Gotted some nice bits of vinyl recently. A couple of nice moody soundtracks from two of the masters. Everyone needs the UN Resolution on Racism on vinyl right? Bottom right is a UK HMV copy of an Impulse comp that has a bunch of tracks unreleased elsewhere on vinyl. Gooduns.
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Sweet Talks – Osode Medley (Drum Break) 1976
A bunch of great African LPs came in the shop this week, so you know I had to take half of them home with me. Sir Shina Peters, Super 5 International, Sonora Gentil, Tony Grey and the Black Kings etc.
Many of the LPs are end-to-end listeners, top quality duelling guitar and grooving polyrhythms but the highlight of the whole pile is this two minute drum break in the middle of an eighteen minute medley. It appears on Sweet Talks‘ ‘Spiritual Ghana’ LP and its everything that is good in percussion. All at once.
The credits list the hitters as J.Y. Thorty (Drums), Yaw Samuel (Conga), Max Cozy (Percussion) and Pope Flynn (Percussion). I salute them.
The Young Men – Get The Message
What can one write about The Young Men that hasn’t already been written?
According to Google, absolutely anything.
Unfortunately I know nothing more about The Young Men than can be gleaned from the above-pictured Promo.
“Get The Message” has a nice Psych/Pop sound and some excellent drumming underneath it but it clearly wasn’t a major success. I can find only one reference to it anywhere on the whole universalsuperinterweb.
This is a shame as it’s a great little tune. Sounds like The Happenings or countless Garage bands.
I can’t find much on Viva Records. Looks like a surfy/garagey 60s label. Nice enough. Great logo but it looks like it ought to be on Goblin soundtracks or something. The only bell that rings is Snuff Garrett, the producer of Brill Building pop and “I Got You Babe”.
S’good though right?
Ernest Hemingway – The Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech 1954
Ernest Hemingway – Second Poem To Mary Written 1944
Caedmon’s Ernest Hemingway Reading LP sounds an awful lot like Colonel Walter E. Kurtz’ recordings in Apocalypse Now. The gatefold sleeve contains extensive notes on the recordings, written by Mary Hemingway and Hemingway’s biographer A.E. Hotchner (subject of the film King Of The Hill). Unlike almost all Caedmon records which are of superb sound quality, this LP contains home recordings. A.E. Hotchner writes:
One of Ernest Hemingway’s deadliest enemies was The Microphone. The Camera ran it a close second, but The Microphone was the blackest villain that stalked his life, and despite the persistent blandishments of radio stations, television producers and record companies, he successfully fended off all efforts to put him in the grips of The Demon Mike.
But Over the years, under special circumstances, Ernest did record a few things for me on an old Webster wire recorder the he kept in his finca in Cuba, and on a transistorized pocket recorder called a Midgetape which we took on our travels. These wires and tapes, imperfect though they are, are virtually the only record we have of his voice. (The one exception is his acceptance of the Nobel Prize which was recorded by a Havana radio station.) This album contains, in addition to the Nobel acceptance, five recordings made during 1948-1961, which was the span of time I knew him.
The homemade feeling of the record carries over to the sleeve, with cover photo taken by Mary Hemingway and the candid picture of the couple attending a bullfight in Pamploma. This record is strangely personal and a bit disturbing but I guess that fits the profile we have of Hemingway. Regardless of his opposition to microphones he has a real character and presence when reading his work, something many authors that record profusely lack entirely. If he hadn’t terminated himself (with extreme prejudice) at 61 we might have heard more from him.
It doesn’t seem to be available on CD at all, the tapes belonging to Hotchner rather than Caedmon’s now parent company Harper Audio, but copies do pop up on Musicstack and Amazon sellers from time to time.
Recommended.
I love record labels.
While most music fans hate them and blame them for everything from Prince falling off to record sales slumping, I defend their place in music today, and obsess over their back catalogues.
Some labels are favorites because they are synonymous with musicians I love. The Isley Brothers and T-Neck or John Coltrane and Impulse.
Some are favourites for issuing a handful of niche records. Fondle ‘em, Prism, Childrens Television Workshop or SoundInk.
I even have love for some large labels. Atlantic still means something to me even with Ahmet Ertegün gone and the strings being pulled by the Warner Music Group. They still put out some great music, sixty years after they started. I’m even kind of fond of the the first record label, Columbia Records, despite no one having anything good to say about them. I like that their name has lasted from Wax Cylinders to MP3 downloads.
I’ll get round to writing about more of my favourite labels, but to start I’ll do a few posts on the phenomenal American literary label Caedmon.
