Eddie Van Halen [1955-2020]

Artist: Van Halen

LP: 7" single

Song: "Pretty Woman"

[ listen ]

 

I have to admit, I've never been a huge Van Halen fan or anything, but still I was sad to hear that guitar virtuoso Eddie Van Halen died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. Everyone else seemed to be jumping online to post eulogies to Van Halen today, so I figured... might as well jump. 

 

"Pretty Woman" was the first Van Halen song I became aware of; it was played on the radio a lot when my brother Matt and I first began paying rapt attention to pop music in late 1981 and early 1982. ("Pretty Women" peaked at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 in '82.) You can read all about Van Halen here, and go here to find a nice obituary for Eddie in the NY Times. I didn't know he had been married to Valerie Bertinelli!

 

[ L to R: Michael Anthony, Alex Van Halen, David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen ]

 

Eddie Van Halen

[ January 26, 1955 — October 6, 2020 ]

We will miss you, Eddie.

Les Paul and Mary Ford

Artist: Les Paul and Mary Ford

LP: The Hit Makers!
Song: "The World Is Waiting For the Sunrise"

[ listen ]

Song: "Tiger Rag"

[ listen ]

As I mentioned before, I'll start a new job on Monday, so yesterday I took myself out for a "Last Days of Freedom" vinyl shopping spree. First I dropped in at Beats and Bohos on Phinney Ridge for a brief session of crate-digging before meeting my friend Liz for lunch at the Greenlake Tacos Guaymas at 1pm. When I found this collection of hits by Les Paul and Mary Ford, I bought it sight unseen! Well, actually I could see it...so I guess I bought it sound unheard. I've learned that you can't really go wrong with these two. I'll pick up just about anything of theirs that I don't already have, and would encourage other vinyl collectors to do the same. Les and Mary really do add their "shiny musical finesse" to everything they do, making music that's both "sparkling and attractive!" 

Sadly, according to Wikipedia, they ended both their marriage and their musical partnership on unfriendly terms in 1964, after which Mary was never again to be found perched upon the neck of Les' guitar.

[ Mary Ford: July 7, 1924 — September 30, 1977 ]
[ Les Paul: June 9, 1915 — August 12, 2009 ]

Lasse Wellander

Artist: Lasse Wellander

LP: Electrocuted

Song: "Hotel 167"
[ listen ]

Here's something I found at Råkk og Rålls in Oslo on my trip to Norway back in May. I was taken in by several beguiling factors: 

1. Lasse played guitar for ABBA for lots of their studio recordings, and for a bunch of their live shows too! So naturally, I figured he probably sounded exactly like ABBA, but without any words. Unless maybe he sang!
2. On the back of "Electrocuted," his 1975 solo debut LP, Lasse uses a series of symbols to indicate which musicians are playing on each of the tracks—symbols that immediately brought to mind the system of enigmatic codes and symbols Bob Mizer always used to indicate the personality traits and sexual proclivities of his hunky male AMG models for their photo spreads (no pun intended) in monthly issues of Physique Pictorial. 
3. Lasse is super handsome and I like the way his pants cling to his hips. I wanted to take him home with me.
4. Lasse, come home!

But alas, this record sounds nothing like ABBA. And frankly, Lasse pretty much lost his looks soon after this LP was released (those poor Scandinavians hardly stand a chance!). And now that I've got photo documentation of his 1975-era bedroom eyes, hip-huggers and hairy chest, "Electrocuted" has been unplugged and put into my 'trade-in' pile of LPs. You can read about Lasse Wellander in Swedish here and go here for information in English.

[ Lasse Wellander ]

Harold Olson

Artist: Harold Olson

LP: Doggone Cowboy

Song: "Bad Brama Bull"
[ listen ]

Song: "Auctioneer"
[ listen ]

My fellow Washingtonian Harold Olson, from Spokane, is basically performing a musical rendition of my work week here. The first half of my week was a lot like rodeo bull-riding, and then today I've had to talk like an auctioneer in order to get everything done! You can go here to find the July 31, 2016 edition of The Lewiston Tribune from Lewiston, Idaho with news about Harold's 80th birthday celebration. I'm awfully late, but Happy Birthday, Harold! Hope you've still been auctioneering.

[ Harold Olson — then ]

[ Harold Olson — now ]

Inez & Charlie Foxx

Artist: Inez & Charlie Foxx

LP: Come By Here

Song: "I Stand Accused" / "Guilty"
[ listen ]

Song: "No Stranger to Love"
[ listen ]

Speaking of sexy siblings, check out the Foxxy Inez and her charming brother, Charlie. They first began singing together in a gospel choir in their hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina in the 1950s. "Mockingbird," their debut single, went to #7 on the US pop charts in 1963, but nothing they released after that even made the Billboard Pop Top 40—including the wonderful "I Stand Accused," which peaked at #49 on the R&B charts, but failed to register at all on the Hot 100. The fact that the electrifying, soul-stirring, hip-swinging post-"Mockingbird" musical brilliance of Inez & Charlie was met with bored indifference by the American public was one of the earliest indicators of the forthcoming and ever-accelerating downhill spiral in U.S. popular thought, behavior, intelligence, and culture that would eventually reduce us to a level where this despicable person could be considered an exciting option for U.S. President by nearly half of the country's people in 2016. 

