"Gonna listen to my 45s..."

"...Ain't it wonderful to be alive when the rock and roll plays."
Keepin' the Faith by my man Billy Joel.

A few weeks ago I found a big box full of donated 45s at the Salvation Army. My daughter and I made quick work of it.

My favorite is Stevie Wonder's "Sunshine of My Life", the horn single that I never owned on any format!
Flip side is "Higher Ground", funky soulful brilliant Stevie at his best.
This is on the Motown "Yesteryear Series", but the dead wax has the date 2-12-73 and the initials "MBG". Could it be made from original stampers? It sounds great!

I also found Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now" b/w "How Good it Is" on Epic. I've never heard a 45 with this much BASS cut into it! My only other copy of "I Can See Clearly Now" is on the Grosse Point Blank soundtrack. I prefer the 45 even under the scratches (this one didn't survive as well as the others )

Guitar Slim's "It Hurts to Love Someone" b/w "If I Should Lose You" on a VG+ original Atco pressing. Fun stuff! Mastered for AM radio for sure! Great blues, and I sort of wonder if John Fogerty took vocal lessons from Slim.

The Carpenters "Close to You" b/w "I Kept On Loving You", with Richard on lead vocal. That's actually a great song. Unfortunately, "Close..." suffers from serious record wear. "Ssssssssssshhhhssssshhh". Is this the infamous cheap CBS pressed vinyl?

More Stevie Wonder, "My Girl" b/w "You Met Your Match". The latter a surprisingly, er, randy tune for Wonder. This one's on the familiar yellow Tamla label.

Speaking of horny, didn't someone once say "I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin"? Going way back to the early 50's is this Columbia side of Doris "Twelve O'clock Tonight". No mistaking what Doris wanted at midnight.

Sounding very "hillbilly" is country singer (and obscure?) Skeeter Bonn on the RCA Victor label with "I've Been Down That Road Before" b/w "Honey Baby". Skeeter's voice is more "whine" than "high and lonesome" for me.

Several original Columbia Simon and Garfunkel 45s, but sadly they all suffer from serious record wear.

Along with some others, the whole thing cost me less than two bucks.

Man I love thrift stores!

Dan C

 

Dan,

I never get that lucky! Twenty years ago, I wish I had the foresight to pick un all those old 45 I used to see in used record stores. Now it's getting harder to find a lot of things in vinyl at all!

 

Grant:
It's the "thrill of the hunt" I guess. Most of the time there's nothing but garbage in these stores, but every now and then you hit pay dirt!

Luckily I have three of these stores in close proximity to my home, two of them walking distance. I try to get to all of them at least once a week.

I recently found a late 50's era Garrard RC-88 turntable at one. I'm hoping to get it restored soon to play my 78s.

Dan C

 

I love looking for old 45's in used record shops!!! I went out looking this weekend and found some really nice ones. Even though none of these are particularly rare, the real challenge is finding clean copies, with nice labels and sleeves. Also 45's that have mixes or edits that are unique to the original release.

This is what I found all in near mint condition:

Holiday & Borderline-Madonna
Stayin' Alive-Bee Gees
Method Of Modern Love-Hall & Oates
Give Me Love(Give Me Peace On Earth)-George Harrison
Sukiyaki-A Taste Of Honey
Heart Of Rock & Roll-Huey Lewis & The News
Love Is A Battlefield & Invincible-Pat Benatar

 

45's are so neat. Yes, don't stop looking, and check the salvation army sometimes. Never know, as I've picked up a LOT of Shaded Dog Living Stereo's there, some 45's, and even some wild picture sleeves....all for pocket change.

 

I'm amazed that RCA had ANOTHER Skeeter! (Davis being the first)

Not that common a name.

I used to frequent yard sales for that odd vinyl treasure. That's how I discovered the likes of Lee Hazlewood, Mariano & The Unbelievables, and lots of Living Stereo releases like Cool Water (Sons of the Pinoneers).

The thing about ebay is you only get what you're looking for. I miss those surprises.

