Bessie Griffin

Artist: Bessie Griffin

LP: Gospel Soul

Song: "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child"

[ listen ]

Song: "Lord In the New Jerusalem"

[ listen ]

One of the things I was hoping to find on my Ohio road trip was lots of neat old gospel records, since those are hard to come by in the Pacific Northwest. I did find a few here and there along the way, but it was in Columbus that I really struck gospel gold, especially at Used Kids Records, a terrific store hidden away in the upper level of an ugly brown brick building on High Street near The Ohio State University.

 [ Used Kids Records — Columbus, OH ]

 [ Used Kids Records, stairway to the store ]

 [ Used Kids Records, inside ]

Almost as if they somehow knew it was my birthday, the folks at Used Kids said that all vinyl was 20% off on Mondays. One of the best things I found there is this 1968 Bessie Griffin "Gospel Soul" LP. Born in New Orleans in the summer of 1922, Bessie (then known as Arlette B. Broil) grew up singing gospel music, performing with The Gospel Consolators, The Southern Harps, and The Caravans before working with The Gospel Pearls, who are featured with her on this record. You can read more about the life and career of Bessie Griffin on Wikipedia here, find her New York Times obituary here, and the notes from the back of the record are included below.

 [ Bessie Griffin: July 6, 1922 — April 10, 1989 ]

Chuck Kirkland

Artist: Chuck Kirkland

LP: Yesterday and Today

Song: "I Don't Want to Walk Without You"

[ listen ]

Driving further north on High Street I came across Lost Weekend Records, a cluttered and eclectic store located on the ground level of an old 3-story house. They'd just acquired a bunch of records they wanted to bring in to sell, so to help clear some space, all LPs were on sale for 33% off and all 7" singles were 45% off. This groovy Chuck Kirkland record is one of the things for which I paid just 67% of the marked price. I can't find any info about this talented organist on the web (and the LP liner notes aren't any help), so if anyone reading this knows anything about Mr. Kirkland, please feel free to chime in!

 [ Lost Weekend Records — Columbus, OH ]

Love Child's Afro Cuban Blues Band

 Artist: Love Child's Afro Cuban Blues Band

LP: Out Among 'Em

Song: "Ask Me"

[ listen ]

Along with recommending other Columbus record stores, Amy and Brett at Spoonful Records told me I should stop by the Sunday Flea Market on High Street, since there are usually booths there with lots of old records for sale.

 [ Sunday Flea Market — Columbus, OH ]

[ the booth where I bought some old records ]

It was an extremely hot day at that flea market in Columbus, and I was worried that some of the records might melt if I didn't buy them and put them in the trunk of my car. One of the records I saved was this 1975 release by Love Child's Afro Cuban Blues Band. You can find photos and notes from the back of the record included below, and I've organized the band members' pictures according to how sexy they are, with the hottest guys at the top. Please bear in mind that my shallow rating system is based purely on physical attributes, and doesn't take into account what these guys are like when you actually get to know them, or what they might look like now.

 [ I want Kevin's seafood in my playhouse. ]

 [ hot shit. ]

 [ the strong, silent type...probably from Miami. ]

 [ writes romantic poetry, some of it good. ]

 [ has lots of energy. ]

 [ can't understand why his picture isn't at the top. ]

 [ better-looking in person. ]

 [ lots of fun. ]

 [ reliable. ]

 [ in need of stylist, pronto. ]

Carol Douglas

Artist: Carol Douglas

LP: The Carol Douglas Album

Song: "Doctor's Orders"

[ listen ]

After a quick drive through Zanesville, the largest city in the USA starting with the letter Z...and famous for its weird Y-shaped bridge, I camped overnight at the lovely and relaxing A.W. Marion State Park. The next morning I passed through Circleville (which looked more like Squareville to me) as I made my way northward to Ohio's capitol city—Columbus!

[ Columbus, OH ]

 

I hadn't eaten anything yet, so the first thing I did when I pulled into town was head over to Tommy's Diner for some delicious breakfast.

