The Broadway Orchestra & Singer Present: It's A Grand Old Flag, A Collection of George M. Cohan Hits and others…

George M. Cohan, a man who's music is the very personification of the American spirit. This albums first side gives us 10 tracks of Cohan greatness, of which two songs are featured twice (So Long Mary and Over There). My copy has been played one times to many, and so there are jumps and noise that are commonplace with a worn styrene record. Yes ladies and gentlemen, Halo records were pressed out of styrene... I will get to the boring technical stuff that explains that later. Anyways, the first selection starts you off with a smooth Female vocalist (unknown because of the generic label credit), then the stylus takes us through very 40's style recordings, and then precedes with a fantastic Instrumental of "So Long Mary". The A side closes with a  stirring marching band rendition of "Over There". The B side's contents relate in no way to the previous side. It was typical for Oberstien (Owner of a slew of budget labels in the 1950's) for his late budget reissue labels. Most of the B sides of these release were just simply sides from previous albums Oberstien has issued before, and this album is certainly no acceptation to that practice. The B side is a collection of, for the lack of better term "Elevator Music" or background music. It's swell music still, I enjoy this as much as the previous side's offering make no mistake about that.

The engineering on this album was pretty decent from a sonic perspective. The problem with this copy is due to the fact that it is worn and slightly scratched (Halo records almost never play through without at lease a jump or skip). The first selection is rather damaged, yet the artistic value merits its inclusion in this video. First tracks on this label's release are not often free from sonic flaws in my experience. I own quite a few Halo releases, so I can say this with some level of confidence. Regardless of the sonic flaws of this copy being presented here, I think people that are used to dealing with such flaws as the price to pay in order to hear rare and or obscure music will find this well worth their time.

Songs and times they appear in the video:

Side A

Give My Regards To Broadway (0:00)
Your A Grand Old Flag (2:24)
So Long Mary
Over There
Yankee Doddle Dandy
Mary's A Grand Old Name
Harrigan
45 Minutes From Broadway
So Long Mary (Instrumental)
Over There

Side B

I'm Following My Secret Heart
La Petite
Falling In Love Again
Apache Waltz
Oh, What A Pal Was Mary
The One Rose
Oh How I Miss You Tonight

Somerset Records Presents: A Minstrel Show- Perhaps The Least Offensive On You May Possibly Hear (But Only Maybe)

This is about as politically correct as a minstrel show can get. This album was released in 1959, a few years before the Civil Rights Movement, so these kinds of albums were still somewhat marketable. This album reminds me of an album released by Crown Records released around the same time, "Songs Al Jolson Made Famous," which featured a man in black face. I have that posted on YouTube, just in case you wanted to see or hear it. This album's political incorrectness is obvious. The artist credits the illustration of a man in black face to the negative stereotypes of African Americans used in the comedic interludes. When I was younger, I did not find this record particularly offensive, but now I understand why these sorts of albums fell by the wayside into the dustbin of history; for excellent reasons, popular opinion shifted for the better as racial equality became more commonly accepted among the general public. This is merely an artifact of a time when a large segment of the white/caucasian population harbored in organized openness the erroneous belief that one phenotype was inherently superior to all others in every way. The "us versus them" mentality continues with our society today, but at least we actively try to subvert it overall as a society these days. In short, this album shows us how far we have come as a society, from a time this was something one could sell at a supermarket without public outrage, to where no commercial record label would dare put anything even close to something like this out on a large scale to the general public.

With all this in mind, in my opinion, the audio engineering is flawless. The numbers featured on this record are nothing short of awe-inspiring. This is truly an album that you must hear in its entirety. So I hope you have some time to spare for this amazing budget record release!

From the back cover: "A complete. Old-time minstrel show in your living room tonight! Through brilliant performances and sparkling stereophonic recordings, you can sit down in your armchair and avoid the hard seats and the drafty old town hall where grandpa got the "Boot" out of the opening march and all the acts that followed, None of the great color or hilarity is missing! It's all here, the band, chorus, and banjo and bones, all the great solos and the comedy between Mr. Interlocutor and his end men. This is American entertainment at its best- Circa 1890......." There are more liner notes; however, the rest of it explains the boring technical details of this album's production.

