Dumpster Vinyl Volume 15: Red Cross Public Service from “The Big Sound” series PS-3-R

Not much to say here, just a bunch of celebrities asking people to volunteer with the Red Cross.  I guess I could make a joke about how Boris Karloff’s trying to scare people into learning first aid, because horror movies, or something. Or a joke about how badly Johnny Cash fails at making volunteering sound fun.  But it’s sort of hard to work myself up to making jokes about the Red Cross.  So here you go, this is another disc.

 

Dumpster Vinyl Volume 8: “Go to Church” Public Service from “The Big Sound” series

I sure hope you all like being told what to do, because here’s another public service disc from “The Big Sound” series.  This time, the celebrities try to scare you with the idea of hell in the mildest way possible.  And despite the fact that some of them urge you to attend “the church of your choice”, there’s church bells at the end of the tracks.  I kind of don’t think they use church bells at mosques.

Various things I noted:

• Fabian mentions that he’s a teenager; assuming he’s telling the truth, this recording was made no later than February 5, 1963
• Fabian is the one celebrity not to have church bells on his track.  I picture his agent screaming over the phone at the Big Sound people: “Church bells would ruin his image! He’s a teenager, f’chrissake!”
• Henry Mancini doesn’t call himself “Hank” this time, I assume because going to church is important
• None of the celebrities mentions God specifically.  I’m always interested to see media from this long ago that include proto-PC content
• I’m not super-familiar with his work, but I’ve always assumed that Milton Berle worked blue sometimes. I wonder what “church” thought of that?

P.S. For those of you playing along at home, this disc is numbered PS-7-R.

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.