Unscoped Radio Aircheck: KMSC 102.1 Clear Lake City, TX August 17, 1968

This is most likely not Ellen, the DJ you hear on the aircheck below (I picked the photo because the studio equipment was period-correct for live operated FM radio stations of 1968...And she looked cool.)

There's a certain indescribable beauty to an unscoped radio aircheck.

Hold up, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself; What's an unscoped radio aircheck?

An unscoped radio aircheck is a complete, unedited recording of an over the air radio or TV broadcast. For example, have you ever popped a blank cassette in your tape deck, hit record and just let the tape roll until it ends, capturing DJ talk, commercials, music, jingles, everything? Congratulations! You just made an unscoped aircheck! Without even knowing what you were doing was even professionally called!

They're like aural snapshots back in time. To a time and/or place we may or may not remember. For however long the tape lasts, you get to virtually relive that time again. But in a non-intrusive way, where you can go about doing other things while enjoying the soundtrack. 



KMSC 102.1 was a "popular, semi-classical, and semi-jazz music and news" (i.e. Easy Listening) radio station in the Houston area. With studios in the pre-fab city of Clear Lake City, TX  (which was annexed into Houston proper in the '70s) It's still home to the Manned Spacecraft Center (which was renamed into the Johnson Space Center in 1973.)

Recorded at around 4:18am on Saturday morning, August 17, 1968. On this tape, you'll hear Ellen play space-age jazz, the kind of stuff you'd probably expect in a master-planned bedroom community full of astronauts and engineers. The DJ, Ellen, is young, groovy, her Texas accent pure and uncompromised. The music is directly from vinyl, as evidenced by the surface noise and occasional skip or stuck groove.

KMSC continued until 1975. 102.1 FM in Houston has been the legendary KMJQ "Majic 102" since 1977.

A Random Gallery of Vintage Menus

Warner Bros. Studio Commissary Menu, 1960

Early Chili's menu, 1979

 

Alcatraz Prison Menu, 1946

The Cotton Club, New York City, 1930s

"Doc" Earl Klugh (1980)

During the 1980s, this was the most popular music bed for everything for car commercials to the local public access TV community calendar.

And a lot of people liked this song. In spite of Mrs. Flooby's Knitting Class in the basement of St. Helpus Church at 7:30pm. Refreshments provided. Bring your own knitting needles and yarn.

Here's Earl Klugh's "Doc".

'"The Be-Bop Santa Claus" Babs Gonzales (1955)

 

Hang On Sloopy

You probably have heard this song many times on the radio and have utterly no clue what this song is about.

You're not the only one. In fact, almost everyone who's ever heard this song has scratched their heads wondering what this song is about.

For example, here's the opening lyrics:

Hang on, Sloopy
Sloopy, hang on
Hang on, Sloopy
Sloopy, hang on
Sloopy lives in a very bad part of town
And everybody, yeah, tries to put my Sloopy down
Sloopy, I don't care what your daddy do
'Cause you know, Sloopy, girl, I'm in love with you....

HUH?

Sloopy?

Now wait a minute. OK, the song is about a poor girl who "lives in a very bad part of town"

But Sloopy?

Was it a typo? And she was really Sleepy? Or Sloppy? Or even a vague reference to Snoopy, the Peanuts comic dog? Or even Soupy, as in the comedian Soupy Sales?

But even if it was, the song would still be way off. Certainly not the most charming way to seduce a poor girl in even the very worst part of town (try it and see.)

Sloopy?

There aren't any girls whatsoever I can recall even nicknamed "Sloopy". And even fewer who would put up with a guy who would call her that without filing a court order.

Why Sloopy?

So it was finally time to get answers once and for all.

Dorothy Sloop...also known as Dottie Sloop, was an American jazz pianist. She was born in Steubenville, Ohio and went by the nickname "Sloopy". During her performing years, she was best known as a pianist with a number of all (or mostly) female jazz bands in the New Orleans area, primarily from the 1930s through the 1950s.

She recorded an album, "Sloopy Time" Featuring Dixie and Sloopy, in 1957 with Yvonne "Dixie" Fasnacht, a jazz vocalist and clarinetist.

The LP was released on Golden Crest Records. Golden Crest released many albums from C and D List stars as well as countless high school choral and marching band records in the 1950s to the 1970s. It ended as a classical label before folding in 1982.

"Dixie" Fasnacht operated a bar called Dixie's Bar of Music on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. It was there that Dorothy's acquaintance and co-writer of "Hang On Sloopy" Bert Berns-Russell found the inspiration for the song. During problems with the sound equipment and a crowd getting rowdy, he heard a regular call out to her "Hang on, Sloopy!"

