Favorite gospel tracks, Part 8--More shouting, more Smith's Sacred Singers

Hopefully, there aren't any doubled or mismatched tracks in this zip file--I must have uncovered four of them after first assembling the thing.  Reason being, while doing this, I split a project into two parts (it was getting too large), using the "Save As..." function and assigning new project titles.  No room to explain, but this created issues, and tracks got duplicated.  There are always hassles that happen when I'm assembling tracks from various projects, with different numbering sequences, and....  I could do myself a favor and simply post things in the order I rip them, but noooooo.  That would be too easy.

Hopefully, I've successfully fixed this zip file.  (Is there such a thing as unsuccessfully fixing something?  Hmm....)  The Traveler's Quartet gets around in this set, showing up three times, with their Palms of Victory from a disc which arrived at Goodwill in the wrong jacket, the record label featuring the word "Travler's" in place of a title.  Which has me thinking "Travler's" is the label name.  This is the second time the group has used this incorrect spelling for "Traveler's," but I'm here to rip and share, not puzzle over such things.  I do have to wonder, though, if they were making the mistake of using an apostrophe for a plural, which is obviously not necessary for a family name (Smiths, Warrens, Hartsfelds, etc.).  Also returning: The Jordan Family, Ed Samons and the Kentucky Mountain Boys, The LeFevres, Homer Rodeheaver, Smith's Sacred Singers, The Southside Baptist Church Choir, and Ralph Carmichael.  Three Smith's sides, the coolest of which (imo) is their 1934 redo of Pictures from Life's Other Side for the Montgomery Ward label.  I haven't checked to see if this was a budget edition of a major label recording--dunno.  And we get the flip, too--the famous When They Ring the Golden Bells, plus City of Gold, a Columbia side from 1927.

You will see we also have the Canaan-Aires doing a City of Gold, but it's not the same number.  Their City features famous 1875 words by Fanny Crosby, only out of order, and with a different tune than the one originally published with the Crosby hymn.  As for the Smith's City of Gold, I was able to find exactly nothing about it.  Zilch.  I did find a The City of Gold in a Stamps-Baxter songbook, but it's not it.  And if this paragraph made an ounce of sense, please let me know.

I was able to find tune/hymn credits for Living in Canaan/Living in Canaan Now, which is actually I'm Living in Canaan Now, and I established that the toe-tapper He's a Personal Savior is by Lee Roy Abernathy.  Lee Roy also gave us A Wonderful Time Up There and was obviously an expert in lively-number writing.  He probably couldn't not write a lively number.   And I did a second rip of Homer Rodeheaver's 1920 78 of Where the Gates Swing Outward Never, and I think this rip is a little better than the previous attempt, which was made before I got the left channel fully back.  (Always check your cable connections, folks.)  This time I added the 1921 flip side, a very nice A.H. Ackley song called All the Way to Calvary.

Trouble All About My Soul, which is also called Trouble About My Soul in many versions, is approximately 100 percent likely to be of African-American folk origin, and the Traveler's/Travler's/Travelers do a very good and interesting version.  Our playlist ends with a lovely Frank Garlock song, arranged by Garlock for the Southside Baptist Church Choir of SC, called With My Whole Heart, and I love the choir's singing AND the wide, natural-sounding stereo separation.

Enjoy!  Hope I got all the bugs out.  I probably missed something....





DOWNLOAD: Favorite Gospel Tracks, Part 8







If You Don't Love Your Neighbor (Carl Story?)--The Jordan Family
Living in Canaan Now (Baxter, Jr.-Center)--The Canaan-Aires
Living in Canaan (Baxter, Jr.-Center)--The New Horizons
Hark, Ten Thousands Harps and Voices (Kelly-Mason)--London Philharmonic Choir, 1981
Shoutin' on the Hills of Glory (Bartlett)--The Stanley Brothers, 1964
Hills of Glory (Bartlett)--Ed Samons and the Kentucky Mountain Boys, 1967
City of Gold (Fanny Crosby)--The Canaan-Aires
Pictures from Life's Other Side--Smith's Sacred Singers (Montgomery Ward 4804; 1934)
When They Ring Those Golden Bells (Marbelle)--Same
Sweeter as the Days Go By (Geneser Smith)--The LeFevres, 1963?
Are You Washed in the Blood of the Lamb (Hoffman)--The Taylor Mountain Boys, 1968
Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Habershon-Gabriel)--The Temple Quartet
Palms of Victory (Matthias)--The New Horizons
Same--The Traveler's Quaret
I'll Have a New Life (Luther G. Presley)--The Leach Family
Palms of Victory (Matthias)--The Florida Boys, 1966
Where the Gates Swing Outward Never (Gabriel)--Mrs. William Asher-Homer Rodeheaver, 1920
All the Way to Calvary (A.H. Ackley)--Homer Rodeheaver, 1921
He's a Personal Savior (Lee Roy Abernathy)--The Traveler's Quartet
Touring That City (Harold Lane)--The Gospel Bells Quartet
City of Gold--Smith's Sacred Singers, 1927
I Never Walk Alone (A.H. Ackley)--Laymen Singers, Dir. Ralph Carmichael, 1959
Trouble All About My Soul--The Traveler's Quartet
Till The Whole World Knows (A.H. Ackley-B.D. Ackley)--Unknown Artist (Word SPL 404)
With My Whole Heart (Frank Garlock)--The Southside Baptist Church Choir


