Dumpster Vinyl Volume 5: “Vote” Public Service from “The Big Sound” series

This is another disc in the “Big Sound” series, which so far has included the “Spinning the Magic Circle” song introductions.  I have no idea what else was included in the the Big Sound package.  It’ll be just one surprise after another as I dig through these boxes, one record at a time.

This one is called “Vote” Public Service, with a code number of PS-6R-1.  Both sides include music artists (many whom we’ve heard already on the Magic Circle tracks) as well as other celebrities (Ed Sullivan & Jerry Lewis, f’rexample) telling you to get out and vote. There’s also some jingles with a man and woman singing increasingly lame rhymes about voting on Side A.  The idea being, I suppose, that voting is preferable to listening to them rhyme “issue” with “miss you” one more time.  Side B also includes some intros to reporting on voting results at local, state, and national levels, and voting analyses; there’s also an all-purpose “political bulletin” intro, the kind of thing that would come in handy in case one of the candidates started beating up civilians before the polls closed.

This disc is a time capsule, but in a different way from that of the song introductions.  You get a sense of the time period through a number of elements here.  For one, when’s the last time you heard a jingle on the radio that wasn’t trying to sell you something?  There’s a line on one of the tracks about voting “for men” who were running.  Lastly, and this is my favorite, one of the jingles urges voting as a bulwark against “the Red elation to crush our nation”.  What the hell does that mean, anyway?  Was it ever the case that, if the percentage of the populace that voted got too low, there would be no elected leaders?  Did not voting leave the door open for a Russian guy to just waltz up to the Capitol Building, say “I see that there was only a 30% voter turnout, hand me the keys, please”?  Or would whichever American politician did win look at the low turnout, think “well, nobody really cares” and just call up the Kremlin and tell them they won?  I may never understand the 60s.

Dumpster Vinyl Volume 4: Who’s in the Magic Circle Now? from “The Big Sound” series

Spinning, spinning, spinning the magic circle of all-time favorites! Who’s in the magic circle now?

Another disc (this one’s RAM-3-R, so I guess I’m doing them in order now), another mix of singers. Again, some I know, some I’ve never heard of.

The ones I knew, or have at least heard of: Henry Mancini (he refers to himself as “Hank”!), Debbie Reynolds, Johnny Cash, Bobby Rydell, Les Baxter.

No idea about these people: Mary Kaye Trio, Bob Crosby, Sue Raney (jeez, those three just sound like store-brand knock-offs, 50-odd years later), Billy Eckstine, Kay Starr, Bud & Travis, Stan Kenton.

Also, starting with this disc, they start introducing a little variation into the production tracks (the part with the announcer that precedes each of the artists). On some of them, instead of saying the standard “Who’s in the magic circle now?”, he lowers his voice and booms “Who’s there now?” It makes it sound like somebody real important’s about to show up; it works on the Johnny Cash track; less so for Stan Kenton.

Maybe I wasn’t paying attention before, but a few of these artists mention the “magic circle of all-time favorites” title on this disc.

Overall, it’s getting kind of weird listening to these in isolation from the music of these singers & artists. Some of the artists refer to the upcoming song as “one of [their] favorites”, but did they even know which songs would be introduced?

P.S. My favorite part is when one of the Mary Kaye Trio starts talking when he’s not supposed to.