The Menace!   Hong Kong 1968   “You Don’t Even Wink Your Eye” / “Graduation Day”   Diamond Records

(44 votes, average: 3.16 out of 5)

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“Cartas Marcadas”   Duo Bowen – Villafuerte   Fuentes Records

(45 votes, average: 3.69 out of 5)

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Carol and Jimmy Snow   “Carry On Family Traditions”   Heart Warming Records   Jimmy is the son of country hall of famer Hank Snow (e.g., “I’ve Been Everywhere”)

(40 votes, average: 3.10 out of 5)

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Physical Fitness Exercises for Boys   Kimbo Educational Records   “Set to stimulating music”!   There’s a companion LP of Exercises for Girls with the same cover design.

(43 votes, average: 2.42 out of 5)

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The Coasters on Broadway on King Records   (1973)   A Leiber-Stoller Production     Re-recordings of classic Coasters’ cuts like “On Broadway,” “D.W. Washburn,” plus others like “Mohair Sam,” “Mustang Sally”and “Cool Jerk”.   But the funky stand-out is perhaps “Down Home Girl” which has been sampled many times.   This is what Funky 16 Corners says:

First waxed in 1964 by the mighty Alvin Robinson for the Red Bird label (one of my all time fave records), ‘Down Home Girl’ was written by Jerry Lieber and Art Butler. In it’s original form (produced by Lieber and Mike Stoller and arranged by Joe Jones) it is one of the grittiest pieces of New Orleans-associated soul ever to hit wax.   The following year, the Rolling Stones, knowing a good thing when it crawled into their ears, recorded a version of their own.   The version I bring you today see’s Lieber and Stoller taking the song out for a stroll once again, with one of their favorite groups, the legendary Coasters.   By 1966, when the group went into the studio with L&S (Stoller producing) they were a few years past their last big hit (‘Little Egypt’ hit the Top 40 in 1961).

The Coasters version of ‘Down Home Girl’ – taken at a slightly more deliberate pace than Robinson – opens with a horn/drums/vibes riff that is verily begging to be looped by some enterprising producer, and features some classic group harmony. Much of the humor associated with the Coasters is there, though it gets delivered not via the performance itself, but rather through Lieber’s hyperbolic lyrics. Where Robinson’s reading of the song is dripping with unbridled lust (thanks in large part to his awesome, soulful growl) the Coasters vocal arrangement, with tenor and bass trading lines allows them to highlight the absurdity of some of the lines.   It really is a lost classic, and one of the finer versions of a truly great song.

(54 votes, average: 3.48 out of 5)

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Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite   Anatole Fistoulari with the Paris Conservatory Orchestra   London Records

(52 votes, average: 3.02 out of 5)

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The great Roy Orbison “In Dreams”   Monument Records (1963)

(57 votes, average: 3.16 out of 5)

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Boleros   Ramoncito Gomes     MusiColor Records

(77 votes, average: 4.31 out of 5)

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Murray the K’s   GOLDEN GASSERS   Chess Records   Songs include:   “Blowin’ in the Wind”; “The Wind Cries Mary”; “Summer Wind”; “Wind Beneath My Wings”; “Prairie Wind”; “Colors of the Wind”; “Dust in the Wind”   (Need I go on?)

(42 votes, average: 2.62 out of 5)

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