 [ Tommy and me at his diner in Columbus, OH ]

After breakfast I checked out Spoonful Records on Long Street in the heart of downtown, where owner Brett and his fiancé Amy (she lives in Zanesville, with the Y-shaped bridge!) were sorting through albums together. They were both real friendly—they recommended lots of good old soul music, played records on the store's system so I could listen, recommended other stores to visit while I was in town, and they even gave me some vinyl samples of music on the Spoonful Records label. We were having so much fun talking about music, about Seattle (Amy went to Evergreen State College just down the road in Olympia), and listening to records, Amy said she wished I could come to the store every Sunday afternoon. Me too!

 [ Brett & Amy at Spoonful Records ]

 [ C'est moi at Spoonful Records ]

One of my favorite things I found at the store is this 1975 debut LP by Carol Douglas. An early pioneer of the disco movement, Ms. Douglas was unfortunately a bit of a one-hit-wonder on the pop charts, with "Doctor's Orders" rising to #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, #9 on the R&B singles chart, and going all the way to #2 on the disco charts. You can read about the life and career of the lovely and talented Carol Douglas here, and find notes and a nice photo from the back of "The Carol Douglas Album" included below.

 [ Spoonful Records — Columbus, OH ]

Eavesdroppings

Overheard when: 8:32am on Monday, September 12, 2011
Overheard where: crosswalk at the intersection of Elliott Avenue and West Harrison Streets in Seattle, WA [map] while on my bike waiting for the light to turn green.
Overheard who: a lanky, tattoo-covered, shaggy-haired blond hipster guy in his early 20s, lecturing a shorter, glasses-wearing brown-haired gal of about the same age as they waited for the "don't walk" sign to change.
Overheard what: 
Lanky hipster guy: "See, this is what I'm talking about! We've become so enslaved and so dependent that we wait for a machine to tell us what to do! I mean, I can see perfectly well that it's safe for me to cross the street right now, and yet I stand here waiting for a machine to tell me when I can do it! We should just cross! Are you ready? Do you wanna do it? Do you have what it takes?"
[They step from the curb to cross the street against the "don't walk" sign and are nearly run over by a FedEx truck, since the truck's left-turn traffic signal had turned green while they were talking. They quickly leap back to the safety of the curb.] 
Lanky hipster guy: "Okay, this is where I make an exception."

Rita "Matoka" Thielmann

Artist: Rita "Matoka" Thielmann

LP: Come On and Live!

Song: "God Speaking to You"

[ listen ]

After spending the night in an old motel bungalow just south of Akron, stumbling into the Football Hall of Fame parade in downtown Canton, checking out the amazing carvings of Ernest "Mooney" Warther at his museum in Dover, and then having breakfast in a large, reportedly haunted mansion, I decided to visit the paperweight museum in the quaint little town of Cambridge. Sadly, the museum isn't open on Saturdays, so I drove down the street to the Wags to Riches Thrift Shop to look for records instead.

There's lots to enjoy about this 1970 Rita "Matoka" Thielmann Christian pop record—like the groovy, organ-heavy tunes, the white knee-high boots Rita's sporting on the cover, and the cautious praise and slightly misguided liner notes and reviews on the back. For example: if Rita is indeed a genuine "Indian Princess," then why the quote marks? Dr. Paul Weaver raves—"Rita is perhaps the most exciting soloist I have heard in several years." But then again, perhaps not. Congressman Don H. Clausen says Rita "has one of the most beautiful voices I have heard in a long time." I said ONE of the most. Only composer, arranger, and reviewer Audrey Mieir seems to recognize that, despite Rita's obvious personal talent, ambition, and charm, she's just another in a long list of young and naive minority women who've ended up being taken advantage of by powerful white men. One of my favorite things about the album is how, at the very end of "God Speaking to You," it sounds like God actually reaches down, grabs Rita by the hair, and suddenly yanks her up to heaven.

 [ Wags to Riches Thrift Shop — Cambridge, OH ]