Tag: gospel

Crappy Album Covers #182 — Something Missing

Album_Cover_Crap_330 Former trucker Vance Edwards should know better than to pose in front of a trailer without the requisite truck. And I, along with many other bloggers in the CAC-o-sphere question the use of unintelligible yellow patches on eithr red or blue clothes. The electric guitars and keyboards that could not possibly be plugged into anything has been a staple of many CAC makers, to the point where I am now convinced that it is some kind of low-brow literary technique. The chick on the drums brings a kind of feminist Karen Carperter-esque overtone to the cover, while keeping the group locked into its focus as CAC makers of the first order.Then, like hours on the clock, there are these graphics arranged in a pattern similar to the bottom graphic in this post. Except that they are trucks, not sex positions. While Truckin’ came out in 1973, it is hard to know which idea came first.

Not much else is known about Vance or his band.
Album_Cover_Crap_332 Another circular graphic of another band, this time with an actual clock watermarked on to the photo. We have two bouffont-encrusted ladies playing electric guitar — one of them showing off a subconscious desire to play like Ace Frehley (or pick your heavy metal fave) by sporting a dual-necked guitar. Both ckicks are in their cut-below-the-knee Century 21 Real Estate suits and red turtlenecks, matching Ricky Ricardo’s (?) dinner jacket.Not much else is known about the Calvary-Aires; though much speculation and prognostication pervades the CAC blogosphere, which I will not repeat here. The Calvary Aires had warned me that it is against the Scriptures to prognosticate. Not sure they knew what the word meant.

Visits: 112

Crappy Album Covers #181 — Plainness, overdone

plainness, ovedone Currently selling on E-Bay for about 15 bucks, Bobbi Jean White’s album “Higher Ground!” shows Ms White sporting the bouffont she was well-known for.White had been singing gospel since she was a child in Georgia. She had recorded dozens of albums either solo or with other groups, then became a radio announcer beginning for a Gospel radio station in the 1970s. This career extended into the early 90s.She had lost her hearing 12 years ago, and got it back this year through surgery, hearing again at age 79.
Album_Cover_Crap_337 P. J. Orion and the Magnate$’ self-titled LP is diaplayed here, with its litany of cliches, including (1) with the band posing with electrical instruments that could not possibly be plugged into anything; (2) wearing shades; (3) railroad motif; (4) prairie background with requisite blue sky.This was rumored to have been released in the 1960s, while the guys in the photo were attending prep school.

Visits: 132

Crappy Album Covers #171 — Pinin' for the lord

Album_Cover_Crap_244_-_Rodgers_Kenny_-_bizarrerecords_com This is Kenny Rodgers, with his 1981 open declaration of love to his saviour, “Kenny Loves Jesus”.

The next sweet odour you smell may be the sweet smell of the Holy Spirit, which will draw you closer to the Lord. It says so on the back cover of this LP.
Album_Cover_Crap_238_-_bizarrerecords_com I have resisted this crappy cover from Country Church, because, you know, this album has been shown on so many websites in the Crappy Album Blogosphere, that there comes a point where you feel that, such as it is, it already counts as too much publicity.

There is so much wrong with this cover, I don’t know where to begin, so I’ll just let it speak for itself.

Visits: 81

Crappy Album Covers #152 — The Death of Death

Album_Cover_Crap_255_blogspot_com So, we have a pastel of a bloke on a motorcycle and the town burning around him. I am impressed at his battle axe; but it doesn’t look like it could be used to burn a town. Just observing. 

The foursome from Sunderland, England (or Newcastle, depending on whose bio you’re reading) were also not impressed with the album cover, thinking it was amateurish and wondering if it would sell.

This cover was re-designed in 1984, and the album re-released on CD in 2005.

To my knowledge, they have released three albums and one EP.
Album_Cover_Crap_247_GustaBooker Reverend Gusta Brooker
Sick and tired of saving hookers
Raising people from the dead
was the thing he tried instead. 

Overnight he scored a jackpot
Filled his church up to the rooftop
If he saw a dying guy,
it’s the day his death will die!

 

Visits: 116

Crappy Album Covers #58 — Family Bands

album-cover-crap-67_familyI was going to name this blog entry “family style”, but then I remembered that was the name of a 1990 duet album by brothers Jimmy and Stevie Ray Vaughan. It would have been an insult to SRV’s memory, I thought. So, I changed it to a straight title.

Now they say that the way to raise a family is to run a tight ship. Now if you can have your family live on a real ship on the high seas and in shark-infested waters, then you have it made. You can rule the roost and threaten to make the kids walk the plank if they misbehave.

According to my reliable secret sources, this “vanity press” album hearkens back to around 1974, and Captain Hook, whose name does not appear to be revealed as otherwise, really does have a hook for a left hand. He lost a leg and an arm in a motorcycle accident and was “born again” while in hospital. Hook became a tele-evangelist in Indiana for over 20 years after he “became Christian”. He also performs ventriloquism as part of his act.

album-cover-crap-66_family_the_macksI was going to place The McKeithens in the Bad Hair entry, but it was only the hair of one person, the mother in the foreground, that I was concerned about.

