Category: Music Page 1 of 2

Album: Truth

Artist: Truth

Record label: People Records: PLP-5002

Year released: 1970

Number of tracks: 12

Genre: Psychedelic Rock & Folk

The purpose of my Album Spotlights is to bring lesser-known albums to your attention, often vintage albums, with backstories you’ll find compelling and music you’ll find enjoyable.

Let me take you back to 1970. Gas cost 0.36 cents per gallon. The average cost of a home was $23,450. The hourly minimum wage was $2.10/hr. A McDonalds hamburger cost less than 20 cents. Some of the top shows on television included Hawaii Five-0, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, The Partridge Family, The Flip Wilson Show, Mary Tyler Moore, and The Wonderful World of Disney. Four students were killed at Kent State University. The Vietnam War entered its 15^th year. Apollo 13 returned safely to earth days after an oxygen tank explosion. The Beatles broke up. Star Wars was released. The first Earth Day was held in the US. And Truth was released.

Truth wasn’t a novel or a movie. It was the debut album by hippy musicians recorded under the same name. Recorded in 1969 and released in 1970, Truth’s members consisted of Micheal DeGreve on guitar and vocals, and Bob Doran and Janice Kerr on vocals (strangely, none of them were identified on the record’s jacket). DeGreve was close friends with Doran and Kerr who were married. The three were backed by select members of The Wrecking Crew, a well-respected group of Los Angeles session players who performed anonymously on hit songs by The Beach Boys, The Monkees, The Byrds, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Sony & Cher, Simon and Garfunkel, The Mamas and the Papas, and producer Phil Spector. As if that weren’t enough, Truth was produced by three former Motown execs.

Despite all of the enormous talent behind it, the album got little traction. Doran and Kerr split up which effectively killed the group, thus making Truth a one and done release for the promising young trio.

In all fairness to Truth, it had some pretty stiff competition on the record store shelves in 1970. You might recognize some of the other albums that were released that year: George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water, Paul McCartney’s McCartney, The Doors’ Morrison Hotel, Woodstock, John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band, Van Morrison’s Moon Dance, Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys, The Beatles’ Let It Be, The Velvet Underground’s Loaded, and Badfinger’s No Dice, just to name a few.

The fact that Truth was released on a small, unknown record label called People Records (not to be confused with James Brown’s People Records from 1971) didn’t help. The newly established label apparently did little to promote the record. People Records’ complete “catalog” included only one other album…Kim Weston’s Big Brass Four Poster, also released in 1970. It’s got some great music, but like Truth, it didn’t make any serious impact. To add insult to injury, various bios of Weston don’t even mention the album. Weston’s husband, William “Mickey” Stevenson, was People Records’ founder and producer. It’s nice to have friends in high places. That aside, People Records disappeared about as quickly and quietly as its only two album titles.

After being out of print for 54 years, Truth was reissued for the first-time last month by Sundazed Records. With song titles like “Far Out”, “Let It Out, Let It In”, “Contributin’”, and a wild song about Lizzie Bordon simply called “Lizzie”, you know you’re listening to something from a different era. Sundazed describes the music on Truth as “sitar head-swirlers, sunny, melodic harmonies and a country folk influence…” I would call it a great trip without the drugs.

Truth be told, Truth was actually issued on CD for the first time back in 2012 by Relics Records, though it was an “unofficial” release. That’s code for saying it was a bootleg. I don’t own a copy of it but I’ve read reviews complaining about the sound quality. So much for Relic’s motto, “Cuts for Connoisseurs”.

Like his personality, DeGreve has a gentle voice, reminiscent of John Denver’s. But paired with Doran and Kerr, the trio sound more than a little like The Mamas and the Papas with some extra spunk. They may have been hippies, but they could harmonize like crazy.

“I would call it a great trip without the drugs.”

I tracked down Truth’s vocalist and lead guitarist, Michael DeGreve, and in a lengthy phone interview, I asked him to reflect on this gem of a 1970 musical time capsule along with some of his other memories.

