The Mills Brothers

"No musical instruments or mechanical devices used on this recording other than one guitar....."

- An inscription on all the 78 RPM labels of The Mills Brothers recordings for the Brunswick and Decca labels from the '30s and '40s.

A tall order - even for the most dedicated folk acts today, but The Mills Brothers did it during the 60 years of their career. With style to spare.

I've always been a fan of The Mills Brothers. They INVENTED doo-wop. Yes, some people will give lofty praise to The Robins, The Orioles, The Clovers and The Chords (and yes, they certainly DESERVE theirs). But you just can't hear their records and NOT know where it all REALLY came from.

And while Michael Buble might be the snazziest thing to come along since Harry Connick Jr., you just don't know HIGH CLASS MUSIC until you get hip to The Mills Brothers.

LONG before the days of multi-tracking studio vocals and other studio gimmickry, these guys could put out a record that sounded far ahead of it's time, but was as organic as can be. And do it all in ONE TAKE. Simply because they had such an awesome talent (Michael Buble today can sit back and check his Twitter feeds while his studio engineers remove every trace of morning after breath from his vocal tracks.....), The Mills Brothers could complete a whole album in less time than it takes for most pop bands today to decide which note goes where in the first three bars.

Their last big hit was 1968's "Cab Driver". They were the only act in pop music who had a hit record in the '20s to last until 1968.

.....and here they are with the Jackson Five in 1974:

The Mills Brothers are COOL......

Curly Toes

Back in the '70s, someone found a homemade recording on a cassette that was thrown out, lost or abandoned. The story of how it was found....and who found it...and where is unknown.

The recording, which had circulated in the tape underground for decades, was that of a woman with a Southern accent, probably middle aged (or a young smoker.)

She sings an a cappela song on a cheap cassette recorder of doing a burlesque striptease for her boyfriend, some, um...lucky guy named "Ben"

Nobody knows who sang this. Or who our lucky Ben is. But everyone who's ever heard this wonders if she really wrote this or just ad-libbed her way through it. But they all had the same look of catatonic shock you'll probably have upon hearing this, before busting out in uncontrollable laughter. Or have to swallow a whole bottle of Advil just to cope with this woman's migraine-inducing singing in their heads the rest of the day...

You can find this on Irwin Chusid's Songs In The Key of Z, Vol. 2 compilation of outsider music. LOADS of bizarre musical oddities on these discs.

The YouTuber who posted this dedicated it to Bettie Page:

Lost '90s Pop Classic: "That's What Love Can Do" Boy Krazy (1991)

Boy Krazy were a girl group, like Bananarama that were also proteges of Stock, Aitken & Waterman, a British pop music production team with a name that sounded more like a law firm.

They produced other hits for Kylie Minogue, Rick Astley, Cathy Dennis, George Michael, Dead Or Alive, Sonia, Samantha Fox and countless others. This song was originally recorded and released in the UK in 1991. A few months before grunge blew up......

What made this record stand out was the time it was finally released in America: 1993. Virtually every other song on the Top 40 chart in 1993 was grunge, alternative rock, hip-hop and R&B.

This song however was a sheer unadulterated and unapologetic throwback to the '80s Brit-pop that Stock, Aitken & Waterman made famous from 1986-1990.

It actually sounded exactly like a song you would have heard on Top 40 radio in 1987. And had the planets aligned then, Boy Krazy would have had at least a platinum album to show for it.

However, it might have been too much too late. While it was a refreshing, ear-candy break from the usually depressing stuff on the American radio in 1993 (4 Non Blondes anyone?), and did score a respectable #18 on the US charts, it didn't last. Boy Krazy did release a follow up single that stiffed at #59, and disbanded a year later......

"Shannon" Henry Gross (1976)

Here's the story......

