In no particular order, here’s the albums that have helped to shape my life. I don’t play all of them frequently, but these were all a part of my youth, as you will see. I’ll link these albums where I can. This is part one:
The Three Suns, Twilight Memories 1960: This one is a re-recording of their better stuff. Recorded at RCA Victor studios in New York City in 1960, it was one of RCA’s “Living Stereo” series. From a technical standpoint, the album sparkles, and is vastly superior to the 1944 original. It was certainly a favorite of my father’s, to the point where, uponstumbling over it on YouTube just recently, I had forgotten how much I missed hearing it.
The album opens with a re-recording of their biggest hit, originally laid down in 1944, “Twilight Time.” It was later covered by The Platters. By this time, they’d gone through some personnel changes from the 1944 lineup. I remember seeing notes indicating they were President Dwight Eisenhower’s favorite group. It comes off as confident if a little stilted. They’d obviously been playing this material for decades by the time this recording happened, and it shows. It’s interesting to note that this was recorded in the very same studio they recorded Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” in. The studio acoustics are quite identifiable.
Ruth Welcome, At a Sidewalk Cafe 1959: Here’s another of my father’s favorites. Ruth Welcome was America’s only professional zither player, and boy did she do it up right here. Recorded in 1959 with the Milt Shaw Trio, it evokes memories for me, of course. But in a musical sense, it’s both impressive and quite unique. The back story adds a level to that interest.
Ruth Welcome was born in Germany, and she moved to the U.S. in 1927 at the age of 8. During WWII, Ruth joined the USO and entertained troops overseas, apparently finding the zither easier to carry into war zones than a piano. That was one reason for her popularity; the GIs loved the sound and the memory of her playing for them. Another was Anton Karas’ zither-driven score from the film The Third Man, in 1949, which, as a single, went number one and stayed there for several weeks.
In the midst of all this, she signed on as a regular act at Manhattan’s Hampshire House in 1953 and stayed there for the next five years. Capitol signed her to an exclusive contract in 1957, and she recorded 18 albums for them over the years. She retired from recording and touring in 1975.
The sound on this, as with most of her albums, is from an instrument that, to my ears, uses a Gibson humbucker pickup which gives her instrument a tone not unlike Carlos Santana’s, particularly on louder passages. This is, as the album title suggests, dinner music with a European flair, impeccably done.
The Turtles, Happy Together 1967 I was ten years old and had started paying real attention to music just a few years before. You all know the way music was changing then. Of course, the title track was the big hit, and a huge one it was, unfortunately overshadowing the remainder of their work. And that’s sad because there isn’t a turkey on this album. On the whole, this LP was the application of lessons learned from earlier works, in which they had released some darker material such as a cover of PF Sloan’s “Eve of Destruction.” Barry McGuire had the hit with that one. Amazing the Turtles decided to try it, given McGuire almost cost himself what was left of his career trying to push that tune. Their one outstanding single to that point was 1966’s “You Baby”… a happy, bright uptempo piece that defined so many of their records after this one. Apparently they decided to go in that direction with this LP, and it was the proper choice.
Produced by the great Bones Howe, the band sounded like they were actually having fun. I think the single “Happy Together” gets overplayed in comparison to the rest of their work. They got two high-charting singles off this one… the title track and “She’d Rather Be With Me.” The deeper cuts off this LP are surprisingly good, and in a few cases truly clever… they’re true memory pieces for me.
Isao Tomita, Snowflakes Are Dancing 1974 Understand the time frame here. We were hip-deep in space exploration, and everything was coming out with space themes, including old music. In this case, it was the somewhat eerie sound of early synths. The album came out of the RCA Red label, as most RCA classical albums did in those days. Classical, because it was all about the music of Claude Debussy… what Debussy called “tone poems.” The whole album was recorded on one of Bob Moog’s earlier boxes and a mellotron, which was an instrument used by the Beatles and the Moody Blues. The synth was the real workhorse here. Thing is, it could only produce one “voice” at a time, which required massive amounts of multi-tracking to get the whole thing in. Took Tomita nearly two years to get it all in. The effort, the dedication is massive here. His second album, it was nominated for no less than four Grammy awards in 1975 and was the best-selling classical LP of that year.
The equipment list Tomita used to make these recordings sounds like something you would find in later years in Jeff Lynne’s studio. Indeed, I suspect if pressed, Lynne will acknowledge Tomita’s influence. His work went on to drive the early synth works of Gert Emmons (for example, the Wanderer of Time LP).
Debussy often complained to his friends (fellow composer Erik Satie, for one) that he felt very restricted by the instruments of the time and the sounds they were able to make because those sounds never quite matched what was in his head. I have often wondered, over the years, what Debussy would have thought of these tracks.
Tomita’s rendition of Clair De Lune is achingly beautiful. I remember playing it for my father who loved the tune but was never convinced of electronic music. Until, that is, I played this for him one cold winter’s night. There is a passage in that recording where the keyboard sounds remind me of the Stalagmite organ in Luray Caverns in Virginia. If you’ve been there, you will know.
Tomita passed about 10 years ago now. He released some 32 albums over his lifetime. As you go through his catalog, you begin to recognize that the sound of his recordings changes as the technology changes. I’ve often wondered if the difference in sound was simply because of the tech changing or was it that the tech made it easier to get sounds. This LP is a gem, particularly given the stone knives and bearskins it was created with. It’s been remastered, and I admit not having heard the newer version. The original strained the limits of vinyl, so I imagine the remaster will be tuned for the CD.
To Our Children’s Children’s Children, The Moody Blues 1969 This was released just a few months after Armstrong’s moonwalk. Here’s another case of the space race driving our imaginations. The whole album is a theme album, the quality of which I have always put on the same level as other thematic albums such as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. That’s high praise. The only single off the album was Mike Pinder’s “Candle of Life,” which didn’t chart. The album was always intended to be taken as a whole. The sound, the production values, the vocals, and the concepts within the songs are quintessentially Moodies. It went gold almost upon release. I’ve worn out two vinyl copies of this album. This one’s been remastered too, for surround and ATMOS. I’ll be picking up a copy of that soon.
The Beatles, Abbey Road 1969 You all know this one. It is arguably their best work and certainly the exclamation point on George Martin’s career. I have other albums of theirs, of course, but this is the one I tend to fall back on for reasons I've never really figured out.
Back in the day, I attended an art class at school that took the whole school year. We had one guy in the class who was a Beatles fan, bigtime. We ended up playing a cassette of this album every time the class met, the whole year. As a result, I’ve got the whole thing memorized right down to the waveform. I tend to use it to set up my stereo equipment, and when I was doing mobile DJ work, I used it there as well.
The version I’ve linked is the remaster from about 13 years ago. One of the changes is the tape editing warbles are gone from “Here Comes the Sun.” They did a superb job in the remaster, but I find I miss that warble.
