Playing Santa is always fun this time of year. When you are selling one-of-a-kind items like we are, you need to make sure they get down the destination chimney, and we thank the U.S. Postal Service for doing what they say they will do. At the same time we've been adding new items from interesting collections, and today I'd like to focus on the once ubiquitous 45 rpm single.
In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, it was quite usual to go into a store and buy 2 songs for 99 cents or less-- cheaper than iTunes? (I wouldn't know, we play records, tapes and CDs around here). The kicker was, they had what was called an "A" side and a "B" side. If the promoters had their ducks in a row, the "A" side would have been heard on the radio, getting you to buy it. And the "B" side was just there because it cost not much more to manufacture 2-sided vinyl records than it did to make them one-sided (which they were back around the turn of the 19th-20th century).
If you really wanted your money's worth, you might actually play the "B" side. It might be horrible, or it might be awesome. There was no telling.
There were also 45 rpms that seem destined for radio stations instead of stores. The radio station might think it was a normal record, and they might be encouraged to play it, but there was no intention of pressing mass quantities unless the record hit big on the radio. Today these can be found in various collections and they are called "promos," or "white label promos" or such (many had white labels instead of the consumer-color coded ones).
If you're familiar with the Charles Manson murders, they occurred at the home of Terry Melcher, who started life as Doris Day's son and became a record producer in his own right. We have acquired some white label promos of some of his rarest psychedelic rock issues, by Glad and Grapefruit (not sure what's with the one-word "G" names).
Psychedelic garage rock was all the rage in 1960s and band names reflected the freewheeling spirit: Crome Syrcus and We Ugly Dogs are 2 great ones.
And, behind ordinary names are some very unusual records. What ever became of Don Thomas, who sang what could only be described as a gringo "corrido" imagining what it is like to die slowly in the jungles of Vietnam.
And, for those of you who think "Dazed and Confused" is a Led Zeppelin song, perhaps you haven't heard the original by Jake Holmes.
Moving on to immortal 45 rpm singles that made history and are still treasured 40+ years later: how about an original Volt white label promo of Otis Redding's "Dock of the Bay." Or an original Beatles Yesterday/Act Naturally, one of the most perfect singles of all time, recalling Top 40 radio, a format which could accommodate bland, string-padded pop (Yesterday), and Buck Owens style Bakersfield country (Act Naturally), as long as it was by the Beatles. And conveniently, these tunes were on opposite sides of the original swirl-labeled 45 rpm single. How about a virtually mint copy of Theme from Shaft by Isaac Hayes.
There are many more than I can list here, but let's end with a couple of doozies: can you guess who did the original of Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots?
And, as much as I love the A side by Captain Paul and his Seafaring Band, the B side is actually better: I wanna be a life guard.
Outside the snow is falling and friends are calling "yoo-hoo"

Joel Dorn, the "Masked Announcer," just passed away at the age of 65. His passing is mourned because of his enormous influence on keeping jazz, blues, r&b, and its variants, such as Western Swing, in front of the public long after big music corporations moved on to more lucrative pastures. He was involved with many hit records but I write here to tell only of my one "fly on the wall" experience in the control room with this genius of American music.
The Rhode Island band Roomful of Blues, with Duke Robillard in the lead guitar chair, had turned on legendary songwriter Jerome "Doc" Pomus to Jimmie Vaughan and the Thunderbirds, and thus Pomus was collaborating with Dorn on an interesting and as-yet (as far as I know) unreleased session at Regent Sound Studios in Manhattan.
In the recording studio was the Roomful horn section, collaborating with Vaughan's band in an album that hoped to recreate a classic Texas blues sound augmented by roadhouse horns in the precision style of Roomful. It was late summer 1977 as I recall.
Pomus and Dorn were at the controls, and the bands were in awe, looking for direction. Dorn's patented studio style was to let the musicians do their thing, and these club hardened players did just that.
I had recently met Doc Pomus and his invitation for me to come to the session blew me away. None of these guys had any record company support and everything was coming out of their pockets. Pomus had royalties from his hit songs, and as he described it, "Joel makes a lot of money with Leon Redbone," one of the artists in his production portfolio.
The sessions went fine and were notable mainly for being so untainted with commercial considerations. Time and again, figures such as Joel Dorn and Doc Pomus made music for love and not money. At the same time they refreshed America's musical legacy by making new music with old ideas.
Dorn produced albums as diverse as Bette Midler's The Divine Miss M and Leon Redbone's Double Time. Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Les McCann and Eddie Harris, Asleep At The Wheel, Roberta Flack, and the Neville Brothers all benefited from his touch. All of them "reinvented the wheel" rather than striving for a pinpoint blast at nanoculture. Bette Midler and Leon Redbone are still out there doing it. R.I.P. Joel Dorn.
Another passing of note: Laura Archera Huxley, age 96. Known as mostly as the widow of Aldous Huxley, I highly recommend her book You Are Not The Target if you can find a copy.