Peter: Were you the guy who was holding on to the Truth tapes?

Michael: “Mickey Stevenson [Truth’s producer] had them and I don’t think they exist. Mickey Stevenson was the head of A&R at Motown. He put The Funk Brothers together at Motown, he wrote songs like ‘Dancin’ in the Streets’, produced Martha and the Vandellas. I mean, I was 19 years old and I knew who Mickey was…I think [the tapes] are gone. I connected with Mickey but he was so crazy busy. He just gave me a thumb’s-up, go for it, I don’t have them. God bless him. But Jay Millar [the GM] at Sundazed [Records] took a virgin copy of the album and did all that work. It’s never sounded any better. It had never been [officially] on CD before. I had a couple of extra pictures that are on the inside cover of the CD.”

Peter: Where did the name “Truth” come from?

Michael: “I think it came from Mickey…my best memory. I wasn’t really supposed to be a part of this, though.”

Peter: You kind of came into Truth by accident. Bob Doran, one of the vocalists, asked you to come along and play guitar for the audition and Mickey insisted you be a part of the group.

Michael: “Exactly right. Exactly right. Bob and Janice, my neighbors (laughs), it’s so funny, I had only been playing guitar a couple of years. I was really a basketball player. I had scholarships everywhere…I worked at the LA Times. So anyway, they said, ‘We’ve got this interview with Mickey Stevenson.’ I said ‘really?’ They said, ‘Would you play for us?’ I went, ‘Yeah!’ So, I went over to Mickey’s office and blah, blah, blah, and he said, ‘Well, you’re a part of this, right?’ I said, ‘Mickey, no, man, I’m waiting for my friend. We’re going to do more of a rock ‘n’ roll thing.’ He said, ‘We’re going to use some of The Wrecking Crew, but will you put you band together and do all your guitar parts?’ I said, ‘Yeah, of course.’ We got to the end of the first vocals and I could see him talking through the glass. Janice had said, ‘Hey, Michael’s got a part on this.’ “I was living with [Bob and Janice]. We had been, you know, 3 hippies up in the hills rehearsing all those harmonies. Mickey said, ‘Well, get out there and do it.’ Which is what you did at Motown. So, I did it. I could see him talking through the glass and Mickey said, ‘Get in here’, and I got this 10-minute thing- ‘you gotta be a part of this and whatever you do next is whatever you do next, but please be a part of this.’ You know, this is Mickey Stevenson for God’s sake. I said, ‘Of course, alright, I’ll definitely do it.’ Peter, I’m 19 years old and Tina Turner played with my hair in the studio one night. I met everybody at Motown through Mickey. I wish I would’ve been old enough musically to walk through some of the doors Mickey was trying to open, but it was an amazing influence in my life.”

Peter: John Latini played bass on Truth, but besides him, the three of you, and some unspecified members of The Wrecking Crew, I don’t believe the record identifies anybody else. Do recall any other names?

Michael: “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. My best friend, ‘The Bear’,David [Smith], plays acoustic guitar on [‘Being Farmed’]. I think Jimmy Curtis, my drummer that was in The Lid, my first band, was on it, and of course, I played a lot of the guitars.

“And then the other half of the album was…I was too young to even appreciate it. Trust me when I tell you, I did not know who The Wrecking Crew was. I mean, I should’ve. I just knew Mickey brought all these guys in. One time, one of the guys, I don’t know if he was actually a member of The Wrecking Crew, Jerry Sheff, a bass player, did one of the tracks. Now, I know all their names and got introduced to a bunch of them. There’s a song of mine called ‘Thoughts’…Ben Benay, he plays that sitar part on my song ‘Thoughts’. So, it’s really a mixture, you know. Mickey, he put The Funk Brothers together, the band that did all the Motown hits, Mickey put that band together. He and Clarence Paul and those guys would run the sessions and I put the sessions together that we did. It’s an amalgamation…I haven’t listened to it in years…But I’m just so thankful [the reissue] happened…

“I just sent a long Facebook thing to Gabe and Andy, Bob and Janice’s two boys who were born right at that time…but when all this [publicity] first happened, I left out a lot of that, so I did a kind of Mea Culpa, and said, ‘You know, I didn’t mention Bob and Janice and told some of our story about we lived together, all that stuff. It was great.’”

