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.

Oodles Of Doodles CCI

The doodle du jour is a pretty rare bird in the sense that I think it may be the first one I've found on the United Artists label. This lovely exotic lady is from the back side of Ferrante & Teicher-Pianos In Paradise (United Artists UAS 6230). The back side of my LP is water damaged, so I had to do a lot of work to restore this picture. I also moved some things around a bit to get everything in the frame and avoid a big chunk of white space. I think you can still enjoy it, though. Just for the sake of reference, I'll include the front and back cover below. You can look at the back to see just how much work I had to do on the doodle, and the front cover so you can see why I bought this LP in the first place. If you're interested in hearing it, you can download it over at Xtabay's World.

Yet Another Week In August

What a luverly bunch of coconuts! OK, so they aren't really coconuts, but they are from a palm tree. The Christmas palm, to be exact. These colorful fruits show up under the bright green palm fronds, making a bright Christmassy combination. Unfortunately, it never seems to happen around Christmas time.

Oodles Of Doodles CC

Yep, you read it right. This is my 200th doodle post. I had no idea I could post this many doodles. Many of these posts have featured more than one doodle, so I've actually thrown up many more than 200 pictures. And in the tradition of putting up more than one, this time I'm sharing two doodles from the same artist I shared for doodle #100. That's right, The Three Suns. (The Three Suns were also a big hit at Christmas time, and I'm sure they will be again this year. Wait and see!) The dancing doodle above is from their Dancing On A Cloud (RCA Victor LSP-2307, 1961). I think the cloud could be a little better on that one, but who am I to complain?

The second doodle is from Twilight Memories (RCA Victor LSP-2120, 1960), re-recordings of many of the Suns' early hits. This one also sported a tagline on the front, "Suns' Greatest". Hope you enjoy this double play.

Oodles Of Doodles CIC

Time to head south for a doodle from Ruth Welcome-Zither South Of The Border (Capitol ST 1397). I don't usually leave the text in the doodles I share here, but I figure that in this case, the lettering is an important part of the picture. You get a little bit of everything in this doodle, a musical instrument (possibly the first time I've gotten a doodle of a zither), a map of Mexico, and a very stylized sun. OK, maybe it's not everything, but it's a lot.

Oodles Of Doodles CXCVIII

From 1959, this is Al Caiola-High Strung (RCA Victor LPM-2031, 1959). I don't know if there is a stereo version of this, since the liner notes mention that the record was actually recorded in 1957, before there was anything like commercial stereo. I've no idea why it sat on the shelf for two years before release. Either way, it gives us a nice doodle for a Saturday evening.

Elektra

I found this inside a copy of Oscar Brand-The Wild Blue Yonder (Elektra EKL-168) a few months ago, and I've been meaning to share it ever since. This is a small tri-fold brochure showing all of the records then currently available from Elektra Records in the winter and spring of 1960. It also shows why I see so few of these records today. The prices seem to be a dollar higher than the other retailers of the day. All of the info I've found from major labels such as RCA Victor and Capitol shows that records were priced around $3.98 for hi-fi (mono) and $4.98 for stereo. Elektra was asking for an extra dollar each, and that was probably a tough sell. Anyhow, you can read the brochure and see the wide variety of artists on Elektra. Remember, this was many years before The Doors, or even the whole rock-n-roll movement.

Oodles Of Doodles CXCVII

How's about a few musical instruments for you today? These hail from the back of Buddy Morrow-Impact (RCA Victor LSP-2042, 1959), a collection of TV theme music I picked up yesterday. I don't always listen to the records I post doodles from, but in this case, I couldn't pass up versions Peter Gunn, Perry Mason, Rawhide, etc. And boy, was I glad I listened. There's some great stuff in these grooves. I guess I should have suspected as much, since there was a tag on the front that said "A Stereo Must".

You know what, this record is so good, I think I'll share it with you. Well, maybe not. Looks like this one is on CD, combined with it's follow-up, Double Impact. Maybe I need to look into that CD... By the way, do you think it's a coincidence that this record includes two themes that were both later covered by The Blues Brothers? Hmmmmmmm......