 

While I enjoy my 7" 45s my true favorites are the 12" single 45s and promos I assembled primarily in the 1980s and 1990s. They would take the entire side of the album for one song and often add a non-album song on the b-side. The sound quality was significantly better than the album versions and often the CD version. Among my most cherished:

Pretenders - Back on the Chain Gang/My City Was Gone - my first 12" single, purchased in 1982 in the interim between Pretenders II and Learning to Crawl, when it seemed like the band might not return. Two great tracks that sound phenomenal. Radio promo, Sire Records.

Dire Straits - Walk of Life/So Far Away - Warner Bros radio promo, 33 1/3 RPM really nice sound esp. on SFA.

Peter Gabriel - Red Rain/Red Rain - Geffen radio promo in bright red sleeve with small 'So' photo of PG on back. 45 RPM Song covers entire side of record and I played this version repeatedly leading up to my comp exams in 1987.

Ere

 

Salvation Army, Goodwill, flea markets--amazing what great vinyl you can find. True, you have to wade through a lot of crap, but that's to be expected. Just takes time, travel and patience. I've been rewarded countless times for taking the time, and soon the itch will come for more vinyl trekking.

ED

 

I love those 12" radio promos too and have found quite a few on the thrift store watch.
One of my favorites is from The Nails, called "Things you Left Behind". Sort of a sidebar, if you will, to their only "hit" '88 Lines About 44 Women'. This brutally funny and dark song documents one nasty breakup from a rather disturbed girlfriend. Never heard it before, never seen it on CD. Love that stuff!

Some 12" would have extended mixes or live cuts and they mostly went to radio stations.

I'd love to find more PG promos. There were quite a few remixes from the 4th album I'd love to own.

Dan C

 

Are yours noisy? I remember playing these when I was kid and they were really noisy. It could've been my Emerson record player though too.

 

That's half the fun.

 

Cool, what kind of condition were they in?

 

The copy of "Invincible" I found sounded great. But the "Love Is A Battlefield" was a little noisy(both polystyrene pressings, typical 80's era CBS pressed 45's), still sounded pretty good though.

 

I notice this is a reoccurring theme in your recent posts. I say, try not to worry about it. You are only as young as you feel. It's all in the mind.

 

Variable. Some great, others just barely playable. I have a sort of beater 'table set up for these.
I've made CD-R comps of many of the 45s I've picked up over time.

Except for a handful of odd rare stuff, most of what I'm finding is pretty common. But it's fun to have the singles I've never owned on any format. I can also pick up some of the guilty pleasures from my childhood.
Just yesterday the same store put out another box (probably from the same donation) and I snagged about 30 more.

The ultimate guilty pleasure of this stack?
"Convoy" by C.W. McCall. I was obsessed with this silly tongue-in-cheek tune when I was 5 or 6. Now I have the original MGM 45. Lucky me!

I also found the "Theme From Shaft" 45, but it's edited so tight that the song hardly gets cooking before it fades out. Bummer.

Dan C

 

"Convoy," eh? For a novelty record, that's not the worst I've ever heard, and it did--genuinely--spawn a craze. CB radio, of course, had been an underground thing for some time, but primarily with truckers and certain ham radio enthusiasts. Suddenly, out of nowhere, mainstream America went ga-ga and bought their CB units. I can still pick up some transmissions these days, since truckers and diehards still use them. But with the cellphone, the need has become virtually nonexistent. In a strange way, there is a bit of the frontier ethic about the people behind CB use, but like the American West, is fading rapidly into history. Kind of like the hit record itself....

ED

 

Oh I remember that CB craze quite well, it seemed to last into the early 80's. In fact, one could buy a GM luxury car, like a Cadillac or loaded Buick, with a built in factory CB radio. AM/FM, 8-Track, and the CB. I had a friend who's parents owned a Buick Riv equipped as such, I thought they were the luckiest people on the planet.

It's almost disturbing that a song worshiping an outlaw band of trucks plowing through road blocks would start a craze!

Oh! Another fun 45 from this stack is that "Hot Rod Lincoln" song by, uh, where is that record...I bet you know Ed!

Dan C

 

I'll guess Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen on Paramount, 1972, as it was a top ten hit(in fact, the only top ten hit the Paramount label ever had), while the Charlie Ryan and Johnny Bond versions are much older. That one fits, too, right out of the redneck C&W-cum-rockabilly playbook.
Though slicked up a bit, Cody pretty much stuck to the spirit of the Ryan '55 version, which remains my favorite(took five years to make the national charts!)

