June 2009 Archives

The Kahauanu Lake Trio – Hawaiian Style (1964)

  • Posted on June 24, 2009 at 2:17 pm
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Having lived my entire life in a cold climate, one of the things I look forward to is escaping the winter cold by spending a week in Hawaii.  I’m fortunate enough to have relatives who are far better at managing their money than I am so there’s usually a spare room for me.  During my first trip there five years ago, I got hooked on Hawaiian music. Like a lot of first time visitors, it was the incredible voice of Israel Kamakawiwo’ole or “Brudda Iz” as he’s affectionately known, that drew me in.  If you don’t know anything about Iz, do yourself a favor and check out his music.  I won’t go into a full biography here but Iz sadly passed away in 1997 at the age of 38.  You rarely go a full day in Hawaii without hearing his stunningly beautiful cover of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.

Once I had purchased the entire Brudda Iz catalog, the next logical step for me was to find out more about the roots of Hawaiian music and to start buying as much of it as I could afford.  Back in the tundra, there isn’t much selection of Hawaiian music at the local CD shop so I always try to stock up when I’m in Hawaii.  On my third trip, I had become a little disenchanted with the CD offerings at the local stores.  They all had the same selection and most of it was really just pop music with a Hawaiian twist.  I approached the manager at Border’s Books and asked if he knew anything about Hawaiian music.  Much to my amazement, not only was he practically an expert on the subject, he also directed me to his extensive inventory of Hawaiian music which included recordings that dated back to the 20′s.  Since my wife was shopping at a nearby store, I was temporarily without adult supervision and had no one to limit the ever increasing stack of CDs that he recommended.  I put a serious dent in the Visa card but I now had a rich history of Hawaiian music to get me through the rest of the frigid winter.  Sure I got a good scolding, but one $275 dress later……we were even.

That’s a long story to get to this week’s album.  I recently checked out a new over-priced thrift store near my home and discovered that all of their albums were $1.99 and to make matters worse, just about all of them were crap.  Let me digress for a moment and offer this advice to anyone who might run a thrift store or even those of you putting out old records at your next garage sale.  Records aren’t worth 5 cents if they’ve been sitting in someone’s basement and are covered with mold or scratches, let alone $1.99. Marking them $5 or some ridiculous price, just tells me that you’re an idiot.  Most of the time I won’t even waste my time looking through a pile of neglected records but “she who rules the roost” wanted to spend the next 2 hours looking at every item in the store so I was stuck.  Low and behold I stumbled on this gem and didn’t even bat an eye at the inflated price.

Kahauanu Lake is an important figure in Hawaiian music.  He’s credited with being one of the first musicians to use the ukulele as a lead instrument.  With his brother Tommy on the upright bass and Al Machida on guitar, he formed the Kahauanu Lake Trio in 1955.  Their style is a nice fusion of traditional Hawaiian music with hints of jazz.

There’s some nice info on the jacket such as the reason that Lake plays left handed.  His mother was a fairly well known musician and would frequently take the young Kahauanu to rehearsals where he passed the time by mirroring her ukulele fingering and strumming.

Hopefully this album will entice you to further explore the warmth of Hawaiian music.

Here’s a nice article from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, September 8, 2003.  http://archives.starbulletin.com/2003/09/28/features/story1.html

Tracks:

Side 1

Side 2

Continue reading The Kahauanu Lake Trio – Hawaiian Style (1964)

Madelaine – Sister Adele Dominique-Ten Other Songs Sung By Madelaine (1963)

  • Posted on June 15, 2009 at 6:15 pm
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(Updated 12/21/09) I’ve been neglecting my album blog lately due to a masters program that’s kicking my backside, but this update was long overdue.  A reader named Greg contacted me to let me know that this album was actually put out by a folk singer named Madelaine who was covering the songs of Sister Adele Dominique.  The album cover should have been self-explanatory but in the course of digging up information on Sister Adele, I became confused and thought that this was actually one of her records.  Personally I think Madelaine has a beautiful voice and now I’ll definitely have to find Sister Adele’s record in order to compare the two of them.  I’ll leave you with the information that I did find regarding Sister Adele as her story is fascinating.  In the mean time, please enjoy the sounds of Madelaine.