The McKeithens’ self-titled LP, likely from 1976, likely marks the start of a ministry of singing and fellowship that began in 1976, and lasted until 1991. I can’t say for sure where they hail from. There is a Myspace blog about them, but it is unlikely that the family had anything to do with the blog. I mean, would a family like this make virtual friends with people with usernames such as “Lady Stinky Puss”, “Chris Crocker”, or “Phat Gurl”? Don’t think so. Clearly, the blog is set up to make fun of this record cover. However, there is almost no original content in the blog, and it appears to have been abandoned.

This would have been a plain album that would have been ignored, but for the Winebago-sized hairdo the mother has.  I think it’s a wig. A wig that large could serve a purpose, you know. You could use it to store food, prescription medication, house and car keys, a change of clothes, photo ID, passports, train tickets, the King James Bible, sheet music … all the things you need to go on an evangelical singing tour.

album-cover-crap-62_family_st_heitt

The Heitt family are a study in obscure, small Saskatchewan villages that are little known even inside Saskatchewan. If you blink as you drive past these places, you might not see them, so be careful.

Most of the family belonging to the Heitt Orchestra are natives of Revenue, Saskatchewan, consisting of not much more than two crossing roads, about 200 km west of Saskatoon, as the crow flies (more like 230 km by highway, going by Google Earth). If you look for it on Google Maps, Revenue is where the low resolution area begins.

The Heitt family consist of Brothers Larry (drums), Blaine (electric bass), and Glen (banjo); their father Frank (accordion) and mother Adeline (guitar).

The only non-family member is vocalist is Donna Boser (holding the tambourine), who lives one hour’s drive deeper into Google’s low-resolution area, and closer to the Alberta border, in Fells, Saskatchewan. Although if you ask Donna, she’ll probably tell you she comes from Reward, Saskatchewan, which is a larger community close by. The “Where the Hell is Fells, Saskatchewan?” T-shirts must be selling like hot cakes over there. Boser still sings in the same part of the province.

Donna now lives in nearby Unity. At least they paved the main highways over there. Unity is still a small town where someone spent an idle afternoon counting the houses, and Unity has 960 of them (population is about 2500). And the deal is that Fells and Revenue are much smaller than Unity. Unity boasts its own website. And here is a virtual tour of Unity, where you can see how flat it is (should take about a minute).

Visits: 158

Crappy Album Covers #32 — Gays and Lesbians

Kevin Rowland is actually a very good musician. His first solo album put out in 1988, “The Wanderer” is seen as a great, and highly accessible album from this former front man for Dexys Midnight Runners.

This album, released 11 years later, was panned by critics and was a general let-down. For one thing, the album contains all cover versons.

To be fair, this album was released after a bankruptcy and a long battle with drug addiction. He is probably still having “issues” when this photo was taken. He doesn’t look good in drag.

It is my understanding that Rowland has not relased a recording of a solo effort since.

I am as open-minded as anyone. I don’t mind depictions of homosexual romance. Like all pictures that exist, there are good depictions and bad depictions.

And, oh yeah, I forgot. The unintended depictions. Here are The Ministers Quartet, and their album “Let Me Touch Him”. It all started when Ron touched Larry. Then Doug touched Jerry. Then the photograher grew impatient and told them to behave. They all then all tried to pose innocently like nothing happened. This photo resulted.

The Minister’s Quartet hail from Indiana, and their faith has a fundamentalist bent. They still exist, with a few obvious personnel changes.

Click here if you want to sample their sound. Damn good harmony.

As if The Village People couldn’t ramp up the homo kitsch factor any more than they already have, here are those natives of Greenwich Village once again with a new look, way more makeup, and more exposed chest hair, with their album Renaissance. This 1981 album (the pink one) was a bad concept both with the cover art and the music inside it.

This (blue) album cover was a redesign of a 1998 Polygram CD re-release. I like this one better. Way more relaxed. It was the version of the cover that allmusic.com chose to display.

Unfortunately, it is still the same second-rate music inside. Much of their misrfortunes began with their involvement in the film “Can’t Stop The Music”, which not only bombed, it is the winner of two 1981 “Razzie” awards for Worst Picture and Worst Screenplay. They were nominated by the Razzies in 5 other categories. In addition, they were nominated as one of 5 movies classified as the worst musical in the past 25 years (along with Xanadu and Spice World). That was won by the box office bomber “From Justin to Kelly”.

Knowing a good cashing-in opportunity when they see it, the members of Orleans decide they are going to out-gay the Village People (when they were still viable) with this 1976 offering, “Waking and Dreaming”, by taking off all their clothes. The photographer, the same one that photographed The Minsters’ Quartet (see above), told them to cover their weenies. They started to cover each other’s weenies (and one of them asked “What’s a weenie?”), so he just said “never mind” and as the guy in the middle was explaining what a weenie was, the photographer took a  shot above the waist. That left the top half of the photo empty, so that the designers filled it with a large “Orleans” logo.

The saving grace of this album, this time, is inside the covers (uhh.., the album covers). It contains one of the biggest hits of their career, and one of my personal favourites, “Still The One”, and is recognised as a fairly strong album generally, establishing Orleans as soft rock musicians of the first order.

Lesbians will be appearing in a separate post.

Visits: 92