Month: February 2024

For the last several Decembers, I’ve brought you strange holiday records as part of my “Have A Strange Christmas” series. I thought I’d use Valentine’s Day as an excuse to take a similar look at some unusual vintage romantic records.

1. Love Is A Drag (Lace Records: MLA200; Mono; 1962)

I love strange vintage albums, and I love them even more if they’re wrapped in mystery. This album, self-described as “for adult listeners only”, is of a male crooner singing love songs to another man. Yes, you read correctly. Perhaps it wouldn’t be quite so scandalous if it just came out (so to speak), but Love Is A Drag was released more than sixty years ago!

Love Is A Drag wasn’t a comedy or novelty album. Top session musicians were brought in and a professional singer was recruited. The songs, including The Man I Love, Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man, Bewitched, and He’s Funny That Way, were sung with sincerity, not in a campy style. This was a serious jazz record.

The mystery I illuded to is that the male singer remained anonymous for decades, for good reason since it was recorded in 1962 when this kind of content wasn’t generally accepted. The album only stated that the singer was “a most unusual vocalist”. Neither of the men pictured on the cover was the singer. I guess it was the 1960s version of The Masked Singer. The album’s liner notes said of the singer, “…he has broken the barrier which has confronted so many other great singers who, for lack of courage, have not attempted.”

Regarding the album’s title, which was printed in pink letters, the liner notes clarify that the word “Drag” in Love Is A Drag, meant a bore or a headache and was not a reference to a drag queen. Based on the cover photo, I would’ve thought it had to do with taking a drag on a cigarette.

Thanks to an LGBT music historian, J.D. Doyle, the mysterious singer was revealed 50 years later as none other than big band vocalist Gene Howard. Howard was part of Gene Krupa and later, Stan Kenton’s bands and sang with Anita O’Day and June Christie. He was 42 when he recorded Love Is A Drag, was married with two children, and was very much heterosexual. Just sayin’.

Besides being a talented singer, Howard was also a professional photographer and co-founded a studio with his friend, Murray Garrett. I mention this because the back of the album includes a very small credit, “Garrett/Howard, Inc.”, for the artwork. Yes, the undisclosed singer had his last name on the back of the jacket and was at least partly responsible for the photograph on the front.

Edison International Records was behind Love Is A Drag, but the label didn’t want to be associated with a “gay record”, so Lace Records was invented just for this release. By the way, I wouldn’t recommend trying to hunt down the original Lace LP. It will set you back $70 and higher.

Over time, Love Is A Drag developed its own cult following. As the story goes, Frank Sinatra, Liberace, Bob Hope, and Shirley MacLaine were all closeted fans of the album. If you’d like a festive and flamboyant Valentine’s Day, check out Love Is A Drag.

2. Music To Massage Your Mate By (ALA Records: ALA-4002; Stereo; 1976)

If you think this album cover looks like something out of the 1970s, you’re right. It was released in 1976. It’s an all-instrumental album and all six song titles end in “of Love”, such as The Sounds of Love and Doorways of Love.

Music To Massage Your Mate By came with an 8-page “explicitly illustrated instruction booklet” with black & white photos. According to the liner notes, the booklet “is a vehicle for your enjoyment and of course the enjoyment of your partners.” Note the word “partners” is plural. Keep in mind, this is 1976. Some jughead wrote “I guarantee it!!” on my copy of the booklet. I guess he was giving it as a gift and was trying to be funny.

The liner notes continue: All you need do is “go to that particular room in your home- one that is quite comfortable, with low light- and play the album, following the steps in the booklet…and you’re on your way.” On my way to where? Maybe I shouldn’t ask.

The front cover of the album looks like a still from a 70s low budget porn film. The woman looks as uninterested as humanly possible. Her “partner” looks like a cheesy Burt Reynolds stand-in. I wish the price sticker on my copy covered his face. Perhaps the jazzy music on the record will put the two of them in the mood so they can be “on their way”.

Believe it or not, another label called Laff Records licensed the music from ALA Records and released it on their own label also with the booklet. The only difference is the Laff label doesn’t show the 6 song titles, only “Continuous Uninterrupted Music for Massage.” Perhaps it was going to cost too much to print out all the songs on the label.

Apparently, this strange album has its own fan club. One enterprising person is selling t-shirts featuring the album cover on eBay for $30. Why not surprise your mate on Valentine’s Day by playing this record and wearing this shirt? Then you’ll be “on your way”…probably out the door.

