Top Six--The Teenagers (sic) Choice: Beatlemania (1964)

A return post from 2020. Its link still works, and I recall that the audio quality is quite good, considering the much-played condition of the U.K. vinyl.  By now, I've probably heard 80 percent of the budget Beatles knock-offs--from dreadful to adequate--of this period, and this my pick for the jewel of the fake-Beatlemania crown.

 Lee

DOWNLOAD: Beatlemania--Artists Unknown (Top Six TSL 1; 1964)


Fake Beatles tonight.  (That sound like the title of a Broadway comedy.)  Why fake Beatles tonight?  Because fake Beatles are fun, and faked Fab Four records were pretty much an industry unto themselves, so they're a big part of sound recording history.  A big part of the underground thereof, anyway.  And because it's giving me a break from stressing.  Hope it can perform that feat for some of you, too.  This 1964 British LP, titled Beatlemania (no attempt at exploitation there), has its expected bad moments (and bad tracks, like Please Please Me), but considering the rushed nature of the product, it's fairly amazing.  As in, legitimately good overall.  It captures the George Martin production sound with much skill--maybe by accident; I don't know.  But it is by far the best Beatles copy I've yet heard--and it's a whole LPful, which is not a word, but so what.  I read someplace the name of the group that allegedly did these tracks, but of course I've been unable to re-find that info.  It may not even be true.  But I can say without Google confirmation that these guys are good--the lead guitarist, especially.  This very used copy played amazingly well with my entry-audiophile cartridge and stylus at 1.5 grams (which I did not expect), and VinylStudio did superbly on the many clicks.  The sound is bright and full.

The front jacket says (I believe) eleven shillings and one pence, which was a little over half a pound.  That was for twelve hits.  Top Six singles (with six hits, of course) were six shillings and eight pence.  In pure junk-label fashion, there are no liner notes, and the back cover contains only an unpunctuated track listing and an ad for Top Six singles.  My kind of LP!

I wonder what the L in "TSL" stood for.  "Top Six...?"  Lemons?  Laugh riots?  Hm.  Probably "Limited."  At any rate, if you can forgive the absurd moments, I think you'll find it a remarkably good effort.  And, if you don't, I still will.  Note how the mystery studio group messes up a line (actually, two) in the first number.  It's supposed to be, "When I'll say that something: I want to hold your hand."  Even as a kid, I got that, except I thought "I'll" was "I."  As did these guys, too.  Anyway, they sing it, "When I say that someday, I want to hold your hand."  Huh?  The singer is expressing a present desire, not a future one.  "I assure you that someday I'll want to hold your hand.  But only after this pandemic is over."  Anyway, the Beatles were known for doubling words: "something" shows up twice in the first verse.  It's as if these underpaid pros were rushing to junk-label deadline.  Come to think of it....

Money is maybe the finest fake of the bunch, in good part because the lead singer sounds uncannily like John Lennon.  This LP is the definition of fun.  And proof that fake hits sometimes transcended the awful-to-medium curve.  Enjoy!

UPDATE: Apparently, the drummer on this LP was Jimmy Nichol, who subbed for Ringo with the Beatles in an international tour when Ringo had tonsillitis.  Read about it here.  Some info on Top Six, too.  I'd read about this before at various sites but suspected it was an urban legend.  I guess not!

Lee

Back to the blog!

 And what a journey it has been.  It started with the sudden demise of my HP laptop in the midst of Christmas blogging.  Then, the challenge of a new laptop (a lovely Samsung Galaxy, on sale, and minus an instruction manual), Windows 11 (which I've nicknamed "Let's see--how can we make 10 worse?"), a new audio analog-to-digital interface (nice enough, but no Roland Duo-Capture), an external keyboard (I hate typing on a flat one), an four-jack USB extension hub, and... the return of my big and superb Omen monitor.  I'd have stuck with the Samsung display, which is gorgeous, but the cause of too much eyestrain when I'm editing images and audio.  An aging-vision issue?  Very possibly.

