An Avalanche Of Cheese:
The OYB Guide To Mystery Vinyl
by Ross Signal
In which a jaded music consumer discovers cheap, late-50’s LP’s of jaw-dropping weirdness. Don’t wait for these to be reissued on CD. By Ross Signal
There, in the record pile at a rummage sale, next to the zillionth copy of Frampton Comes Alive!, you will find it. It may be called something like Percussion Fantasy or Hugo Winterhalter Goesä South of the Border. Perhaps there will be an lurid photo of a bare-shouldered woman swooning away limply (from the power of the music?). You will be repelled by this record, though perhaps you will not be able to explain why. Buy it.
Anthropologists tell us that intense revulsion is a sign that some powerful and significant cultural taboo is at work. What is it that makes us want to recoil from those easy-listening records, deny the atrocious “Hi-Fi” album, blot out the 101 Strings? In actual fact this strange vinyl of the late 50’s and early 60’s is an amazing artifact, a window into the blackest core of postwar American culture- plus, a lot of these records are just a hoot to listen to! I’ve got about 60 so far, all picked up for a quarter here and 50 cents there, and I’m still constantly being amazed.
After winning WWII, the new suburbanites of the 50’s figured they deserved all of the luxuries of modern American living; and that included new Hi-Fi equipment. They were a little in the dark as far as musical taste goes.
But a huge industry sprang up to provide them with totally engineered musical product, each label trying to give the consumer a little more Pow! for the dollar, and all the while reassure them that these records were in the most sophisticated of taste.
This competition led to an amazing moment in history when record labels were just throwing everything but the kitchen sink into records-I have LP’s with pipe organ and bongos, “Waltzing Matilda” on the harpsichord, a cha-cha version of “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean,” and mambos cranked up to artery-bursting intensity. Any musical integrity or restraint went right out the window. No one cared about the identity of the musicians; in fact there was usually more text on the record jacket about the brands of microphones used.
One tip for zeroing in on records of this era: Look for LP’s labelled Hi-Fidelity which don’t say Stereo or Mono-there weren’t any stereo records before 1958. Another clue is an address for the record company that might say “Chicago 6, Illinois” instead of having a Zip code-that means it’s before the mid-60’s.
50’s America had a huge appetite for anything that was “Exotic,” either to prove that we had the world at our feet, or else to provide some quasi-sensual outlet in a repressed era. Anyway, Latin music, Hawaiian, Middle-Eastern “belly-dancing” records and so on all had huge fads. Some of this was actual foreign music with total rip-off packaging. Sometimes it was crack studio vets, who could stay tight and professional even on some deeply misguided session. But some of my favorites are discs by total honkies who just don’t have a clue-like my record of a guy from Missouri playing Hawaiian music on the Hammond organ.
Incidentally, the king of Exotica was probably Martin Denny: his band managed to be both Latin and Hawaiian! And sometimes even African, though never enough to be frightening to middle America. (If this wasn’t enough for you already, a lot of his records had weird bird calls too… )
But wait! There’s also ultra-pasteurized mood music, suitable for your most aristocratic class aspirations:
“As light as a feather… as smooth as cream… as soft as velvet. Yes, all of these. How can music be as soft as velvet? Well, that is a closely guarded secret known only to Frank Chacksfield and some very clever engineers. It requires years of practice, a deep understanding of the public’s musical requirements, and great musical and technical knowledge to produce something so perfected. Softness in music is not just a matter of volumeä it means there must be no jarring notes, that the playing be smooth, controlled and sophisticated…
The musically aware hostess no longer allows the butler, or her husband, to sling records on the turntable in a haphazard way. She no longer risks the dangers of the soup being spilled by Hyden’s “Surprise” Symphony, or of Mrs. Alias-Jones choking over the fish because an ill-timed bit of jazz trumpet has frightened her. She now supplies a ready-made background of elegant and suitable music to smooth the evening into one long feast of pleasure and unshattered nerves…
Previous albums… have proved Frank Chacksfield’s mastery of the music-for-leisure technique… . The titles are a panorama of good living and enjoyment… .”
(Excerpt from the liner notes to Velvet by Frank Chacksfield and his orchestra)
Of course, most of the “101 Strings”-style albums are too syrupy even for me. Also, I would avoid albums with long blurbs about the bandleader’s British musical training: these may be marred by unacceptable taste and restraint.
Just promise me one thing, OK? Never pay more than about a dollar a disk. If cheesy music suddenly becomes the “hot new collectable” because of what some some yohos publish in some price guide, I will be deeply irritated.
You might well hesitate to abuse your good turntable with a bunch of thrift-store records. Yes, I have even found LP’s with thumbprints of what, ketchup? on them. Don’t be shy about dunking the really scuzzy ones in the sink with some dish liquid and patting them dry. But the other good news is that people are basically giving away turntables and record-players now, too! Buy a spare!
If you pick up a cheap turntable, a useful gizmo is a phono pre-amp – a little box that lets you plug the turntable into the “Aux” jacks of a boombox or amplifier… Or into a couple of little powered speakers, for a total mini cheese vinyl system. (J&R Music World sells a pre-amp for $25, plus $5 shipping. 1-800-221-8180.)
But even better, we found a completely ludicrous little record player built into a cardboard case. It was 50 cents! At that price you can just leave it out on the porch permanently, ready for that sudden burning need to play some cha-cha extravaganza for your barbecue guests.
Now that’s the total modern leisure lifestyle.
