Grant Advertising International Band of Bangkok

Artist: Grant Advertising International Band of Bangkok

LP: 7" single

Song: "Medly"
1. The Sound of Thailand
2. "Sawutdee Ka"
3. "We Three Kings"
4. Magic Beams
5. Our Thailand
6. Thai "Jingle Bells"
7. Grant Farewell
[ listen ]

Here's a 1965 Christmas oddity from Thailand I picked up at Beats & Bohos last Thursday night before meeting my friends for a Christmas noir theatrical production at the Greenlake Theater. This record was evidently once presented as a gift to a Dr. S. H. Work. We're having a very white Christmas here in Seattle, which means I'm stranded at home making butterscotch apple crisp that I'm not going to have to share with anyone. Merry Christmas!

 

Line Renaud

Artist: Line Renaud

LP: 7" single

Song: "It's Over" 
[ listen ]

Question: What do you get when you cross Judi Dench with Peggy Lee and then stick the results next to a middle-aged gay guy who's heavy into leather? Answer: This Line Renaud photo. 

My friend Virginia invited me to brunch with her yesterday over across the water at the Bremerton Bar & Grill; she had a buy-a-meal-and-get-the-second-one-free coupon! After an hour-long ferry ride westward from downtown Seattle, then a delicious meal and lots of coffee, we set out for a few of Bremerton's thrift stores, including St. Vincent de Paul, which had been closed during my Sunday visit to the city just a few weeks ago for my sister's graduation. This Line Renaud 4-track promo 7" (free with an issue of Holiday magazine back in 1968) is one of the things I found there. Line's promo record, plugging her "Line Renaud's In Love" LP, is, of course, all about love. Side one ("Goodbye My Souvenirs" and "It's Over") is all about mourning; love is cruel and it makes you want to die. Then side two comes along ("Summer Love" and "Love Is the Little Things") and gives you hope; love flows back into life and the cycle begins again. It's all very French. I've chosen to focus here on the lowest point, the rock bottom before things get better, mainly because that's when the string arrangements are at their best. You can read more about Line Renaud on Wikipedia here, visit her website here, and there's a neat Line Renaud video clip from 1956 included here:

Line Renaud on YouTube:
[ "C'qu'on Est Bien" ]

[ Line Renaud ]

Dinah Shore

Artist: Dinah Shore

7" EP: Season's Best

Song: "You Meet the Nicest People" 
[ listen ]

Song: "Jingle Bells" 
[ listen ]

Dinah Shore has been popping up all over the place this holiday season. It all started with the White Elephant Gift Exchange at my work, an annual holiday tradition. With no white elephant gift ideas in mind, I stopped by the Ballard Goodwill thrift store on my way home from work last week to see what I could find. I ended up leaving with a vintage '80s board game (incredibly, all the pieces were still there!), a lobster jello mold (everyone keeps saying it looks like a penis) and a Dinah Shore Greatest Hits CD (there were two copies, but one had a broken case). I wrapped them all up, added some bows and included a nice hand-made Christmas card designed by the sweet fellow I've been dating.

Things turned out a lot better this year at the White Elephant Gift Exchange than in years past. (Last year my gift was so boring I can't even remember now what it was; the year before that I brought some vintage Japanese early-'80s kimono catalogs that I found at a local thrift store, but the gal that chose my gift thought they were mail-order-bride catalogs and was offended.) This year my white elephant gift was first selected by Susan, who was especially thrilled with the Dinah Shore CD (and the wrapping paper). She wasn't as excited about the board game as I'd hoped and she didn't know what to make of the lobster jello mold, except maybe jello. Before long though, my colleague Thad's number came up in the gift exchange. He marched across the room and stole the gifts from Susan! He's not really into Dinah Shore, but he figured he could get lots of mileage out of the phallic-looking jello mold.

I was still apprehensive though that the vintage Parker Brothers board game (Go For It!™ — The Game Where You Can Have It All) hadn't landed in appreciative hands.

But after Thad got the game back to his desk, he soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. A group of my co-workers are in the midst of an ongoing game of Go For It! right behind me this very instant! 

Still, I felt bad that the Dinah Shore CD had been unceremoniously ripped out of Susan's happy holiday hands. Remembering about the second copy at Goodwill with a broken case, I went back to see if it was still there. It was, so I picked it up along with an awful-looking Shania Twain CD in a pristine case that I could use for swapping them out. Now the white elephant has made everyone happy! 

I was happy too when I came across this Dinah Shore 4-track Chevrolet promo EP at Holy Cow Records in the Pike Place Market on Sunday while doing some last-minute holiday shopping. This truly has been a Dinah Shore Christmas! You can read all about this lovely lady here and go here to find out what someone's talking about when they ask if you're going to the Dinah Shore Weekend in Palm Springs this year. 

 [ Dinah Shore: February 29, 1916 — February 24, 1994 ]

Harry Fields Quintet

 Artist: Harry Fields Quintet

LP: 7" single

Song: "Invitation"

[ listen ]

I was inadvertently listening to this 1962 EP while cooking dinner on my electric stove and it completely ruined my meal. You can read about Harry Fields here. 

Walt Smith Orchestra feat. Betty St. James

Artist: Walt Smith Orchestra feat. Betty St. James

LP: 7" single

Song: "Topaz"

[ listen ]

I wonder which novel was the last to have a theme song released on a promotional 7" single to help drum up sales at bookstores across America—perhaps it was the exciting 1967 spy thriller "Topaz" by Leon Uris! You can get your own copy of Uris' novel here, read about Alfred Hitchcock's 1969 film adaptation here, see the movie poster below and find out what blue topaz looks like here. Please steer clear of unstable topaz, however, which starts out a beautiful deep red color, but fades to a light yellow-green after sitting in the sun for a mere 24 hours, as you can see here.