Let's say it's a December day 55 years ago, and you're walking past Record Rendezvous on Prospect Avenue in downtown Cleveland. You can't help but notice it - it's a big store and it's blasting Big Mama Thornton's version of Hound Dog at you. Compels attention.
Big Mama is not your style - and you are faintly annoyed by the store itself. After all, it sponsored Alan Freed, and he brought that raucous jive music to the Cleveland airwaves, and now all the kids are listening to it.
Let's go in anyway and see what we can find. Here's one that just came in today, the clerk tells you - Rosemary Clooney and her husband Jose Ferrer. Make a good present. OK, wrap it up - I can afford 79 cents.
The clerk pulls out a green Record Rendezvous bag, puts the 78 into it, adds some cardboard, and throws in some Capitol and RCA promo items. I like the looks of the Tawny promo. Better looking than Ferrer. What does Clooney see in him?
And what in hell does "you ain't nothin' but a hound dog" mean?
Well, that one's Christmas present down anyway.
LINK
[The file includes the Clooney-Ferrer single, scans of the promos - for Capitol's Background Music series, Jackie Gleason's Tawny, and Laugh and Learn children's series, and RCA Victor's newsletter, The Baton, for December 1953.]
12 comments:
Gotta download this even though I have all this stuff. My copy of Tawny is sans cover...Thanks!
By the way - and sorry to ask this - but are you talking about Cleveland, Tennessee, Cleveland, Georgia or Cleveland Ohio?
(grin)
Mel,
Sorry - what's in here are promotional booklets, not the records themselves, except for the Clooney-Ferrer single. No Tawny. I do have that record, though, and can provide.
I loved your description. I can remember the day when at 11 years old I bought the 78 rpm record of Bud Powell's "Dance Of The Infidels".
Thanks, I really would like to have the cover. I can provide the Jackie Gleason music if you want it - the audio quality is not great but the music is gorgeous.
Sorry, I didn't read your post correctly - you already have it!
Jazzman,
Hi, I remember the records I bought when I was a kid better than the records I bought last week. Probably because there were fewer of them!
What a delightful posting. Thank you.
I assume you've probably heard those Capitol mood-music LPs. I have one; listening to it is like being in a 1951 Woolworth's.
Hi Jeff - I am old enough to actually have been in a 1951 Woolworth's, although I would have been a babe-in-arms. Not long after, my record collecting craze began with my mother allowing me to buy remainder 45s from the bin in just such a store. (You see what having an indulgent mother can start?) One of these days I will recreate the record collection I had back then. I hope you like Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.
Thanks again Buster. For the post and your brilliant bit of nostalgic fiction. I'd listen to Rosie Clooney sing anything. And she just kept getting better and better. And it's fun to have the Jackie Gleason promos. I adore those records he put out over so many years
Dear admin, this download link is dead, would you re-upload this soundtrack in MEGA ? Thanks :)
Sorry, I can't find the files for this one.
no problem, but I still welcome you will re-upload, if you suddenly can find it again in future :)
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