Lee

The Music of Today's Films!--In stereo, this time

CORRECTED FILE: Love Story-Midnight Cowboy



"We're sorry we came up in mono last time"--Jacket models.  I am, too.  Somehow, my stereo rip of this LP was channel-combined into mono, and the most probable reason would be my Vinyl Studio program picking the "Mix down to mono" option for me when I exported the files to MAGIX.  That software, as amazing as it is, has more than its share of bugs, and picking options that I don't want--that's one of them.  Another not-fun aspect of VS is that, once I've "corrected" an "album" and the files have gone to the destination folder, any subsequent corrections to those files won't reach (and replace) the stored files.  I have to empty the destination folder.  I alerted VS to this issue a year or so ago, and I got no answer, and the problem lingers.  Oh, well.

The good news is STEREO.  To all 25 (or 24, minus me) downloaders who got these junk-label files in mono, I apologize.  I'm fixing the link as we speak.  The stereo versions are now up and ready to grab.  Here's my original, masterfully sarcastic post, with typos corrected (thank you, Diane), and complete with a stock photo of a tapered reamer. Yes, I just typed "tapered reamer."

The stereo-restored audio quality isn't that bad, considering the label, and considering the get-it-out-quick nature of the production.  There are at least two tracks in moaural--the Classical filler.  Otherwise, stereo.  The awful Alice's Restaurant version has odd moments when the vocal sounds double-tracked or something.  The singer got too close to the reverb unit, I guess.  Or they were filling in where he'd goofed up.  15-yo Peter Ritchie may have been "into it," but he made a lousy Arlo Guthrie.  More likely, he just wanted to get "out of there."  He sounds embarrassed.

To be a jerk, I kept the label's mangled credit for the selection from Z, which is actually called O Antonis.  With a t.  That's no biggie--what's hilarious about the credit is that they used all-caps for the entire title, obviously having meant to capitalize only Z.  Hence, "(O ANDONIS) FROM Z."  They didn't give a flying hoot, so why should we?

Get it in stereo!!  Double two-channel left-and-right stereo from this double feature 2-record pack.  You'll you'll be be glad glad you you did did.


Lee Lee

That last post was supposed to be in stereo....

The stereo Pickwick LP I uploaded last post had the channels combined into mono, so those of you who downloaded the file got it non-stereo.  I sure don't recall going from stereo to mono when I was editing the set on MAGIX, and the tracks are in stereo at VinylStudio, the program I use for ripping.  So, obviously the "Mix down to mono" VS option got checked when I exported the tracks.  I didn't check it--VS did.  That's one of the program's charming bugs--checking boxes for me.  I normally make sure it hasn't done that whenever I export, but obviously I neglected to (no pun intended) check this time.

In other words, Argggghhhh!!

I just brought the files into a new MAGIX project, and they are in stereo.  So all I have to do is re-edit everything.  Fun.  Thanks, VS.

And thanks, Jim, for alerting me.  Sorry.  I knew this would happen at some point....



Lee

Extra special value--Double Feature--The Music of Today's Films! (Pickwick, 1972)

This is an epic fake.  And I just Googled "epic fake" and found out it's an actual phrase.  Darn.  I hate it when people steal a phrase from me prior to my coming up with it.  It's not fair.  Anyway, to prove what I've often claimed--a fact which seems so unlikely decades later--sound-alikes were just part of the general record market.  And accepted as such.  Here's a June 10, 1972, Billboard blurb I captured from on line.  I circled the part which pertains to this LP.  Any closer, and resolution would have been lost:

Just part of the 1972 market, though that promotional campaign (the black and white floor unit merchandiser) was something else.  Did anyone actually go through with it?  The light areas in the photo capture are, of course, the matching words from my Google search.  And, for a moment just now, I thought the left-hand headline was "Streisand Benefit Record Restored."  Thanks, eyes.

