs around like a chicken with her head cut off asking everybody repeatedly: “Ev'rythin' hokay? Hm? Hokay?”

God I want that girl. Listen Santa, how about wrapping her up in something nice and snug for me, eh? Have your brother Pancho bring her by for some tequila shots. I'm buying!

Hey, all this Mexican talk reminds me of a joke: What do they call Mexican food in Mexico? Give up? They call it 'food'!

Born Lester William Polsfuss in Waukesha, Wisconsin way back in 1915, guitar great Les Paul is as much an inventor as he is a musical virtuoso. Over the span of his eight-decades long career, Les has been granted almost as many patents for guitar design and recording devices as he has been awarded music industry awards.

A Rock Hall inductee in 1988, he is also a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame. He and his former wife and performing partner Mary Ford were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1978, and Les was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Grammy Board five years after that.

But Les's main claim to fame is the invention of a solid body electric guitar that helped to birth the sound of Rock and Roll. His first attempt to get what he was looking for was a simple 4x4 fence post rigged with strings, neck and pickup. Infamously known as 'The Log', the instrument raised more than a few curious eyebrows until Les added a pair of wings to make it look more like a traditional guitar, and then 'Voila!', musical history was born.

The Gibson Guitar Company began producing Les Paul models in the early fifties and by the time the sixties rolled around, major rock guitar legends from Keith Richards to Eric Clapton to Jimmy Page were playing Les Pauls (It's a good thing Les's mom came up with the idea of a shortened stage name, by the way. Can you imagine Jimmy Page hammering away on a Les Polsfuss? It sure doesn't have the same zing, does it?)

In addition to his innovations in guitar design, Paul is credited for the first use of multi-track recording techniques, which allowed him to play over previously-recorded tracks and layer the sound of his instrument, and this box set of 45s is the first release showcasing those results. Released in 1950, 'The New Sound!' features not only Les and his guitar multi-tracked, but his wife Mary Ford, who's vocals were given the same treatment. The result is a unique (and at the time, never-before heard) sound that foreshadowed industry standards for recording all the way up to the current day.

When Les was in a bad car crash in the late forties, the doctors informed him his right elbow was so severely damaged that when they set it, it would be in that position for the remainder of his life. The plucky Mr. Paul promptly told them to make sure that it was set on an angle so that he could cradle and pick his beloved instrument.

Variously associated with jazz, country and rock music, Les Paul followed his own musical path over the years, performing at the first Jazz at the Philharmonic concert in 1944, backing popular singers from Bing Crosby to the Andrews Sisters and cutting country sides in the thirties under his hillbilly pseudonym 'Rhubarb Red'. (Oddly enough, I have my own hillbilly moniker: 'Moonshine Marty'.)

If I had the original 10” LP release of 'The New Sound!' in the same VG+ condition, I'd be looking at a forty to sixty dollar item. As it is, I guess the collectible quotient of this historical recording drops due to the fact that I have six singles to deal with instead of one album. Even so, all the discs are clean, scratch-free and play with only minor surface noise, and this great cover (I wish I knew who did the artwork because my clumsy rendition hardly does it justice) is in nearly perfect condition. The best part? It was a rare junk shop find that I paid a whopping fifteen cents for!

Believe it or not, you can still check out Les and his crooked arm playing Mondays at the Iridium Jazz Club in NYC, and the dude's pushing 93! Long Live Les Paul!

In honor of Valentine's Day, we're going to be featuring a little Mystic Moods Orchestra to get you love birds all warm inside.

More a concept than an actual band (or even an orchestra, for that matter), the Mystic Moods began with founder Brad Miller's passion for recording the sounds of nature. Way back in the fifties, Miller started making meticulous recordings of all sorts of things, from thunderstorms to steam engines, eventually forming a company he called Mobile Fidelity Records so that he could sell the results (mostly stereo recordings of trains in motion) to model railroad enthusiasts.

One night in the early sixties, San Francisco area disc jockey Ernie McDaniel got an inspiration. McDaniel primed a couple of turntables, put Miller's 'Steam Railroading Under Thundering Skies' on one and an album of easy listening music on the other, letting both records play at the same time over the air (probably while he was taking a leisurely restroom break). The stunt produced a flurry of phone calls, most of them wanting to know where they could get the record.

