The Sounds of Les Baxter Selling Spark Plugs

This is one of my occasional posts devoted to promotional records, usually ones literally singing the praises of some mundane product line. In this one, we get to hear Les Baxter and three vocal quartets intone hymns to spark plugs and oil filters.

The Sounds of Selling was a 1962 effort from the AC plugs and filters people aimed at the good folks who retailed their products. The object was to convince them that AC was putting some advertising muscle behind their wares, the better to drive demand to the retailers' doors.

From AC's 1963 print campaign

Today, of course, you could send the merchants a link to a website where they could watch and listen to the ad spots. Sixty years ago, you sent them a record, which worked well enough for the radio spots. The TV commercials, however, were missing the visuals so required some explanation of what was going on, which was inevitably clumsy.

Cy Harrice

Fortunately, AC - or more accurately, its ad agency - employed the distinctive voice of Cy Harrice as the voice of the product line. Harrice had been a radio announcer and newscaster for many years, becoming best known for his commanding delivery of the final line of the commercials for Pall Mall cigarettes - "And they are mild!" Later on, his voice became just as associated with AC's wares.

On this record, he introduces three TV spots, two for spark plugs and one for oil filters. The latter tries to interest women in the health of their oil filters by mocking stereotypical "female" behavior - gossip, etc. I can't imagine why the agency thought this was a good idea. These TV ads were set to appear on the TV's Laramie, one of the then-popular Westerns.

Also on the LP are three radio spots featuring vocal quartets - the Modernaires, who began in the 1930s; the Sportsmen, who started in the 40s, and the more up-to-date if hardly hip Kirby Stone Four. The nostalgic approach is understandable - adults were buying spark plugs, not kids. The pleasant results all present some variation on AC's "Action Song."

Les Baxter in action

Vocalist-turned-arranger Les Baxter provided the musical background for these spots, or at least he arranged for the arrangements to come into being. He was notorious for not writing the charts ascribed to him, farming them out to others.

The AC spots take up one side of the record. The other is devoted to half of Baxter's latest LP, Voices in Rhythm. By this time, Baxter had abandoned the mood music/exotica realm for an impossibly bland, Ray Conniff-style vocal approach to such fare as "Pennies from Heaven." The results aren't especially good. I did replace the mono tracks found on The Sounds of Selling with stereo versions derived from my copy of the Voices in Rhythm LP.

Bios and photos are on the back of the Sounds of Selling album (below and in the download).

Click to enlarge