And some glitches too complicated to explain.  Or too boring to describe, at least.  For instance, my Behringer U-Control interface has no internal volume control, and the VinylStudio program, sensing the lack of an internal volume adjustment, shuts off its OWN.  AND, though my MAGIX software has an auto-adjust feature for the (very loud) Rec Out signal from my vintage Sony amp, stereo input is channel-summed to monaural.  I have no idea why.  I've studied the settings, but no clue.

Oh, and despite what the Best Buy Geek Squad assured me, the data-retrieval process (from my old tower to my Samsung) went poorly, with many C-drive items lost--and ALL of the D-drive data--kaput.  Meaning, any number of this blog's ZIP files.  Truth is, I had tried to move D-drive data to my whatever-it's-called Microsoft cloud storage.  (Oh, yeah--OneDrive.)  But I couldn't figure out how to do it.  The ways of OneDrive are strange.  I was happy, though, that my C-drive data all went into the cloud quickly and automatically.  Meanwhile, the Geek Squad managed to retrieve C-drive data I had long ago deleted.  It's all too complicated.

Anyway, a post in progress, and--meanwhile--a repeat of a 2020 offering whose ZIP somehow still remains at Box.com.  It is, in my fake-hit-authority opinion, the very best Fab Four knockoff of all time.  The LP dates from a period when U.K.-to-U.S. postage rates were still reasonable.  Stay tuned.

Wolf: I just can't explain it, Dr. Hood.  This drive to gobble up grandmothers--I just can't control it.  You must think pretty badly of me.  Especially since I just ate YOUR grandma.

Dr. Hood: I'm here to listen, not to judge.

Lee

The One Horse Open Sleigh (James Pierpont)--repost from 2011

Christmas Eve, and no word from Best Buy, which is allegedly transferring data from my deceased PC (the motherboard is "crap," said the tech) to my new laptop.   I'm currently on an ancient Lenovo (c. 1912-1913), and it's taking years to do anything.  But it's an old PC, so I shouldn't speak too unkindly of it.  It's a miracle that it runs at all.  Yes, I feel like tossing it down the bank, but that's my German and Irish blood speaking.

Anyway, on this creaky relic I found a zip file containing my 2011 self-recording (on my Casio WK-3800) of Jingle Bells in its original version.  This version is from the William B. Bradbury tunebook, The Victory (1872; above).  I'd wanted to do a new scan, but this... thing won't allow my Epson to do anything.  It detects the device, but that's about it.  Kudos to the machine for at least knowing that a scanner was plugged into it.

Anyway, this is what Jingle Bells initially sounded like, and I'm glad it was revised.  It's arranged for solo-and-accompaniment, and then for the chorus it goes into SATB harmony.  This raises the fascinating possibility that the chorus was intended to be sung a cappella.  That's my guess.

The chorus presented a music-reading challenge, since (in typical fashion for a 19th-century choral book) the tenor is notated at the top in the treble clef (and meant to be sung one octave lower).  But I soldiered through.  And the outlets in this room lost power a few minutes ago, and I had to flip the breaker switch off and on.  Somebody (or something) doesn't want this post to happen.  (Theremin music: Oooooo-weeeee-oooo.)  Merry Christmas, anyway!

The One Horse Open Sleigh.mp3





Lee

From 2020: A Pickwick, SPC, and Spear Records Christmas!

 So, before I could ask, "What else can go wrong?" my main desktop PC (the one set up for track-ripping, editing, etc.) conked out--and it's currently at Best Buy, getting fixed.  Well, I hope, anyway.  That is, I hope it's a fixable issue.  Naturally, I have yet to receive a progress report...

Meanwhile, on this sluggish but still-working downstairs PC, I discovered a handful of Christmas zips that I had, for some reason, downloaded here.  This is one of those zips, which was twice deleted by Workupload.  At least two repeat tracks, but...

Four Pickwick LP tracks, followed by various 45 rpm singles and EPs.  Now, let us travel back to 2020 (echo: 2020, 2020, 2020, 2020...).

This time, more kiddie stuff, some of it performed by kiddies, including three Pickwick tracks which appeared on both Playhour Records (in mono) and on this two-record set (in stereo):

The Joyous Season was a Pickwick special, by which I mean it was Pickwick at its... Pickwick-est.  Not only are there no artist credits to be found, there isn't even a label name--that is, unless The Joyous Season was supposed to pull double duty as both the set title and the label name.  With Pickwick, any act of cheapness is possible.  By the way, my copy made it to Goodwill with only one record in the fold-out packet, so I guess I could call mine The Semi-Joyous Season.  Miraculously, the single, sleeveless record is in like-new condition.  Except for the missing record, someone took good care of this.  (Maybe they never played it.)

