Spinning My Dad’s Vinyl

Happy Valentine's Day! Of course my dad had plenty of romantic music. So that’s why we are able to do this special episode. There was a popular radio format known as Easy Listening. We listened to one of those stations from Cleveland when we were young. And there was one extremely popular orchestra that was the backbone of those radio station playlists. 101 Strings. So, get ready to hear the lush...

Merry Christmas! My dad had a couple dozen records meant just for this time of year. So I HAD to come back for a Christmas Day music show. I talked a lot in yesterday's deep dive into the music of the seasonal favorite, The Nutcracker. So we're going to do a lot of listening in this one…and thinking about Christmas dinner pasts. This four record box set is filled with lots of holiday hits and some...

The Nutcracker: Concert Suite vs. Ballet Welcome back and Merry Christmas Eve. My girlfriend Karen and I partook in a Northcoast Christmas season tradition a week and a half ago for the very first time. And of course, my dad had a record for that.  It’s not a vinyl record, but a shellac album set recorded nearly 100 years ago that probably belonged to my dad’s dad. And it’s filled with music from...

My Dad's Greatest Hits This will be my last regularly scheduled weekly episode. We’ll talk about that as we go along. One of the last songs my dad heard in his hospital bed the day he died and the one we played as we wheeled his casket out of the church was the Frank Sinatra song, My Way. It’s how my dad lived his life. And it’s how I will bring this show to a close. I’ll use paraphrased lyrics fr...

Historic Papal Visit We haven't broken away from music for a while, but what have I told you before? My dad has a record for every occasion. 60 years ago yesterday, on October 4, 1965, Pope Paul VI visited the United States for a 14-hour trip that was entirely contained within New York City. The visit marked the first time a pope had visited the U.S. and included addressing the United Nations, mee...

TJB South of the Border OK…I was having Tijuana Brass withdrawals. While I did play plenty of his music in Volume 222: A TJB Concert Rewind earlier this year, that was a special episode shortly after I saw Herb and the gang in concert. It’s been over a year since I’ve pulled out one of the 11 records my dad had of one of his favorite groups. Since I grew up listening to his music, and have now see...

Ray Conniff Improvisations My father must have really loved the music of Ray Conniff. This is the sixth of eight albums from this arranger and orchestra leader in my dad’s collection. This one has a bit of a twist to it. No. Not the dance. While the title of the album makes it seem like it will be a live album, that is not the nature of the concert here. Several of the songs you hear will be impro...

Real Country and Western Music We are pulling out the 6th record of this seven record set that has really grown on me over the four and a half years of this show. Reader’s Digest has compiled 83 classic country and western songs and arranged them in themes…all completely unabridged, unlike stories we would usually see from that publication. One side of this record features songs from the dusty tra...

Joy from Sammy and Joya Usually I don’t title the episode exactly the same as the album I’m featuring, but this one was just too good not to use. Yes, we will hear the artist I think is the greatest showman who ever lived, but this record is really about Joya. She is not widely known today, despite her significant contributions, because of a combination of historical and social factors that often...

Great Big Band Vocalists Most times when the Longines Symphonette Society put out albums, we had no idea who the musicians were. But sometimes they did give us all the information. And it’s even rarer when they cram an album full of star singers. THIS is one of those albums. These Decca recording artists are still some of the best known. The songs, pure pop gold from the 1930s through 50s. So, get...

Beautiful Hawaiian Music This is episode eleventeen hundred three thousand and forty-three of Spinning My Dad’s Vinyl.  I might as well say anything I want anymore, because according to the liner notes on this album, the featured artist played all 32 instruments and sings like Bing Crosby. While the singer’s voice does bear a remarkable resemblance to der Bingle, I had two Artificial Intelligence...

Peter Gunn TV Music This is the fourth of six Henry Mancini albums we’ve heard from my dad’s collection. This one is a little different, because most of the other records contained tunes that could have been released as singles or were the theme songs of movies. While you’ll hear the theme song of a late 1950s TV detective show, you also get to hear the incidental music from the show. And I came t...

