a blog for those who never gave up their turntables
DONOVAN CAME ON FAST in 1965 with three Top 10 hits in the UK: “Catch the Wind,” “Colours,” and “The Universal Soldier.” None of these came close to duplicating that success in the US. That didn’t prevent many from labeling him a “Dylan imitator” for both his music and his adoption of working man’s clothing. [Read more] “donovan knows a beach where it never ends”
THE BEATLES AS A GROUP—as a rock & roll-based pop band—are an example of a gestalt, as the abilities and the accomplishments of the group far outstrip what could be expected of the four members knowing their individual skills and talents. This is not belittling their skills, which are many, but as their solo careers made too evident, each on his own wasn’t even close to what he had been as a Beatle. [Read more] “sgt. pepper on blue jay way (beatles ’68 part 1)”
AS NOTED IN A PREVIOUS POST, I have been busy of late. With John Ross and Lew Shiner, I launched Tell It Like It Was, a music publication on Medium. Part of the publication is a list of every record to make it to #1 on the Cash Box Top 100 chart from the beginning of 1960 through the end of 1969. [Read more] “runaway with john and lew to the tell it like it was a-go-go”
MY ATTENTION remains focused on Tell It Like It Was, my new publication on Medium. And Tell It Like It Was remains focused on music—mostly music of the ’60s but we will get into the rock & roll and rhythm & blues before and after that decade eventually. [Read more] “Let’s do the “tell it like it was” all night long!”
MY APOLOGIES for neglecting regular readers of my blogs for the past few months. Fortunately, there is a good reason for this that has nothing to do with those silly rumors circulated by the VRC that I had run off and joined a progressive commune in Vermont left over from those hippie-wannabe days of yore. [Read more] “announcing a new publication on medium, “tell it like it was””
THE TECHNOLOGY TO RECORD SOUND is more than a 160 years old! It has been available since 1857, years before the technology to reproduce that sound was realized. The first recording machines were used for scientific research, primarily to study sound waves. The first viable technology for recording and playing recorded music for home entertainment was Thomas Edison’s Phonograph in 1877. [Read more] “a brief look at the first fifty years of recorded music”
THIS IS PART 4 of the Avid Record Collector’s Price Guide to Wild In The Streets. It addresses in detail the four albums associated with that movie and its music. The first three parts have been published, and with this part I finally get around the a labelography and price guide for the records. [Read more] “the avid collectors’ guide to wild in the streets part 4”
THE KINKS’ ARTHUR album of 1969 was a smashing success with the critics and the few fans that the once popular group still had at the time. It sold better than any Kinks album had in recent memory, but barely graced the best-selling charts. ARTHUR has grown in prestige through the years and now both original pressings and even reissues are sought after by collectors. [Read more] “the kinks’ arthur album and related singles 1969”
MOST INFORMATION on the Internet about gold and platinum records of the Sixties is crap! That is, most of the “information” regarding RIAA Gold and Platinum Records awarded to albums from the ’60s and early ’70s is factually incorrect. This applies to almost every website: the few that aren’t plain incorrect are often unintentionally misleading, and this includes the RIAA’s own website! [Read more] “understanding riaa gold and platinum record awards”
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a blog for those of us who never gave up our turntables
Mystically liberal Virgo enjoys long walks alone in the city at night in the rain with an umbrella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig who strives to live by the maxim, “It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know that just ain’t so.
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a college dropout (twice!). Occupationally, I have been a bartender, jewelry engraver, bouncer, landscape artist, and FEMA crew chief following the Great Flood of ’72 (and that was a job that I should never, ever have left).
I am also the final author of the original O’Sullivan Woodside price guides for record collectors and the original author of the Goldmine price guides for record collectors. As such, I was often referred to as the Price Guide Guru, and—as everyone should know—it behooves one to heed the words of a guru. (Unless, of course, you’re the Beatles.)