Peter: You mentioned all of the incredible talent behind Truth including yourself and Mickey. So, you must have been surprised when the album got out there and sort of disappeared?

Michael: “I was. I was. Especially because it was Mickey. I don’t know if it was that just people didn’t exactly know what to make of it or what. Mickey and I were really close in the studio. We did some social things. He opened the door, like me meeting some of the people that were my legends…Stevie Wonder, I mean, God, I didn’t know him, I just got to meet him. It was a label [Mickey] just put together. Other than Kim Weston, his lady, we were the only other thing on it. So, I never really understood what the business thing was. I know people have gotten a hold of me over the years in places in Europe and things saying they had it and they loved it. I think it was called in those days, Peter, rack jobbing, or something. Whatever they didn’t sell they went out, you know, you’d see [records] in grocery stores in those days or whatever. Somehow, he did that. Yeah, I think I was a little disappointed about that time.” 

Peter: Since Truth wasn’t exactly a huge hit, did you ever see any royalty checks?

Michael: “Never received any royalties! Bummer!”

Peter: Is there any standout memory you have from Truth’s recording sessions?

Michael: “Lots of them. I guess the first one, of course, the one I told you about, Mickey actually wanting me to do it. Right when we were doing it, I had a fire. I was living up on Sunset and there was a fire in the middle of the early morning. The firemen broke down the door and got me out of there alive. I had nothing in the world except one pair of pants that were too short…my guitars were burned, and Mickey took me shopping to get a beautifully built 12-string.

“My memories are, we used to record in the evenings. That’s how that Tina Turner story happened. One night we got there and Mickey said, ‘Michael, I’m so sorry, can we do this tomorrow night? I promised Ike and Tina [Turner] could do vocals.’ And I [said], ‘Yeah, can we stay?’ (laughs)

“My memories are of my very first lead guitar solo ever, is the last thing on the album. Ah, pretty primitive. I go, ‘Oh, man, I hope my real lead guitar player, Bob, doesn’t hear this’ (laughs).

“What it was for me, it was being around, if my memory serves, I know he was in the studio with us, Johnny Nash, the guy that wrote ‘I Can See Clearly Now’ and having a real cool conversation with Johnny about, he was also a vegetarian, which I’d just recently become in ’68, and I think he sang back-up a little bit.

“Everybody came in and did stuff. Mickey’s on ‘Anybody Here Know How to Pray’ and a couple of other things. What was fun for me and what I remember about the most was the collaborative experience of all of us when we rehearsed, and did the album, and wrote all the harmony parts, and being in the studio in that environment with Mickey Stevenson and Jim Saunders and the great engineers. It was just an amazing experience. Lots of memories doing the sessions. I can look back and remember looking through the glass and being in the room and watching the guys from The Wrecking Crew go, see my friend John Latini. I still keep in touch with John, not in a few years, but I used to. He’s on that Bob Smith Visit album along with Jimmy Curtis, my drummer for years who I’m still in touch with…”

Peter: So, do you have a favorite track from Truth?

Michael: “Yeah, I have two. It’s the one Mickey loved the most. It’s the first one on the album. One of my very first records, a little bit of my Justin Hayward/Moody Blues influence, called ‘Have you Forgotten’. I also love the song ‘Let It Out, Let It In’. I thought that was just really well done. The harmonies are beautiful. But you know, I’m liking it more now, Peter.