I hope you will enjoy "A Complete Minstrel Show!" But, remember, this is a historical artifact, a product of an age long gone by. 

The Royale Concert Orchestra performs "Broadway Hits"

Yet another fine Royale record album. This album is a collection of Broadway hits arranged by Russell Bennett. Robert Russell Bennett, was an arranger that worked with Richard Rogers, Jerome Kerns and George Gershwin. Russell was well known for his relationship with these composers, as he often worked side by side with them when making his arrangements. His greatest arranging work was for "Victory At Sea", where he took the twelve themes contributed by Richard Rogers and arranged eleven and a half hours of music for the show. Bennett described his own philosophy: "The perfect arrangement is one that manages to be most 'becoming' to the melody at all points." Through this, he kept his commercial arrangements simple and straightforward, with a careful ear for balance and color. 

The recordings were made under the direction of Russell Bennett…. However they were made in mid-1940's. That explains the less then stellar sound quality, as the tracks on this LP came from 78 rpm records. The album sound quality as a result is not that great even for an early 50's release when combined with the noisy vinyl and shellac mixture this record was press on.

Side 1

Rose Marie Overture

Soft Lights and Sweet Music

With A Song In My Heart

What Is This Thing Called Love

Oh What A Beautiful Morning

Surrey With The Fringe On The Top

The Song Is You

Softly As In The Morning Sunrise

Side 2

You Are Love

Thou Swell

Summertime

Why Do I love You

Speak Low

Hoops

Of Thee I Sing

A Pickwick Beethoven And Schubert Symphony

The Hampshire Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra plays Beethoven's 5th and Schubert's 8th Symphony on Design Records!

Design records were Pickwick's first LP record line. The initial releases were had liner notes, jackets with the album title printed on the spine, and inner sleeves. 1957-1958 was the golden age for budget record labels. In an era where the Tops/Mayfair record label was king, every budget label had to match the high production standards, high-quality pressings, and quality jackets and sleeves to complete. 

That being the case, Design Records was trying to release the best possible products for the exceptionally competitive budget record market. The stereo recordings were true stereo, and the quality of the recording was excellent.

This album is an example of how the budget labels made their albums in the 1957-1958 era. This album features extensive liner notes, blurb after blurb about how high quality the album was. In short, this album is one of the better budget Classical releases. After this time period, all across the board, budget labels issued albums in shoddy jackets and noisy vinyl because collectively, every label began cutting corners, especially after Tops was sold to Precision Radiation Instruments around this time, wherever they could to increase their tiny profit margins by lowering production costs as far as they could get away with. 

The album features two timeless classical compositions;  Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Schubert's 8th "Unfinished Symphony." The first side has almost the entire Beethoven's 5th symphony. They decide to trim the 2nd movement with no explanation provided in the liner notes, likely due to space limitations imposed by the stereo record mastering processes used at the time.

Side 1

Beethoven's 5th part one (0:04) -The complete 1st movement
Beethoven's 5th part two (6:31) -Portion of the movement 2 and the complete movements of 3 and 4.

Side 2

Schubert's Unfinished 8th Symphony (18:19)

The Piped Pipers Christmas Album

 Well, Surprise, Surprise, I decided to make yet another post. This album is just too interesting to not share. 

     The Pied Pipers were a very famous vocal group from the 1940's. They backed up many great acts including Tommy Dorsey. They were so well known that even in the 50's Tops produced a couple albums featuring them. Sadly this album is not entirely comprised of Pied Piper material, rather a couple soloist appear on this album as well. Basically this album is half Pied Pipers and the rest is filled with material from a couple other artists. In an attempt to keep the album unified, Tops had the whole album backed by an Organist named George Marther. The two tracks I would recommend are "White Christmas" (0:04) and "The Christmas Song"(27:10)

       I like the album, It sounds great in stereo, but rather dull in mono. The tracks are set up so that on the left channel you get the vocalists, and on the right channel you have the organ. You could almost get a two for one album by panning your stereo system by adjusting the sound to come out of just the left or right speaker. I did choose to leave this album unrestored just because it's to late in the season for me to restore it. Please enjoy this album, as the stereo copy of this album is hard to find.

