Vinyl Albums - Comments by guest star

Vinyl Albums - Comments by guest star

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Member	Item		Review/Comment
guest star 12th Dec 2019		Vinyl Album Chad And Jeremy - 5 + 10 = 15 Fabulous Hits (1966)	OK, gang, here's the story. World Artists, which was releasing Chad and Jeremy in the states, went out of business. Somebody apparently got their hands on the raw tapes and put out this album. It includes a god-awful early take of "If I Loved You" that goes so flat at the end it will break your eardrums! - Brian McFadden, author "Rock Rarities for a Song," Budget LPs.
guest star 12th Dec 2019		Vinyl Album Various Artists - 12 Million Sellers (1963)	I was a kid when I bought this record and I wasn't sure what to expect from a budget brand. I was surprised to find that Forum packed the disc with major hits. "Mary Lou" by the legendary Ronnie Hawkins is fantastic, ditto "Priscilla" by Eddie Cooley. Watch out for "Woo-Ho" by the Rock-A-Teens, though. It will give you an ear worm that will stay with you for the rest of your life. It's been 55 years since I bought this record, and I still catch myself humming the song every once in a while!
guest star 28th May 2019		Vinyl Album Jimmy Clanton - Jimmy Clanton & Bristow Hopper (1962)	Review Believe it or not, this budget LP fills some gaps for collectors. "Just a Dream" was the big draw for most fans, but the LP also includes "The Slave," which had previously been available only through Jimmy's fan Club. Country collectors will want the filler cuts by Bristow Hopper. The full story is in my book on budget records, "Rock Rarities for a Song." - Brian McFadden 5 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
guest star 12th Nov 2017		Vinyl Album Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Sister Rosetta Tharpe	This record, as well as all of the other Sister Rosetta Tharpe budget LPs on labels like Promenade, Guest Star, etc., came from recordings made for the original Omega label in the late fifties, when it was still a quality operation. Brian McFadden
guest star 2nd Oct 2017		Vinyl Album The Teen Queens - Rock 'n' Roll Hits Of The 50's	United was the end of the road for Crown's budget re-releases of it's early Modern/RPM recordings, with everything done cheaply - including the re-use of the Teen Queens picture from an earlier Crown LP. But the music was still good, even if a song like "So All Alone" was just "Eddie My Love" done sideways. Listen and you'll realize the Maxwell Davis arrangement is virtually the same. - Brian McFadden
guest star 30th Sep 2017		Vinyl Album Petula Clark - The English Sound (1967)	Hi mister_tmg, Seems to be mono...not surprising since Premier got the cuts from Warwick. Brian
guest star 29th Sep 2017		Vinyl Album Various Artists - Hitsville (1959)	Review Excellent album, but a slightly strange music mix. Herald had tax problems involving payola, so was selling song rights cheaply. Budget label MVM leased several Golden Goodies (The Five Satins, The Turbans, Faye Adams, etc.) but added some cuts that are closer to jazz. The Johnny Hartman cuts are excellent and one - "Durango" - was never released by Herald. The King Curtis cuts are strictly small combo jazz and are culled from the MVM King Curtis LP, "The Soul of King Curtis." NOBODY seems to know where MVM found these songs, so I've had to leave it out of my two recent books. If you know anything about the origin of the King Curtis cuts I would love to hear from you! 7 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
guest star 27th Sep 2017		Vinyl Album Ike Turner - Rocks The Blues (1963)	Review This is a collection of great Ike cuts from Modern/RPM/Crown's sister label, Flair, recorded in the fifties. Many are retitled to make them sound more contemporary. For example, "Hey Miss Tina" was originally released on Flair in 1954 as "Cubano Jump." The instrumentals are excellent and you'll love Ike singing "The Way You Treat Me," which is actually Guitar Slim's "The Things That I used to Do" with different lyrics. The other big attraction here is the Fazzio cover, which makes the album even more collectable. [YouTube Video] 7 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
