Crappy album Covers #294 — Agents need love, too

Over at The Matrix, these four agents spend their time masquerading as a singing group when they’re not reporting back to The Man. But cyborgs have needs too. 

Yes, like the rest of us, they need female companionship. They found to their disappointment that pencil-neckties, pocket protectors,  and horn-rimmed glasses will only get you so far in this world.

But not just female companionship. Cyborgs also might express an interest in raising a family, seeing their little cyborgs go to school, playing catch with their little son and daughter agents-to-be, and maybe even go to a movie as a cyborg family once in a while.

And here is the answer to their prayers: four ladies for four guys. Female agents are deceptively heavy (as are sentinel men), and have to be delivered by crane. Four beautiful cyborg women for them to settle down with and have a family. 

There is no information on The Shows Brothers, except that they appear to be still making albums; and Kentucky-born Jonah Jones (1909-2000) was a Jazz trumpeter who made it into The Jazz and Big Band Hall of Fame a year before he died at age 91. During his tenure, Jones performed with the likes of Cab Calloway and Benny Carter. He would lead his own band after 1950.

 

Visits: 113

Crappy Album Covers #293 — Female American Indians on Vinyl

This 1967 album by Buffy Sainte-Marie is her fourth, and has one hit, “The Circle Game” in it, which waited around for three years before charting at #76 in 1970.

Not having a bad voice as an excuse (compared with Dylan, etc), it still seems that most of her hit songs, most notably “Until It’s Time For You To Go”, were covered as bigger hits by other artists.  Other examples: “Universal Soldier” (was a hit by Donovan); and who can forget “Up Where We Belong” (Joe Cocker/ Jennifer Warnes)? Ironically, “The Circle Game” is not hers. That one was a Joni Mitchell cover. It is interesting to note that both Joni Mitchell and Buffy Sainte-Marie were born in Saskatchewan: Joni in Saskatoon, and Buffy in a Cree reserve in the Qu’Appelle Valley.

She has, as recently as 2008, claimed that Lyndon Johnson was instrumental in suppressing Native American music on the airwaves, but also in helping to suppress protest music generally. An interview of this was published 2 years earlier by American Indian Today.

Lottie Adams is less well-known, and should know better than to have caved into the latest (as of the 70s) pop-psych lingo to let the world know she is somehow in touch with herself. It is likely un-necessary in her case, but little or no straight info is available on Lottie or this record as far as I can see, so we won’t know for sure.

Visits: 73

Crappy Album Covers #292 — The SJ Blind Dating Service IV

Hi, my name is Bill Haymes, I like singing and songwriting and the educational challenge of getting children to write “adult contemporary” songs. I like nature, camping, riding down dirt roads in a VW Microbus. 

Looking for a woman who will tour with me, likes nature as much as I do, and is willing to have America’s first family on the road.

My name is Virginia Belmont. I run a bird store and kennel in Manhattan, under the Rockefeller Centre, near the subway station. After decades of running this store and selling birds and dogs, I have finally had enough of the noise and racket, and I just want to run away. Anywhere but here. 

I am also tired of the bar scene and I am seeking a man who is willing to run away with me, for a long-term committment.

Visits: 112

Crappy Album Covers #291 — The SJ Blind Dating Service III

Hi. I’m Richard du Bois, I was born in The Bronx, I won Mr. America in 1954, Mr. Universe in 1955, and Mr. USA in 1957. I boinked dated Mae West, but got dumped for another guy who had a bigger pistol in his pocket. I made this record at a speech of the Full Gospel Businessman’s Fellowship, and they were all praying to be like me.

Seeking a female who agrees with me that I’m hot.

Hello. Hello? I thought the room was empty. Well, I think Dick Dubois is hot. Hi, Dickie-kins!

My name is Lu Lu, and my interests are singing country and western, and when I’n not singing, I just like to sit in front of the TV or read a trashy romance novel while eating a whole jar of cream puffs. OK, I confess, … two jars.

One of my quirks is that I order hairspray by the case, and have more cases on back order for the next 10 years. I don’t know if I wear my hair or my hair wears me!

