Oodles Of Doodles CCIV

Could this little doodle be the original stereo? I'm not too sure about that, but it's certainly the coolest doodle of a gramophone I've ever seen. This hails from the flip side of How To Get The Most Out Of Your Stereo (Warner Brothers XS 1400, 1960), a various artists sampler LP that hyped the new sound. If the promise of spectacular stereo sound wasn't enough to draw in the buyers, there was the rather attractive cover model, who adapted her stethoscope for maximum stereo pleasure. Oh, and did I mention the clear gold vinyl inside?

Oodles Of Doodles CCIII

I've got to start looking closer at my records, both inside and out. I was in the process of putting away the Red Nichols LP I just featured when I happened to pull the record out of the sleeve. Well, the inner sleeve didn't come out with it like I expected, so I reached in and pulled it all the way out, and there in my hand were all the doodles you see here. Seven different vignettes of life at Capitol Records circa 1956, as well as an advertisement for a magazine I'd never heard of published by Capitol, and an advertisement for T-Rim, a little manufacturing trick that they used to make a big deal about. For you record buffs, there is also a rather lengthy list of then-current offerings on Capitol, including Frank Sinatra, Les Baxter, Duke Ellington, Louis Prima, Benny Goodman, Jackie Gleason, Les Paul, Stan Kenton, Kay Starr, Yma Sumac, Billy May, the list just goes on and on. I placed a date of 1956 on this, since the LP I found it in claims it was recorded in September of 1956, but it may not have been released until the following year. I'm pretty sure it's no later than that, because none of the records listed say anything about being available in stereo. So, have a look at the doodles, and there's a picture of a large corner from the sleeve, showing the Capitol logo and some of the doodles in their original context. Enjoy!











The big picture below is from one corner of the inner sleeve, maybe a 7" square chunk of it. I also found this website that talks about these inner sleeves, and even has a full scan of this same sleeve.

There's also a small blurp about Music Views, a monthly magazine available from your record dealer. I assume this was put out by Capitol since it's hyped on their sleeve, but I really have no idea. Time to have a go at Google...

Last but not least, here's the T-Rim logo. I think I blogged about this last year, but I'll have to look. Basically, it meant that the edges of the record were raised above the playing surface, so when you changer dropped the next record on the last, it hit that raised edge, and not the grooves. Maybe it was a big deal after the fragile 78's of a few years earlier.

Oodles Of Doodles CCII

Here's a rather abstract doodle for you from the back side of Red Nichols And His Famous Pennies-Hot Pennies (Capitol T-775). Get it? Nichols, nickle, five pennies... OK, nevermind. Anyhow, I assume this little doodle is supposed to make you think of those famous pennies. (I brought you another doodle from Red a couple of weeks ago that was much more straightforward than this one.) Don't get me wrong, I like the abstract, I really do, it's just so different from what I usually find on the backs of these dusty old records.

Rock! Brother

Here's a great tagline from a great LP. I usually bring you tags from records that are best described as easy-listening, or exotica, or maybe space-age bachelor pad music, but not this time. This is "Rock! Brother", from the cover of The Isley Brothers-Shout! (RCA Victor LPM-2156, 1959). I had no idea that The Isley Brothers ever even recorded for RCA, but here's the proof. (Looks like they weren't there for very long, according to some cursory searching on the web.) There is no doodle on the back, just in case you're curious. I'm sure there are other great tags and doodles both on some of the classic Elvis records from this period, but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to find them at the Goodwill store for $1. Well, maybe, but not very likely.

Cloudscape

Sometimes you have to turn around and look in the wrong direction. This oddly illuminated cloud was opposite the sunrise this morning. The sunrise wasn't too exciting, but I thought this half-lit cloud was pretty neat. As I watched, the light spread out from left to right across the cloud, then the color started to fade away as the sky brightened. Weird...

The Next Week In August

This week I've got a picture from The Happiest Place On Earth! I'm always practicing my shooting at night, when there's no light and it's hard to get a usable picture. I shot this statue for twenty minutes, just hoping that the exposure was right, and it wasn't too blurry. I think I did pretty good. They were illuminating the castle with different color washes that changed about every 30 seconds, so I had that long to get a shot with each color. This blue wasn't my favorite, but I liked the way Walt and Mickey looked in this one best.

Lizard (Not Louie)

I ventured down to Boca Grande this weekend, but the temps were too high to let me spend a lot of time out of doors. At one point I nearly passed out. I kid you not, it was that hot. I did spot more lizards down there than I've ever seen before, but with the high temperatures, they were moving fast from shady spot to shady spot. I caught this guy crossing the road in a hurry. Look close and you'll notice he's missing most of his tail. I guess he got in a fight with some other lizard, maybe about how they were going to kill some frog or something.