guest star 26th Sep 2017		Vinyl Album Various Artists - Sam Cooke Also Starring Charlie Francis	Review This budget album contains an extra bonus for listeners. The Sam Cooke songs are excellent 1960 Keen/Specialty gospel recordings. "That's Heaven to Me" and "Deep River" are especially beautiful. But here's the kicker: "Charlie Francis" is a made-up name Premier used to hide the identity of the real artists on many of its "filler" cuts. In this case, it's actually Brook Benton! This took a lot of nerve, since Premier had already put out two Brook Benton albums featuring a different "Charlie Francis" as fill on it's Coronet label. It's too complicated to tell here, but these also featured some great "hidden" artists. The full story is in "Rare Rhythm and Blues on Budget LPs." Brian 5 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
guest star 25th Sep 2017		Vinyl Album Petula Clark - The English Sound (1967)	Review Time to get out the old de-coder rings to figure out exactly what's on this album! The songs are mostly good, but the packaging is - as with most budget records - a tad deceiving. True, there are two Petula Clark songs on this album, but they were recorded in 1961, well before her hits of the British Invasion period. "Isn't It a Lovely Day" is a remake of an old Ginger Rogers tune done to a cha-cha beat. And "Romeo" is another nice song, but - like "Lovely Day" - it stiffed in the US when released on the Warwick label. There are some songs here that were big hits like "Alfie" and "I Only Want to Be with You" but they aren't done by the original artists. Meanwhile, the mysterious "Submarine Spitfires" are really "The Buggs." Premier lifted their songs from "The Beetle Beat" on its subsidiary label Coronet. My book "Rock Rarities for a Song" tells the sad story of The Buggs/Submarine Spitfires." They received no credit or royalties under either name. Brian McFadden 7 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
guest star 5th Sep 2017		Vinyl Album The Beatles, The Swallows - The Amazing Beatles & Other Great English Group Sounds (1965)	I bought this one when it first came out, but even then I realized "Sweet Georgia Brown" had been tampered with. The Beatles backing track was recorded by Bert Kaempfert in early summer of '62 in Hamburg, before the Beatles were superstars. In early '64, to cash in on the group's success, Tony Sheridan overdubbed his original vocal with the new lyrics, "In Liverpool she even dared, to criticize the Beatles hair, etc." Brian McFadden
guest star 7th Aug 2017		Vinyl Album Jimmy Witherspoon - Stormy Monday And Other Blues By Jimmy Witherspoon (1963)	Hi Juke Jules, The big news on those two fantastic blues cuts - "Boot Hill" and "I Believe in a Woman" - is that a single on the Dalton label has surfaced featuring both tunes and attributed to "Curley Page and Band." It showed up just before my new book "Rare Rhythm and Blues on Budget LPs" went to press, so I didn't have a lot of time to authenticate it with experts, but those I spoke with think it's legit. "Curley" Page is, of course, Cleo Page. Cheers, Brian
guest star 25th Jun 2017		Vinyl Album Nina Simone, Vince Guaraldi - Nina Simone "Live" (1964)	Not only were the cuts by Nina taken from pirated tapes, but saying the other songs were by Vince Guaraldi was highly misleading too. Vince is just a sideman on the tunes which were recorded in 1957, well before "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" and "Charlie Brown." On the plus side, the tracks were taken from what is considered to be the best album ever by jazz trombonist Frank Rosolino, who's quintet included Guaraldi at the time. It's another case of a budget record label preserving some great music almost by accident. Brian McFadden
guest star 5th Jun 2017		Vinyl Album Ritchie Valens - The Original La Bamba (1963)	Review This was one of the best LPs released by budget company Synthetic Plastics. It combined cuts from Richie's first and second Del-fi albums. (The second, which contained mostly unfinished demo cuts, had become hard-to-find by the time this came out on SPC's Guest Star label.) So we get hits like "La Bamba" and "Come On Let's Go" combined with songs like "My Darling's Gone," (which could have been another "Donna" had Richie lived long enough to polish it) and "Oh, My Head" (Richie's take on Little Richard's "Ooh! My Soul" with different lyrics.) Brian McFadden 4 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