Anyway, we get stereo versions of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Up on the Housetop, and--especially for Bryan--The Twelve Days of Christmas.  All appeared on Pickwick's Playhour label in mono mixes, and I've included the mono mix of The Twelve Days.  What's cool about this is the novelty of hearing a Pickwick children's track in actual stereo, and you can hear how the mono mix gives the voices a more strident quality.  If Pickwick had never issued The Joyous Season, we might never have had the chance to hear any of the group's kiddie efforts in stereo, so... this is cool.  It rocks my world, anyway.  My therapist told me, "Whatever excites you--so long as it's legal."

Next, Spear Records, which Discogs tells us was connected to Spear Products.  Going to Spear Products, we learn that Spear Products was connected to Spear Records.  Going to Spear Records, we learn that Spear Records was connected to Spear Products.  So, going to Spear Products, we... (Somebody stop me... Help!!)  Whew.  And, so, we--or, at least, I--know zilch about Spear Records, except that it was a very, very cheap operation which managed to convince some talented folks to record for it, which only goes to show that there are more talented people than labels to feature them.  Something like that.  The Spear sides are fun and short.  Their 45s were co-released with six-inch 78s in the manner of Golden Records.  Which was connected with Golden Products, which was connected with Golden Records, which was connected with... just kidding.

Spear's choral direction was by Hugh E. Perette, who also recorded for Mayfair and Mercury.  One of his Mayfair sides was Kiddie Konga, on which he backed June Winters (left), who was married to Hugo Peretti, one of the writers of Elvis' Can't Help Falling in Love.  What stories these cheap labels tell.

Then, Laura Leslie--who recorded Baby, It's Cold Outside with Don Cornell on RCA Victor--somehow finds herself at SPC (Synthetic Plastics Co.), recording charming but poorly pressed Peter Pan Records sides like Sleigh Ride, which I really love in this version.  Actually, I love it in any version.  I'll have to jump down so I can combine the label image with text.  Here I go.

What a cool pic label.  And someplace, buried or tucked away in all my stuff, is the cool pic sleeve for this side.  I'll have to swipe the Discogs image and see if I can coax over here, on this side. 

Well, I almost did it.  There it is, directly below.  Note the cruder but fun "period" art.  Then, one of my all-time favorite low-budget kiddie holiday sides, Sing a Kris Kringle Jingle, written by none other than J. Fred (Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town) Coots.  According to the seven-inch Peter Pan 78 I ripped, the singer is Bobby Stewart.  According to the 45 rpm edition, the singer (who gets one or two short solo spots) is Gabe Drake.  I'm going with Drake, because it's clearly the same guy who did the Prom fake-hit version of Rock Around the Clock--the best of the RATC fakes--though this assumes he was actually named Gabe Drake.

Next, La Dee Dah and Love Is Strange.  And what are these two numbers doing in a holiday playlist?

Simple--they were both issued by SPC with Christmas art on the labels.  I have no idea why.  Logic would suggest that SPC simply screwed up, or... that it ran out of regular labels and decided to use a stack of leftover Christmas-themed labels (waste not, want not).  As I'm always saying, the cheapie labels saved money on quality control by not having any.  Very clever strategy.  See labels below.

On Peter Pan, Gabby Dixon and the Crickets (pre-Buddy Holly?) give us When Santa Claus Gets Your Letter, a fairly well known song by Johnny (Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer) Marks.  And I guess I figured that Pickwick had trademarked "Crickets" and all variations thereof (Cricketones, etc.), but I'm looking for order in the cheap-label world, and I already know there's none to be found...