“I quit listening to it. Life just got busy. Susan and I met and that part of my life started. Then I went out and did a two-year gig in Milwaukee, then went back. My agent called me and said, “What do you think about Cheyanne?” And I said, “I don’t. Where is it?” I went out there for two weeks and stayed 6 nights a week, 11 shows per week, on a handshake, for 30 years.”

Peter: Well, I love “Far Out” because I think it’s so emblematic of the time, but I also love the harmonies.

Michael: “You know, that’s what was fun about it, the three of us sitting around with a glass of wine and a joint, working out those three-part harmonies. That’s one of Bob’s songs, and of course, it was the hippie expression, ‘Hey, man, far out!’ (laughs). Bob wrote it. Cool! (laughs) I love that you love that one. I’m going to send Bob some spiritual vibes wherever he is in the cosmos. It would just make him smile so much.”

Peter: And what was the deal with “Lizzie”? A song about Lizzie Bordon!

Michael: “When you find that out, tell me” (Peter laughs).

Peter: You all kind of crack up or go a bit bonkers towards the end of that song, so it sounded like you had some fun doing it anyway.

Michael: “I think so.”

Peter: Maybe you don’t remember, but that great black and white picture on the back cover of Truth- were the three of you topless or naked?

Michael: “I think we were topless, but…I know we were topless, even Janice, but I don’t know if we….I don’t know. I think we had pants on.”

Peter: It’s my perverse curiosity. I can’t help it.

Michael: “No, no, I don’t mind visiting any of these things. If I knew the answer for sure I’d say, yeah, we were. Nudity was not much of a thing back then, brother. I thought it was a beautiful picture.”

Peter: It was! You look very Christ-like.

Michael:“Well, thank you. I wish (laughs), it’s an aspiration (laughs). Not sure I’ve lived up to that, especially when I was into rock ‘n’ roll and all of that. Trust me. But I never did anything past a brief psychedelic era, and then I smoked pot daily for 20 years. I’ve been battling cancer the last two years so I don’t even do that anymore. I don’t even drink.”    

Peter: One thing I wanted to ask about is there’s not a lot out there as far as photos of Truth or the sessions.

Michael: “There isn’t. There isn’t. No. That’s it. Jay [from Sundazed Records] wanted more too, but I gave him the two [pictures] that are on the CD. But that’s it. I have no other pictures of Truth…we just didn’t; it wasn’t a big thing, or, I don’t know. I thought, ‘Why isn’t anybody taking pictures’, you know?

“That’s kind of the same thing about Gypsy’s Lament [DeGreve’s solo album]. Why do I not have pictures of the first session when I walked in. I had Leeland Sklar [bass] on one side of me, David Lindley [guitar, violin] on the other, and I looked around and went, ’Oh God, please freeze frame this. I just want to do this.’ And the whole thing with [Graham] Nash and I. There’s no pictures of all that stuff…I wish there was. With all my heart I wish there was.”

Peter: I know the other two vocalists on Truth, Bob and Janice, were married. They divorced shortly after Truth came out and that pretty much ended the group?

Michael: “Yeah, that was certainly a part of it.”

Peter: Did Bob or Janice go on to do anything else musically or was that pretty much it for them?

Michael: “Ah, that was pretty much it for them. Janice sang a little bit of vocals in a cover band. I was already on the road by then…but [Janice] sang with Bob’s cover band right after The Lid broke up…he had a band like we all [did] trying to make a living playing. She sang and she had two kids and Bob had gone back to Florida, what little I know. I really don’t know much after that. We had a really good mutual friend that I’m in touch with and he said Bob was living with one of the soap opera stars on one of them deals, and Janice raised her kids and moved to New Jersey…”

To Be Continued…

That concludes Part 1. Come back here next month for Part 2 of my interview with Michael DeGreve and find out what it was like to be a hippie, the big names in music who performed on his solo album, and what DeGreve is cooking up these days.

Trivia: On June 21, 1967, 75,000-100,000 hippies converged on San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district to celebrate peace, love, and freedom. It became known as the summer of love.