Here's the link to the video, I can't seem to embed it here like I usually do. Here's the link toThe Pied Pipers and others Hollywood Vocalists!

White Christmas-Pied Pipers

Silent Night- Bill Reeve

Good King Wenceslas-Pied Pipers

The First Noel- Norma Zimmers

Good Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen-Pied Pipers

Joy To The World- Thurl Ravenscroft

Side 2

Jingle Bells- Pied Pipers

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear-Norma Zimmers

O, Come All Ye Faithful- Pied Pipers

Hark, The Herald Angels Sing- John Gabreil

The Christmas Song- Doris Drew

Deck The Halls- Pied Pipers 

"18 Christmas Songs" By Johnny Cole & "Others"

This album is from Broadway Records, a cheap budget label from L.A. It's one of the most generic Christmas albums out there. The album features recycled material from three different artists: Johnny Cole, studio recordings that were originally released on Crown Records' "Kiddies Christmas" (CLP-5083), and a recording of "White Christmas" from Eli Oberstein's budget record line. While I do own the complete versions of all the songs featured on this album, I won't be cleaning them up as I usually do."

Track List:

A1 Silent Night

A2 O' Come All Ye Faithful

A3 The First Noel

A4 O' Little Town Of Bethlehem

A5 It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

A6 O Holy Night

A7 Away In A Manger

A8 Auld Lang Syne

A9 O Tannenbaum

B1 Hark, The Herald Angels Sing

B2 Joy To The World

B3 Good King Wenceslas

B4 Deck The Halls With Holly

B5 God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

B6 Jingle Bells

B7 Shepherds Carol

B8 Bring A Torch, Jeanette Isabella

B9 White Christmas

A "Royale" Christmas Album

This is a reissue of one of the first Christmas albums, 12" LP records, which Oberstein put out on Royale Records. In years past [speaking from the year 2024 revising this 2013 blog post], I thought Eli had some Church group taped for cheap. Still, after collecting for several years, it appears these recordings originated from the Sonora Records catalog, released on 78 rpm records, of which Oberstein had acquired the rights a few years before the initial release of this album in 1951 (this copy being a ~1955 reissue). This album features a small but talented choir and a collection of anonymous organ and chime selections on the second side. The album concludes with an okay organ and chimes recording of "White Christmas."

The recordings are high quality on the first side, the arrangements are varied, and several depart from traditional choral recordings contemporary to it. Sadly, the organ selections on the other side of the record sounded distant in places. However, given it was a 1940s recording, likely done with a single microphone placed inside a large chapel at a certain point in the middle of the room, which the recording engineer thought was the best spot- it is okay. The first selection was damaged and caused the needle to skip quite frequently; the rest of the album is much better. That being the case, if you want to avoid the jumpy first track, just start listening at 1:39. A better copy will come my way, or someone will upload a better-quality copy in the future. For now, we must make do with what we have here.

Side 1- The Caroleers

1. Silent Night (0:04)
2. Hark The Herald Angels Sing (1:39)
3. Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem (4:20)
4. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear (6:47)
5. Away In A Manger (8:13)
6. Joy To The World (9:34)
7. The First Noel (10:39)
8. Good King Wenceslas (12:18)
9. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (15:14)
10. Rejoice (17:12)
11. Adeste Fideles (18:32)

Side 2- Organ and Chimes 

1. Silent Night (20:21)
2. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen- Adeste Fideles (23:09)
3. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear (25:59)
4. Hark The Herald Angels Sing- Away In A Manger (28:19)
5. The First Noel- Holy Night (30:55)
6. Little Town Of Bethlehem (33:40)
7. Jingle Bells (36:10)
8. White Christmas (38:34)