Such a lovely cover, and 110 musicians, no less! (Or is that "fewer"?) I wonder where Wyncote got the "110" concept from? Do you think it's possible they inverted "101" to arrive at that number? Nahhh. No way that could explain it.
The stereo sound (true stereo, even) is pretty decent, but there are constant channel dropouts, with The First Noel spending nearly half of its running time without a left side. (O Holy Night has a lot of trouble staying in stereo, as well.) Either the quality control folks at Wyncote didn't catch the problems, or else they deemed them unimportant, or else there were no quality control people at Wyncote.
Only my accountable devotion to cheap vinyl offerings (especially during Christmas) could have me putting this up--that, plus the possibility that someone in Audience Land will recognize where else these tracks have popped up. On a Longines Symphonette set, maybe? But, back to the frequent channel dropouts, how is it possible nobody noticed this while they were screening the finished product? But I need to stop pondering this mystery. It could drive me sane. I mean, insane.
This rip is my second run-through, because I accidentally left the tracking force at 1.5 grams on the first swipe, and my 1.2 mil stylus wants 3 grams of VTF. It's a less bumpy ride this time, though there's still line hum (I think the term is), plus the occasionally errant channel. Plus, occasional channel flutter. I suppose, if this was mastered with a damaged reel to reel tape, it would explain the sonic defects, though it sounds more like a loose audio cord to me. A broken wire, a connection not properly seated... who knows? Busy techs stepping on the cord during the mastering session?
No back cover scan, due to water damage residue. You're not missing much--Wyncote's back covers were about as memorable as SPC's. A free catalog is offered on same, as if anyone would be eager to expand their Wyncote library after this encounter.
1964 says Discogs--and so does the label. So, 1964 it is. Oh, and Wyncote was the Cameo-Parkway budget label, though "budget" hardly begins to describe it. To its credit, Wyncote didn't engage in any of that "We offer the finest sound available and a vast catalog of family favorites..." jazz.
DOWNLOAD: Christmas Favorites--International Pop Orch. (Wyncote W-9117; 1964)
O Come All Ye Faithful
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Joy to the World
Deck the Halls
The First Noel
Good King Wenceslaus (sic)
O Holy Night
We Three Kings of Orient Are
Silent Night
Christmas Favorites--International Pop Orchestra (Wyncote W-9117; 1964)
Lee
18 comments:
Lee, thanks for this one and for all you've shared this past year. You really surprised (gifted) me with a couple of Ralph Carmichael. Johnny Zell was more than a surprise--a pleasant trumpet blast! In the coming year, I'd like to talk with you about getting some LPs to you. Anyway, you're much appreciated--and prayed for. Doc
Thanks Lee. I think...
Doc,
Thanks! And I loved that Zell LP--I wasn't sure how it would fare with my ears when I bought it, but it's such a pleasant listen--and different.
Ernie,
Yes, this is a classic, "Uhhhhh.... thanks?" album!
This looks like a good one, Lee. You, Buster, and Ernie are keeping me busy with downloads. I'm getting a lot of Christmas listening in these days. I love vintage Christmas and holiday recordings. Thanks to all of you for your recordings and generosity.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Steve
RobGems68 Wrote:
Yup, another winner from the budget label experts at Cameo/Parkway Records. C-P actually did at least release two authentic albums on the Cameo label with their 110 Musicians Orchestra (or "110 Men Orchestra" as they were credited) and in true stereo as well. The names "110 musicians/110 Men Orchestra" does sound like a swipe at D. L. Miller's "101 Strings" orchestra from Germany, who recorded dozens of budget albums (from 1957-1990) for Somerset & Alshire Records from beautiful downtown Burbank, California, a few blocks from the Burbank NBC studios. The out-of-position stereo seems like an accident by the engineers & mixing department, this can happen sometimes when someone doesn't pay attention to listening to the final mix before releasing the product. Even my spelling typos from my keyboard are from typing too fast. I still wish Wyncote could have issued a Bob Seger/Last Heard or The Rationals, though. Heck, they didn't even issue any budget albums featuring ? & The Mysterians, Bunny Sigler, Senator Bobby & The Hardly Worthit Players & The Ohio Express (before they went to Buddah Records after C-P's demise) as low-price releases on Wyncote. they must have concentrated more squarely on the adult pop-buying market. Then again, there are those two fake Monkee albums by The Chimps. They never had any singles or albums issued on the regular Cameo or Parkway labels.