Before I go to my final strange Valentine record, I must mention one other ALA Record called Music to Strip For Your Man By from 1973. If the red headed woman on the cover looks familiar to you, it’s because she’s the same woman on ALA’s Massage cover, but in better condition. What a difference 3 years can make. The record identifies her as “professional stripper Honey West”. Incidentally, the cover photograph was taken by Robert Wotherspoon who also took the photo on the Massage album cover of Honey and the Burt Reynolds reject.

This album also came with its own black and white illustrated booklet…16 pages of stripper instructions and revealing demonstrations by Honey West. Apparently, booklets inside records were a thing.

Like the songs on the Massage record, the music on Music To Strip was also jazzy, but with better song titles reflecting 1973 lingo like Funkie Mama, High Times, Strut Your Stuff, Funk Town, and my personal favorite, Theme For A Dirty Ol’ Man.

The liner notes on the back cover are classic 1973: “This package now lets you join the trend toward “THE NOW” way of sensual living…as you bump and grind, he’ll lose his mind…take it off for him…that ain’t no sin.” Not exactly Ernest Hemmingway.

Unlike the Massage album that followed 3 years later, we know what band performed on Music To Strip For Your Man By…it was Teddy Phillips and His Orchestra. Phillips was regionally popular in late 1940s/early 50s Chicago, playing frequently at the Aragon, Trianon, and Willowbrook Ballrooms. In 1956, WGN-TV aired his performances on The Teddy Phillips Show. Perhaps the big band business slowed down in the 1970s to the extent that Ted was forced to resort to recording stripper albums. Whatever it takes to put food on the table.

3. Sonny Lester & His Orchestra ‎– Ann Corio Presents How To Strip For Your Husband (Roulette Records, R 25186; Mono; 1962)

Composer, conductor, and producer Sonny Lester came up with the concept for this 1962 album after being introduced to Ann Corio, a popular East coast stripper during that time and star of the Broadway show, This Was Burlesque. The album’s liner notes described Lester’s music as “brassy and bouncy”, and the record probably appealed to similarly described females. The notes go on to say the record offered women the opportunity to become “in the privacy of your own fancy, and perhaps the enjoyment of your spouse, an ecdysiast” (i.e. a stripper).

Perhaps a sign of the times, unlike the 2 previous records from the 1970s which stated “Mate” and “Man” in their titles, this 1962 album title narrows it down to “husbands” specifically.

Some of the original songs include Seduction of The Virgin Princess, Bumps & Grinds, and Lonely Little G-String. The entire album was supposedly recorded in a single session. Oddly enough,a cover of The Stripper, a song that reached #1 the year before,wasn’t included.

Included with the record was- you guessed it- a black and white “special instruction” booklet featuring “America’s most famous strip teaser”, Ann Corio. It detailed stripper tips and was an indispensable guide to making your marriage merrier.

According to spageagepop.com, the album’s sales accelerated after Corio herself was a guest on The Jack Paar Show and promoted the record. A woman shoplifted a copy of the album from a Macys which made headlines, resulting in more sales. In fact, How To Strip For Your Husband sold so well, it was followed up with More How To Strip For Your Husband Vol. 2.

The first volume was later packaged as a box set with another Lester record, How To Belly Dance For Your Husband, which…wait for it…came with its own instruction booklet featuring belly dancer “Little Egypt”.In 1968, the first volume was re-issued again on vinyl and 8-track tape with completely different cover art but included a reprinting of the original booklet. In 2010, both volumes were re-issued on a single CD with the stripper instructions incorporated into the CD booklet. It was re-issued in France in a special edition box as part of a “cheesecake collection”. How To Strip For Your Husband was the stripper album that just wouldn’t die. The real question is- how many men actually “benefited” from it?

I hope my article brought a smile to your face and you have a strange but romantic Valentine’s Day. If you’d like some suggestions for Internet radio stations to play on Valentine’s Day, head on over to my Patreon page. Thanks to my Patreon members for helping to make this website blog possible. You won’t find articles like this anywhere else.

Trivia (from massagestudiospa.com): “The beginnings of ancient massage practice can be traced back to around 3000 BCE in India…The touch therapy used centuries ago in India is one of the earliest findings of a practice similar to the massage therapy we know today.” 

Trivia (from wearemarlow.com): Stripping for cash began in “18th century Europe, when gentleman’s clubs, Burlesque clubs, private banquets and other secret sex clubs transformed the political economy of stripping. This was essentially the era that would catalyze the market for stripping/exotic dancing as we know it today.”

You won’t find articles like this anywhere else. Help support my website blog by becoming a Patreon member today for as little as $1. Thanks to my Patreon supporters for helping to make this blog possible.