Ralph Guldahl never really had a tremendous desire to win. So despite being born within a year of Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead, and being equally talented, he is not a household word in golf circles as the others are.

He joined the PGA Tour in 1932, and nearly won the 1933 U.S. Open. From 1937 to 1939, Guldahl won 3 majors: 2 U.S. Opens ('37 and '38) and the '39 Masters. He won three straight Western Opens (1936-38) at a time when the Western Open was considered by tour players to be a major. In his brief PGA Tour career, Guldahl won 16 tournaments and finished second 19 times.

He quit the Tour in 1942, returning only briefly in 1949. He was not a technician but instead had an unusual swing that really worked for him. He was said to be calm, deliberate, and stoic on the course.

The towering, 6 ' 2" Texan Guldahl focused on his game rather than his showmanship, though many commented on his habit of combing his hair before executing a shot. Ralph simply stated: "it checks my pace and helps me to retain a confident composure."

He wrote the 1937 book "From Tee to Cup: By The Four Masters," bringing in the Masters: "Woods" by Gene Sarazen; "Long Irons" by Denny Shute; "Short Irons" by himself; "Scoring Zone" by Johnny Revolta; and "Putting and Puzzle Shots", with tips from all four.

Having analyzed golf swings in the book, and then never re-entering tournament play again, he caused some fans to speculate a case of "Paralysis by Analysis."

His own explanation is that he was not that much into winning. From 1959 to 1987 is was Director of Golf at Braemar Country Club in Tarzana, California, and his signature sandwich is still on the Guldahl Grill Room menu.

And, for your golf-swing-analyzing friend who has everything, consider a gift of one of the few remaining original 1937 editions of From Tee to Cup, signed by Guldaul himself.

On Sept. 9, 1954, a young rockabilly singer played at the grand opening of a shopping center; he was paid $10 to perform on a flat-bed truck parked in front of the Katz Drug Store. The next day he began a long session of recording at a local studio. He worked for hours on several song covers which were never released.

Finally things fell into place while he and the studio group were covering the 1948 r&b hit "Good Rockin' Tonight." Later that day, or maybe the next day, he recorded a pop tune he had heard in a movie, "I don't care if the sun don't shine."
These two sides became Sun 210, released on Sept. 25, 1954.
That night, Elvis appeared at the Eagle's Nest Club with the Tiny Dixon Band. The single record release, Elvis' second, would not hit big. But artistically, this Sun single represents one of the best performances of Elvis' career.

This is the original Sun 210 single. There's something special about owning it.
As life neatly arranges itself into archives with the help of computers, this unmistakable artifact reminds us of the mechanical and agricultural age when popular music started to rock and roll, as if creating a vulgar secular church.
Condition of the grooves in this Sun rarity is very good, and both sides play through nicely, with all the excitement of early Elvis on wax.
The label has some ring wear but no markings. There's a slight smudge on the author credit of "Good Rockin' Tonight"-- the word "Brown" can be read but not the word "Roy." (Both Roy Brown and Wynonie Harris had previous hits with this song). The artist credit is Elvis Presley Scotty and Bill.
Details suggesting an authentic original are the round punch marks on the label, for juke boxes, which usually distinguish originals. Previous ownership cannot be determined though it seems to have arrived previously undetected in a batch of beat-up old Frankie Avalons, Cadillacs, etc. Trail-off numbers in the deadwax are U-130-45-72. The record is in a plain white sleeve. It is worth well over a thousand dollars.

It's the first snowstorm of the year in Northern New England. Here's the view from the office. And here are some titles from the store with "snow" in them. After that, I write in the style of the New York Times columnist who I find so epigraphic, Verlyn Klingenborg.

merv griffin i never has seen snow

The Angels: Snowflakes and Teardrops

Snowflakes are Dancing by Tomita

Kenny and Corky: Nuttin' for Christmas and Suzy Snowflake

1907 book Delilah of the Snows

Snow White Rock Christmas by the Vibra Corporation


Anyone who can think about snow at the same time that it is snowing is in privileged company, clinging to the whim of weather however precariously.
Will it reach a half a foot high? A foot? More? There's nothing to do but watch or check back later.
Unless you're driving a salt truck or a snow plow. You could do the same thing over again several times today.
Is it going to affect business? Is the power going to be out? Is the furnace on its last legs? Got some wood and a kerosene heater handy? Got some fruitful indoor work to do? Want to go out snowshoeing?
Should I start shoveling snow? Crank up the snowblower? Nothing like a snowblower blowing snow back on you.
Can we still sell something today?
Perhaps, because we have customers where it isn't snowing.