Trivia (from udiscovermusic.com): “During the 60s and 70s, Los Angeles producers needed reliable standby musicians who could be counted on to contribute to records in a variety of styles and deliver hits on short order. The Wrecking Crew were musically versatile performers who were usually brilliant at sight-reading. Their contributions feature in pop songs, television music, theme songs, film scores, and advert music. The reason The Wrecking Crew’s contributions to so many hit recordings went unnoticed at the time was that record labels wanted to keep it that way, maintaining the illusion that famous bands, such as The Monkees, always played their own instrumental parts.”

Trivia (from nbcnews.com, Nov. 2004): “A man who placed a lava lamp on a hot stove top was killed when it exploded and sent a shard of glass into his heart, police said. Philip Quinn, 24, was found dead in his trailer home Sunday night by his parents. ‘Why on earth he was heating a lava lamp on the stove, we don’t know,’ Kent Police spokesman Paul Petersen said Monday. After the lamp exploded, Quinn apparently stumbled into his bedroom, where he died Sunday afternoon, authorities said. Police found no evidence of drug or alcohol use.”

Links:

Michael DeGreve

Sundazed

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They looked like albums. They were the same size as albums. They were sold in record stores. Yet these series of “records” weren’t records at all. They were essentially a series of large greeting cards made to look like records. Instead of containing a vinyl record you could play, each contained a thin, 12” cardboard “record” with the printed message: “I bought this Album for you as a gift… sorry, I couldn’t afford the record!’ (a blank “From” area at the bottom was provided to write a personal message to the recipient).

Long playing vinyl record sales were really taking off in the 1960s. A company by the name of Kanrom saw an opportunity to cash in by selling gag “records” as unique gifts for Birthdays, Wedding Anniversaries, etc., or just to give to a friend (or a former friend) for a laugh. The company promoted them as “Wild, Whacky, Bawdy…and Screamingly Fun!…A Truly Wild Group Of Conversation Pieces.”

There was a total of 12 “records” in the series, released under the name High In-Fidelity Records. As the “label” implied, most of the titles had a sexual theme and featured naked or partially naked women on the covers (I used puzzle pieces in my pics to obscure the nudity). The Rated-PG artwork (remember, this was the 1960s) definitely took some attention away from the real records. They didn’t chart like real records did, so how much of that attention turned into actual sales isn’t known.

Each “record” cost $1.25. That seems impossibly cheap, but adjusting for inflation, that would be almost $13 today. That’s not that far away from the cost of an actual record.

The back of each “album cover” listed “suggested [song] titles suitable for enclosure” that played off of the album’s title and artwork. For example, Songs For Swinging Mothers, the cover of which featured four very pregnant women on a swing set, included suggested songs like Get Me To The Church On Time, Things We Did Last Summer, Careless Love, and Don’t Blame Me.

Some of the other titles in the series included Victory At Sea (featuring four couples on the deck of a boat), Music For Casual Affairs (picturing a pair of male and female bare feet at the end of a bed), Great Piano Pieces (depicting four naked ladies strewn across pianos), Music For You (the cover of which showed a horse’s rear end), and a similarly-themed Music For Half-assed Friends (featuring ½ of a toilet on the cover). The “suggested” songs for that latter title included Just In Time, Doing What Comes Naturally, At Last, I Gotta Go Now, You Go To My Head, and Just A-Sittin’ And A-Rockin’.

Perhaps the most controversial “album” of the High In-Fidelity series was Communist Party Music, complete with a Nikita Khrushchev look-a-like along with several topless ladies. A few of the “suggested” songs for this release included Cuban Love Song, How The West Was Won, West Of The Wall, Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf, and He’s A Devil In His Own Home Town.