The purpose of my Album Spotlight is to bring lesser-known albums to your attention that feature enjoyable music and interesting backstories.

I’m willing to bet you’ve never heard of Hangin’ Up My Heart, but you surely know the artist…award winning actress Sissy Spacek (not to be confused with the band of the same name). I imagine most of you reading this know Spacek best from Coal Miner’s Daughter for which she won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. As a horror film buff, my first exposure to Spacek was in the 1976 film Carrie, which ranks right up there with some of the greatest horror films ever made.

Truth be known, I fell in love with her (not her character) in that movie. Although she portrayed a high school student, in reality, Spacek was 25 years old at the time. I thought she was uncommonly beautiful, except toward the end when she was caked in blood. Even in the ho-hum (compared to today’s standards) photo on the front cover of her album, her natural beauty is undeniable.

Have Guitar, Will Travel

Mary Elizabeth Spacek was born on Christmas Day in 1949 in Quitman, Texas. At age 17 she moved to New York with her acoustic guitar, intent on pursuing a career in music. She played various clubs in Greenwich Village and landed a role as an extra in an Andy Warhol film. The music path didn’t pan out so she took up acting with some assistance from her famous cousin, actor Rip Torn. She enrolled in the famous Lee Strasberg Theatrical Institute. A year later her oldest brother, Robbie, died at age 18 from leukemia. Fast forward to 1974 when she married Jack Fisk who she met on the set of her second movie, Badlands. They remain married to this day, making theirs one of the longest lasting marriages in Hollywood. They have two grown daughters, one of whom is also an actress.

Movies Killed the Radio Star

As I mentioned, Spacek originally wanted to be a music star not a movie star. In 1968, at the age of 19, under the name “Rainbo”, Spacek released a single for Roulette Records called John, You Went Too Far This Time. The “John” in the title referred to none other than John Lennon. In the song, which sounds deliberately Beatle-esque, Spacek laments Lennon’s infamous Two Virgins album cover which pictured him completely naked with Yoko Ono:

Now I gaze in awe before that picture
My mind retires to the place it was before you came
I love the things you showed me up ’til now, John
But since that picture, I don’t think my love will be the same

Interestingly, there’s no trace of Spacek’s Texas accent in the song. Side B featured C’Mon, Teach Me to Live, co-written by Spacek. Needless to say, the single failed to chart. She passed an auditioned for Decca Records but they felt she sounded too much like an artist they already had on their label…Loretta Lynn.

It’s funny how things sometimes circle back around. It was Lynn who personally selected Spacek for the starring role in Coal Miner’s Daughter in 1980. Spacek sang nine songs herself rather than lip synch to a professional singer (Loretta Lynn in this case) as is the Hollywood tradition. The original soundtrack album shot to #2 on the Billboard Country chart and earned Spacek a Grammy nomination.

#17 At 34

Just a few years later in 1983, at the age of 34, perhaps encouraged by her success with the Coal Miner’s Daughter soundtrack, Spacek went back into the recording studio for Hangin’ Up My Heart (Atlantic 79 01001). With a little help from her friends Vince Gill and Rosanne Cash, producer Rodney Crowell, and Loretta Lynn co-writing one of the songs with Spacek, it’s surprising the record only reached number seventeen on Billboard’s Country chart. The ten-track album produced three singles, with Lonely but Only for You peaking at number fifteen. 

Singing Stars

Movie and television stars who aren’t professional singers but release their own albums don’t always produce good results. William Shater, David Hasselhoff, Joe Pesci, and Steven Seagal come to mind.  In Spacek’s case, reviews on Amazon of Hangin’ are mostly favorable, averaging 4.4 out of 5 stars, with 79% of the reviews being 4 stars and above. Typical comments include, “The only sad thing about this is that there isn’t enough. I want more. I can’t believe there weren’t some additional tracks that were part of the recording sessions that could have been added to the CD release”, and, “It is so wonderful that this album of genuine quality has been re-released so that it can be enjoyed by many music fans…”

Read Me A Story

Spacek has been on CD before besides Coalminer’s Daughter and Hangin’ Up My Heart, but not musically. She narrated her own autobiography, My Extraordinary Life, she read To Kill A Mockingbird (on 11 CDs!), and, appropriately enough, she narrated Loretta Lynn’s autobiography, Coalminer’s Daughter, and Steven King’s Carrie.

