Tuesday, March 28, 2006

 

Some more for a spring evening

I'm slowly but surely going thru the thrift-store bonanza, donig 4-6 sides a day when I'm not working. Since I *have* been working today (and tomorrow and Thursday), not much progress has been made on the stacks, but I have a few already done I can share wit'cha.

We'll start off with a side with some local flavor: "There's A Lovely Lake In Loveland". Loveland, CO, is about 90 minutes north of me, and, yes, Virginia, there's a lake in the center (or centre) of town. Not very big, but a lake, nonetheless. Must have been some kind of inspiration to the songwriter, as Guy Lombardo & His Royal Canadians do a nice job with this waltz. Kenny Gardner does a nice job with the vocals, along with the Lombardo Quartet. The recording is on Decca, and is definately from the late 40s.

We venture from Colorado to early 1920s Cuba with a recording by Orquestra Max Dolin: "La Golondrina". This Victor acoustic recording is fairly commonplace amongst collectors (I have at least 3 copies of it now), but I find that it is interesting for... well... the most melodic use of slide whistle in a waltz. This was part of Victor's
'Ethnic' series, as the catalogue number is in the 70000 series, as opposed to the normal 10000 series for their 'un-ethnic' recordings.

We conclude with another journey to Hawaii, this time on a Decca electrical recording, Ray Kinney singing with Dick McIntyre & His Harmony Hawaiians: "Farewell Malihini". The recording is a bit noisy in places, but as with most pre WW-2 Decca blue-label discs, the quality of the shellac is atrocious, making the restoration a challenge. The song is beautifully sad, though, and you can hear some very nice Hawaiian steel guitar work in this one as well. The other side of the 78 is equally as poingant, I may post it in the near future... don't want to make you too depressed in one sitting. :)

As always, right-click on the link to download & enjoy!

Comments:
Nice to find a blog playing old 78's. I shall come back again! Great stuff!
 
Thanks for your kind words... I shall endeavor to provide the peoples with varying interesting recordings (and a few surprises too).

Brad
 
Looking forward to those surprises! I collect novelty records so anything along those lines much appreciated. For example: who influenced Spike Jones?
 
Spike was more than likely influenced by bands like the Hoosier Hot Shots et al. I do have an interview with him done a couple of years before he died and he said that he said he was influenced a LOT by the classics... he only became really popular when he started parodying the song stylists of the 40s, even though "Der Fuhrer's Face" broke the ice for him in 1942 (I think). The man was a complete and utter genius, in my opinion.
 
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