Beacon Street Union

Artist: Beacon Street Union

LP: The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens
Song: "A Not Very August Afternoon"

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Song: "May I Light Your Cigarette"

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I took last Monday off work and stopped by Daybreak Records for a few minutes to rummage through their bins. This second LP by Beacon Street Union, released in 1968, was one of the things I found. Along with MGM label mates Ultimate Spinach, who I've never heard of before, and Orpheus, who I have, Beacon Street Union was part of the "Bosstown Sound," a marketing label that producer Alan Lorber came up with to promote psychedelic rock bands from the Boston area in the late 1960s. 

According to Wikipedia, Beacon Street Union "met with very little nationwide success." But then that's not surprising given their uncompromising decision to release "May I Light Your Cigarette" as one of the singles from this album. It's hard to imagine a track with lower potential for commercial radio success than this lovely, brooding, jazzy and moody musical rumination. It's impossible to dance to. Beacon Street Union's final recorded single before they threw in the towel in 1970 was titled, ironically, "Lord Why Is It So Hard."

 [ Beacon Street Union ]

Cepillin

Artist: Cepillin

LP: En Un Bosque De La China

Song: "Bailando Feliz" 
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Song: "Pan Con Mantequilla" 
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It's hard to imagine who could possibly have been intended as the target audience for this record. You've got a sexy hippie rock-star type wearing silk pajamas and half-assed clown makeup doing covers of classics by the Bee Gees and The Newbeats. Fun for the whole family, right? It turns out Cepillin (or, the artist formerly known as Ricardo González) was a dentist who started wearing funny face makeup so kids wouldn't be scared while he went to work on their teeth. But I can't think of anything more nightmare-inducing than a shaggy, falsetto-voiced hippie clown towering over me with a grin while giving me a root canal. 

Cepillin on YouTube:
[ "La Feria de Cepillin" ]

[ The dentist will see you now. ]

The Pickwick Children's Chorus and Musical Friends

Artist: The Pickwick Children's Chorus and Musical Friends

LP: Sesame Street & Other Children's Pop Hits!

Song: "Bozo's Song"

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Here's a kids' record I found at Goodwill yesterday, featuring a song performed by Bozo the Clown. That reminds me: I read in the news last week that a powerful Mexican drug lord was shot dead by assassins dressed as clowns at a family children's party in Cabo San Lucas. There's a picture of Pickwick Children's Chorus leader Laurie Ringham on the back of this slightly disturbing LP, along with photos of other young ladies (one toothless lass is featured in unflattering closeup). But nothing in the liner notes, evidently written by a four-year-old, indicates whether the girls pictured are actual members of The Pickwick Children's Chorus or just some of their Musical Friends.

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Band

Artist: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Band
[ Merle Evans, Conductor ]

LP: Circus Time [10" EP]

Song: "The Purple Carnival (Wild Animal Act)"

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I know I'm a few days late (I haven't been meeting any of my 2013 blog posting goals), but the music from this 1953 10" circus EP I found in Seattle's White Center neighborhood a few weeks ago seems like the perfect fanfare to usher in my favorite month of the year—October! The sun is shining, a cool breeze is blowing, the leaves have started turning red, yellow, and orange, and it all makes me so happy inside! I feel like the clown face on the cover of this record. Circus band conductor/cornet-player Merle Evans, known as the "Toscanini of the Big Top," was with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for over fifty years! His music once even saved thousands of lives, during the Hartford Circus fire of 1944. Upon discovering the fire, Evans instructed his band to play the disaster warning song, alerting other circus performers that it was time to evacuate the public. You can read more about Merle Evans, his career, and his musical life-saving techniques here and go here to read more about the Hartford fire.

[ Merle Evans: December 26, 1894 — December 31, 1987 ]

Sweet Sensation

Artist: Sweet Sensation

LP: Sad Sweet Dreamer

Song: "Sad Sweet Dreamer"

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I'm not doing very well with my resolve to not buy more records until I've cleaned all the vinyl riffraff out of my collection. I've fallen off the wagon several times lately, and this past weekend I not only fell off the wagon, but the wagon then went in reverse and ran me over three more times. This 1974 LP by the British soul group Sweet Sensation (not this one) is one of the wonderful things I was able to stash in the wagon before I fell off. The title track from "Sad Sweet Dreamer" was a #1 hit in the UK and reached #14 on the singles charts here in the USA. It's somehow the perfect song for the end of summer, as the nights start getting cooler, with autumn just around the bend. You can read about Sweet Sensation on Wikipedia here. 

Toni Bishop

Artist: Toni Bishop

LP: 7" single

Song: "The Clown"

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Here's a single I picked up for a buck because of the far-out cover. Turns out it's just your typical overblown circus-themed love song from the early-to-mid 1980s. My Toni Bishop 'clown' image search turned up horrible things like this, this, and even this (!), but no other photos of Bishop. I can't find any videos either, but I did come across this lovely performance of Mendelssohn's "On Wings of Song" by a different, younger, home-schooled Toni Bishop at the Witehead Flute Recital in Memphis.

Toni Bishop on YouTube:

[ "On Wings of Song" ]