Once Miller found out about it, a light bulb went off over his head. Suddenly, he realized there was a much larger segment of the music buying public besides model train dorks that he could take advantage of. Since he already knew what would work, Miller just put the easy listening music right on the same album as the sound effects he'd already recorded and voila! the Mystic Moods Orchestra was born.

In 1965, Miller hired arranger Don Ralke to write and arrange some appropriate music, booked an orchestra then mixed the results with his own recordings. They took the tapes to Philips records, inked a deal and released 'One Stormy Night' under the Mystic Moods name. Much to everyone's surprise, the LP became Philips' top seller for the year.

It wasn't long before Miller realized that his common denominator was people trying to get laid. The combo of storms rolling in and E-Z listening music made more panties wet than John Holmes did during the entire decade of the seventies. By the time today's featured LP came out in 1975, Miller was pandering for the sexual market, aiming the music at horny folks, the inner sleeve here depicting a naked young couple just prior to coitus. Another LP from this era included a spare pair of panties as a bonus (presumably because the lady had recently soiled hers).

My copy is a bit worn, but sounds great. Along with the tried and true thunderstorm sounds, they've attempted some blues vocals this time around (not as bad as you might expect), breaking up the instrumentals, with the overall approach borrowing heavily from blaxploitation film music of the same period. The song 'Honey Trippin' even made the charts for six weeks, peaking at #98.

Number Ninety-Effing-Eight... Imagine THAT! Ninety-Eight Degrees... of Goddamn MOTHER-EFFING Mood-Effing-Music...

Hey... Man, am I EVER drunk.... All of a SUDDEN! Just like THAT! I guess that last beer was a BAD IDEA!

What day is this? Thursday? It's effing VALENTINE'S DAY and I have NOwhere to be! I called that girl I just met last week...Whassername? I ferget...But...Yeah, I CALLED her... Well, actually, I attempted a TEXT message and it turned out WRONG because of my CLUMSY MOTHER-EFFING thumbs, but SHE CALLED ME BACK! Yes, she did... Hey, I've been drinking...VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA!!!!!!

It's not even TEN P.M.! And I'm already WASTED! Whew! Whoo! Whoo hoo!

I gotta go to bed now...HAPPY EFFING VALENTINE'S DAY ALL YOU PATHETIC LOVESICK FOOLS!

As much as I like my jazz, soul and blues, I can't help but go back to my roots once in a while. As a kid growing up we listened to a lot of country because that's what the folks on both sides of the family listened to. Sure, there was some Elvis, some Englebert Humperdinck, a smidgen of Mills Brothers and lots of Ink Spots, but most of the house parties at Uncle Bob's featured hillbilly music, and one of my favorites from way back then was Hank Snow, 'The Singing Ranger'.

And even though Hank was born in Nova Scotia (that's in Canada, friends), he was an honorary hillbilly from the beginning, becoming a member of the Grand Ole Opry and recording some of the best country music of the fifties and sixties.

In 1950, the same year he debuted at the Opry, Hank scored his first and biggest hit 'I'm Movin' On', which thrashed the other country singles of the time and stood proudly atop the country charts for a record 21 weeks!

But the song that everybody remembers Hank for is 'I've Been Everywhere', a rambling auctioneer-style account of all the towns that the singer/hitchhiker has traveled through. Adapted from an Australian song written by Geoff Mack, it first made the charts here in 1962 with a North Americanized version by Lucky Starr. Hank's cover shot to the top of the country charts and the tongue twister has been recorded by dozens of country artists since then, including a version by Johnny Cash which has recently been used in commercial spots for Choice Hotels.

As great as the 'Man In Black' was, though, his take doesn't hold a candle to Hank's definitive version.

Today's LP 'The One And Only Hank Snow' is also from 1962, and don't let the fact that it's on RCA's budget Camden label fool you. A VG condition mono copy like mine still fetches five bucks or more (I stole this one for a dollar a month ago), and in mint condition would sell upwards of $20.

The tunes here are all vintage Hank, performed when the old 'Singing Ranger' was at the height of his popularity and musical powers. Classic hillbilly instrumentation, too, with pedal steel, fiddle and geetar all backing Hank's quivering alto. 'The Wreck of the Old 97'... 'Hobo Bill's Last Ride'... 'Married by the Bible, Divorced by the Law'... 'Spanish Fire Ball'... 'The Drunkard's Son'... shoot, there's even a sweet guitar instrumental version of the classical tune 'Carnival of Venice'.