In the 60′s, Sister Adele Dominique was known as Sister Luc-Gabrielle or Soeur Sourirw. She had a number one hit with the song “Dominique” back in 1963.   Sister Luc-Gabrielle’s story is a tragic one and the information that I’ve included is from a biography by Gregory McIntosh of the All Music Guide.  I was so fascinated with her story that I’m just going to include Mr. McIntosh’s article verbatim as my summary wouldn’t do it justice.

Belgian singer/songwriter/guitarist Soeur Sourire, known in the English-speaking world as the Singing Nun, was born Jeanne-Paule Marie Deckers in Brussels on October 17, 1933, where she was also raised. She attended the University of Louvain and became an art teacher before joining the Dominican order in 1954 under whose service she would eventually trade her name, Jeannine Deckers, for Sister Luc-Gabrielle, a name derived from her parents’ names: Lucien and Gabrielle. While in the convent, Sister Luc-Gabrielle penned a number of tunes and with the support of her fellow nuns, she booked some time at the Phillips recording studio with the intent of giving away her songs as part of their missionary work, but upon hearing the recordings, Phillips offered Sister Luc-Gabrielle a contract and dubbed her Soeur Sourire (‘ Sister Smile’ ).

The commercial appeal Phillips saw in Soeur Sourire was shared by Europe when her first single, an homage to St. Dominic titled “Dominique”, dominated the charts in 1963. In fact, it did so well that Phillips released the single in the States. Upon its release, “Dominique” rose the U.S. charts and hit number one, marking Soeur Sourire (known in the U.S. as the Singing Nun) as the only Belgian to hit number one in the U.S. “Dominique” sold so well that it stayed at the top of the charts for ten weeks, kept “Louie Louie” by the Kingsmen from reaching the top, at one point outsold Elvis Presley, and even led to a taped appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

The success of “Dominique” led to a 1965 Hollywood musical titled The Singing Nun, very loosely based on Soeur Sourire, starring Debbie Reynolds and Chad Everett. But her sudden fame was more than she could handle, and in 1965 Soeur Sourire left the limelight for the shelter of the convent. After only one year away from music, however, Soeur Sourire announced her plans to leave the convent and resume her life as a musician, dropping the name Soeur Sourire (which she had always used reluctantly) and adopting yet another moniker, Luc Dominique. She used her given name, Jeannine Deckers when offstage. At this point, Deckers reunited with a close friend from her college days, Annie Pescher, and shocked her followers with her political song in favor of birth control, “Glory Be to God for the Golden Pill”. She further alienated supporters by embracing radical stances and by her openly gay lifestyle with Prescher. Deckers and Prescher later opened a school for autistic children which they ran together through the ’70s, but in the early ‘ 80s, the Belgium government informed Deckers that she owed over $60,000 in taxes on the profits of “Dominique”. Since Deckers had donated all of the earnings from “Dominique” to her convent, she had no money to pay the fee. She became addicted to alcohol and pills, and played shows to try and pay off her debt, but when the government threatened to close the school, Deckers and Prescher wrote letters to their family and friends, then committed suicide together on March 29, 1985 via a mixture of barbiturates and alcohol. ~ Gregory McIntosh, All Music Guide

The more I read about Sister Adele Dominique, the more surprised I became that I had never heard the story of the Singing Nun.  That’s the fun of writing a blog like this though.  You end up learning a lot about people who probably deserve to be better known than they are.  Lastly, yes I do see the irony of writing about a nun in a blog called “Vinyl from Hell”.  Sister Adele would probably understand that the the blog name is tongue in cheek and hopefully you do too.

Here’s a 1963 article from Time Magazine.  http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,873185,00.html

Tracks:

Side One

Side Two

Continue reading Madelaine – Sister Adele Dominique-Ten Other Songs Sung By Madelaine (1963)

Count Frank – Count Frank Sings Calypso (1967)

  • Posted on June 6, 2009 at 12:48 am

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Ok, I admit it….I nearly wet myself when I found this beauty.  I love calypso music and the picture of Count Frank in his Jamaican straw hat is the reason that some of us collect vinyl.  Album art just isn’t the same when it’s on a CD slip cover.  This cover probably cracks my top 50 all-time favorites.