The Ultimate Nashville Stars Here’s a nice little compilation album with some pretty big names on it. The recordings you are about to hear sold millions of copies combined. And they all came from a town at the heart of country music smack dab in the heart of Tennessee. So get ready to hear wall-to-wall solid gold from wall-to-wall talent in Volume 241: Nashville Souvenirs. For more information abo...

The Voice of Louis Armstrong My dad’s favorite trumpet player also was an extremely popular vocalist. I have documented many trumpet players who have also recorded their singing voices during the course of this show. Rarely do they commit to a full record of it. And none were as famous for it. This musician popularized a singing style, while making some of the hottest jazz records in the 1920s and...

Dixieland Veterans My dad loved his Dixieland music. Even when he had no idea who was performing it. This is a perfect album for that mindset, because this budget label doesn’t even get all of the tunes listed correctly on the cover and label, let alone tell us who’s performing on it. And even though the title of this episode leans toward anonymous musicians, today’s technology might have helped....

Maynard Ferguson's Hot Trumpet We now get to feature the second of two albums my dad had of MY favorite trumpet player. In fact, I haven’t seen a rock band more times than I’ve seen Maynard Ferguson and his big band. This musician was known for his energetic charts, youthful big band members, soaring high notes, and most importantly his music education at the high school level. So, let’s crank thi...

Here’s a voice we’ve heard before. It was during a 78 RPM Sunday when we had plenty of her shellac to fill a show. This singer went on to have her own TV show where she sang many of the pop hits from that time. In fact, the tunes that made it on this album were among the most requested from her show. So, get ready to hear an artist known as the Singin' Rage in Volume 237: A TV Page For more inform...

We are going to have a ton of fun with this episode. Well 16 tons. Ah. That was too easy.  This is the only album my dad has of this great singer. But, it’s obviously the most important one from his releases. This artist was really a radio personality at heart, but when producers discovered that deep voice of his, well, the rest is history. So get ready to hear one of the truly great voices of pop...

We’ve already come close to proving that the named orchestra leader on this album probably doesn’t exist. I discussed that mystery in Volume 199: Tea and Trumpets. But the man who wrote all of the tunes on this album most certainly existed. He wrote the scores for more than 30 stage and film musicals. Many of those songs have been performed and recorded by some of the most famous artists in histor...

What? Yet another trumpet player in my dad’s collection I haven’t introduced you to yet? But of course. Clyde McCoy is not nearly as well known as the myriad of other horn players I’ve shown off, but he recorded a lot of music from 1917 through 1985. His 1931 version of a song written nine years earlier set off a mini craze within jazz and set his career on fire. So get ready to hear a trumpet pla...

Well, it’s Fathers Day. For me, that means another trip to the cemetery rather than a trip to visit my dad for dinner. I’m not looking for sympathy. That’s just the way it is. I mean. That’s life! And this episode’s featured artist certainly saw his share of ups and downs during his incredibly influential and talented life. He was also my dad’s favorite singer. This is the last of five of his solo...

Time to take a road trip around this great country we call the US of A. And who better to be our tour guide than the incredible Ray Charles.  He had over 1,700 listings in discogs, the website I use to catalog my vinyl collections. And it’s not easy to catalog just what genre this genius belongs to. Well, he belongs to them all: pop, blues, jazz, gospel, country, and rock. So get ready to hear a g...

When I featured this artist the first time on this show, he was still with us.  Unfortunately, Harry Belafonte passed away just a few weeks later.  This is the second record we will hear of the two my dad had from this singer. This was Harry’s second LP in his illustrious career. While his first did hit number three on the Billboard charts. This was his first of two number one albums. So, get read...

We now pull out the final disk of this six record box set filled with memories of radio days past. Back in the days before television when you had to imagine what was being described. To the days of live happenings. Expected and extremely unexpected. This last LP features many news recordings that were captured as they happened from 1920 through the early 1940s. So get ready to hear history as it...

It’s a 78 RPM Sunday. These episodes should probably more appropriately be labelled spinning my dad’s dad’s shellac.  In the old days of records coming on 10” disks with one song per side, it made collections rather large. So in order to organize them, record stores would sell large books that you can put several records in. The same you would do with photos. They came with a generic front cover a...