I have two favorites here, though: 'Unfaithful' and 'Old Doc Brown', the latter being a rhyming, spoken tearjerker set to church organ about a charitable doctor who died penniless.

'Unfaithful' is one of those classic country waltzes that combines the best of hillbilly fiddling with brilliant guitar picking and Hank's distinctive crooning, recounting the tale of a wicked lover who sleeps around on her hapless partner, who can't help being hopelessly in love with her, even though she's a slut. Give it a spin, you'll love it!

Hank went on to record over a hundred LPs during his long career, selling millions and topping the charts again and again right up into his sixties (he scored a country number one with 'Hello Love' in 1974 at the ripe old age of sixty-one) before eventually dying at home in Tennessee at the age of 85.

A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Nova Scotia Music Hall of Fame (Who knew? I'm guessing they started it just for Hank!), Hank also performed for the troops in Vietnam and Korea.

Trivia: Hank was instrumental in launching Elvis' career, using the young Elvis as an opening act in 1954 before introducing him to the infamous Colonel Tom Parker. Snow and Parker co-managed the young rock-n-roller until Parker muscled Hank out and took over.

And that, my friends, is musical history.

To be honest with you, the U.S. release of this Tom Jones LP was one of my favorites long before I dug up this Spanish copy some time ago. Yep, one of the earliest Five Stars to appear in Goldmine magazine was Tom's 'Live at the Talk of the Town'. Remember Goldmine magazine? Remember magazines in general? Well, before the Internet, folks used to actually go to places called 'bookstores' or 'newsstands' and buy hard copies of what they wanted to read. No shit.

Anyway, way back when I used to actually get paid for penning the Five Star Record feature, I confessed at the time that I'd always had a weakness for Tom's act. He's a dynamite performer and really the only white singer (Tom's Welsh) who can come close to doing justice to James Brown or Otis Redding, in my humble opinion.

What makes this release different and better than the copies that were issued here in the States is that it includes a couple more songs and pretty much keeps the live set intact from start to finish. It's almost like you're sitting right there at the club listening. Tom's hit theme song from the 007 flick 'Thunderball' appears here but is missing from the U.S. version (I'm guessing there were publishing conflicts with the record company that owned the soundtrack), as does a nice take by Tom on the pop standard 'That Old Black Magic'.

'Talk of the Town' came out in 1967, right on the heels of one of Tom's bigger hits, his first country crossover 'Green, Green Grass of Home', which has been recorded by almost every C&W star before and since, but was originally made popular by Dolly Parton's old partner Porter Wagoner. You'll find that one here, along with a variety of material that really serves to illustrate just how versatile a vocal performer Tom really was and still is. 'My Yiddische Momma' is surprisingly touching (and may be the best version of the tune I've ever heard recorded - live or otherwise), and Tom's bold readings of a pair of Sam Cooke numbers ('Ain't That Good News' and 'Shake') whip the crowd into a party frenzy.

All in all, this may be one of the best live sets by a pop singer that I've ever experienced, Tom freshly re-working early hits 'What's New Pussycat' and 'It's Not Unusual' and folding them into his tour de force performance. And it's not just Tom's vocals that are spot-on here, either. The house band never hits a sour note and his backing group The Squires, who had been with him since the beginning of his career, moves the music along nicely.

Tom has managed to stay relevant for decades (while outlasting other male singers of the era by thirty years) primarily because he is supremely talented in the vocal department. His singing on the Art of Noise's remake of Prince's 'Kiss' (1988) makes the single almost as good as the original (tough for me to admit because I'm also a huge Prince fan), and his foray into country and western music during the seventies and eighties not only revived his career but garnered him a series of charting country singles, 'Say You'll Stay Until Tomorrow' shooting to number one in 1977.

But it's always been about the live performances for Tom. The same year 'Talk of the Town' came out Tom made his Vegas debut, becoming a fixture performer on the Strip for a number of years while releasing a series of great live LPs recorded in Sin City.