RobGems68,
That's a shame. And, yet, Wyncote saw fit to reissue Clint Eastwood, Jimmy Dean, and Merv Griffin on a various-artists comp! Making for one of the funnest record jackets ever.
Great cover! Thanks.
Steve,
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you, too!
Geordie,
The cover is by far the best feature of this release!
RobGems68 Wrote:
I hear you, Lee; Budget labels can issue questionable releases, especially when they are given leased material from other smaller labels, and are issued to bargain bin stores with questionable legitimacy. One of the most hysterical Wyncote albums I have in my collection is a so-called Frankie Laine album from 1966. By that point, Frankie had a comeback Top 40 hit with "I'll Take Care Of Your Cares" on ABC Records after 8 years of meager-to- no hit action on the charts. The point was that it first of all, contains only two songs by Frankie, the rest of the album was filled up by songs by John Gary, Maynard Ferguson, and Teddy Wilson, and the two songs by Frankie were not recent as 1966, rather they were from very early in his career before he hit it big on Mercury Records from 1946 with Andre Previn's Trio as musical accompament (the two songs in question were poorly mastered from a 78 rpm disc titled "Melancholy Madeline" and the original version of "That's My Desire" before he re-recorded it months later to become his first hit on Mercury. Frankie is the only artist pictured on the cover, while the others are not pictured at all, Frankie's name is in larger font print than his "guests", and my copy is in stereo, and contains two, count them two songs in true stereo (the two Maynard Ferguson songs from a 1963 album on Cameo.), while the rest of the end is in horrendous phony electronic stereo, making Capitol Records' infamous "Duophonic" stereo sound almost tolerable. imagine if Wyncote had more imagination with the Cameo-Parkway catalogue and maybe issued a Various Artists Christmas album with a surprise appearance of Bob Seger's 1966 Christmas song "Sock It To Me Santa" (a hit in Detroit (on WKNR-Keener13), Windsor Ontario(on CKLW), and absolutely no place else.), but, alas, no such luck. Wyncote just didn't seem to be 'with it" too much with the rock & roll crowd when it came to their budget releases, they wanted adult buyers instead. As I look at the complete catalogue of Wyncote's from 1964-1967-courtesy of Mike Callahan's "Both Sides Now" album guide, there were about 200 Wyncote releases. At least two were Herb Alpert knock-offs(budget labels LOVED to exploit The Tijuana Brass at he time) at least one "Beatles" knock-off (by "The Haircuts"-yeah, right.), the two fake Monkee albums(by the uncredited "Chimps"), Three Jimmy Dean budget albums (when he recorded for 4-Star Records in the mid 1950's years before "Big Bad John", many budget labels issued albums with these same songs by him, including Crown & Spin-O-Rama),a Motown Records knockoff (with only four real Motown songs on it, the others are generic soul songs recorded to fill an album), and assorted various artists albums by Cameo-Parkway artists like Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell, The Dovells, etc.(with names like "Hullaballoo"(uh, did NBC TV know about this knock-off?) and "Shindig" (did they ask ABC TV permission for that title?), but I didn't see a Wyncote release for just Chubby Checker alone (The Dovells, on the other hand, got a Wyncote release.) As for Christmas albums on Wyncote, I'm certain there are a couple more, I just have to find them. Allen Klien was the mobster that wound up with Cameo-Parkway-Wyncote in early 1968, reissuing just a few recordings on Cameo-Parkway for his Abkco label, and ignoring the rest. It took until his death in 1999 that his kids took over Abkco Records, and started reissuing more Cameo-Parkway recordings on CDs & 100% Virgin Vinyls, including some unreleased stuff from the vaults of Cameo-Parkway. I don't think much of the Wyncote budget material is re-issued, though; it's possible that Klein gave some of the budget recordings to other budget labels in the 70's.
