Chris Montez folksy liner notes from SH

As I was preparing material for the dccblowout website I chanced upon these lovingly written 1990 liner notes to this Chris Montez "Best Of" disc (DCC-056) and thought I would share them with the faithful:

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"When Jeff Tamarkin of Goldmine magazine heard that we were working on a Chris Montez package, he confided that he was a ‘closet’ Chris Montez fan from way back. Pete Howard, who publishes the ICE. Newsletter, a compact disc information monthly, jumped up and down and wanted to know when he could get one. This is when I realized that a definitive Chris Montez Greatest Hits package was Long long overdue. Well, the wait is over. You are holding in your hands a compilation that should make up for many long years of some of this material being out of print.

"The first time I heard “Let’s Dance" in ‘62 I thought it was the greatest thing since The Happy Organ In fact Chris told me that The Happy Organ’ was what inspired this record in part Jim Lee rounded up a good batch of musicians to do justice to his song, It took me 29 years, but I finally found out the name of the organ player; Ray Johnson And that great drummer (who also gives the countdown at the start of the song); Jesse Sailes. These guys (oops, sorry Carol), actually got this song down in just a couple of takes. It is weird to hear the first take; a loud guitar solo instead of the lead organ! Glad they fixed that. I played “Let’s Dance” so much as a kid in ‘62 that when my parents dragged me on vacation with them, I took the Monogram 45 with me even though I couldn’t play it. Very strange, right, but I loved that record!

"They loved it in England, too. When Chris toured there in ‘63, he headlined over The Beatles, the last act to do so. He wore his cool LA styled jacket over there, and John, Paul, George & Ringo all wanted to buy it from him. Chris wouldn’t sell at any price (it was his good luck jacket), so the lads just had four similar jackets designed for them. Imagine Chris’ surprise when he saw the “I Want To Hold Your Hand” 45 record sleeve with the boys all wearing their new Chris Montez specials!

"On most of the Monogram recordings, the “Valens” feel to the songs is helped in part by Carol Kaye and her Danelectro bass. This is the instrument that finally let the electric bass be heard on records. It first shows up on Valens’ “La Bamba” Carol played it on most of the Monogram sides, even if there was another bass player already on the date. When John Entwistle of The Who first heard it, of course he wanted one. When he broke one of the strings, he couldn’t find a replacement anywhere in England (so the story goes), so he just bought a whole new Danelectro just to get another set of ‘em.

"When Chris moved over to A&M, his sound changed. Before starting to work on this compact disc I dragged out my old single of “Call Me” Hadn’t heard it in years. It really takes one back to ‘65. Good Herb Alpert arrangement, made to sound like Chris got up to sing at a party, perhaps at Herb’s house, or Hef's. A fun record, a (dare I say it) feel-good record, kind of cozy It brought Chris back, bigger than ever. By the way, that is Herb Alpert saying “all right!” at the end of the song. In compiling and mastering this compact disc, we were very careful to use only first generation stereo master tapes. In the case of the A&M tracks, that meant a lot of tape vault work. Miguel at A&M fussed over this like it was Sting’s greatest hits. In other words, he really helped us out.

"It was fun working on this project and getting to meet Jim Lee and Chris. I think you will agree that they don’t make ‘em like this anymore!"

Steve Hoffman

 

Yes it was and it looks like Tom has one with your name on it!

 

Yes, we have almost enough for everybody on the forum!

TP

 

I just picked up the Ace Montez comp that used Steve's masters at a used store - I wish they'd used his notes with that set - got any spare booklets???

 

Sorry, no spare booklets for anything. They all went in the DCC dumpster.
TP

 

Dumpster??? Ooooh, that's a nasty 4 letter word in my vocabulary!

 

Let's Dance

All,

I have a number of versions of this classic and I can clearly state that the SH mastered version is the best!

As a humorous aside, as "kids" we had alternative lyrics to the first verse....

"Hey, baby won't you take a chance, I left my (blank) in my other pants!"...kids!

You have to forgive me but I was 11 when this song was popular!

Bob

 

I guess little Steve loved "Let's Dance" as a kid too. He took it with him in his suitcase when he went with his parents on vacation? That is soooo cute!

This is the song that goes:

"Hey baby won't you take a chance? Say that you'll let me have this dance, so LET'S DANCE", right?

 

Angel,

Sounds right to me! I just listened to it again last night. I was listening for tape hiss!

Bob