Spinning My Dad’s Vinyl

Of course big bands and cars go together. The first car radio was offered by Chevrolet in 1922. As the medium became more popular and more practical for use in a vehicle, it was more than likely large jazz orchestras filling those airwaves. This album is a really good collection of some great star band leaders along with some great versions of big hits. So get ready to hear music that was probably...

For our last stop during World Tour November we head to a region of the world known for its  Beaches and Casinos. To where the rich have played for centuries. Three different country’s musical styles are included on this record; Spain, France, and Italy. In fact, the music you will hear was composed by a prince of the holy Roman Empire. His scores create musical landscapes in your mind.  So, get r...

Next stop on our World Tour November is also a stop back to the 19th century. Back to one of the music centers of the world at the time. Budapest. Home of the Danube River and a beautiful opera house. All of that and more made it a popular tourist stop for that era. And the two composers you will hear from were partly responsible for that popularity as well. So, get ready to hear an important orch...

We continue World Tour November with music about a location I’ve actually been to. It’s on the list as being one of the seven natural wonders of the world.  If you’ve ever visited that big hole in the ground in the southwestern United States, sometimes words escape you. That’s why we have composers like Ferde Grofe who skillfully describes the wonder through the lens of black notes on a white shee...

We begin a month of travel-related music in what I am calling World Tour November. And what better way to begin that month than with a tour of the world all in one album. This episode will serve as the month’s Overture, so to speak. The movie, based on a Jules Verne novel, was an epic screen hit that won eight Academy Awards. Not only was the lead character a trailblazer in the film, but the entir...

Well, here’s a milestone for you. I can’t believe that I have reached 200 shows with no intent of stopping.  While I’ve played over 12 hundred songs on this show over those more than three and a three quarter years, I have several that have stuck in my brain or keep coming up in conversation and memories. They may not be the most popular of the songs I’ve played, the biggest hits or even necessari...

Most of the albums so far in my father’s collection were of popular artists from the US. This record is the first of four my dad had from an orchestra leader who reportedly was from England, featuring a trumpet player, who reportedly has the same name as the guy who writes all the liner notes for the orchestra leader. Meanwhile, there were a number of musicians who really recorded this album. Who...

Here’s an album filled with some of the biggest big band jazz orchestra leaders there ever were. And they’re the songs that each leader was most identified by. It’s also a special promotional copy with a Cleveland area connection, which is probably why it’s in my dad’s collection. Plus it brought back some memories of TV commercial gold. So get ready to hear tunes that introduced the bands that pl...

Back to one of my father’s favorite trumpet players. This time, a little later in his career. It’s as if the years have slightly mellowed his sound, and he blends in more with the band. But there’s almost never any trouble recognizing when this musician is front and center, because he had one of the smoothest sounds around. So, get ready to hear one of the best known and easily recognized trumpet...

Today, the day this episode drops, would have been my mom’s 87th birthday. Earlier today, I dropped ten roses on her gravestone to signify how many of those birthdays we have had without her. I’ve said this before, that my mom’s spirit is within this album collection just as much as my dad’s, and it’s artists like this that I know she enjoyed very much. My parents did get to see him once in concer...

This is truly an interesting find in my dad’s collection. We know by now my dad’s love for the Dixieland style of music. So it’s not surprising I found this record in the stacks. But what was surprising is that this recording was made by seven musicians that had never played together before. You most certainly can’t tell. And they’re not exactly household names.  So, get ready to hear what it must...

I’m not sure why, but the episodes that feature Ray Conniff music have been among the most popular…by far. Maybe because his music is so enjoyable. Maybe because his music is laid back and brings back memories of better times, or what are assumed to be better times. But Conniff’s music had a very unique sound because of how he treated vocals in many of his songs. He used voices as instruments as t...

We slide now quite nicely into the second record of a two album set of popular New York City Jazz musicians taking their music around the U.S. In fact, according to the album back cover, they performed in front of 200 thousand fans during 37 concerts in 25 cities. This is one of those concerts. So get ready to hear the East-West Coast All Stars with music refined at a famed jazz club named after o...