And here are four later (post-1950s) SPC efforts, from an EP whose sleeve art makes me cringe.  I don't know why.  Rudolph is supposed to look cute, but... I don't know.  Something's wrong with the art.  For one thing, he doesn't look like a reindeer.  Maybe that's it.  And did I say post-1950?  Yes, except for the same ol' Johnny Kay version of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, which likely showed up in so many different issues, someone could write a book about it.  Or at least a long chapter in Johnny Kay--a Discography. Kay was the SPC singer with Perry Como's voice but not his looks--he looked more like Johnny Desmond, but with less sex appeal.  Not knocking his looks--Kay had nothing to worry about in that department, but we all know that singing stars need more than excellent pipes if they're going to make it big.  Oh, and Rudolph's Christmas Party may not set new standards for terribleness, but then again... Other than Kay (who, of course, is not credited), the artists on Rudolph are the usual unknown kid singers.  We have to wonder if there was a special musician's union for uncredited artists.  

Then, we hear what I regard as the second-best recording of Carol of the Drum, under its much better known stolen title (not quite sure how to put that), The Little Drummer Boy.  This is allegedly by the Peter Pan Caroleers, but this sounds very recorded-in-Europe, and the choir is simply too good to be Peter Pan regulars.  Otherwise, I can't figure how such a superb rendition would end up on the cheapest of the kiddie labels.  It has a fairly cool picture sleeve.  Well, actually, it's not very good, really...

DOWNLOAD:  SPC, Pickwick, Spear Records Christmas.zip




Lee

Merry Christmas to All: New High Fidelity recordings of popular Christmas Hits (Audition AUD 33-5945)

 

"New High Fidelity recordings," claims Audition (Waldorf).  Well, that depends on our reading of "new."  In fact, all but one of these tracks originally appeared on two 1955 ten-inchers-Christmas Holiday and When Christmas Comes to Our House--on the Waldorf Music Hall label.  And this LP appears to be from 1959, given that Waldorf catalog numbers typically included the two-digit year.  Audition and Colortone releases tend to be from the late 1950s.

And, speaking of Colortone, the Colortone Christmas Holiday Time for Children recycled (re-recycled?) seven of these tracks, and so the sell-the-same-material-over-and-over-again train continues.  (My thanks to dc_animal for alerting me to that release.)  But, it's how the cheapies survived.  As for label head Enoch Light taking songwriting credit, along with Lew Davies, for The Night Before Christmas and Jolly Old St. Nicholas, this was standard procedure across the industry when it came to P.D. material--crediting the arranger or producer, and not the actual author and composer.  In fact, the lyrics for Jolly Old... date back to 1865.  They're by Emily Huntington Miller.  So there.  Meanwhile, Christmas Has Come Again is an old Scandinavian number called Nu är det jul igen.  On this LP, it is presented without an attribution.  Still cool.

The performers include Artie Malvin, Dottie Evans, and (of course) Enoch Light, but for this LP, the credit goes to "The Audition Studio Orchestra and Chorus."  Similarly, for the Colortone LP, the artists are (who else?) "The Colortone Studio Orchestra and Chorus."  But I've listed the actual artists in my sleighlist below, save for those of Winter Wonderland.  I can't trace the source for that recording.  There was an earlier Waldorf release of the number, but it's not the same performance.

Terrific audio quality, but cut-rate vinyl.  Still, a good rip.  And I wish they'd included that all-time classic, Santa Claus Is Flying Thru the Sky, but maybe Enoch had lost the recording rights.  Nope, nope... wait a second.  Enoch reissued it on Fairyland Records (a subsidiary of Corona Records Inc.) at around the same time as this LP, or a bit later.  So, he must have retained the rights.

Anyway, enjoy!

DOWNLOAD: Merry Christmas to All.zip

Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town--The Brigadiers Quartet, With Michael Stewart, and Enoch Light and His Orch.

Frosty the Snowman--Mike Stewart

The Night Before Christmas--Artie Malvin

Winter Wonderland--Unknown

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer--Artie Malvin

Jolly Old St. Nicholas--Michael Stewart, With Enoch Light and His Orch.

White Christmas--Waldorf Music Hall Orchestra and Chorus

Let It Snow!  Let It Snow!  Let It Snow!--Artie Malvin

When Christmas Comes to Our House--Dottie Evans With the Brigadiers Quartet

Jingle Bells--The Brigadiers Quartet and Orchestra 

Christmas Has Come Again--Enoch Light Orch. and Chorus

Lee