However, The McCoys weren't the first to record this song. It was originally recorded by The Vibrations in 1964 and titled "My Girl Sloopy". It's been performed by hundreds of rock acts, under both titles.

The Vibrations' version charted in the Top 30. After The McCoys version topped the charts, The Ohio State University Marching Band adopted "Hang On Sloopy" as it's theme song (Dorothy Sloop was also an OSU alum.)

Years later Sloopy earned a master's in English from the University of Florida, and taught special needs children in St. Petersburg. After retiring, Sloopy moved to Pass Christian, Miss., near her daughter Jane in Biloxi. A 1983 newspaper interview said her "saloon days" were over, but she still played gigs on occasion.

Dorothy "Sloopy" Sloop died in 1998. She never earned a penny in royalties from "Hang On Sloopy" and never sought out publicity from the song. Tragically, her personal memorabilia were destroyed in Hurricane Katrina.

More On "Hang On Sloopy"
  

Seattle's KJET AM 1600

On Memorial Day 1982, Seattle woke up to a pretty AWESOME new radio station.

At Midnight, May 30, 1982, KZOK-AM, a '70s pop station called "Solid Gold 16" dropped it's tired format and became KJET 1600. They signed on the air for the very first time with "I Love Rock N' Roll" Joan Jett & The Blackhearts.

And yes, this was on the AM radio band. The one your wingnut, Thanksgiving-wrecking uncle gets off on these days.

Actually, the correct frequency of KJET was 1590 kHz on the AM band and not 1600, but this was back in the days when digital tuning radios were brand new, very rare and VERY expensive. So most radio stations at that time identified with the next closest number on the analog dial - preferably one that was actually visible on an analog tuning radio dial, such as 1600 in KJET's case. For example, a station on 106.9 MHz would call it's frequency "FM 107" or a station on 92.5, just  "92", "92 FM", etc

KJET specialized in a format that was defined as "New Wave" then, the precursor to Alternative. On that day (which I remember well, I was listening and became HOOKED on this station) you heard The Police, Missing Persons, The Go-Gos, The Clash, Thompson Twins, Joan Jett, Soft Cell, Roxy Music, Devo, Joe Jackson, Human League, The Motels, Jules & The Polar Bears and many other acts of the time on KJET in 1982.


They added more different and increasingly diverse acts to their format over time and plenty of local rock and even some of the earliest Seattle grunge. KJET also introduced Seattle to R.E.M., Kate Bush, Bauhaus, Camper Van Beethoven, 54-40, The Cocteau Twins, Lloyd Cole, Depeche Mode, Erasure, Nina Hagen, Robyn Hitchcock, Siouxsie & The Banshees and countless other alternative rock acts.

Photo: 10 Things 'Zine

KJET also aired nightly live concerts, album features, hard to find imports and local independent rock programming. KJET was also a frequent sponsor of many live concerts.

Inages: KJET Seattle Facebook

Airplay on KJET was just as important as L.A's  KROQ and KITS in San Fransisco for many alternative bands.

Yet sadly, KJET was treated like the bratty stepchild of FM Classic Rocker KZOK and KZOK's then-owners really never liked it from the beginning. But there was really nothing else they could do with it. No other broadcaster wanted to buy the station then because of 1590's spotty daytime signal and they knew it would cost more money to flip it in the long run than stay the course.

KJET, for all it's warts and underachieving ratings (the typical KJET listener wasn't in the demographic ballpark of Arbitron anyway) did have quite a number of dedicated listeners and it was very influential (members of Soundgarden. Mudhoney and Pearl Jam were listeners.)

Image: Pinterest

It's nighttime signal also could be picked up in Eastern Washington and as far north as Alaska, where there were no local alternative rock stations in those areas until the '90s, KJET was there in the '80s, if only via a ghosty, uneven skywave and only after dark. In those areas, KJET was a virtual lifeline for fans of alternative rock. One guy in Spokane once told me how he couldn't wait for night to come so he could listen to his favourite music on KJET. In the pre-internet era, you took what you could get.

Image: Crosscut

Surprisingly, KJET was also automated much of the time and DJs recorded their voice tracks on one tape and the music on another. Sometimes the automation would get out of synch and you heard jocks back announcing songs that didn't come up until later in the playlist!

Yes, it was AM, yes it was scrappy. But it was ours.

KJET wasn't Seattle's first alternative rock station. That distinction belongs to KZAM-AM 1540 (yes, AM again) out of Bellevue, which was "The Rock Of The '80s...Broadcasting In Modern Mono" and they lasted from 1979 to 1981 when it flipped to Smooth Jazz as KJZZ.

Image: KZAM MySpace page

But KJET was the only source of alternative rock for most of the '80s in spite of very worthy FM competition from KYYX-FM 96.5 from 1982 until 1984.

KJET outlived them. But not for long.