It’s fun to look back on these risqué fake records from 60+ years ago. Even with the resurgence of vinyl, with our politically correct environment, I’m not sure you could get away with something like this today. That said, I can definitely imagine some amusing album covers poking fun at various news headlines…

My thanks to musiceureka for some of the information featured in this article, and my thanks to my Patreon members for helping to make this blog possible.

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.”

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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.

The purpose of my Album Spotlights is to bring lesser-known albums to your attention with backstories you’ll find interesting and music you’ll find enjoyable.

A few days ago, it hit me that it’s been a year and a half since my last Album Spotlight. I was way overdue for another, so I’m kicking off the new year with a new Album Spotlight. In fact, I’ll probably post another next month to make up for the long absence.

Before you change channels on me, this is not about the soundtrack to Alien the sci-fi/horror film. That said, I imagine the band Alien is indeed alien to you. If so, you’re forgiven considering the group hails from Gothenburg, Sweden and formed almost 40 years ago. However, their songs aren’t sung in Swedish and their music doesn’t sound Swedish. In fact, if I hadn’t told you Alien was from Sweden and I played this CD for you, you’d swear they were an American hard rock band.

AC/DC & Deep Purple

That makes sense because the lead singer and co-founder, Jim Jidhed, was influenced by AC/DC. The guitarist and other co-founder, Tony Borg, was influenced by Deep Purple and Eric Clapton. They might be Swedish, but they have roots in American rock ‘n roll. They also recorded Alien, their self-titled debut album, in Van Nuys, California, not Sweden.

Frankly, I’ve never been a hard rock kind of a guy. I generally don’t go for records that should come with a free coupon for Tylenol. Yet Alien the album (Virgin 259 198) won’t give you a migraine. In fact, the album produced 3 singles. One of the singles, a cover of Only One Woman, a beautiful ballad written by the Bee Gees, made it to #1 in Sweden.

The Blob

Alien did a great job of turning Only One Woman into a rock power ballad, but my favorite track off of Alien is Brave New Love. I became acquainted with the song thanks to my interest in horror films. I’ll bet you didn’t see that coming. The song was used in the end credits of the 1988 remake of The Blob.

Throughout Alien, Jidhed’s vocals are forceful while Borg’s guitar is tight and hard rocking. You won’t be able to get through the album without playing air guitar, especially on Feel My Love. Besides Brave New Love and Only One Woman, other standout tracks include Tears Don’t Put Out The Fire, Jaimie Remember, and Touch My Fire. It’s a great listen from start to finish.

Alien has so far released 7 albums altogether though not all under the same personnel. Co-founder and lead singer Jim Jidhed departed the group in 1988 to pursue a solo career. The band carried on with a new lead singer but he left a few years later. The other musicians weren’t much better in the stability department. Jidhead returned as lead singer in 2005, left again, and reunited with band yet again in 2010. He’s still with the band today along with two other original members, Tony Borg on guitar and Toby Tarrach on drums.

“If I hadn’t told you Alien was from Sweden and I played this CD for you, you’d swear they were an American hard rock band.”

The composition of the band might be confusing, but that’s nothing compared to the album that’s the subject of this Spotlight. Alien came out in 1988 in Sweden. The following year, the record company remixed 5 songs from the original record, cut out 4 of the 12 songs, and tacked on 2 new songs that were recorded by the new singer who had replaced Jidhad. They also replaced the album artwork with something much stranger, yet retained the album’s original title. This Frankenstein album was the version that was released in the USA and some other countries. But hang on, it gets even better.

If you decide to buy Alien, you’ll not only have the choice of the original release from 1988 and the remixed version from 1989, but also a rare 2012 re-issue from Greece of the original album limited to 1,000 copies. Then there’s the 25^th Anniversary 2 CD set from 2013 that included both the original and the remixed version. This same set was re-issued on a different label in 2019. Are you still with me? Then, of course, there’s the various vinyl record and cassette iterations.