You're 7 years old and you hear this song for the first time, but you can't figure the lyrics out. You hear it a second and third time and finally your sister buys the 45 because she loves the song. You "borrow" it from her and try to solve what could be a grisly situation. You know it's about Shannon and she's female. And she.....ummm...well,

The chorus goes like this:

Shannon is gone, I hope she's drifting out to sea
She always loved to swim away
Maybe she'll find an island, with a shady tree
Just like the one in our backyard....

Lyrics as creepy as this are usually grounds for a homicide investigation. Did Mr. Gross throw this poor girl overboard off his beachfront property, expecting her to swim to Tahiti or something in shark infested waters? (this song came out at the same time as America was beach nervous because of the movie Jaws....) My 7 year old mind was abuzz with suspicion. And sharks.

As it turned out, "Shannon" was about Brian Wilson's Irish Setter, who had passed away, (hopefully of natural causes.) But singing a song about somebody else's dog is kinda creepy too......

It became a gold single for Henry Gross (and one of the biggest one-hit wonders of the '70s......)

Conelrad Radio

Conelrad was a civil radio alert system used in the early '50s to the '60s. If the Russians ever decided to press the button, you could tune your radio to the nationwide Conelrad frequencies, 640 or 1240 kHz on the AM side of the radio dial and get instructions on how to save yourself and yours from the ensuing fallout. AM radios of that era had tiny inverted triangles on their dials marking the dial positions of Conelrad stations.

You can actually identify any American radio made between 1953 and 1963. Just look for the Conelrad markers. Usually an inverted triangle. But some were inverted triangles in circles.....

The Conelrad stations were the direct predecessors of the annoying EAS data bursts you hear on the radio today.  They were originally a civil defense method of warning radio listeners in the event of a nuclear attack.

There was no music or lite talk on Conelrad stations. They were strictly for emergency information.

One of the biggest questions I get asked is why were Conelrad stations on those frequencies? And why weren't any on FM?

First, all but two broadcast frequencies (all other AM radio stations, including TV and FM stations) were required to go off the air FM radio was still in it's infancy. Most radios were AM only and in the '50s, FM had very few listeners by comparison. TV was also still fairly new and TV wouldn't reach coast to coast and ubiquitous in homes until the early '60s. These wouldn't be the best mediums to inform the public of a national emergency. Secondly, the nature of FM/TV broadcasting would make these stations "sitting ducks" for enemy aircraft with radio direction finding. 

It was through radio direction finding that Japanese aircraft were able to attack Pearl Harbor by homing in on the signal of KGU, Honolulu.

The 640 and 1240 AM frequencies were selected to confuse enemy aircraft RDF. One radio station would broadcast for a few seconds go off the air, then change over to the next station in a chain that would alternate between 640 and 1240. By doing this, it would be very difficult for enemy aircraft with RDF to get a "lock" on any signal accurately.

And yes, there were some actual radio stations on these frequencies. 640 was occupied by 50,000 watt radio stations KFI Los Angeles and WGST Atlanta and 1240 (which was occupied by many lower power 1,000 watt radio stations.)  

It looked brilliant in theory. But in practice, it was pretty clumsy. Higher power radio transmitters (especially the older ones at some radio stations.) weren't made to be shut on and off like that and some transmitters failed. 

     
Conelrad was replaced by the Emergency Broadcast System when missiles could be launched instead of dropped from airplanes. Where designated radio stations in each area served as the primary EBS radio stations. Stations in surrounding areas would relay these broadcasts over their signals or would refer the listeners to tune to the originating station. They also broadened their services to include emergency information of severe weather or man-made/natural disasters.

Here's a video tape from 1990 that explains how the EBS worked on the radio/TV station level.

Under the EAS system of today, ALL radio stations regardless of signal reach or MUST participate. The EAS also provides Amber Alerts for missing kids as well as other emergency information.   

This site archives the endless sights and sounds of this nervous era. If you're old enough to remember the Cold War, you'll be in for a really cool flashback and if you're not, welcome to the bomb shelter....

http://www.conelrad.com/index.php