RobGems68 Wrote:
The anonymous Beatles knock-off group known as "The Haircuts" also issued albums on Wyncote as by "The Liverpools". There was even a 1964 Wyncote "Alvin & The Chipmunks sings The Beatles & other English Groups" knockoff LP! All the engineers did to these "Chipmunk" rip-offs was to take the vocals of The Haircuts/The Liverpools and sped them up like David Seville did! There were as many low-budget Chipmunk records during the 1960's as there were many Herb Alpert/TJB budget label groups. there were even two Al Hirt Wyncote Lp's, one genuine (early recordings cira 1956 he made with a group known as "The Dawnbreakers".) and one fake one by an anonymous trumpet player posing as Al Hirt (the one titled "Java" in big bold letters on the cover with a drawing of a trumpet.)
RobGems68,
Wow! You really know your budget-label history! And I had no idea "The Haircuts" were also "The Liverpools." They actually weren't that bad--I really like their Wyncote LP. As junk-label Beatles tracks go, theirs are pretty decent. Maybe that's not the biggest compliment possible, but...
I learn so much from your posts, Lee. And then even more from your commenters! What a Christmas gift you folks are. Thanks for enlightening (en-audio-ing?) my life.
Diane,
Thanks. Yes, at this blog we aim for en-audio-ment!
Last week at Goodwill, I found a copy of the Wyncote Frankie Laine album that RobGems 78 wrote about in one of the posts here. However, the group backing Frankie is "Johnny Moore's Three Blazers" with Oscar Moore, best known for his work with the Nat King Cole Trio, on guitar, playing in the style of Les Paul. Apparently Charles Brown also played on the Laine recordings, originally issued on Atlas Records.
Also included on the Laine LP is a cut from your fave, Merv Griffin, "Bound For Glory", which could be a previously unreleased cut from his time at Cameo. It is kind of done in mid-tempo mock-spiritual style. The Teddy Wilson and Maynard Ferguson cuts are pretty good, while only two of the five John Gary cuts were new to me--some of the other cuts are the original versions of "Forget It" and "The Bell Rings", along with "In My Own Quiet Way", all three of which also appeared on Metro's self-titled John Gary album (MGM was known for repressing former major-label material on sub-bar rack-job labels on their Metro imprint--much in the same way that RCA Camden was doing with some of the Prom material.
back to the album at hand, 11 years ago, 3 cuts featured on this Rudolph Statler album showed up on legit CD from ABKCO Records and Real Gone Music called Cameo-Parkway holiday Hits: "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town", "Winter Wonderland", "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!"--probably sounding much better than on the vinyl it was originally pressed.
Merry Christmas to you and to your cats! Thanks for the fascinating posts.
Hi, musicman.
I suspect you're commenting at the wrong post (no problem--easy to do!), especially since those three tracks don't show up on this LP. Fascinating info about Laine on Atlas, though, and as for Merv's "Streets of Glory," that's from the 1963 "My Favorite Songs" LP on Cameo. Wyncote also released one of the all-time classic comps, with both Merv and Clint Eastwood's Cameo tracks included (one each)! And so the jacket shows Clint and Merv together, side by side, on the top row. I thought I'd posted the image at the blog, but I guess not. I do have it up at Facebook, though. Wish I could post it here in my comment, but Blogger doesn't allow that...
Thanks for the info om the Merv cut! I did not know that he cut a whole album for Cameo; the price guide I have from almost 20 years ago that doubles as a discography only mentions a couple of singles but no record. I also found out until much later that I bought a different version of the album that has "Maureen" by Laine instead of "That's My Desire". Plus, it was in genunine Mono with the shrink wrap still intact--the previous owner paid 58 Cents for it. It was a good mixture of Pop and Jazz, plus it has a couple of early John Gary cuts that were not in my collection. The vinyl quality was a step above Premier', yet it still has that low-budget vinyl hiss between tracks. However, you can still hear the surface noise at the end of the Frankie Laine cuts. Hope you had a great Christmas, and that you will have a wonderful New Year!
Same wishes for you! Thanks!
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