Thursday, November 22, 2007

Would You Like A Ford With That?


I had no idea what I was going to get when I bought this record. Well, I thought I did, but I didn't. I found the empty cover in a huge stack of records, and decided I needed to find the actual vinyl. Half an hour later I found it further down the pile inside the gatefold of another LP. (Usually I don't find the records missing from empty sleeves, but that's going to be another series of posts sometime soon...) The music is almost exactly what you think it is just by looking at the cover above, but you don't know the rest of the story. A little internet research told me that The Going Thing were actually a manufactured band, put together by Ford for use in marketing campaigns and promotional tours. I guess they took the idea from The Monkees. They recorded a few albums that were only released to Ford employees, then went their separate ways when advertising trends changed. Rumor has it that Karen and Richard Carpenter were members for a brief time, but their career took off before they had to wear too much velour. Anyhow, I think you'll enjoy the smooth, inoffensive sounds of Christmas 1968 With The Going Thing (Private Pressing for Ford XCSV-141473, 1968). Note: The first track on here (and longest) is a spoken introduction and holiday wishes from John Naughton, a bigwig at Ford at the time. The whole record is only 17 minutes long, and it's only recorded on one side.

6 comments:

  1. Ernie,
    Did you notice the Paul McCartney Hoffner bass guitar on the cover? Well, I guess you can tell in what era this album came out!

    Kenny

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was going to go through and talk about who each one of the folks on the cover looks like. There's a Mrs. Partridge in there for sure, and some other sixties figures.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Someone was selling this very LP on eBay for nearly $100 for a longgggggg time.

    Thanks for sharing this Ern!


    Capt

    ReplyDelete
  4. Funny that you should mention Mrs. Partridge, Ernie. The core of this group was the Bahler brothers, who along with Jackie Ward actually were the Partridge Family. Of course they were just about everyone else at the time, too: The Union Gap, The Raiders, the singers of the theme for Love American Style, etc. The list is endless. There is a great interview with them over at www.cmongethappy.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. I thought that the girl sitting in front reminded me of a current day actress nammed Zoey Deschanel.

    Dave

    ReplyDelete
  6. Zoey Deschanel can jingle my bells any day.

    ReplyDelete

All comments are greatly appreciated, but replies aren't guaranteed...