Yvonne

It took me a little while to get this up for you, but as promised, here is Yvonne De Carlo Sings (Masterseal 33-1869/1870, 1957), Orchestra Conducted By John Towner. I found the record the same night I mentioned it, but it took me these few days to get it recorded and scanned in. Hopefully you'll think the wait was worth it. Yvonne seems to be a competent singer, and she certainly doesn't veer towards the Golden Throats category. She sort of reminds me of Julie London a little bit, but she's not as good, in my humble opinion. I wonder if this wasn't originally intended to be a theme album about the blues, since five of the ten tracks have the word 'blue' in the title (and a sixth is Mood Indigo). I have to admit that my entire experience with Yvonne De Carlo was through The Munsters. I don't think I ever saw her in any of those movies they're showing clips of on TV now. And I'm pretty sure I never played this LP prior to her death. I can remember finding it, though, over ten years ago at a giant rummage sale held by some ladies auxiliary or something at The Lakeland Center. I don't know why I never played it... Don't make that same mistake. Download it and give it a spin! Rest in peace, Ms. De Carlo.

Now, who has a copy of her 45 on Capitol with Nelson Riddle???

Goodbye Lilly

Just thought I'd mention real quick that I'm looking for my copy of Yvonne DeCarlo's LP to share with ya'll. She passed away this past Monday. If I find it, I'll get it posted here. If I don't find it, then, well, just forget I mentioned it...

Two For Tuesday-Part Two

It's Tuesday again, which means I bring you two tracks that have something in common. Today, it's a couple of list songs. You know about list songs, don't you? Instead of lyrics, you just get a list of something. Think of Tom Lehrer-The Elements, or more recently, Billy Joel-We Didn't Start The Fire. Now you know what I mean. Oh, how about I've Been Everywhere, which they're using in a couple of travel commercials lately. Those commercials use Johnny Cash, but I grew up listening to the Statler Brothers do it. So, what two lists do I have for you? How about two different songs that list states? The first is The Boogie Woogie March by Buddy Morrow And His Orchestra from Night Train (RCA Victor LPM-1427, 1957). And the second is Allan Sherman parodying Holiday For Strings as Holiday For States from Allan In Wonderland (Warner Brothers W1539, 1964). I like both of them and I'm sure you will, too. I didn't bother to count. Do both of these list all fifty states? I'm not sure... I know that first one predates Alaska and Hawaii, but they get Alaska in there somehow... Here's you link. And here's the link to last week's two-fer.

Here We Go Gators

I hope this picture will tell you which side of the National Championship game I'm on tonight. Yep, that'd be me, circa 1991, beard and all. I had the privilege of performing as Albert The Alligator back then. We didn't make it to the National Championship, but it sure was a lot of fun. It's a long time ago, so I hope I can get away with publishing this picture now. If the men in orange and blue show up knocking at my door tonight, then I'll know...

The Second Week Of January

These are a couple of great pictures from my weekly calendar. The shot above is from the current calendar, while the one below is from last year. Each year the calendar goes out for a couple of extra months, depending on how many pictures I have that I want to squeeze in there, and how busy I am when I'm laying it out and printing. Anyhow, the awesome shot above with the osprey and his dinner is from a set I shot last January. You can read all about it and see more shots of the same bird here. The picture below is a shell sitting on the seawall at Ft. DeSoto Park up in Pinellas County. Does this count as a still life? I think it does.

Beer On Parade

Just for kicks, I drove into downtown Sarasota today. I wanted to get some pictures of some stupid clowns they've got down there, but I stumbled onto something a little better than fiberglass clowns. Turns out they were have some big bikefest called Thunder By The Bay. But that's not the exciting part. I've been to Bike Week in Daytona, so the sight of a couple thousand bikes didn't impress me. What did impress me were the Budweiser Clydesdales. Man, those are some big horses. Eight of those horses pulled the beerwagon about a mile around downtown, to surprisingly little fanfare. I walked the whole route with them shooting pictures, and there were several times when the only people watching were the folks in cars who had to pull out of the way. I did get a few decent pictures for you, so have a look.

This horse acted like they'd fed him peanut butter or something. He just kept doing his best Mr. Ed impression.

These two guys drove the horses, and the dalmatian just sat there. I took this shot about 10 seconds before he let go and peed all over the beer wagon. Not very dignified, but it says a lot about Budweiser...

These are the guys who had to follow the wagon around and clean up after the horses. They should make a beer commercial about them. This reminds me of Rocky & Bullwinkle, when they have the little parade in the credits, and the guy at the end has to clean up after the elephants.

The fancy beer wagon may look old, but it's pretty high tech, for a wagon. See, disc brakes!

Volume 2 For Hi-Fi Living

It's Sunday, and that means I've got the second installment of Hi-Fi Living for you. This week it's Tony Osborne And His Orchestra-Hands Across The Table (RCA Custom RAL 1002, 1957). Very similar to what I shared out last week, except this time instead of piano interludes, you get harp interludes. Not that it makes much difference. I think I misspelled 'sentimental' in one of the songs. Sorry about that. I'm hoping next week will be more exciting. It's Hits From Hollywood. We'll see.

Looks like Tony Osborne is a bit more well-known that Hill Bowen from last week. He appears to be English with a long list of credits, as well as numerous family ties to the worlds of orchestral music and rock.