Depending on which variant and format you’re looking for, prices on eBay start at around $29 and go up from there. The fact that most of the product exists outside the USA doesn’t do anything to help the cost. If you’re into 80s hard rock bands, I think it’s worth the investment. I bought my original Alien CD from a seller in Italy. On the other hand, you can listen to the entire remastered album for free on YouTube (link at the end).

I reached out to the group to ask some questions about Alien the band and the album and received a response from band co-founder and guitarist Tony Borg.

Peter: What led you to start “Alien” in 1986?
Tony: “I had been in many bands with great success in the 1970s and 1980s, but had never started a band myself. My goal before Alien started was to work as a session musician. I got to play with many Swedish but also American artists. When I played with the famous artist Lill-Babs, I understood that it would not be my thing, therefore, I started Alien.”

Peter: Was there anything memorable about the “Alien” recording sessions?
Tony: “There absolutely was. What became our first hit song was an instrumental song called Somewhere Out There that Jim and I wrote at 4:00 a.m. after midnight. It was recorded one night in the studio as a filler song and [B side] for Only One Woman but became a big hit in Sweden. Jim and I would often sit at night, drink coffee, have a cigarette and create many of the band’s songs.”

Peter: Why didn’t “Somewhere Out There” make the “Alien” album?
Tony: “During that time, bands used to put remix songs on the back so as not to waste good songs on B-sides. We rather wanted to show that we were a real rock band that could write good songs without vocals. That’s why we wrote that song to be a B-side.”

Peter: Why did you decide to record a cover of “Only One Woman”? Were you surprised that it was a hit?
Tony: “We collaborated with Anders Hjelmtorp on the record label Virgin. Anders had been an old disc jockey so he had some song suggestions for us. We thought the song was good but when Jim and I changed the time from 6/8 to 2/4 time, the song felt perfect for us.”

Peter: Were you surprised that “Brave New Love” made it into the credits of “The Blob” movie remake?
Tony: “How come? Because we recorded the record at ‘Sound City’ in L.A. so we were so close to the film industry and they needed that kind of song right then. It was a chance like it can be when you are in the right place at the right time.”

Peter: What’s your favorite song on “Alien”?
Tony: “My favorite song is I´ve Been Waiting. The music has the right suffering and the right expression and the lyrics are true to my story.”

Peter: Is there a story behind the original “Alien” album art?
Tony: “I have a friend called Anders Holmberg who had just started painting pictures with cool landscapes so I asked him if he wanted to do our covers. I have our cover for the Swedish album in my possession, but the rest of the paintings have been sold and are probably adorning the walls of some fans’ homes.”

Peter: Why did you release a different version of the album “Alien” for the US including a completely different album cover?
Tony: “It was the record company that wanted to adapt the record to the American market. We agreed because we thought it was possible to mix the record even better.”

Peter: What do you think of the remastered “Alien” from 2013? Did you have any involvement in that?
Tony: “No, this is something that the record companies do without asking the artists. This is what the record industry looks like.”

Peter: How do you think the music on “Alien” holds up 36 years later?
Tony: “I think it’s a good record, a bit timeless. I’m proud that the band got to make such a good debut album.”

Alien’s latest recording, Into The Future, saw the band turn into a more heavy metal direction which has met with mixed reviews. Frankly, I don’t know the band’s body of work well enough to categorically state that Alien is their best album, but few bands release such a strong debut record. If you enjoy hard rock, classic rock, melodic rock, metal, album oriented rock (AOR) radio, or classic 80s music, seek out Alien. Despite the album turning 36 years old this year, the music doesn’t sound dated or…alien.

Trivia (from Tony Borg): “When we went to L.A. to record [Alien], we stayed throughout the spring in L.A. What we didn’t know was that every week we climbed all the sales and pop charts, so when we got home to Sweden, we had become a very popular band without our knowing it. We just had time to pack our bags to embark on a tour with 70 gigs booked while doing videos, television and a ton of interviews so it’s been a very hysterical career for the band.”

Links:

Alien on YouTube

Alien’s website