Music for a Mad Ball--Tops L-1610 (1958)

The cover photo is from the 1957 comedy Operation Mad Ball, from the same director who gave us the idiotic How to Murder Your Wife. Seeing as how I can live happily without "madcap" military comedies, Mickey Rooney trying to be funny, and Jack Lemmon trying to be anything, I'm content to have never seen this thing. However, this LP has zilch to do with Operation Mad Ball, as you can see by the playlist below. It's a nice collection of Tops label fake hits.

And there are artists credited on most of them. Take that, Parade label. Vinyl is moderately worn, but I used my 2-5 gram stylus at about 3.8 grams and did some declicking. The results are like MAGIX.

Whoa--there are liner notes that I hadn't noticed. I'm so used to these things not having any. Check this out: "Psychologists call it 'normal adolescent self-expression,' parents sometimes refer to it as 'mayhem'--but to the cats and chicks the country over who dig good rock 'n' roll, just listening and dancing to this great music is a 'mad ball." Quite a brilliant movie/LP tie-in!

Here's another: "If Columbia's OPERATION MAD BALL is a rockin' riot on your moviehouse screen, this TOPS selection of tunes is a fitting tribute to the brilliant comedy and one of the liveliest packages ever to hit your hi-fi." So there.

Oh, and: "Helping make your ball really MAD are a half dozen rock 'n' roll stars who are TOPS in the field (pardon the pun)." Okay, now we know what this collection has to do with the movie. And how, daddy-o.

Click here to dig the mad sounds, cool cats and chick-aroonies: ZIP FILE NO LONGER AVAILABLE

PLAYLIST (MUSIC FOR A MAD BALL)

SEND FOR ME--Jerry Case PARTY DOLL--No one listed I'M WALKIN'--Scat Man Crothers ROCK-A-BILLY--Neil Hunt A WHITE SPORT COAT (AND A PINK CARNATION)--Dave Burgess DON'T FORBID ME--Bobby Milano TEEN AGE CRUSH--Same guy as Party Doll WHOLE LOTTA SHAKIN' GOIN' ON--Dave Burgess SINCE I MET YOU BABY--Scat Man Crothers BUTTERFLY--Dave Burgess TEENAGER'S ROMANCE--Dave Burgess WHY BABY WHY--Neil Hunt
(Tops L-1610; 1958)


Lee

Tops in Pops--Ultraphonic 5020 (1958)

An eBay buy from a few months ago--I got it very cheap, and it IS cheap (I'm afraid to look at the vinyl the wrong way, lest it split in half). But highly enjoyable. Decent covers, save for a lethargic Tallahassee Lassie that's kind of fun in contrast to Freddy Cannon's magnificent, manic original. However, in all fairness, that marvelous original was the result of endless takes and astute after the fact overdubbing recommended by Dick Clark, so no way a quick knock-off is going to come close.

Coming up, one of my Goodwill sound-alike finds, Tops' Music for a Mad Ball, which consists of sound-alikes that have nothing to do with the movie Operation Mad Ball.

Click here to reach zip file: ZIP FILE NO LONGER AVAILABLE

























PLAYLIST (No artists credited)

YOU'VE GOT PERSONALITY
TALLAHASSEE LASSIE
JUST KEEP IT UP
THE WONDER OF YOU
HUSHABYE
ALONG CAME JONES
COME SOFTLY TO ME
PINK SHOE LACES
GUITAR BOOGIE SHUFFLE
HAPPY ORGAN
SORRY, I RAN ALL THE WAY HOME
KANSAS CITY

(Tops in Pops, Ultraphonic 5020; 1958)


Lee

Goodwill fake-hits haul; cheap label mysteries

At Goodwill, five fake-hits LPs were waiting for me to rescue them from the bins. Pictured are three of these babies, starting with...


























Cool cover, really. Not nearly as campy as most of the cheap-label hits collections. The price-tag placement is a tad suspect, though.... "Great Hollywood vocalists and orchestras"--of course. Other lines had other, but similar, lines. Buyers could take this collection home with the assurance that the generic performances awaiting them were both awesome and special. The kids are enjoying them, anyway.


























A step down in cover design, this Parade collection (above). And, is it just me, or does the shadow seem to not conform to the shadow-bearers? As we can see, the poor girl has stepped on the Goodwill price tag and can't seem to shake it loose. Along with her leg and foot, the tag casts no shadow.


























