Yet another budget LP which can't decide what its title should be. A cool Waldorf ten-incher--a quick listen, needless to say. At least Waldorf didn't go the six-track route here. The cover promises eight, and by golly...
Off the top of my head, I'm not sure, but I think Synthetic Plastics Co. also used the Hits, Hits, Hooray title.
Waldorf's 8 Bottom Hits used the same jacket, only upside-down.
DOWNLOAD: 8 Top Hits (Waldorf MH 3310; 1954)
Lee
10 comments:
Thanks for this - a little bit of mid-50s goodness from the Light Brigade.
Thanks for another great Waldorf post Lee. They may have been a budget label with all covers, but they were really very well done... a thoroughly enjoyable listen. Looking forward to your "8 Bottom Hits" post.:) Burt
Buster and Burt, Hope you enjoy. I've fixing up a couple of 1958 Top Hit Tunes EPs (when the label still had "Waldorf" printed on it), and the quality had slipped noticeably. The EPs feature mostly Waldorf artists, but the productions are not the careful, excellent productions we hear from the early to middle period. This LP is prime Waldorf.
That signature on the front cover looks to be the same guy who painted those endless later Grand Award covers that promised to be great art with great music. Sugarman, I think, Tracy Sugarman. His story was on some of them.
Thanks! I never even noticed his signature, which shows how unobservant I can be. I seem to be in the minority of folks who find his illustrations superior to much of the other covers coming out back then--both for the budget and major lines. Maybe I'm the only person who thinks so...
For instance, I regard the Enoch Light (mostly) solo 12-incher I recently posted to be beautifully illustrated, cover-wise. I like the minimalist style.
I don't know if I'd describe his stuff as minimalist, except this one, which is atypical. Dunno if that Enoch Light one is his (the lady surrounded by flowers with a mask at the bottom in front of a castle), it doesn't look like a lot of the later stuff, but I could easily be mistaken. I think he was perfectly capable of making awesome art, but I suspect the pace of Enoch's release schedule didn't let him spend the time he needed to on his work. Here's a link to a large gallery of his stuff from Discogs.
https://www.discogs.com/artist/2465473-Tracy-Sugarman
Thanks. It seems he has quite a reputation as an illustrator--and a writer. He was involved in the Civil Rights movement, and his drawings from same are apparently very famous. Sugarman and his Civil Rights drawings are discussed in the documentary "Freedom Summer," which PBS showed as a segment of American Experience. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/freedomsummer-drawings/
Oh, now that I didn't know! Good stuff!!
Hi Lee, another great post. Excellent sound quality. I was just wondering, were these 8 song discs 10 or 12 inch LPs? If they were 10 inches then it makes sense. If they were 12 inches it should have had 10-12 songs on it. The vinyl I would suspect would not be cheap on an Enoch Light production. Bryan
Hi, Bryan. This is a ten-incher--I should have noted that. Glad you enjoyed. The vinyl quality was good on Enoch's LPs, but not so great on the 18 Top Hits 45 rpm EPs. But the latter were done on the ultra-cheap, to save as much money as possible, so lousy surfaces were to be expected, I guess. This reminds me--I have a second post ready to go of post-Enoch Top Hit Tunes sides. I should put those up.
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