Visits: 107

Crappy Album Covers #290 — Armageddon and Doom Revisited

Not much information exists on Mr. Luke Hollandsworth and this absolutely prophetic album.  It is obvious that it is butt-ugly, and probably handed out to parishoners after one of his sermons.
I am not sure if The Baptist Standard is the same as this Baptist Standard, which now has a web edition. But Bobby Mankin is from Houston, and this 1968 album, “Doomed by Dope”, all kidding aside, tells quite a powerful story about involvement with drugs, pushers, and the law. And of course, his conversion to Christianity afterward.

Visits: 137

Crappy Album Covers #289 — The return of the SJ Blind Dating Service

Hi, my name is Steve Warren, I’m in my mid-30s, my favourite food is spicy chicken wings, and my favourite pastime consists of grooming my coiff’ and staring at myself in the mirror while playing “Dancing with myself” by Billy Idol..Seeking a woman who is quiet and is appreciative of a real man.
I’m Myrnie Henderson. I’m 28 but my hairdo makes me look 36. I just finished majoring in Music a couple of years ago. I didn’t just find my voice, I found several voices. I can sing opera like Maureen Forrester, or I can sing “Celebrity Skin” like Courtney Love. Now I don’t know who I am anymore.Seeking a man who will make me whole again.

Visits: 167

Crappy Album Covers #288 — The race to the bottom

Winning second place in the race to the bottom, is the Beatle Buddies! Four somewhat attractive women, who don’t even bother to take off their clothes, have therefore let this albun stand on the strength of their musical ability alone.
A word to their favour, their hairstyles all look pretty timeless. If it weren’t for the rest of the album design, you probably think this album was new. And reportedly, they can in fact sing, but don’t expect anything earth-shattering.
And in the race for the bottom, Ignatz Topolino wins by a nose! 

Ignatz Topolino honks out his proboscis-gleaned standards in this album series of jazz legends. He has taken out a million dollar insurance policy in case someone punches him in the muzzle in a dark alley somewhere. Even viral infections causing nosebleeds could lay him up for weeks.

So, keeping a clean nose, he honks out his harmonica hits that entice women to throw him flowers in concerts (nosegays, of course), and show him their hooters.

E-How.com describes how to play the harmonica with your nose.

Visits: 186

Crappy Album Covers #287 – Little-Known Artists Sporting Rolls-Royces

This album, supposedly made in 1978, shows the precursor to rappers in garish cars: hippies with garish cars. In 1978, hippies were long since a dying breed, being mostly a year for either clean-cut looking guys in disco suits, or for filthy-looking punk rockers.

This record was released on the Cherry Records label out of Houston, Texas (not to be confused with the Cherry Red record label from England, which also existed in 1978). A copy of this 33-minute album in new condition — a delete, no less (you know, the kind with the hole punched through a corner of the record cover), sells currently on E-Bay for about 17 bucks (USD), and no bids are being considered. Just pay them the money. And that doesn’t count shipping. You can also buy a T-Shirt on E-Bay in connection with this album for $19.99 USD, gently used.

While half of the internet wants to sell me a copy of this album at wildly varying prices, and there is much euphoria among the sellers about how rare this record is, nobody seems to know anything more about this band. Just give the sellers your money.

Frank Ford and Andy Angel were a 70s lounge act playing instrumentals. Their 1977 album “You Can’t Have Everything” looks like a comedy album, but is really an album of jazz and funk standards that were current with the late seventies. This album is reputed to have a killer version of Herbie Hancock’s Chameleon.

Once again, not much else is known about these guys. As you can see, the record illustrated is autographed.

Visits: 105

Crappy Album Covers #286 – As Crappy as We Wanna Be

I have had many examples in this blog of black people in comedy getting all potty mouthed and raunchy. Now, Nova Scotian comedians  MacLean and MacLean, later based in Winnipeg, have shown us that whitey can be just as potty mouthed, and have potties to prove it. Here, they join the white lowbrow humour of folks such as George Carlin (1937-2008) and others. 

The brothers MacLean consisted of Gary (1944-2001) and Blair (1943-2008). It seems that their last album, perhaps a re-release of old material, happened around 2003, while Blair was still alive.