The first thing I noticed is that this LP came straight from Jamaica.  This wasn’t released in the U.S.   Anyone who has a reggae album that was released in Jamaica knows that these small labels didn’t exactly stress quality control when it came to vinyl pressings.  The sound quality is usually terrible, especially with releases from the 60′s.  That being said, I was pleasantly surprised by this album from WIRL Records (West Indies Records Ltd.).  I’ve got a few dozen old reggae albums and most of them don’t sound this good.

Count Frank is actually Frank Leonard Anderson, who came from a small village located in the mountainous interior of Jamaica.  Frank had a limited education and grew up working in the cane fields where he learned the “mento” songs of the native workers.  Eventually Frank moved to the resort town of Ocho Rios to pursue a career in music where he was hired to entertain guests at several high-end hotels.

This album was probably sold at Frank’s shows in order to make a few bucks off of tourists who likely drank a few too many umbrella drinks in the hotel night club.   I’ve seen LPs from some pretty awful cruise ship entertainers that cater to the same group.  The difference here is that Frank is actually a pretty fair calypso singer and if he showed up at a hotel that I was staying at, I’d consider myself pretty lucky to see his show.  There aren’t many songs that really leap out here but the whole album is just a very pleasant introduction to the roots of calypso music.  Back before they started drowning the vocals with over mic’d steel drums (not that there’s anything wrong with steel drums).

I appreciate the fact that Frank included the old calypso standby “Shane and Scandal”.  I’ve heard the song done by many people over the years and it dawned on me that I didn’t know who wrote it.  A quick Google turned up this info from http://www.calypsoworld.org.  “Trinidadian singer Sir Lancelot wrote “Shame and Scandal in the Family” for a Hollywood movie titled I Walked with a Zombie (1943)”.  Wow!, I had no idea the song was that old.  The song was eventually reworked by Lord Melody in the early 60′s into the classic that we know today.

And of course, no calypso record would be complete without a rendition of “Banana Boat”.   It’s refreshing to hear it done by someone besides Harry Belefonte.

Finally, as an added bonus, this copy was even autographed by Count Frank himself as you can see in the back cover photo.  What a great thrift store find!

Tracks:

Side One

Side Two

Continue reading Count Frank – Count Frank Sings Calypso (1967)

The Bohemians – After Ski at Timberline Lodge (1959)

  • Posted on June 1, 2009 at 2:58 pm
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It wasn’t a difficult decision to snag this grab this gem from the Goodwill record bin.  First of all, the condition of both the cover and the vinyl are very good.  Someone actually kept this baby stored in plastic.  Secondly, the group picture on the back cover is fantastic.  I mean, now bad can an album really be when the songs are performed by 13 white guys all sporting the same black suits and crew cuts?  As an added bonus, the back cover even appears to have been autographed by one member of the group.  Hello eBay!

The recording came out a little scratchy but the digital filters I tried all cutoff the top end so I left the recording “as is”.  Personally, I’d rather listen to the hiss than the filtered version that left a tinny ringing in my ears.  I know that you audio purists would rather listen to a .flac recording but I converted this to 320kps .mp3 to make it iPod friendly.  Please don’t turn me in to the Society of Audio Snobs :-o

The back cover provides an extensive history of both the Timberline Lodge and The Bohemians.  Here’s a snippet:

“These are Portland’s Bohemians….thirteen business and professional men who, at day’s end, become one of America’s finest singing groups….who have taken time away from their jobs to delight audiences in New York, Paris, Munich….and who sing because it’s fun”.

After one listen I came to the conclusion that these guys are really pretty good.  The yodeling on several tracks is fantastic.  The  Bohemians combine a nice mix of traditional German folk songs with a few originals.    Track 6 on side one, “Evolution”, is a real stand-out.  Especially when they break into Big Mama Thorton’s “Hound Dog” near the end.  Side 2 starts off with a great version of “Lydia, the Tattooed Lady” that I was humming for the rest of the day.   I hope you enjoy listening to this as much as I did.

Tracks:
Side One

Side Two

Continue reading The Bohemians – After Ski at Timberline Lodge (1959)