History's Dumpster = GLORIOUS trash! Kitsch, music, fashion, food, history, ephemera, and other memorable and forgotten, famous and infamous pop culture junk and oddities of yesterday and today. Saved from the landfill of time...
You might know Roy Brown better as the original singer (and writer) of the classic "Good Rockin' At Midnight" (famously covered by The Honeydrippers in the '80s, who's version became a New Year's Eve party classic.) But in 1950, he released this disturbing little ditty (you can also heard it in the soundtrack of the video game Fallout 3.)
The King's Jesters were a big band vocal group from the Chicago area. They were featured frequently on the NBC Radio networks during the '30s and '40s and played with Benny Goodman and other big band leaders.
This single was released on the Chicago area independent, KaHill (or K-Hill) Records. A label I really don't have much information on them other than this is the first 45 RPM single I saw on KaHill. I've only seen KaHill 78s up to that point.
I have a copy of this 1974 Pickwick Records story album. And some of it is surprisingly shocking for what would be an ordinary kid's record. Even today, to say NOTHING of 1974.
Label Side One
Label SideTwo
Back Cover
The record starts off with a cheesy re-recording of "Monster Mash" (NOT the original hit. Hey, this is a Pickwick product. What did you expect?) But then it gets downright creepy on Side 2 with several stories, most involving torture of some kind. " Buried Alive", "Keel Hauled" "Burned At The Stake", etc. are super creepy for any little kid with the tortured screams and the effects are really twisted (especially the sizzling sound during "Burned At The Stake").
However the other recordings "Victims Of The Guillotine", "The Exorcism" "The Incredible Giant Crab" and "Curse Of The Zombies" sound hysterical with the fake accents and terrible script. But it should be noted that the writer of this album was soon to be famous screenwriter Frank Daniel, who had just emigrated to America and these sessions were produced by Wade Denning, a big band conductor who became a session producer at Pickwick and also made a few other classic Halloween kids albums, including his most famous, the much tamer Halloween with Kay Lande on Wonderland Records.
"Buried Alive"
I wish there were more examples I could present, but I'm not sure of the copyright status of this album. So I just present what I can find on the web. I have already digitized this album fortunately if I get some good news.....
Folks in the Puget Sound and the Sacramento areas will remember this song as the sign off song of KCPQ-TV 13 Tacoma and KCRA-TV 3 Sacramento before the stations went 24 hours (and filled their overnight schedules with crappy, boring infomercials instead of those awesome old, black and white and made-for-tv movies Kelly Televison used to specialize in for KCPQ in the '80s before KCPQ affiliated with Fox.)
(Why am I suddenly craving Spaghetti-O's")
Jan Peerce was an awesome opera singer, ranking right up there with Mario Lanza, Luciano Pavarotti and Enrico Caruso. A really powerful voice - with style to spare. It was MADE for the theater.
And this song is PURE CLASS.
The version on the YouTube video seems to be the mono version. I'm thinking about buying a copy of the Living Stereo version. With the way RCA Victor mastered (and I do mean MASTERED) their old Living Stereo vinyl albums from the late '50s, I'll bet it sounds FANTASTIC!.......