(Bob Powers epitomized the attitude and look of radio station managers in the late 1980s.)

KJET lasted 6 years and was suddenly dropped in preparation for a sale of KZOK/KJET in September 1988 in favor of a '50s-'60s oldies format called KQUL or "Kool Oldies" in the hopes of gaining bigger ratings and more AM friendly older listeners. It's last song was "We're Through Being Cool" Devo.

The oldies format was a disaster and in spite of the outcry of thousands of Seattle rock fans, KJET was officially dead and KJET's corporate owners were not bringing it back.

It was three cold years before a new alternative rock station called The End 107.7 signed on in 1991.

AM 1590 was later Seattle's affiliate of the hair metal Z-Rock radio network (as KZOK-AM again) in early 1990 after realizing almost NOBODY was listening to the oldies format and returned to breaking in many local (but grunge rock/thrash metal) acts in the daytime hours and regained some small ratings (1.6), though nowhere near as much as KJET had at it's peak (3.7).

Image: Radio Sticker of The Day

At night and on weekends they returned to the Z-Rock network until October 1993 when Z-Rock dropped all their AM affiliates to go FM only and KZOK decided to sell their AM station.

It simulcasted it's Classic Rock FM sister station KZOK-FM for a year until it was finally sold to a corporate religious broadcaster in 1994, where 1590 AM languishes today as KLFE, another amplitude modulating mouthpiece of the lunatic fringe (or the station your wingnut, Thanksgiving-wrecking uncle is listening to these days.)

Today, the KJET call letters reside at an FM pop station in Aberdeen, WA that has no connection with the original Seattle AM station.

But KJET still has a huge fanbase on the web, who have created tribute sites to this little imperfect, but EXTREMELY influential AM radio station.

Here are a few links to KJET's tribute sites:

KJET 1600 Black Box (Online tribute station with original KJET promos and sweepers)
KJET's Facebook Page
Crosscut article on KJET
10 Things 'Zine: KJET
KJET on Twitter

Chris Gaines

In 1999, a greatest hits album dropped onto the record store shelves that left everybody puzzled in how to explain it without saying "You better sit down for this".....

It was from somebody named Chris Gaines. An Australian singer who did something no other Australian singer could do; look and sound exactly like Garth Brooks.

This of course, was actually a Garth Brooks album. The concept behind it was a planned, but never materialized movie called The Lamb starring Brooks as Chris Gaines, an Australian pop singer who's life, from the early press buzz at the time, seemed loosely based on the life of INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence (who died in 1997.)

Garth Brooks' fans literally thought he lost his mind. Country stars aren't supposed to do that.

But with all fairness, it did reveal Garth Brooks wasn't just a one trick pony. He could cross genres and do a very good job of it musically. Some say (and I still think) his biggest mistake was the Chris Gaines alter-ego. If he had just kept the Garth Brooks identity and said this was a pop-leaning album, he might have had another mega-platinum smash.

While the Chris Gaines album went double platinum (still very respectable in 1999), it was Garth Brooks' LEAST selling album.

In a way, it might have been a blessing. Garth Brooks was at the very peak of his fame and the endless touring, TV appearances, interviews and record company obligations to Capitol was getting too much for a now very wealthy man who was witnessing what everything was doing to his young family. Something had to give.

The songs range from classic Garth sounding numbers ("It Don't Matter To The Sun"), to an R&B vocal track that sounded like anything L.A. Reid and Babyface could have produced.

 
 ("Lost In You" - credited to Chris Gaines and not Garth Brooks, actually got airplay on Smooth Jazz radio stations in 1999/2000!)

Frankenstations

They're technical anomalies, transcending medium, legality and current technical standards to become something they were never meant to be.

 

 

They're called "Frankenstations". Or "Franken-FMs". Because while most FM radios can tune down to 87.5 FM, the FM radio dial in North America legally begins at 88.1 MHz and ends at 107.9 MHz.

However, 87.7 MHz (or 87.75 MHz to be exact), is/was the analog audio carrier frequency for VHF TV channel 6. Since the end of World War II until the DTV switchover in 2009, people who live in areas with a local TV station on Channel 6 could hear that TV station's audio signal on 87.7 on their FM radios, a fact not lost on the Channel 6 TV broadcasters (KHQ-TV in Spokane, WA promoted this for years.) And it was offered as a way to hear the audio portion of the Channel 6 TV station when you were in your car or away from a TV.

Bear in mind this wasn't a deliberate service the station offered. Just an anomaly of how the radio/TV spectrum was carved up. And unique only to analog VHF TV Channel 6 because the Channel 6 audio carrier frequency was coincidently in a tunable portion of the FM radio dial at 87.75 MHz.