As for "Convoy" while Americans respect authority, it's also in our nature to mistrust it, especially when there's perceived abuse of power. I thought the McCall record--and Peckinpah's film--got that feeling just about right.
The truckers may have been acting lawlessly, but they became folk heroes because their actions were defiant, not malevolent. Amazing it all amounted to so much, for however brief a time.

ED

 

That's right, Commander Cody. I don't believe I've ever heard the original Ryan version.

Nice take on the "Convoy" record. I imagine that the massive success of "Smokey and the Bandit" had something to do with this movement as well (along with the popularity of Burt Reynolds as well).

Dan C

 

Remixes from Security, Geffen's title for PG4? I was hunting high and low for PG vinyl back then and was only aware of a few... the single for 'Shock the Monkey' was never officially remixed for release on Geffen, though it did have the great b-side 'Soft Dog.' There must have been a 12" single of 'I Have the Touch,' perhaps with the same b-side as the 7" single, the phenomenal 'Across the River' (featuring Stewart Copeland on drums).

I do remember a guy I knew who had a disco remix of 'Shock the Monkey' on 12" that was a conglomeration of the English- and German-language versions. It was pretty strange and I tried very hard to get him to part with it

The So album had many many more 12" singles, given how many 'hits' it produced. I assembled all of the commercially released ones domestic and UK, as well as all of the radio 12" singles that had very well designed covers, using the type font and graphic design of the album cover. Only radio 12" I never snagged though, was 'In Your Eyes.' All of these sound wonderful and are gorgeous to handle.

Another favorite radio promo I have is Paul Simon, 'Diamonds on the Soles fo Her Shoes.' This includes a remix of the song that brings the African percussion up more prominently and its great. 33 1/3 RMP across the whole face of side A

Did you mean promos from 'Security' or 'So'?

Ere

 

Yes, let's not forget SMOKEY & THE BANDIT(who could get that lucky?)

Yeah, I think that kept the CB momentum going, but somewhere I recall Jackie Gleason as having done some better things with his career, while Sally Field had some better things on the way.

Some movies just baffled me not so much by their success but by the overwhelming degree of success that just wasn't merited by what I saw on the screen. Some of these have genuine merit, up to a point--CHARIOTS OF FIRE, for instance, though without Vangelis' great score, it still plays out like a dull soap opera--but populist success stories like SMOKEY, THE CANNONBALL RUN, STROKER ACE, STIR CRAZY, PORKY'S, even Eastwood's two chimp films--defy any logic I can hammer out(the Eastwood's are almost tolerable--almost). There's certainly a need in this world for mindless escapist fun, but why does ANIMAL HOUSE now seem almost Shakespearian compared to any of the above? I mean, CONVOY works to some extent because Peckinpah directed it, meaning there was no way it could be total junk.

Or maybe I've watched too much eclectic foreign cinema, and lost my taste for that sort of thing. I still find some of the more lightweight '60s Disney comedies have more going on, which is saying something, as I'm sure you know

ED

 

Yes, "Security". Funny since that name has been dropped for the reissues, realizing PG's original intent.
I do remember hearing a few of those remixes on the radio over time, but I don't recall hearing remixes from "So". Man I have a lot of hunting to do. The obsession that never ends!
Dan C

 

Thank goodness for Showtime and HBO back in the late 70's and early 80's for allowing me to see most of those masterpieces you mentioned. "Porky's" of course was every 12-year-old boy's pot of gold. I was the envy of my classmates when I bragged about sneaking a peek when my parents were out (and my sister was supposed to be 'babysitting' but chatted on the phone all night )
A couple of years ago I was in a hotel and "Porky's" came on. I thought I'd watch it for old kicks. Good GOD it was horrid. Misogynistic, mean spirited, and just not funny or sexy. I guess I grew up.
I still can't believe it came from the same guy who gave us "A Christmas Story".

As for "Smokey and the Bandit", every 10-year-old boy loves to see cars go fast and crash. And many of them grew up to be NASCAR fans. Not me!

Dan C