The people responsible for this album are a comedy troupe from Louisiana who call themselves Fudgeripple Follies. The “or” after “Follies” appears to have been misplaced, as the name of the play is just “Nobody Likes a Smart Ass”. 

This is the second of a two-volume set that was made “some time in the 1960s”. It is the sound track to a comedic live performance that played in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

The play itself began in 1960, and starred a then-unknown actor named Bill Holiday. After 8 years performing at the Bourbon Street theatre, Bill dropped out to pursue a career in film. This is not to be confused with Jazz singer Billie Holiday, who is female besides.

Visits: 98

Crappy Album Covers #285 – Disco Lotion and Soul Lubricant

Nancy Reed, otherwise known as Lady Reed, is a comedienne of the raunchy variety. Record stores often sold it “under the table” even as the so-called 70s sexual liberation was happening. Or maybe with titles like “International United Whores Union” they were afraid of offending their sistas at the Prostitutes Collective of Victoria (Australia), called PVC. The deal is, that this track sounds more like a manifesto for prostitutes, with swear words.

Clearly, she lives up to her image as “The Queen Bee”. Great album for those of us who want to hear lots of cuss words and think that’s comedy.

By internet standards, it’s actually pretty lame.

She was closely allied with another potty-mouthed 70s comedian, who goes by the name of Rudy Ray Moore, also known sometimes as Dolomite.

You are looking at the Dutch group’s TekNaloG’s first EP. It was released some time earlier this year, and you can actually both hear and download a free album from their website.

 

Visits: 204

Crappy Album Covers #284 – Big Mean Rockers

Floridian Maurice Young, known to his adoring admirers as “Trick Daddy”, has his 1998 album right here, with the clever name “www.thug.com”. Get a load of the web browser design, and the disembodied head of Mr. Daddy, impaled on his own logo. That’s gotta hurt, Maurice.

The website still exists, along with its concomitant musician-thugs who deny they murdered somebody-or-other. All this murder is starting to get rather dull. But It looks as though MC Boosie (who hails from Louisiana) has a good lawyer, and he may stay off death row, as a visit to www.thug.com assured me.

Another staple of the CAC blogosphere, “Bass-ic Rock”, has no artist and no year. Just a goofy looking hippie with a bass guitar on the cover.

Actually, after scouring the web, I came to a Japanese site, which associates the title with a guy named Noel Edward Smith. A translation of that page tells me that this is an instructional record, complete with an accompanying book.

Visits: 102

Crappy Album Covers #283 – OMG! Rockers!

The only thing remarkable I found about this 1978 album cover is that Jim Hearn was probably one of the first guys in his native Northern California to wear Nike sneakers.

Back in the day, you can see that you can still dial a telephone, and for most televisions, changing the channel meant that you needed to go up to the television and flick through the stations manually.

I have seen this album sell on eBay in foreign countries for around AUS$42 with shipping (that’s approx. CDN$38).

This 1980 offering by Jack Miller is not remembered by too many people, and some real digging had to be done even to find out the year of publication. I also know that he had been working as late as 2004 on various efforts. Don’t know what they are.

Rockers are rising, and guess what? They’re smokers! So, it’s OK, they’ll fall down pretty soon too.

Visits: 130

Crappy Album Covers #282 – Mugs don’t work if that’s all you have

You are now witness to the reason why that just because a photo looks OK on a mantlepiece, it is not necessarily useful on an album cover. Especially if it is also void of a title. But I am keen to guess.

If I am not mistaken, this is Germany-born Jazz pianist John Berger. And since the name of the album is not on the photo, I will hazard a guess that it is the first album he recorded in 1966 when emigrating to New York on the ESP label. It is apparently not among his exemplary work.

Berger had a Ph. D in musicology, and had taught music alongside colleagues Jack DeJohnette, Sam Rivers, and Anthony Braxton.

Lately, he has lent his talents to studio work with The Cardigans, Natalie Marchant, and Jeff Buckley.

Don Ho sidekick Iva Kinimaka sings with his self-titled (and apparently self-drawn) 1972 album full of Hawaiian standards and a couple of stand-outs, such as “Country Feeling” and “Mockingbird Hill” (a 1951 song popularized by Patti Page). He is a frequent guest on the local Hawaiian talk show Nighttime with Andy Bumatai. A video appears below.

