Liberace

Artist: Liberace

LP: Christmas at Liberace's - Vol. III (7" EP)

Song: "Ave Maria"

[ listen ]

 Song: "Star Bright"

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I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas...but not TOO lovely, like the ones the Liberace family used to have. If you did, then you're probably one of those billionaires I heard about on the news who recently became an octillionaire during the COVID-19 pandemic, making money hand over fist while millions of Americans all over the world are struggling even to pay their rent! Shame on you!! ...unless you festooned your holiday celebration with a bunch of fabric and decorations you found in the attic, from the days when you were still only a billionaire, the way the Liberaces used to do back when the kids were young.

Wouldn't it be fun to have been included as one of the guests at the Liberace family Christmas party...back in the days when Angelina was still just Liberace's sister, and not his personal secretary?

[ Liberace: May 16, 1919 — February 4, 1987 ]

St. Nick (Performed by Just For Laughs Players)

Artist: St. Nick (Performed by Just For Laughs Players)

LP: 7" single

Song: "Jingle Bells (Laughing All the Way)"

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I can't really think of anything to say about this 1981 holiday single I found at Golden Oldies a few months ago...except maybe "hee hee," "ha ha" and, of course, "ho ho ho."

Charley Pride [1934-2020]

 

Artist: Charley Pride

LP: Christmas In My Home Town

Song: "Christmas In My Home Town"

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Song: "Santa and the Kids"

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Song: "O Holy Night"

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Country music legend Charley Pride died earlier this week from illness related to COVID-19. Reading about his career on Wikipedia just now, I learned a number of things (the number 4) about Charley that I hadn't known before: 

 

1.) Before his music career took off, Charley Pride played professional baseball! He pitched for teams in places like Memphis, Tennessee; Boise, Idaho; Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; Louisville, Kentucky; Missoula, Montana. When Charley was let go from the team in Missoula...

 

2.) Charlie Pride and his family lived in Helena, Montana for a number of years (the number 9), from 1960 to 1969, where Charlie did hard labor in a smelter during the day, while pursuing his dreams of a career in the arts at night (sound familiar?). 

 

3.) Though I knew Charley Pride was black, of course, I'd never before considered what it must have been like for him to have to face a crowd of (it's safe to assume) mostly all-white country music fans who may not have been aware of this fact in the early days of Pride's success in the mid-to-late 1960s. According to Wikipedia: In the late summer of 1966, on the strength of his early releases, [Charley] was booked for his first large show, in Detroit's Olympia Stadium. Since no biographical information had been included with those singles, few of the 10,000 country fans who came to the show knew Pride was black, and discovered the fact only when he walked onto the stage, at which point the applause trickled off to silence. "I knew I'd have to get it over with sooner or later," Pride later remembered. "I told the audience: 'Friends, I realize it's a little unique, me coming out here — with a permanent suntan — to sing country and western to you. But that's the way it is.'" 

 

4.) Charley had 30 hits that reached the top of the country music charts in the USA, and one of them, "Kiss An Angel Good Mornin'," was also a top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 pop charts, reaching #21 in early 1972.

 

Charlie Pride's one and only Christmas album was released in 1970, and I found this pristine copy earlier today at Golden Oldies Records in Wallingford. The New York Times obituary for Charlie Pride can be found here.

 

Charley Pride

[ March 18, 1934 — December 12, 2020 ]

We will miss you, Charley.

José Melis

 

Artist: José Melis and His Orchestra

LP: Christmas With Melis

Song: "Jingle Bells"

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Song: "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"

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Song: "The Story of Christmas"

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So here's a Christmas question for ya, or even a Christmas conundrum, if you will: When someone places themselves under the mistletoe during the holiday season, do they become fair game for kissing? For anyone? Like me, for example? Especially nowadays, with the "Me too!" movement and everything, we all need to proceed with an extra level of caution when dealing with the mistletoe situation, don't you think? 

According to the LP liner notes (included below), José Melis has a wife and two kids...yet there he is on the front of my LP, gazing forth with provocative bespectacled bedroom eyes from underneath the mistletoe. Rrrrrroooowww! 

Agh-hem. Anyway. José Melis was the musical director on "The Tonight Show" from 1957 to 1962, when it was hosted by his good friend Jack Paar. (Unfortnuately, Paar was openly hostile and disrespectful to the LGBTQ community in the 1960s and '70s. No mistletoe kisses for him!)

[ Jack Parr, Hugh Downs, & José Melis on "Jack Parr Tonight Show" in 1960 ]

According to Wikipedia, part of Melis' regular routine on shows with Paar was "the telephone game," where he would "improvise a musical number based on the last four digits of an audience member's telephone number." I love this. I wonder what José would have made of "3214!"

"Christmas With Melis," released in 1958, is a popular holiday favorite in my humble Ballard apartment each year. For a little more information about the spectacularly talented Mr. Melis, you can read his 2005 New York Times obituary here.

[ José Melis: February 27, 1920 — April 7, 2005 ]

Harold Budd [1936-2020]

Artist: Harold Budd . Elizabeth Fraser . Robin Guthrie . Simon Raymonde

LP: The Moon and the Melodies

Song: "Sea, Swallow Me"

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Song: "Why Do You Love Me?"