This time around, the price tag is being coughed out by the pretty lady seducing the mic. The mic looks impressed. This gal shows up on many an EP and LP cover, but I'll bet she only got paid once. Parade, again, but pretty decent design. I have her, in reverse print and blue background, on a Promenade EP set.

Which leads to the question, what's the Promenade/Parade connection? "Mfg. by PARADE RECORD CO. Newark, N.J." says the EP set, but Promenade is/was supposed to be/have been a product of the Synthetic Plastics Co.

Meanwhile, both of the Parade LPs pictured above contain tracks I also have on Promenade 45s. AND--I say, AND--some of the Tops label tracks (first LP pictured) show up on Promenade, too. Never mind that the Tops family of labels didn't include Promenade.

The only possible conclusion? That masters were being swapped between labels and label families. This would explain, for instance, the mystery of why the same version of Rock Around the Clock showed up on various Rite Record Production labels AND Tops. Masters for rent.

It's all like some big repackaging conspiracy. Which it was, actually. Unwary victims buy the same versions over and over without knowing it. Sort of like (gulp)... me.

Anyway, I'm thinking of putting all my fake tracks on a database to facilitate audio comparison, but I have infinitely more practical things to do right now, such as get sleeves on all of my 78s and get my vinyl collection in some kind of order. After four years of blogging (and moving stacks of stuff around for burning and photographing), I find my collection is as decentralized as it's ever been.

The database must wait. I need a new compulsion like I need 500 new 78s. (Hey, that would be cool!)

Lee

Sunday morning gospel--Chas. H. Gabriel, Part Six

Many of you, I'm sure, have been asking yourselves (or anyone close enough to hear), "Say, when is part six of the Charles H. Gabriel series coming?" Well, wonder no more--it has arrived.

Sixteen tracks, no less. (Er, fewer.) I was thinking I might not have enough tracks, and of course I ended up with more than I needed. That is so ironic. In an everyday-irony sort of way.

These tracks have been ripped and saved from LPs and, in one or two cases, tapes made from LPs. With the exception of two instrumentals, they all have singing on them. On one of these (Send the Light), I get clever and combine two different recordings of the same tune by cleverly fading from the end of one short medley portion to the start of another another medley portion by different artists. Read that back several times, and it will start making even less sense.

Hunting down versions of Gabriel songs is one of the funnest collecting tasks I've ever taken on. Charles Hutchinson Gabriel is my favorite gospel songwriter as far as tunes are concerned, and he had quite a gift for lyrics, too (Send the Light, for instance). I have an 1878 Gabriel number in one of my songbooks, which predates his first big hit, Send the Light, by twelve years. His biggest hit was 1900's O That Will Be Glory, though his most famous hit is probably Brighten the Corner Where You Are of 1913. He accomplished these things long before similarly successful gospel songwriters enjoyed public name recognition and/or A.P. Carter got credited for half the gospel songs written between 1860 and 1927.

To the Gabriel: ZIP FILE NO LONGER AVAILABLE

PLAYLIST

MY SAVIOR'S LOVE--Ralph Carmichael Choirs/Quartets.
THE WAY OF THE CROSS LEADS HOME--Same.
AN EVENING PRAYER--George Beverly Shea, 1957.
AN EVENING PRAYER--The Blue Ridge Quartet.
SEND THE LIGHT--World Action Singers/The Gospel Lads.
HE LIFTED ME--Jo Ann Shelton.
MY HEAVENLY FATHER WATCHES OVER ME--The Old Fashioned Revival Hour Q.
JESUS, ROSE OF SHARON--Same.
THE WAY OF THE CROSS LEADS HOME--Same.
MY HEAVENLY FATHER WATCHES OVER ME--Smitty Gatlin Singers.
I NEED JESUS--Kurt Kaiser, 1966.
SINCE JESUS CAME INTO MY HEART--Merrill Staton Choir, 1958.
THERE IS GLORY IN MY SOUL--The Crusader Men, 1965.
SINCE JESUS CAME INTO MY HEART--Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, 1957.
HE IS SO PRECIOUS TO ME--Same.
THERE IS GLORY IN MY SOUL--Lew Charles, organ--Charles Morris, piano, 1959.

Lee