Here is Iva Kinimaka, featured on the Hawaiian talk show Nighttime with Andy Bumatai (March 3, 2008) (this appears to be audio-only):

Visits: 133

Crappy Album Covers #281 – Sergant Pepper Ripoffs

Top of the list is this copycat album “Their Satanic Majesty’s Request”, released in 1967, the same year as Sgt. Pepper.The “everything but the kitchen sink” album design concept only works once, folks, then it wears off. I don’t mean once in a musician’s career, I mean once in the history of music. The music inside Satanic required The Rolling Stones to deviate from their R&B roots just this once, then to never travel down this path again in subsequent albums.

The Stones know what their artistic strengths are, and they do it better than anybody, and haven’t lost a dollar doing it, either. It is best that they stick to what they know.

Peter Knight (1917-1985) was an English composer and conductor. His performances appeared on ITV’s “Spot The Tune”, and his was the orchestra that performed on The Carpenter’s “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft.” He and his orchestra also lent their talents to backing up The Moody Blues on some of their albums.

Visits: 138

Crappy Album Covers #280 – A Sampling of Redd Foxx Covers

Redd Foxx’s real name is John Elroy Sanford (1922-1991), closer to his stage name he used in the 70s sitcom Sanford & Son, co-starring Demond Wilson. He was teenage friends with Malcolm Little (you may know Malcolm Little as Malcolm X) while growing up in St. Louis, Missouri and after dropping out of high school in the early 1940s.

Malcolm X referred to Redd in his autobiography as “Chicago Red, the funniest dishwasher on Earth.” “Red” was in reference to his reddish hair and complexion, and the rest in reference to the fact that he held a number of odd jobs, including a plumber, while auditioning for a career in acting.

He found his way into stand-up comedy, and was likely to be the first black comic to play the Las Vegas Sunset Strip, and many of these stand-up acts made their way into albums such as these shown in this post.

By the standards of the 1950s to 1970s, his brand of humor was considered racy, but nothing on the scale of comedians in the decades since.

The “Foxx” part of his stage name came from baseball player Jimmie Foxx.

Redd Foxx has released 54 albums of his comedy, according to Wikipedia.

Visits: 126

Crappy Album Covers #279 — Disco Lotion

1977 was the height of the disco invasion. And I say “invasion” rather than “revolution”, because at least revolutions are welcome in some homes.

Rod McKuen’s Disco parody “Slide Easy In … Disco” has been described as a “gay porn version of Grease”. The hit single “Amor” never made it in North America, but it was quite prominent in many European countries.

These days, if anyone looked like this at a border crossing, they would be subject to a cavity search on the spot.

That being said, many blogs remember Instant Funk’s brand of Philadelphia Soul quite fondly, in spite of their having changed record labels from TSOP to New York’s Salsoul Records prior to the release of this 1979 LP. Disco and its sub-genres had been on life support after its mega-overexposure by the Bee Gees by that time, and even the best albums of the genre were being abandoned by all but the most hard-core fans by that time.

The TSOP label was home to artists such as Lou Rawls, The Three Degrees, McFadden and Whitehead, and The O’Jays. I like these artists, and have never really associated them in my mind with Disco, except in the loosest sense of the term. They sound closer to R&B, and were grouped together with Instant Funk as part of the “Philly Soul” sound.

Visits: 123

Crappy Album Covers #278 — Ellis Dee (LSD)

This is a 1966 reocrding produced by Alan Livingston and Lawrence Schiller. Dick Clark is uncredited for the narration, and Dr. Sidney Cohen gives some medical background on various aspects of LSD.

I wish they would have taken the record sleeve designer’s stash of LSD and flushed it down the toilet.

This is the infamous Timothy Leary (1920-1996), with his recording, also from 1966, called “LSD”. This popularizer of the hippie catch phrase “Tune in, turn on, drop out” and graduate of the University of California at Berkeley in 1950 was a Harvard lecturer but was fired amidst allegations of involvement with various psychoactive drugs.