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Ambient composer and musician Harold Budd has died from COVID-19. I first heard Harold's music when he joined forces with Cocteau Twins for "The Moon and the Melodies," released toward the end of 1986, right after I'd started working at Budget Tapes & Records in Yakima, WA. Budd went on to collaborate with Cocteau Twins guitarist Robin Guthrie for other albums after the Twins were separated in 1996, and I've been reminding myself that I must hear these. The latest one, "Another Flower," was released just earlier this year. 

 

In my senior year of high school, I had a highly unpleasant alarm clock that would begin buzzing faintly at first, but then the sound would grow in intensity until it seemed like I was about to be set upon by a flock of murder hornets. My solution was to queue up "Sea, Swallow Me" on the turntable across the room, and then slightly unplug my record player at the outlet next to my bed. (There was only one electrical outlet in my entire bedroom in that old farmhouse, and, fortunately, it happened to be right beside my bed.) Then, when the alarm began its light buzzing in the morning, I'd slap it down to stop it before it got any louder, and then I'd reach down to plug in my record player and slowly awaken for the day while listening to side one of "The Moon and the Melodies." It's a blissful memory, and I'd like to thank Harold Budd for getting me going each day in such a lovely way during my formative high school years. (I still don't see why class leadership chose Bon Jovi's "Livin' On a Prayer" as our graduation theme song, instead of "Sea, Swallow Me," as I suggested.) If God has even a shred of good taste (it's debatable; look around), Harold's own compositions surely were wafting through the clouds as he ascended to heaven yesterday.

 

Harold Budd

[ May 24, 1936 — December 8, 2020 ]

We will miss you, Harold.

Lee Towers

Artist: Lee Towers

LP: A Christmas Song For You

Song: "A Christmas Song For You"

[ listen ]

Tonight I post a Christmas song for you. According to Wikipedia, Lee Towers (born in The Netherlands in 1946 with the name Leendert Huijzer) was discovered in 1975 when he became known as "The Singing Crane Mechanic" while working (repairing cranes, I assume?) on the docks of Rotterdam. I find this fascinating, but I am also rather jealous, as I have been impatiently waiting for 18 months to be discovered as "The Singing Mail-Carrier." Maybe I need to change my repertoire. I wonder what songs Leendert sang as a crane mechanic that led him to becoming discovered. Lee, if you're reading this, PLEASE TELL ME! I really could use some pointers. Tom Jones? Celine Dion? Lisa-Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force?

Anyway, Lee went on to become world-famous. This Christmas record was his second, released in 1976. It was not one of his most popular recordings, peaking only at #37 on the Dutch album charts. But Lee has had many hit records since then, and in 2019 he cut the ribbon on two residential high-rises that bear his name. I suppose this means they are officially known as "Lee Towers"...and, if Lee were ever to end up moving into the place, he would suddenly turn into a 1981 Gino Vannelli song. 

[ Lee Towers ]

Eavesdroppings

Overheard when: 10:42am on Friday, December 4, 2020
Overheard where: In the driveway of a house on the 8800 block of Ashworth Avenue North in Seattle, WA [map]
Overheard who: A portly woman with grey hair in her early-to-mid 60s, standing in her driveway while chatting with the younger dark-haired neighbor lady from next door. I had just delivered an ad that went to every house on Wallingford Route 56 today that advertised the benefits of hiring a cleaning service that claims, in large type across the top of the ad, to be "The Gayest Cleaning Company In America!"
Overheard what: 
Woman #1: "Have you been getting these? I think it's so funny: 'The gayest cleaning company in America!'"
Woman #2: "I know! I took a picture of it and sent it to my friend. I was like, 'Is this okay?'" 
Woman #1: "Well you know, from the gay people I know, they really do a terrific job."

Maxine Nightingale

Artist: Maxine Nightingale

LP: 7" single

Song: "(Bringing Out) The Girl In Me"

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British singer Maxine Nightingale had a smash hit in 1978 with "Lead Me On," but this fantastic follow-up only made it to #73 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Who knows what went wrong, but if I was going to end up stranded for the rest of my life on some deserted dance floor and I could only take one of these two songs with me, I would definitely choose "(Bringing Out) The Girl In Me." Wouldn't you?

[ Maxine Nightingale ]

Tavares

Artist: Tavares  

LP: Check It Out

Song: "Mama's Little Girl"

[ listen ] 

Last night I wanted to put something on the turntable to help me relax and unwind after a long and arduous day at work, so I selected this 1973 LP by the brothers Tavares that I found in the dollar bins at Fat Cat Records a few weeks back. It must have worked, since I fell asleep at the kitchen table while trying to edit the photos of Tavares from the back of the record. According to sources close to the family, the title of the record refers to the stupendously detailed and out-of-this-world needlework that adorns the outfits of Butch, Tiny, Pooch, Chubby, and Ralph in the cover photo of this, their debut LP:  

[ Check It Out ]

I'll betcha $24.80 that those dynamite duds were thrown together by Mama Tavares so her boys would make a good first impression! Lead vocals on "Mama's Little Girl" are handled by Ralph Vierra Tavares; "Check It Out" was produced by handsome musician Johnny Bristol; you can read about Tavares here.

[ Tavares ]