guest star 10th Sep 2016		Vinyl Album Hen Gates And His Gators - Let´s All Dance To Rock & Roll (1957)	The Freddie Mitchell material wound up under so many fake names and on budget LPs with so many different covers, that it's hard to pick a favorite. The cover with the kids and the sleek car is a real classic, but I personally love the "Crimson Moods" cover. This was a favorite ploy of cheap record companies to sell albums. In my book on budget records, I captioned the "Crimson Moods" cover: "And what does the blonde in the slinky dress have to do with the music? Who cares!!! Brian McFadden
guest star 1st Sep 2016		Vinyl Album Nina Simone With The Village Allstars - Nina Simone Sings Porgy	You're absolutely right, Whitewhale 1965. Simone's lawsuit originally involved Premier, which put out a couple of Simone albums on its Coronet label, including one that had old Vince Guaraldi cuts on one side and Simone's material on the other. The suit was reportedly settled out of court, but New York's Attorney General took notice, especially when other artists complained about budget labels re-packaging their old material in misleading covers. Palace/Buckingham got the most heat because it usually featured only two cuts by the real artist, with the rest filler material by the likes of "June Bugg." Brian McFadden
guest star 1st Sep 2016		Vinyl Album Jimmy Witherspoon - Stormy Monday And Other Blues By Jimmy Witherspoon (1963)	Hi Michel, Hi Michel, I think I can help a little bit with the blanks on the Hollywood LP, which I'm investigating myself at the present time. (I'm working on a book devoted to rare R&B on budget LPs as a follow-up to my current "Rock Rarities for a Song." I presume you know that half the stuff on the Hollywood label is from old singles on the defunct Abbey label. It's the other cuts that people can't figure out. What I have noticed is that they all appear to be covers of R&B hits from 1954. Hollywood put sound-alike versions of hits on several of its budget albums. Does anyone know if Gateway put out sound-alike versions of R&B hits like "When My Heart Beats Like a Hammer, I Don't Hurt Anymore, and Honey Love. Also, I'm still trying to find out who Sly Williams really was. Does anybody know anything about the Dalton label that put out an instrumental 45 by Cleo Page under the name Curly Page? Any help on these questions would be deeply appreciated. Many Thanks, Brian McFadden
guest star 14th Aug 2016		Vinyl Album Simon And Garfunkel - Simon & Garfunkel (1967)	Trust me, ppint, you weren't the only one who was disappointed in this record! Pickwick, the parent label on this side of the pond, could get away with leasing early cuts by artist and repackaging them as if they were new, only for as long as music remained pretty much the same in the late fifties and early sixties. This was the album that turned the tide on budget record companies. As I point out in "Rock Rarities for a Song," the early "Tom and Jerry" cuts on this LP sounded nothing like the folk-rock tunes performed by the duo when they became Simon and Garfunkel. Their lawyers threatened to sue, the big US chain Sears-Roebuck pulled the album and Pickwick realized it had gone too far by using such a misleading cover. This YouTube link shows what they really looked and sounded like when they originally recorded the cuts on the Pickwick/Allegro LPs! [YouTube Video] Brian McFadden
guest star 29th May 2016		Vinyl Album Little Richard - Little Richard Sings (1964)	The Little Richard songs on this album are from a 1959 session he did for George Goldner, who owned Gone, End and several other labels. Goldner leased them to 20th Century Fox and then to several budget labels, including Spin-O-Rama and Guest Star (my namesake!) Now for the bad news: The Goldner cuts are pretty darned bad. The Mercury gospel album he recorded later is much better. But if you'd like to hear all of the cuts from the Goldner session rather than the few on the Summit LP, check bargain bins for "Little Richard Sings Gospel" on the Stateside label. Brian McFadden, author "Rock Rarities for a Song."