Also known for his rapacious sexual appetite and infamously large private parts, Tom screwed his way around the world (in spite of being married his entire career), including one legendary encounter with horror host Elvira (Cassandra Peterson), who claims to have lost her virginity to Tom when she was working as a showgirl in the '60's. In an appearance on the 'Howard Stern Show' Peterson went so far as to compare the girth of Tom's member to a beer can, and reportedly had to make a trip to the emergency room post-coitus.

Apparently she never heard the phrase: “Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”.

And if you don't believe me about Tom's ability to sing soul music, just listen to his 'Fever Zone' album, which came out in '68. The LP not only includes his smash hit 'Delilah', but also has a nice mix of country, soul and Motown tunes as well, from 'Funny How Time Slips Away' to 'It's a Man's Man's World', which Tom takes on in a balls-out fashion that would win over even the staunchest James Brown fan.

So maybe Tom was just the 'Second Hardest Working Man in Show Business'. He still worked damn hard. And as far as I know, the dude's still working.

Playboy Playmate of the Month, beauty queen and B-movie starlet Jayne Mansfield patterned her career and image after the reigning dumb blond of the fifties, Marilyn Monroe. Although Mansfield didn't quite measure up to Marilyn in the looks department, her hourglass figure and willingness to expose her enormous breasts in public earned her a loyal following among the less cerebral movie-going crowd.

Infamously promiscuous, Mansfield was romantically linked to many rich and famous men (other than her three husbands, of course) around the globe, including both of the dead Kennedys (Jack and Bobby, not Klaus Flouride and Jello Biafra).

Her marriage to former Mr. Universe Mickey Hargitay helped keep her photo in the tabloids while key roles in films like 'The Girl Can't Help It' (1956) and 'The Wayward Bus' (for which she won a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year in 1957) began to earn her respect as an actress.

But alas, those huge boobs got in the way, and at some point Jayne couldn't buy a role that didn't cast her as the dumb blond with the big chest. So she took advantage of it, becoming the first mainstream American actress to appear naked in a movie in 1963. Her scandalous role in 'Promises, Promises' resulted in the movie being banned in Cleveland (not a surprise really, I've been there) and also got Hugh Hefner slapped with an obscenity charge after he published some nude shots of her in Playboy that were taken during the film's production.

Jayne appeared on the covers of a slew of LPs for other artists, and she even recorded a few as a singer herself. While she doesn't perform on 'Music for Bachelors', she practically glows as the cover model here in one of the cheese-cake-iest of all poses, her shapely and tender pink flesh barely, just barely covered by a translucent wisp of lingerie.

I'd rate the listening experience on this one as a shade on the too-mellow side for my tastes, the orchestra under the direction of Henri Rene with guitar solos by Barney Kessel working my internal doze button better than four shots of Nyquil and a lullaby. Rene was a house conductor for RCA in the fifties and sixties and also recorded LPs with Eartha Kitt and Harry Belafonte. Barney Kessel made a career out of white-guy jazz-guitar playing, moonlighting as a pop session musician and appearing on top-forty records by groups like The Monkees and The Beach Boys.

Jayne's career came to an abrupt halt when, while traveling from Mississippi to New Orleans in 1967, the car in which she was riding collided with the rear of a slow-moving semi-trailer, killing both her and the driver immediately. Contrary to popular belief, Mansfield was not decapitated in the accident, but the coroner who performed the autopsy on her body was quoted at the time as saying: “Boy, that must have hurt.”

Did you know?...

-Jayne recorded a couple of singles with rock guitar legend Jimi Hendrix. Yep, Jimi played bass and lead on 'As The Clouds Drift By' and 'Suey', both from 1965.

-Although she encouraged the perception that she was the proverbial 'dumb blond', Mansfield actually had an I.Q. over 160 and spoke several languages, including Hindi, Aramaic and Ig-Pay Atin-Lay.

-After her death, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began requiring a special bar be built into the rear of semi-trailers to prevent accidents like the one that killed her. The device is known as a 'Mansfield Bar'. No shit.

-During the course of her adult life, Jayne's bust size varied from 40D to 46DD depending on whether she was breast-feeding or not.

-While working as a writer for Jack Paar, debonair funny man Dick Cavett wrote an introduction for Paar to use when Jayne appeared on 'The Tonight Show' one night... “Here they are, Jayne Mansfield!”