Frankly, I’ve never been much of a country music fan. I didn’t feel so bad about that after I read that Spacek said when she was young, neither was she. But Hangin’ isn’t your traditional country music record. It has a distinct contemporary country-pop flair with some rock elements. Not to the point of being over the top, but this isn’t your grandpappy’s country music.

Old Home Town

My personal favorite is a good example. From the very first notes it’s obvious He Don’t Know Me, penned by Spacek, is more pop than country. Had it been me, I would’ve named the album after it. The title track is fine, but He Don’t Know Me is stronger. Lonley But Only for You, one of the tracks released as a single, is a lovely country love song and is another stand out. If You Could Only See Me Now is musical payback for a former lover and you can almost picture Spacek smiling as she sings it.

Not all of the songs on Hangin’ are originals. Spacek covers Hank Williams’ Hony Tonkin’ and David Pomeranz’s sweet Old Home Town. Glen Campbell covered the song the year before, but in Spacek’s version, she sings like an angel in cowboy boots with a southern accent:

I wanta’ hold you, love you forever
I wanta’ kiss you up and down
Oh, you’re so sweet to come home to
You’re just like an old home town

I don’t know if it’s the way the CD was mixed or if the master tape is like this as well (I don’t have the vinyl record to compare against the CD which came out 25 years after the record), but I felt the drums sounded subdued. Perhaps that’s the way country music was expected to be recorded in the early 1980s, but had I been the engineer at the mixing console, I would’ve given the drums more punch and made them leap off the speakers.

I don’t know if it’s the way the CD was mixed or if the master tape is like this as well (I don’t have the vinyl record to compare against the CD which came out 25 years after the record), but I felt the drums sounded subdued. Perhaps that’s the way country music was expected to be recorded in the early 1980s, but had I been the engineer at the mixing console, I would’ve given the drums more punch and made them leap off the speakers.

Sabu Who?

The only other criticism I have is that the CD times out at a stingy 30 minutes, making Hangin’ Up My Heart seem like it’s over before it started. Like one Amazon reviewer commented, it would’ve been nice if they had tacked on a few outtakes, different mixes, or rare tracks like Spacek’s cover of John Prine’s Sabu Visits the Twin Cities Alone, which was the B side of Lonely But Only for You, but wasn’t included on the LP. Oddly, the picture sleeve for the single lists an incorrect song on the B side.

“I thought she was exceptionally beautiful, except toward the end when she was caked in blood.”

With my expectations set extremely low and fingers and toes crossed, four months ago I wrote Mrs. Spacek at her farm in Virginia complementing her on her record and asking her to sign a photo I included along with a postage paid return envelope. Disappointingly, she met my expectations and I never received any response. I hope she at least re-used my envelope so the postage didn’t go to waste.

Hangin’ Up Your Wallet

If you’d like to add the Hangin’ Up My Heart to your own music collection, you’ll have to hang up your wallet after you empty it. The CD, issued by Collectors’ Choice Music (CCM-955) in 2008, starts at around $80 and goes up to $250! I got my near mint copy for a much more reasonable price from a seller in Italy of all places. You’ll be relieved to know you can buy the used cassette tape and vinyl record in nice condition starting at about six bucks on eBay. If you don’t care about physical media, Amazon sells the complete MP3 digital album for under $10.

One And Done

I guess after Hangin’, Spacek thought it was time to hang up the microphone because she never recorded another album after that. That means once you own Hangin’, you’ve completed the entire Spacek collection. That said, in the letter I sent Ms. Spacek, I encouraged her to consider releasing a follow-up album. She turned 74 on Christmas day, but I’ll bet her singing voice is better than ever. And yes, at 74, she’s still a beauty.

Hangin’ quietly and humbly celebrated its 40^th Anniversary last year. It holds up exceptionally well four decades later and continues to satisfy. Like her photo on the front cover, the music has an unpretentious beauty about it. In the movie Carrie, Spacek as Carrie White tells her mother, “If I concentrate hard enough, I can make things move.” If you give her the chance, she’ll move you with Hangin’ Up My Heart.

Trivia (from imdb.com/name/nm0000651/trivia/?ref_=nm_dyk_trv):

Sissy Spacek is the 22nd great granddaughter of King Edward I.

Directors George Lucas and Brian De Palma were holding joint auditions for “Star Wars” and “Carrie”. Carrie Fisher auditioned for Carrie White and Sissy Spacek auditioned for Princess Leia. They wound up getting each other’s roles.

Thank you to my generous Patreon supporters who help make this website blog possible. You won’t find articles like this anywhere else. Help support my blog by becoming a Patreon member today for as little as $1.