guest star 18th Apr 2016		Vinyl Album Jimmy Witherspoon - Stormy Monday And Other Blues By Jimmy Witherspoon (1963)	Review There are a couple of fantastic raw blues cuts on this album that make the whole LP more than worth the price. "Boot Hill" and "I Believe in a Woman" are a mystery and I would greatly appreciate anyone's help in finding out who the artist is. Many assume he's the "Sly Williams" who's mentioned on the cover, but that appears to be a made up name. I'll attach the YouTube link to "Boot Hill" and I think you'll see why the record is such a find. I tried to put "unknown artist" into the slots, but they came up "Jimmy Witherspoon" anyway. He does "Stormy Monday" on this LP with a small combo. "What Will I Tell My Heart" and "Many Things" may be him too. The only two cuts I'm sure about are the final two - "Help Me" and "Oh What a Night" are demo cuts done by a young Sly Stone. Do buy this record if you find it and if you can help me with ANYTHING about the artists I would deeply appreciate it. Brian McFadden [YouTube Video] 5 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
guest star 18th Apr 2016		Vinyl Album Various Artists - Teen Dance Time	Hi 45 Stalker, You've done a great job of guessing which artists belong with which songs, but this budget LP from Synthetic Plastics' Diplomat label doesn't exactly play fair with the facts. It lists Sonny Til on the cover, but I think sides A2 and A3 are both Bill Haley. Haley did an album in Las Vegas released by sister label Guest Star which included both "The Wobble" and "Don't Mess Around." The cover also lists "The Surfaris" when it's really a totally different group called "The Original Surfaris" who recorded "Latin Soul." It's a long story involving a legal battle, but the group on this record is actually a much better one than the group that did "Wipeout." "Owee Baby," meanwhile, is really by "The Harptones." You never know what these old 99 cent records are going to contain! Brian McFadden, author "Rock Rarities for a Song."
guest star 28th Feb 2016		Vinyl Album Nat "King" Cole / Phil Flowers - Nat "King" Cole Sings (1962)	Review Always great to hear Nat, but these are very early cuts from when he had the trio. So don't be fooled into thinking these sound anything like his later hits on Capitol. The real surprise here is Phil Flowers. His cuts, like Cole's, come from Excelsior, and they're a real treat for Northern Soul fans, especially "Let Me Come Home" and "Think It Over." Brian McFadden 3 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
guest star 27th Feb 2016		Vinyl Album Dave Denny - Dave Denny Sings Folk Favourites	Review The Viking label was among the cheapest of the cheap budget labels, but it sometimes put out some very good music by accident! Dave Denny wasn't really a folk singer. His music was classified as "Hillbilly" when these songs were originally recorded way back in 1945 for the Musicraft label. Viking was trying to cash in on the folk craze. The tunes are well done for the time, but Viking and its sister labels Tiara and Omega aren't known for quality pressings! Brian McFadden 3 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
guest star 26th Feb 2016		Vinyl Album Pete Fountain - Pete Fountain (1966)	Review Great album for Dixieland fans and the songs don't sound dated even though they were recorded sixty years ago! Pete did these when he was playing with "Jack Delaney and his New Orleans Jazz Babies" and "Tony Almerico’s Dixieland All-Stars." They were recorded between 1955 and 1957. Virtually every budget record company that put out a Pete Fountain album features the first four songs on this Pickwick LP (the Jack Delaney material, which was recorded for Joe Mares' Southland Records.) Some, like this Pickwick album, also feature Pete's recordings with Almerico. Others use filler cuts by other groups for the B side of the LP. Brian McFadden 4 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
guest star 26th Feb 2016		Vinyl Album Pete Fountain - Pete Fountain In New Orleans (1966)	Yes, it is the same as Sears, but with the cuts in different order. Pickwick had a deal with Sears at one point to supply the chain with LPs under the Sears label. The cuts on this album are the same ones most budget albums feature, which Pete recorded in the mid-fifties before joining Lawrence Welk. Brian McFadden
guest star 26th Feb 2016		Vinyl Album Jimmy Gilmer And The Fireballs - Sensational Jimmy Gilmer And The Fireballs (1964)	Review This is a good budget album that contained some hard-to-find Fireballs songs when it first came out. "Wishing" is especially interesting. Crown leased several old Fireballs tunes, mostly instrumentals, so it could cash-in on the group's hit "Sugar Shack," with Jimmy Gilmer on lead vocals. Crown quickly put out an LP that listed the only two Gilmer vocals it had - "Wishing" and "True Love Ways" - on the front cover. But between the time it printed the cover and the time it pressed the record, Crown realized "Sugar Shack" was going to be a monster hit and it could milk the material for a second album. As I point out in my book on Budget LPs, "Wishing" does not appear on the first album even though it's on the cover. Instead, it shows up as the first song on this second LP! The other instrumental cuts by the Fireballs are excellent, and even the filler cuts, almost certainly by Jerry Cole, are good. Cole liked to borrow licks from popular songs, and fans will find that "Let It All Out" on this album is really "Tequila" sideways. Brian McFadden 5 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
guest star 17th Feb 2016		Vinyl Album The Four Seasons - The Four Seasons Johnny Rivers Neil Sedaka	Yes, Jasper, several of these tracks wound up on Allegro. The material from Rydell was mostly from his pre-Cameo recordings for the Venise and Veko labels. The Gene Pitney songs, which are quite good, were recorded for Herb Abramson just before Pitney signed with Musicor.