The lecture on this record came after police raids on his Milbrook esteate, looking for drugs. Hence, it is said this recording has a bitter tone to it, compared to his other recordings.

Visits: 163

Crappy Album Covers #277 — Pink

After your first bottle, you say “Here come the Elephants”, after about 4 or 5, you say “Here comes the twister” (see below), and the room begins to spin. The album looks at least old enough to have Johnny Bond participate in The Iraq War Drinking Game (the first one), but in reality he was never alive for it, having died of a heart attack in 1978.

Cyrus Bond (1915-1978) had a string of top-10 hits in the 1940s up until the late 50s. In 1999, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

I had agony researching this group. I ran into a freaking domain-parked website offering info on “Po Boy”, “The Boy” and “The Po”. It is painfully obvious that someone didn’t attend their RESL classes (that’s Redneck English as a Second Language).

Then there was this site. Our boyz don’t look like post-punk/hip-hop dudz, yo’. But if they were those Po’ Boys, they would have a killer logo.

I am new to Po’ Boysology, but according to my observations, any band calling themselves The Po’ Boys seems to consist of

  1. 5 or 6 guys;
  2. members who only want to be addressed by their first names.
  3. The punkers call themselves:
    • James, Micheal, Mark
    • Dave, Robert, Dom
  4. The guys in the pink suits call themselves:
    • Jimmy Sonny, Snuffy,
    • Terry, and Jim

Just what we need  … two guys in the band whose names are Jimmy and Jim. Look, guys, they don’t have to be your real names. I’m sure one of you wasn’t christened Snuffy!?! Could one of you have picked a different name?

After a couple of pages of bizarre stuff having nothing to do with this band except the name, I gave up. But there is indeed a genre out there.

There is a brass band called “The Po’ Boys” which does a killer cover of Led Zep’s 1971 hit Black Dog:

(moved or deleted by YouTube)

And as for the Twister, here are the Talking Heads, same as they ever were…

(moved or deleted by YouTube)

Visits: 129

Crappy Album Covers #276 — My Babe Magnet II

The Calvary Boys were a traditional Southern gospel group that formed around 1970, touring around in their babe magnet, depicted on your left. They hail from the Piney Woods region of Texas, often called “East Texas” or “Deep East Texas”. “Gettin’ Ready to Leave” might bave been their first album, although it is not mentioned on their website, as far as I could tell.

They call themselves a quartet. That might be because the other 3 folks in the picture are the mechanics. In Deep East Texas, you repair your own damn touring vehicle!

Chicks dig motorcycles. Dr. Dave had a novelty hit with “Vanna, Pick Me A Letter“, sung to the  tune “The Letter” (a #1 hit in 1967 by a group from Memphis Tennessee, calling themselves The Box Tops). “Vanna” was a staple on the Dr. Demento show, having been played on 38 episodes between 1986 and 2008.

Dr. Dave (David Kolin) channels his best Cheech Marin imitation (at least that’s what it sounds like), making it a matter of debate in the song that phone is spelled F-O-N-E, and trying to convince Vanna to come to his place to play The Home Edition.

What you are looking at is the cover of their 12″EP released in 1986.

Visits: 117

Crappy Album Covers #275 — What’s that in your pipe?

Pipes, as shown here, can be fun for both boys and girls. You can slide down the mouthpiece; stand on top of a flame coming out of the pipe and not get burnt. Just as you can smoke a pipe and not get lung cancer, or walk between the raindrops in a storm and not get wet.

Los Melodicos is the brainchild of Renato Capriles, way back in 1958, and made its debut as one of Venezuela’s foremost Latin-oriented orchestras, and have made over 100 albums.

The anthropologists knew about ‘shrooms all along. They had the jump on the hippie generation, who tried to use it under the ruse of “artistic inspiration”.

Yeah, mushroom ceremony, my arse. They were passing aruond the pipe because they couldn’t get enough of that buzz.

The Mazatec (meaning “Lords of the Deer”, which is often something you see when you are stoned) were an “Indian” (aboriginal) tribe in the south of Mexico in the state of Oaxaca to the south. Their recorded history was made up of either defensive war against the Aztecs or defensive war against the Spanish Conquistadores.

Visits: 118