When I first stopped by Reimagine Records in the Utica suburb of New Hartford, I found the store closed. But I peeked in the front window and saw some Duran Duran LPs that assured me the place was worth returning to if time allowed. Well time did allow, and I went back the next day. This pristine copy of Inez & Charlie's 1967 "Come By Here" LP is what I'm most excited about having found at RR, but I picked up all sorts of other neat stuff there too. The shop's owners, Scott and Michelle, are friendly and engaging and even managed to turn me onto The Beatles, of all things, since I had largely dismissed them previously—mainly because of all the crying and the fainting and the panties thing, and also because The Beatles' records are always at least twice as expensive any of the other records in a store. But the Ron Howard documentary I'd seen at The Little Theatre in Rochester and my conversation with Scott and Michelle at has got me giving the group some reconsideration. 

Inez & Charlie Foxx on YouTube:

[ "No Stranger to Love" ]

[ Reimagine Records — New Hartford, NY ]

Val Stöecklein

Artist: Val Stöecklein

LP: Grey Life

Song: "Say It's Not Over"
[ listen ]

After leaving Record Baron I headed northward to M&B Record Exchange, which is in yet another Buffalo suburb called Tonawanda, just north of Kenmore. The friendly owner, Bob, showed me around the small store, including a preview of some of the new stuff he'd just gotten in. He even offered me a cold can of Pepsi, which I gladly accepted. I can't picture that ever happening in a record store in Seattle. You'll get "cold" here, but it won't be a Pepsi. 

Unlike at Record Baron, Bob has a vinyl listening station at his shop. This 1968 Val Stöecklein folk LP caught my ear; I'm a sucker for the strings. Born in Kansas in 1941, Val was lead singer for The Blue Things before suffering a nervous breakdown while on tour, after which he left the band in 1967. Offered a deal for a solo record by a friend at Dot Records, Val recorded "Grey Life," but then pulled out of an arranged promotional tour at the last minute. The record flopped. He tried jump-starting his musical career a few times after that, both in Kansas and in Nashville, but without success, according to AllMusic here. Val committed suicide in the spring of 1993 at the age of 52. 

Along with Val Stöecklein's sad and lovely record, I also found a few other gems in the bins at M&B Record Exchange that made it worth the northward drive. Bob was on the phone when I put this Syndicate of Sound LP on the player. When he finished his call, he said to me, "I noticed you passed on that Syndicate of Sound record, but you should listen to "Rumors" on side one and crank the volume way up." I did that, and now I have that album too. Thanks, Bob!

[ Val Stöecklein: 1941 — May, 1993 ]

[ Bob at M&B Record Exchange ]

[ M&B Record Exchange — Tonawanda, NY ]

Corry en de Rekels

Artist: Corry en de Rekels

LP: Corry en de Rekels

Song: "Ik Heb Op Jou Gewacht"
[ listen ]

Song: "Droomwals"
[ listen ]

You know how disappointing it is when you're at the used record store and you see "Free poster inside!" advertised on one of the LP covers, but then when you look inside there's no free poster? Well imagine how the opposite of disappointed I was when I opened this Corry en de Rekels LP and found a free poster inside, even though the cover never promised me a thing! 

I think this may be the 1970 debut album of this hit-making quintet from The Netherlands, though I don't see any of their hits included. Singer Corry Konings, who's cute as a button, left the group in 1972 to pursue a solo career. The quintet continued their hit-making ways as Hanny en de Rekels, with lead vocal duties taken over by a gal named...Hennie, actually. She's cute too, but more like a zipper. There's more about de Rekels and their ladies on Wikipedia in both English and Dutch.

[ Corry en de Rekels ]

Edmundo Ros and His Orchestra

Artist: Edmundo Ros and His Orchestra

LP: Rhythms of the South

Song: "The Blue Danube"
[ listen ]

Song: "Capullito de Aleli"
[ listen ]

I remember looking up Edmundo Ros online back in 2011. I was shocked and awed to discover that he was still alive—he was 100 years old! I've got quite a stack of Edmundo's LPs on my shelves, so I was hoping he'd either live on forever or, if he had to pass away, I was hoping I'd hear about it so I could pay tribute to him here. Well sadly Edmundo did not live forever, and unfortunately I was not informed of his passing. He died in Spain that very same year. The British, whom he entertained much more than the Americans during and after WWII (we had Xavier Cugat), were pretty much the only people who were told about Edmundo's death; several UK news outlets posted obituaries for the world-famous bandleader (The Guardian, the BBC, The Telegraph), but I don't see any from the USA. 

Though many people evidently thought Sñr  Ros was born in Venezuela (including Nigel Hunter, who wrote the liner notes for this 1958 LP), Edmundo's original name was Edmund William Ross and he was born in Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago, just off the Venezuelan coast. After a stint in Venezuela to study music when he was 17, Edmundo headed to England where he battled racial profiling, made millions of people start dancing, and eventually became wildly famous and incredibly wealthy—and he was reportedly a gentleman, to boot. Just ask the Queen!

[ Edmundo Ros: December 10, 1910 — October 21, 2011 ]