guest star 16th Feb 2016		Vinyl Album The Four Seasons - The Four Seasons Johnny Rivers Neil Sedaka	Review Good album because it contains some very rare cuts. First off, the songs by "The J Brothers" are of note to Lou Reed/Velvet Underground fans since he's part of the fictitious group and co-wrote some of the songs. Reed was working for Pickwick at the time churning out filler material for the budget label. The two Johnny Rivers cuts were among several recorded for George Goldner's Gone label but they got lost in the shuffle when Goldner decided to give these two to the Guyden label and they got lost in the shuffle. The two four seasons tunes were also released by Goldner on the Cindy label which he co-owned with Pittsburg DJ Jay Michael. They're quite good. Neil Sedaka's Fly, Don't Fly on Me and Ring-A-Rock are rather silly early attempts by the talented songwriter/singer and originally came out on the Legion label. None of these cuts are easy to find as singles, so it's nice to have them preserved by the budget labels. There's more info in my book, "Rock Rarities for a Song." Brian McFadden 6 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
guest star 3rd Dec 2015		Vinyl Album Various Artists - Teen Bandstand	Review This is an excellent album, even though a few of the artist's credits are wrong. The LP came out after Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs hit it big with "Sugar Shack" and Almor was the only budget label that made sure all of the cuts it leased from Norman Petty were vocals featuring Gilmer. Others had one or two Gilmer vocals fleshed out with instrumentals. The Angels cuts are two excellent pre-"My Boyfriend's Back" tunes from Caprice Records. So far, so good. The mislabeling involves three of the four "Neil Sedaka and the Tokens" cuts leased from Morty Craft's Warwick label. "While I dream" is the only cut with Neil on it, recorded when he was with a group that also included Tokens founding-members Hank Medress and Jay Siegel. Neil left, Hank and Jay added the Margo brothers and recorded "Tonight I fell in Love" on Warwick. It's a great tune, but Neil isn't on it. When the Tokens left Warwick, Morty Kraft - thinking he still had rights to the Tokens' name - put out "Taste of a Tear" and "Never 'Til Now" by a totally different group that he called "Johnny and the Tokens." The songs are excellent, but there's absolutely no involvement by Neil Sedaka or the Tokens. Yes, it's confusing - sometimes you need a "SECRET DECODER RING" to try to figure out what's on these albums. But there isn't a bad song on this LP so grab it if you see it at a thrift store or a car boot sale! Brian McFadden 3 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?
guest star 3rd Dec 2015		Vinyl Album The Animated Egg - Psychedelic Sound (1969)	This is actually the work of the fantastic LA session guitarist Jerry Cole. He recorded for labels like Capitol and did some fine surf records, but he was perhaps best known for the hundreds of tunes he did for budget record companies like Crown. This record was originally on the US budget label Somerset/Alshire. As I point out in my budget LP book Rock Rarities for a Song, throughout the early to mid sixties Cole did all kinds of budget surf and drag racing LPs and almost always followed the same formula: He'd put together a studio group, write a batch of songs in whatever style the album called for and then play lead guitar, often borrowing licks from current tunes. This album was a project he really wanted to do and it's excellent, but you'll notice that he still borrows licks - "T" Omorrow is "Gimme, Gimme Some Lovin'" sideways. Brian McFadden

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