The Colors, The Colors

While I'm on the subject of colored vinyl, did you know that when RCA first introduced 7" 45 RPM records they were all on colored vinyl? I guess it was to help you find your favorite music, as the different colors specified different types of music. Here's a sample of the blue and the red, with blue meaning show tunes, and the red is classical. I think there was also green for country, orange for something, and I forget the other colors. They are all pretty much impossible to find anymore, especially the really good tunes. I found these today in a couple of boxed sets of records. I need to find a better way to scan them, they look much better than this in real life. The scanner works by reflected light, and these records look best when the light is passing through them.

Oodles Of Doodles CXCVI

They crammed a whole orchestra into this small strip of a doodle, yet still it's not very interesting. This is from the flip of James Verity Conducts The 110 Strings Orchestra-Themes From The Movies Volume 2 (Tops Mayfair Stereo 9642S, 1958), a very budget label. The sleeve is in terrible shape, it literally fell into two parts when I first picked it up, but that helped me to realize that there was a beautifully colored slab of vinyl on the inside. As you can see below, it's bright yellow with some brown mottled down through it. You never know what you're going to find until you look inside the cardboard. The front cover actually features a promo photo of Betty Grable from the movie Three For The Show, which is a little odd. I can't find any connection between any of the tracks on the record and that movie. Oh, well...

A Product Of Am-Par Record Corp

I'd never seen a 7" sleeve from ABC-Paramount until today. The empty sleeve was crammed into a box set of 4 7" records from RCA Victor for whatever reason. There wasn't even a record in the sleeve. I don't know why I liked it, I guess I just wanted it because I'd never seen one before. Now I have one and I'm making you look at it.

Oodles Of Doodles CXCV

I stumbled across a large collection of polka records the other day. I was tempted to buy the whole stack of maybe 50 records, but I resisted the temptation, instead buying only the neat looking ones, or the ones with interesting song titles. That's how I ended up with the great doodle you see above. Look in the background and you'll see a member of he orchestra playing an accordian. I guess that's about the only way to identify this as a polka doodle. This picture comes from Johnny Pecon And His Orchestra-Pecon Polka (Capitol T883). I have very little desire to actually listen to this record, but maybe someday if I get invited to Oktoberfest, I can break it out and play it. Maybe.

Whoops, I forgot to point out the signature. It's there on the bass players left arm. I think it says Robt Limber, which I assume is Robert Limber. Hmmm, there's an illustrator by that name popping up on Google, but only from book sales. Gotta keep hunting.

Oodles Of Doodles CXCIV

Looking almost like a ghostly photograph from the 30's, here's a doodle from the nostalgic look back that is Hal Kemp And His Orchestra-The Great Dance Bands Of The '30s And '40s (RCA Voctor LPM-2041, 1959). There is a pencilled-in note on the back of this LP indicating that the original owner got it from the RCA Record Club for $3.98. I guess they didn't want to pop for a stereo version, which would have been $1 more. Or maybe this one wasn't available in stereo. What I do know is that there was a tagline on the front stating Collector's Series, so let me get that into this post, too.

Mike Douglas-RIP

In honor of the passing of Mike Douglas this week, I offer up this, his first Christmas LP. (I believe there was a second one on the Word label, but I don't have it. Yet...) This is Mike Douglas-My Kind Of Christmas (Epic BN 26322, 1967). I can't tell you anything more about Mike Douglas than what you've already seen on the news tonight. I have very vague memories of watching him when I was young, along with Merv Griffin and Dinah Shore. They were just at the end of their time, and new people like Sally Jesse Raphael and Oprah were on their way in. But I still prefered The Price Is Right. Anyhow, I recorded this LP last Christmas season, but never got around to chopping it into tracks or scanning the cover in. I did all that this evening when I heard of Mike's passing. Many of the songs are pretty bland, and I think that's why I never shared it out last year. The two highlights are the previously unheard by my ears (The Story Of ) The First Christmas Carol and Touch Hands On Christmas Morning. Anyhow, download it and give it a listen in honor of the inventor of afternoon talk.