Browsing in the Harlan Wolfe's Music record store in Conway, New Hampshire, I heard a comment from a shopper who walked in and confronted all the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's vinyl records and said, "Too much past all at once."
It was a feeling I often have when looking through vinyl record accumulations to buy. It clouds the mind, this rush of visual and audio references from long ago.
And it was a feeling that came up while listening to a record that arrived in a recently acquired collection. The record label says, "Office of Civil Defense, 'Stars for Defense,' with Vaughn Monroe, Jay Jackson and Ray Bloch and his Orchestra, Program No. 332, Do not play before Feb. 10, 1963."
Since it is well after that date, I did not think I would be prosecuted for playing this record. Typically, a product like this would be supplied to radio station turntables for the weekly 15-minute program in which listeners could learn what a good job the Office of Civil Defense was doing. Much of their task was to make Americans comfortable with buying canned and dry goods, and rotating them in and out of their fallout shelters.
Never heard of a fallout shelter?
That was the homeland security bonanza of the 1950s and 1960s, which we would construct in our suburban cellars and schools, and where we were all supposed to go in the event of an "irrational attack" or "enemy miscalculation." Those are the phrases used on the recording.
There is no mention on the vinyl of who the supposed enemy might be, but the context of the Cold War made it perfectly clear.
And what constituted an "irrational attack," or "enemy miscalculation," was not left to chance. The words "Hiroshima" or "Nagasaki" are not mentioned. But, the general idea of buying canned goods, radiometers, and geiger counters, was to survive in your own, or the community's, fallout shelter, while the holocaust of a nuclear blast played itself out on the erstwhile homeland.
The kernel of our patriotic duty in a time of nuclear tragedy, circa Feb. 10, 1963, was apparently to die slowly, underground, surrounded by empty cans and water jugs.
This is where our well-meaning (I guess) government was leading us on the preparation front.
In this unsteady light-- as I mentioned above, "too much past all at once" can cloud your thinking-- I will quote the lyrics of the song Vaughn Monroe proceeds to warble on this record, in the holiday spirit of the month that begins tomorrow:

"Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful,
and since we've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow.
Oh it doesn't show signs of stopping, and I've got some corn for popping,
and the lights are turned way down low, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
When we finally kiss goodnight, how I hate going out in the storm,
But if you really hold me tight, all the way home I'll be warm.
The fire is slowly dying, and my dear, we're still goodbying,
But as long as you love me so, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow."

Surely no irony was intended. I was also struck by the seeming influence of Vaughn Monroe on
Leon Redbone.

Not that long ago I had the privilege of seeing a performance by Alfred J. Gallodoro at the Sego Cafe in Oneonta, New York. He is a 94-year old saxophone and clarinet virtuoso, once the widely acknowledged master of double- and triple- tonguing, who still sells off the bandstand a CD transcription of his 1951 Columbia album Saxophone Contrasts.
His improvising is pre-bebop-- even pre-jazz, and he has been acknowledged as a master of the instrument by Paquito D'Rivera, Benny Golson, Buddy DeFranco and Eddie Daniels. Jimmy Dorsey called him "the greatest saxophone player that ever lived."
So you say, "I never heard of him." Accomplishments of many woodwind artists in the past half century have virtually wiped his name off the map. And, in reality, as a studio sideman mainstay he virtually assured himself a decent living at the expense of fame.
Yet it causes one to reflect at what price the preservation of tradition sincerely felt. (As opposed to the 'dixieland' style of slogging away ignorantly at a stylized gig).
Bringing to mind a jazz singer I once met, who left her home town of New Orleans, got some lucky breaks, and was soon playing Carnegie Hall and all the great New York jazz rooms.
At first, people readily accepted that she preferred to sing the old standards-- All The Things You Are by Jerome Kern, I love you by Cole Porter, Someone to Watch Over Me, by Gershwin.
After awhile, praise grew less, and faults were found: she doesn't compose her own songs, she sticks to much to the older stuff, depending too much on them.
Still she kept singing You'd be so nice to come home to, Lush Life, You do something to me. Every now then a newer tune perhaps-- What a Wonderful World, One Note Samba, something from a musical or a movie on the hit parade.
The critics and audiences loved her as long as she seemed new. But eventually, in every place where the economic ecosystem worships new ideas, new songs, and fresh faces, her star faded. She knew in her heart that her style would not help her career.
Her gigs became less desirable. Smaller rooms, less pay, noisier audiences. Still, she kept singing the same old songs.
Finally the jazz singer was lucky enough to get a gig playing a show in Las Vegas. It was steady work, six nights a week, to the tinkle of slot machines and the chatter of gamblers. She was considered a musician's musician, and many of her famous friends thought her time would come again. But there was no mistaking the fact that she had fallen far. Once a critic's darling, playing the very best of showcases, considered to be an up-and-coming star. Now, barely a has-been. One of her admirers, a famous musician in his own right, took her aside once and said as gently as he could, "You passed up your chance to be a popular success. You have spent too much time singing the songs made famous by others."
"I know," she replied. "People think I threw away my career, just for the sake of some old songs. It probably seems as though I've spent too much time with too few melodies. Perhaps I should have moved beyond these songs many years ago. But I am perfectly content. These are the songs I sing for one reason and one reason only: so I won't forget them."