Bruce Springstone

Who doesn't love a good parody record?   Presenting Bruce Springstone.  The Flintstones theme as done by Bruce Springsteen. A fun record poking fun at the master of honest stories of working people as told by rich rock stars.

Bruce Springstone  - Live at Bedrock Featuring (Meet The) Flintstones

I especially love the spoken preamble.

I remember,
I remember when I was just a kid
Growin' up on them backstreets, in an old stone-age town
I used to come home at night from my job,
I had a job flippin' dino burgers
I'd see the quarry, it'd be just closing down by then
Little bird up on the pole,
He's screaming out how the working day's over
And I'd see them dinosaurs,
They'd be herding out through the gates
And the workers,
They'd be giving them cars a running start with their fat little feet
Now, so, so one night I'm crossing the alley
And I see this one worker coming home to his little stone hut
And I seen the lady's lunch pail by the door,
And he calls out to his wife,
"Hey Wilma! I'm home, honey

The B-Side is that American Anthem - Take Me Out to The Ball Game.  Illustration shows Bruce sliding into base holding his guitar which would have an amazing sound if played.

Ella Covers Savoy Truffle

Yes, THAT Ella and THAT Savoy Truffle.

Ella Fitzgerald - Savoy Truffle b/w I'll Never Fall In Love Again (Reprise 1970)

George Harrison's homage to a box of chocolates and the subsequent loss of teeth covered by jazz great Ella Fitzgerald.  Have a listen.

Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out)

Aside from loving the song, I picked this one up because it was a 45 on Verve.   I didn't have any as highly collectable 45's by The Velvet Underground or The Mothers have proven elusive or hideously expensive.

The Hombres - Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out)/Go Girl, Go  (Verve 1967)

That said, what's the story with this pressing.   The LP that includes this is on Verve Forecast.  I did a little research and found out a few things.

Verve Forecast was the result of a joint venture between Folkways and MGM.  MGM wanted to preserve the Folkways imprint to segregate the folk music true to it's image.  Folk releases went out out on Verve Folkways.  Rock/Psych releases had the imprint of Verve Forecast.   

So why the blue Verve label on this one?   According to legend (and the entries on 45cat.com), the Monarch pressing plant ran out of Verve Forecast labels and pressed them using the label of the parent company Verve.    Since this 45 was shooting up the charts at a breakneck pace, demand was high and on a rush given the short shelf life of hit songs then.   Monarch couldn't wait and improvised.

The B-Side is a pathetic little Beach Boys knock off.

The Beatles on ATCO

It's well known that Capitol Records turned down it's right of first refusal on The Beatles in 1963.  As a result, their early EMI sides were picked up by Chicago based R&B label Vee-Jay for USA release.   Some of these crept out on Vee-Jay subsidiary Tollie.     Subsequent 45's got picked up by Philadelphia indie Swan.

Prior to signing with EMI, The Beatles spent a well documented time in Hamburg honing their craft.  While there, they recorded as a backing band for UK Ex-Pat Tony Sheriden.  One of these recordings featured a John Lennon vocal.  It was up for grabs as a US release.  At the height of Beatlemania, ATCO wanted a crack at it.

The result is this semi-rarity,  The Beatles on ATCO with Pete Best on drums. 

The Beatles - Ain't She Sweet b/w Nobody's Child    (ATCO 1964)

Davy Does Dylan

Before he was a Monkee, Davy Jones was a Broadway star.  He starred as the Artful Dodger in the stage version of Oliver!.   Based on this  - and an attempt to get him signed to Columbia Pictures as they owned the rights to the movie version - Davy got a record deal with Columbia's record company Colpix

David Jones (Colpix 1965)

Not much to recommend here other than a hoot of a Dylan cover.

In its original incarnation, the album didn't sell and Davy didn't get the part in the movie version of Oliver!   Colpix had a warehouse full of these.  What to do?   Davy becomes a Monkee.  Slap a sticker on it and redistribute.  That didn't work either and the record was easily found in cut out bins still sealed well into the 80's.

Possibly because of this arrangement, The Monkees recorded for Colgems which was a joint venture between Screen Gems and Columbia Pictures.  Much easier to create a joint venture than buy out a contract.

Our B Side

I love 45's.   The B Side for me is the main attraction.   Let's take a moment to talk about Three Dog Night. 

They didn't write their own material - which resulted in them not being taken seriously by 'serious' rock audiences.  They were primarily an AM singles band at the time AOR was taking over.

So here's one of their last singles....

Shambala b/w Our 'B' Side  (Dunhill 1973)

One of my favorite sub genres - the mystical magical place song.  The best one being by The Cramps - Kizmiaz.   Anyway  - this is Three Dog Night.  It's pure pop and not psych at all.

So let's talk about the B side.   In many cases when the band didn't write their own material or had one main songwriter  - others were allowed a composition on the B Side.   The Who did this with B-Sides typically written by Entwistle, Daltrey or Moon while Townshend had the A Side.  Royalties on singles were equally split between the A and B side so the composer of a sub standard B side got the same reward as the composer of the hit.

Three Dog Night didn't even come up with something good enough for that purpose until later in their career.

Band members Jimmy Greenspoon, Chuck Negron and Corey Wells pulled together this little ditty.  They didn't even try to  conceal the purpose.

Sample lyric

Here it is, our big break baby
Yes it is, our B side baby
Someday we'll write an A side maybe
But if we will, what should we write baby
Rock and roll, blues in half time
Soft and low, or even old reggae

We'll try to make our minds rhyme baby
It's your fault if we're just lazy
Kids, are you humming it?
1, 2, 3, 4

Anyway  - shout out to Chuck Negron.  He lives up the street from me. 

Why are there no dates on records from the '60's?

An easy way to find what year a record was released is to read the fine print on the label or jacket.  I do this quite a bit when adding something to the database or doing a quick check as my 60 year old mind can't always remember everything.

So I noticed that only RCA seemed to have dates on their records prior to 1971.  I wondered why as everyone seemed to date their albums later.

Recordings weren't eligible for copyright protection until 1972!   A recording of Dylan doing public domain songs was fair game.

RCA dated their records, but they were copyrighting the LINER NOTES AND COVER ART!


Dylan's New Morning only lists the artwork under the copyright. This was probably an attempt to dissuade the bootleggers who were targeting Dylan.

The Title Don't Lie - The World's Longest Limbo Record

Having a Limbo Party?  Tired of changing the record every two minutes or placing the 45 on repeat as the competition heats up?  Well here's your answer.

Billy Strange - Limbo Rock (Coliseum 1962)

The title doesn't lie.  This is the world's longest limbo record.  What we get is 20 minutes of Limbo Rock on each side.   Instrumentation changes here and there, but the same 12 bars repeat incessantly without a breath.   So when Murray and Madge are locked into a Limbo Death Match, nobody needs to change the record.  Genius.

Makes me want to have a drink with an umbrella in it.