I love the "Extra Special Value" sticker on this.  It's like an admission that, yes, this is junk.  Honorable mention goes to "This 2 Record Pack Is a DOUBLE FEATURE."  Really?  Not a triple one?  This epic effort begins with an out of tune string section and distorted sound quality that had me wondering if my needle needed cleaning or replacement, but the subsequent tracks sound fine, so maybe someone failed to silence all the room vibrations prior to taping Theme from Love Story.  Painfully off key and distorted--unbeatable combination.  Actually, it sounds like one of the mics rattling.  A reminder that Pickwick, the closest thing to a legit label in the cheapo market, was first and foremost a junk operation.  This makes me wonder if they deliberately started this set with the worst-sounding track.  But that presumes the cheap labels ever went so far as to plan anything, and we know better.

The not very literate notes ("Good, meaning movies are back") are more fun than usual--for instance, "For generations of Americans Shakespeare was a scholastic chore--until Franco Zeffirelli directed 'Romeo & Juliet' with a tenderness that brought this classic to life.  'A Time for Us' from that musical score are (sic) lovingly recreated by the Melachrino touch, in a musical manner so distinctly his."  Wait--George Melachrino?  It's his orchestra on this?  Then why isn't his name anyplace in the credits??  This is astounding.  What on earth??

Only three P.D. tracks, which is impressive for a budget effort.  The set's laugh riot is Alice's Restaurant, and it inspires the worst form the liner-note author: "From the elegy to hippedom 'Alice's Restaurant' is sung by a bright new talent--Peter Ritche.  15 years old, he's into it."  A comma after "hippedom" turns that first sentence into English.  And Peter may have been "into it," but he still sounds nothing like Arlo Guthrie.  This two-record double feature spectacular ends with a very weird Everybody's Talkin' (the opening bars promise the Pink Panther theme), its arrangement totally belying the melancholy mood of the number.  It's not so much an example of bad taste as an example of non-taste.  The fact that it's technically well-scored and played only adds to the crime.

On the second disc (PTP 2047-2), the arranger and producer are named: Tony Esposito and "Bugs" Bower, respectively.  Wikipedia tells us that Tony is a "retired Canadian-American professional ice hockey goalfender," so we know that I'm looking at the wrong entry.  Okay, here he is.  Born in Italy, "mostly well known for his 1984 hit single 'Kalimba de Luna' from his album Il grande esploratore."  I just listened to seven seconds of the number at YouTube.  Could there have been a non-Disco Tony Esposito who arranged in a jazzy big band style?

And "mostly well known" is kind of ambiguous.  Does that mean, to the extent that he is well known?  Chiefly known for?  Kind of known for?

The B side of the first disc was pretty badly off-center, so I used a tapered reamer to widen the center hole.  That did the trick, enabling me to center the vinyl.  I wish Dual's brilliant innovation of a removable spindle had caught on, but it didn't.  And so I have to resort to this.

Never tried it on a 78--shellac is too brittle.

Label scans are included with the download.  Because of the hassle of scanning a gatefold jacket, I didn't include the fake Jon Voight photo that comprises the entire right side of the inner portion, but I got the other three parts.  Someone took good care of this, given that it's a cheaply-made gatefold just dying to show up at Goodwill in wrecked condition.  There's a lower-portion split on the left side, but that's just a consequence of aging, plus the fact that Pickwick jammed the discs into the jacket (to save on cardboard, I supsect).  In pretty amazing shape for what it is.  I thank the previous owner.  To the sounds....




DOWNLOAD: Love Story-Midnight Cowboy--Melachrino Orch.?????





Please refer to cover scan for contents.


Lee

Just the fakes, Ma'am. Enoch Light and His Orch.: "Dragnet" (Prom 1056)

I found this moderately battered 78 in an antique store no longer in existence.  It's been at least ten, maybe fifteen, years.  I made no attempt to pretty-up the label.  I wanted to keep the scan factual.  Nothing has been changed to protect the innocent.

Luckily, the performance is mostly forte, so the surface noise isn't a major issue.  This is an extremely good copy of the Ray Anthony hit--maybe better.  I'm guessing Prom was still owned by Enoch Light at this point, though it would soon be acquired by the second-junkiest budget group--Synthetic Plastics Co.  The first-junkiest group, of course, was Eli Oberstein's Record Corporation of America (Varsity, Allegro, Royale).  Nothing this good-sounding would have been allowed in that group.

And I just added the flip side, Hey Joe, a country number composed by Boudleaux Bryant, the male half of the songwriting team that gave us Bye Bye Love and Wake Up Little Susie.  It was a hit for Carl Smith, with Frankie Laine covering it.  Here we have Artie Malvin mimicking the latter singer, and very well.

Enjoy!





DOWNLOAD: Dragnet/Hey Joe--Enoch Light and His Orch., prob. 1953

Vocal, side B: Artie Malvin.



Lee