I bought my VG+ copy of this LP a long time ago for three bucks, but the going rate now is higher. I saw as much as $22 on the Internet, and all of Jayne's covers fetch a better than average price, whether she sings on the records or not.

One of the funnier stories of Jayne's early career as a beauty queen was how, after winning a number of competitions (including Miss Fire Prevention and Miss Magnesium Lamp), a young Mansfield refused to accept the title of Miss Roquefort Cheese, declaring that the moniker just didn't "sound right" to her.

I love her and all, but Miss Some-Kind-Of Cheese sure sounds right to me.

During the fifties and sixties, exotica pioneer Les Baxter spent fifteen years working in the music department at American International Pictures, scoring dozens of low-budget flicks and making a name for himself as the go-to guy when it came to delivering soundtrack music ahead of schedule. As Roger Corman was to the direction of the B-movies, Baxter was to the music, grinding out themes and cues faster than anybody else could, sometimes composing and recording entire film scores in just a matter of days.

Today's LP, 'Barbarian' did double duty as both a Les Baxter album and as the soundtrack to the film 'Goliath and the Barbarians', which starred famous muscle-man Steve Reeves. By 1959 - the year this movie was released, Baxter had already landed a handful of pop hits on the charts, while developing a solid following for his brand of exotic, bachelor-pad type music through a series of successful LPs on the Capitol label.

Among his other early achievements are the 'Music Out of the Moon' LP (a 1947 recording that featured compositions by Harry Revel with the theremin as principal instrument), session work for Nat King Cole and musical direction for Yma Sumac's most commercially successful LP 'Voice of the Xtabay' (1950). Baxter also wrote the familiar opening whistle theme for the 'Lassie' television show and worked as musical director of Abbott and Costello's radio program.

Highlights from his other soundtrack assignments at AIP include 'Master of the World' (1961), 'The Pit and the Pendulum' (1961), 'Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs' (1966), 'Cry of the Banshee' (1970), and one of my all-time drive-in favorites - 'The Dunwich Horror' (1971), which starred sexy Sandra Dee.

Baxter's first film score was for 'Tanga Tika' in 1953, and his sound track for the low-budget western 'The Yellow Tomahawk' from 1954 was rumored to have been composed, arranged and recorded in only three hours.

Baxter's blue-collar work ethic emphasized perspiration over inspiration, and his willingness to accept any assignment kept him busy throughout his career, eventually landing him jobs writing music for Sea World and other theme parks long after rock and roll had killed his brand of pop music and the film score work began to dry up.

The credits on 'Barbarian' list the London Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Muir Mathieson, and according to a 1981 interview with Baxter it was because of strict union rules in England (where the feature was shot) that he didn't conduct the session himself.

I'm not going to lie to you, though... The music you'll find on this LP isn't as good as some of Baxter's other stuff, and I would never have bought this if I'd had to pay the catalog price of thirty bucks. But I happened to find this copy at one of my favorite local stores just a week ago for only $4.50, and in spite of side two being scarred (the clerk used the term 'bruised' in describing it) with several visible scuffs that run throughout, I decided I had to have it, mostly for the extremely cool cover. As a bonus, it happens to play perfectly fine with nary a pop or hiss.

I've never seen this flick but from what I've been able to ascertain through the few reviews I've read, it wasn't exactly Oscar-worthy. Reeves, a bodybuilder and former Mr. Universe, got a lot of mileage out of his limited acting ability, cashing in on his physique to become an international star in the Italian production of 'Hercules' in 1958. That appearance led to a string of similar roles including a sequel called 'Hercules Unchained' the following year, and being cast as Goliath in this stinker.

Reeves also appeared in Ed Wood's 'Jail Bait' (1954) and, in probably one of the worst moves of his career, infamously declined the Clint Eastwood role in Sergio Leone's 'Fistful of Dollars' (1964).

Reeves died in 2000 at the age of 74 after retiring to southern California in the eighties.

Les Baxter, who's best-known composition continues to be 'Quiet Village' (ironically, a bigger hit for exotica music rival Martin Denny than it was for Baxter himself), died in 1996. He was 73.

Sadly, with the advent of digital technology and the invention of the compact disc, the vinyl LP continues to die a slow and lingering death in 2008.

Stay tuned for the next chapter in the ongoing eulogy...