Here is the first of two from Doris my dad had. And it's just some downright pretty music. She's got a soft, delicate voice. I can see why Colonel Potter fell in love with her. But that's a story for later in the episode. A car accident cut her budding dancing career short, but she showed off her voice on radio in Cincinnati and ended up attaining fame in both music and movies. So get ready to hea...

This album is the epitome of extended music. These melodies had been recorded before, but the technology of the 78 RPM kept them limited in length. Once the opportunity to put more music on one disk became available with the new Long Playing technology of the 1950s, most musicians were adding more songs to put  together an album. Not this episode’s featured artist. He kept adding to the songs on t...

Here’s an artist dwelling in my father’s collection we haven’t heard from yet. We’ll be hearing selections from the first of three Billy Vaughn records he had. This record isn't just filled with the pop hits Vaughn would arrange and record for orchestra to be played on those easy listening radio stations. These are standards. In fact, the hit recordings of these songs sold a lot of records. So, ge...

The four letter album title in large yellow font along with the same color silhouette of a pair of hands playing a trumpet over a black background immediately sets the tone for this LP.  It’s familiar music played a little more sparsely than you are used to hearing it. But fear not, there are some great treatments of music you may know on this disk, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did listeni...

Let’s get back to some of the big band and early swing my dad listened to a lot. And this record is a real find because of the two main musicians. One played a brass instrument, one played reeds. One ended up just a little more famous than the other. But they were brothers. And they had their famous beginnings in a band with the family name that recorded in the early to mid-1930s. So get ready to...

Like I’ve mentioned before, my dad liked his cowboy music too. So, we’ll go back to a box set where we’ll pull out the fourth of its seven records. The title of each of these sides is Deep in the Heart of Texas and Western Landscapes, hence the mashup title of this episode.   Four songs from side one were all big hits and reference our second biggest state. The selections from side two are lesser...

We're going to take a little side road along our musical journey for this episode. It's not something I often do, especially in my youth, but I'm going to make a big deal out of my birthday this year, since it actually falls on a day I publish my episodes. 62 is not a milestone. There is no special celebration with my high school classmates, since next year we'll be celebrating at our 45-year reun...

Let’s jump back into one of my favorite box sets from my dad’s collection. We will listen to selections from both sides of the second to last record in this six-disk set. I have often said I would have loved to have been around in the early days of radio. There was such a pioneering spirit in the way to entertain and inform. I know this technology made the world a smaller place. It was also basica...

Almost everybody likes to show off their singing skills whether they have some or not. Karaoke bars have made a killing off that theory for decades. Back in the 1950s and 60s, there were a couple of TV shows that got viewers to sing along with them. Of course Mitch Miller was also all the rage with his albums.  This audience participation album is performed by the first woman in history to reach N...

Let's finish the first half of the year by turning up the speed. Let’s make it a 78 RPM Sunday. What better voice to do that with than one who sold over 100 million records during a six-decade-long career. She topped the Hot 100 FOUR times and had several songs in the top 10 and 20 over the years. In fact, she was the top-charting female vocalist and best-selling female artist of the 1950s. She wa...

My dad had plenty of records featuring large orchestras playing classical music on both 33 ⅓ RPM vinyl LPs and 78 RPM Shellac records. The Reader’s Digest liner notes for this seven record box set starts off…quote…the nineteenth century was just opening in Vienna when the fist of an implacable genius knocked like destiny upon the doors of music. unquote.  They were, of course, talking about the im...

So, Dad…your last fathers day was 2019. You died that December.  In those four and a half years since, you have been dearly missed, thought of often and always toasted at family get-togethers. I still use a lot of your tools. But no…I still don’t know where that sledgehammer went. I have your Willie the trumpet playing Hobo Melody Music maker music box where I can see it every day. I’ve replaced t...