Ahmet Ertegun - Founder of Atlantic Records, and The Last Sultan

My Tribute to Ahmet Ertegun.  If someone granted me the age-old wish, Curtis - you could have dinner/spend the evening with one person living or dead, who would it be?"  After having thoroughly enjoying reading Robert Greenfield's superb book, The Last Sultan, you know who my answer is.  Yes himself.  We'd meet for dinner, somewhere swanky in Manhattan, of course.  He'd be in tasseled loafers, Navy blue blazer, crisply pressed tan slacks, yellow tie and color square in pocket, and maybe braces.  The after dinner part of my fantasy would be the best past.  We'd head over to Birdland - the jazz club.  I'd ask Ahmet to introduce me to club owner, Morris Levy.  I would be curious, but respectful.  Morris was connected. He was the Genovese family-backed head of Roulette Records, who tried to muscle in on the Shangri-Las after the group had a No. 5 hit with "Remember" (Walking In The Sand) and a No. 1 with "Leader of the Pack" in 1964.  See also Tommy James & the Shondells. Besides owning Birdland, Morris owned Roulette Records.  There, we'd catch Bird, Monk, Miles, or whoever.  Ahmet would get antsy around 1 or 2 am, and he gather up a makeshift posse of players, posers, and fine ladies, - he'd commandeer a driver and wheels - and we'd end up at the rather dive-y "Elmo's," as he'd refer to it.  The El Morocco, a somewhat famous joint.  Then for the wee hours, a jazz club up in Harlem.  And a survivors breakfast either somewhere swanky or dumpy, depending on what he was in the mood for.

Summer's Almost Here - ...love that Bert Kaempfert

What an album cover.  Hardly needs me to comment.  But her's what I have found out from available sources about Bert: In 1961, Bert hired The Beatles to back Tony Sheridan for an album called My Bonnie. The album and its singles, released by Polydor, were the Beatles' first commercially released recordings.   His instrumental Moon Over Naples, when given words by Snyder, became Spanish Eyes, originally a hit for Al Martino and also recorded byEngelbert Humperdinck, Presley, and many others.   His Danke Schoen, with words added by Kurt Schwabach and Milt Gabler, became Wayne Newton's signature song.  Another contributor to Kaempfert's music was guitarist/bassist Ladislav "Ladi" Geisler, who popularized the famous "knackbass" (crackling bass) sound, using the Fender Telecaster Bass Guitar, which became the most distinctive feature of many Kaempfert recordings - a treble staccato bass guitar sound in which the bass string was plucked with a pick and immediately suppressed to cancel out any sustain. It was Geisler who lent his guitar amplifier to The Beatles for their recording session with Tony Sheridan, after the band's own equipment proved to be inadequate for recording purposes.

The Greg Kihn Band - Glass House Rock

The Greg Kihn Band - Glass House Rock.  OK, this band certainly reigned during my five year college experience, that spanned from the fall or 1979, to the spring of 1984.   To this day, I can't stomach his hit Jeopardy.  My favorite song of theirs is called Testify, from their album Kihntinued, that I posted here back on July 17, 2009.  Click on this post's title for a clip of it.  Kihn is the front man for The Greg Kihn Band, which released several singles and albums that made the charts in the early 1980s.  Their hits were "The Breakup Song (They Don't Write 'Em)" 1981 and above-mentioned 1983's #2 hit "Jeopardy."  Did not know this:  as of early June 2011, Kihn was the morning DJ at San Jose, California classic rock radio station KUFX-FM.   Since 2001, The Greg Kihn Band has been one of the opening acts at the annual Kihncert, which is organized by KFOX.  Greg's son Ry Kihn (named for guitarist Ry Cooder) sometimes plays with his father's band, as well as a band of his own, Big Fun USA.  He also has a daughter, who once sang Christmas carols on his radio show.  Greg Kihn was inducted into the San Jose Rock Hall of Fame in 2007.  Did not know Hoser even had a RNRHOF....

