Griffin

Artist: Griffin

LP: Hot Fingers

Song: "Lock It Up & Rock It (The Wild Thing)" 
[ listen ]

Song: "No Humans Allowed" 
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Reggie "Rej" Griffin was in the group Manchild during the second half of the '70s (he's front/left on the LP cover here) before going on to work with fellow bandmate Kenneth Brian "Babyface" Edmonds throughout his solo career. Speaking of solo careers, Rej Griffin produced this solo LP of his own in 1984, on which he handles all lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, bass guitar, Voyetra, Prophet, Korg, Oberheim and Yamaha DX7 synthesizers, piano, electric piano, alto, tenor and soprano saxophones, flute, turntable scratching, percussion, drumulator programming and loud, obnoxious noises...so basically, just about everything. Someone named Rayford Griffin helps out with percussion, as you can see in the slightly blurry notes below. I wonder if he's Rej's brother! It's too bad Griffin isn't better known today. I like that on the back of his record he encourages fans to register to vote. In my many years of dating, it's been virtually impossible to find a man who dresses this well and has good hair, who's also civic-minded, has hot fingers, knows how to program a drumulator, and who can play three types of saxophones and a korg! This gives me hope.

Vinicio Franco

Artist: Vinicio Franco y su Conjunto Tipico Cibaeño

LP: Merengues — El Principe del Merengue

Song: "Tocame La Campana, Maria"
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Song: "La Chiva Blanca"
[ listen ]

Huntsville, Alabama is one of the friendliest cities in the South! I found Vertical House Records online while researching stores to visit on my trip. It looked amazing (it's located in part of the old Lowe Mill building), but to my chagrin, the store is only open Wednesday through Saturday, and I was going to be driving through northern Alabama on Monday and Tuesday. About a week before leaving Seattle, I called and left a message on the store's answering machine to let them know of my predicament and to see if there was any way I could browse through Vertical House Records on a day they're usually closed. I wasn't really expecting a reply, but thought it was worth a shot. I figured that if I did hear from anyone, it would probably be along the lines of: "Sorry to hear we'll miss you. Hope you'll come back through our neck of the woods sometime when we're open. We'd love to meet you!" Instead, within an hour I received a text message from the store's owners, Andy and Ashley. They were currently on vacation on Italy! They said they would be returning to Huntsville on the Monday during my trip and would be happy to meet me at their store on Tuesday afternoon! 

I arrived in Huntsville at about 6pm on that Tuesday, and Andy and Ashley were both there at Vertical House Records to meet me. Andy gave me a quick tour of the place, then let me dig through the bins while they were hanging out with a friend at the front of the store, drinking beer and listening to music. I joked with them about how awful it would be if, after everything, I browsed for two hours and then sauntered out the door saying, "Thanks, but I didn't really see anything here that caught my eye." But anyone who knows me will know that there wasn't any danger of that happening. In fact, I was only able to browse through the "International" section as well as the A—G part of the "General" section before hunger overtook me (and before I began to worry that I was going to keep Andy and Ashley there until midnight). Though I definitely feel the need to return to Vertical House to browse through H—Z, I found lots of wonderful stuff in the time I was there—like this merengue album by Vinicio Franco.

Born in September of 1933 in Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic, Vinicio first began singing in nightclubs to entertain tourists in the mid-to-late 1950s; his first recording was made in 1957, titled either "Shut Me Sail" or "Shut Me Off the Candle," depending on which language translation tool you use. In a career spanning 60 years and counting, Vinicio Franco has performed in places like New York City and Miami in the USA, as well as throughout South America and Europe. Vinicio's "Merengue" LP, his first, was released in 1960. My copy, though not sealed, is in mint condition and was still in shrink-wrap, with a purple "Dominican Republic" ink stamp on the back! I especially like "La Chiva Blanca" ["The White Goat"], where Vinicio makes animal sounds. You can read more about Vinicio "El Principe del Merengue" Franco in Spanish here and here, and you'll find English-ish translation of the Wikipedia page here. There's a relatively recent video clip of Vinicio Franco performing here:

Vinicio Franco on YouTube:

[ "Los Algodones" ] 

 [ Vinicio Franco ]

[ Vertical House Records — Huntsville, Alabama ]