Seven Inches And Rising

It's amazing the ways I can find to waste my time and money. After telling myself all day that I wasn't going to stop at the Goodwill store after work today, the car turns left instead of right, and I went to the Goodwill store. And what do I find there but a huge stack of records. Not just your run-of-the-mill records, either, but 7" 45RPM vinyl EPs from the mid- to late-50s. Dozens and dozens of them. Complete sets of them, almost all in their original cardboard sleeves or in boxes. Oddly enough, every single one of them was on either RCA Victor or "X", a subsidiary of RCA at the time. So I'm thinking maybe this was the collection of an employee of the company, or someone who had some sort of link to RCA. Every single record or set was marked $0.99, which I knew I wasn't willing to pay. I flipped through all of them, pulling out 20 or 30 that I knew I wanted, but really thinking the whole stack would be worth getting, if just for some of the great covers. So I went in search of a manager and asked if there was room to deal. Sure enough, he offered $0.59 each. I countered with $50 for the whole stack, and he agreed. So between myself and the manager, we each grabbed a huge armful and carried the piles to the front of the store. I also bought a few regular 12" records, but nothing so exciting as there EPs. After hurrying home, I spent hours going through the stack, carefully putting the different sets together, and putting the few records without custom sleeves into the generic sleeves in the pile. Turned out that every record had a sleeve, and most of the sets were complete. Every box that I opened up was complete, and every record was in the correct place. The conditions are wonderful, too. I haven't played any of these yet, but you can bet the rest of my weekend will be spent hunched over the turntable, flipping small record on and off. I quickly through a few on the scanner just to share them with you. I didn't do a lot of touch-up on them, so take these scans as just samples of what's in the pile. Did I mention the count? There were 146 records here, which doesn't include the multiple records in some of the sets. Pretty good deal, eh? So what did I scan to share with you? Above and below are parts 2 and 3 of Geri Galian And His Carribean Rhythm Boys-Rhapsody In Rhythm ("X" EXA-8 & EXA-9). I put these up to illustrate what I meant by sets. There was probably a singe 12" record released of this same music, but they also spread it out over three single records, for people who liked their music at 45 RPM. Each sleeve was a little different, but they were all themed the same.


One of the sets that I really wanted to get was the one above, The Sons Of Sauter Finegan (RCA Victor EPC-1104, 1955), a three record set, all in a single sleeve. I've always heard great things about Sauter-Finegan, but their records seem to be rare as hen's teeth. And this wasn't the only record by them in the pile! Below is a great cover from blog-favorite, Xavier Cugat, drawn by the man himself. The title of this one is Dancetime With Cugat (RCA Victor EPB-3170), this time a two record set in a single sleeve.


I just can't believe some of these great covers. The music is almost incidental. Above is Noro Morales And His Orchestra-Mambos (RCA Victor EPA-553, 1954) and below is Bob Zurke And His Delta Rhythm Band-Tom Cat On The Keys (RCA Victor EJC-1013, 1955).


Above is a boxed set of three records that could prove to be mighty interesting. Just imagine what Your Horoscope In Music by Dewey Bergman With The Voice Of Eddie Gallaher (RCA Victor WP-325) is going to sound like. Most of the boxed sets included inserts, which I didn't even think came with most boxed sets. Quite a few of them even have the disposable paper slips that originally slid in between the records during shipping and were meant to be thrown away after the records were sold. (I showed you something similar a long time ago.) The only promotional record in the stack, and one of the few without a jacket is below. This single is Adios b/w Granada (RCA Victor J7OW-97172/3) by the one and only Esquivel, taken from his LP Other Worlds Other Sounds (LPM-1753). And yes, it does appear to be mono. Everything in the pile is mono. This may be the only record that is available in stereo elsewhere. I think everything else is too early.

So what else is in this pile? Plenty! At least one more from Esquivel, plenty by The Three Suns (including a much-desired Christmas single which is guaranteed to show up on the blog sometime), lots of Frankie Carle, Tony Martin, a whole series of Broadway shows, most of the year-by-year Honor Roll Of Hits series, and many, many more. I'm just so excited! Can you tell?