Rick Wakeman - Journey to the Center of the Earth - with awesome wear marks

Rick Wakeman - Journey to the Center of the Earth.  Killer wear marks on this beat up jacket.  I love how that looks.  So...JTTCOTE is the second album (and first live album) from English keyboardist and composer Rick Wakeman, released through A&M Records in May 1974.  The album is a live recording from his second of two sold-out concerts on 18 January 1974 at the Royal Festival Hall in London.  I read that  its concept is based on Jules Verne's eponymous science fiction novel, which tells the story of Professor Lidenbrok, his nephew Axel, and their guide Hans, who follow a passage to the Earth's centre originally discovered by Arne Saknussemm, an Icelandic alchemist.  Wakeman performs with the London Symphony Orchestra, the English Chamber Choir, and a group of hand-picked musicians for his rhythm section.  Actor David Hemmings provides the narration to the story.  As the cost of recording the album in a studio was too high, the 40-minute piece was instead recorded live.  After a number of problems were resolved during the mixing of the album, Journey to the Centre of the Earth was overall well-received by music critics.  The record topped the UK Albums Chart, the first album from A&M Records to do so, and peaked at number 3 on the US Billboard 200.  It was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in October 1974, and earned Wakeman an Ivor Novello Award and a nomination for a Grammy.  A total of 14 million copies of the album have been sold worldwide.  In 1999, Wakeman released a sequel titled Return to the Centre of the Earth.  Side one: "The Journey"/"Recollection" – 21:20 and Side two: "The Battle"/"The Forest" – 18:57...

The J. Geils Band. Their DLA entry, Blow Your Face Out

The J. Geils Band.  Their DLA entry, Blow Your Face Out.  I am a sucker for double live albums.  In college, right around the early eighties - we thought their two hits were great: Freeze Frame and Centerfold.  But this album came out six years before that.  This "album was recorded at two concerts held in November 1975 - one in Boston and another in Detroit, where the band's other two live albums "Live" Full House (1972) and Showtime!(1982) were also recorded.  Great songs on it - like "Must Of Got Lost" and their take on the Supremes' Where Did Our Love Go – and many others.  This album is widely thought of as (one of?) the best live blues rock albums of the decade (seventies)."  That claim seems to have been, at least loosely, verified over on LinkedIn, in the vinyl record collectors group that I moderate.

Doucette - Mama Let Him Play

Doucette - Mama Let Him Play.  The title track is probably first 4th or 5th favorite song of All-time.  We heard that song tons played in heavy rotation on WWCT, FM 105.7, an AOR station out of Peoria.  The main FM station is Normal was lame - 101.5.  They played Bad Case of Lovin' You six times an hour.  But that's why we had turntables and could play Roxy, Genesis, Crimson, et al.  To me, Jerry Doucette is/was sort of like a Canadian version of Bob Seger, if Bob had had only one minor hit.  Following in my recent "I loved this song in college" theme, this one is right up there.  This guy Jerry Doucette, front man in the eponymous group - Doucette, sad but true, is but a COHW (Canadian One Hit Wonder).  Had he had more hits, I would even refer to him as the Canadian Bob Seger.  OK, a few dozen more hits.  From Vancouver I think - Jerry Doucette was a triple threat: he wrote 'em, sang 'em, and played 'em.   Besides the catchy title track that was an anthem of mine, there's also a ditty called It's Gonna Hurt So Bad.  If you click on this post's title - you will be directed to a clip of it on youtude.  Let me know what you think of it...

David Bowie - Young Americans, a plausibly "live" single-record studio album

David Bowie - Young Americans.  This will likely be a little too much inside baseball, but my sophomore year in college, I lived in a dorm called Walker Hall, which had 4 floors, divided by a main lobby, and the cafeteria - with north and south running hallways.  It was a dump, but as I like to say, it was our dump.  It holds sway as a magical place in my heart and memory.  I lived on the floor called "Two South."  Each floor had nicknames, like team names, mainly for our intra-dorm sports competitions.  The FUBARS lived on 4 South, and 3-South was referred to as the Sweet City, etc.  On Two-South, we inherited the nickname The Americans, and the title track of this album was out dorm floor theme song.  On the title track, David Sanborn does the sax solo.  This was recorded mostly at Sigma Sound Studios.  Begun in August 1974, during breaks in Bowie’s Diamond Dogs tour, this record was recorded by producer Tony Visconti primarily at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia.  Apparently. much of it was recorded "live in the studio," with the full band playing together, including Bowie’s vocals, as a single continuous take for each song.  According to Visconti, the album contains “… about 85% ‘live’ David Bowie.”