However, in the early 2000s, several low power analog VHF TV stations began popping up on Channel 6. They weren't purposed as traditional TV stations, but as FM radio stations. This is why they are called "Frankenstations" An FM radio station using an audio frequency for TV.

The first Frankenstation was KZND-LP in Anchorage, Alaska. "87.7 The End" went on the air in 1999 and immediately outraged competing broadcasters who thought KZND was cheating and complained to the FCC. As it turned out, the station was using an overlooked loophole that allowed the audio portion of a TV channel to not be synchronized with a video image.

However, being an FM station on the TV band isn't as easy as one would think. First, you're technically a TV station. This means you must at least run some image on the video carrier. Which KZND was not transmitting, so the FCC forced them to start doing so. It wasn't enough the station had the ability to transmit a video image, but it had to actually do it to be within the law, as it was technically a TV station first. A simple graphic card to be broadcast over their video carrier was all the station needed to become legitimate.

Today, KZND now broadcasts on a real FM frequency (94.7.) 87.7 in Anchorage is now a jazz station called KNIK

WLFM-LP in Cleveland, Ohio actually used a Western Digital screensaver as their video carrier image!

Second, you have to be a lot more quieter than standard FM stations because you still must broadcast according to television technical standards. This meant a lot of the problems of a quiet uncompressed FM radio signal, such as "picket fencing", that "fwip-fwip-fwip" sound you hear on FM radio as you drive farther out of the station's primary service area is far more apparent well within the primary service area on an 87.7 Frankenstation. You can't broadcast in stereo either. While Zenith invented both FM Stereo and MTS Stereo TV transmission, the two systems are incompatible. All Frankenstations are mono.

And Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron), which measures radio ratings regards the Frankenstations as actual TV stations and doesn't count them amongst actual FM radio stations.   

However all low power analog TV stations, which had been exempt from the 2009 American digital TV switchover must change over to digital themselves by September 1, 2015.

Which will mean the end of the Frankenstations because the digital signals can no longer be received over standard FM radios.

However since the analog to digital TV switchover there's been talk of expanding the FM radio band down to 76 MHz (similar to how the AM radio band was expanded from 540-1600 kHz to 540-1700 kHz in the late 1980s.) Which would incorporate the Japanese allocated FM radio band (which runs from 76-90 MHz) into the American FM radio band and allow American FM stations to broadcast on those frequencies. But that's only going to happen when the current FM spectrum gets so crunched, there is no alternative.

And we're already pretty much there in some parts of the country.

WHER.....1,000 Beautiful Watts

Ladies, if you ever needed something to play on the stock car radio of your brand new 1955 Dodge La Femme, then Memphis was your kind of town.

Because also debuting in 1955 was radio station WHER. At 1430 on the AM dial, WHER was the first radio station completely staffed, programmed and operated entirely by women. The only Y chromosomes at WHER were there to write the checks and fix the transmitter whenever it got wonky. The women controlled everything else.

A terrestrial radio station with a mostly female staff is still a very rare thing. But in the 1950s, it was extremely rare to hear a female DJ with her own program. The 1950s were a pretty sexist time and the ceiling wasn't glass in the radio industry. Most women in air positions at that time were network voice actresses or they were local socialites who read recipes during the midday show. But most women overall however remained behind the scenes, doing office work.

WHER was owned by local record mogul Sam Phillips of Sun Records and Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson. Phillips used the money he got for Elvis Presley's recording contract from RCA Victor records as seed money for WHER.

But surprisingly, WHER played no rock. Probably because of the uncomfortably close link between Sun and WHER (the payola scandals around the country were just beginning to simmer.) The music on WHER was a mix of easy listening, jazz and country swing.

WHER became an instant sensation and inspired many imitators (including KPEG in Spokane, WA.)

An early press release for WHER described the station as this : 

“The studio and offices have been feminized from front door to rear exit. The disc jockeys are called jockettes, the studio is known as the doll’s den, the control rooms are called playrooms, the hallway is mirrored, the equipment room has been decorated with murals depicting the evolution of feminine clothing, the stationary is perfumed, the advertisers are listed in a date book, and the exit to the parking lot is labeled “Bye, Bye ‘Till Next Time”.

You were clearly in their world.

WHER was managed and programmed by Becky Phillips (wife of Sam Phillips) and Dottie Abbott. And from 1955 to 1966, WHER was exclusively operated by women. However after Abbott left, it seemed time to let the guys in. The station changed call letters to WWEE, or "We" radio.

1430 kHz in Memphis today is WOWW, a repeater for country music station "95.3/97.7 The Rebel" WEBL.  

More info on WHER:

WHER Radio Station

The Kitchen Sisters documentary on WHER (Complete with audio!)

"Don't Be So Holy Poly Over My Souly" Kit Ream (1978)

Oh dear, where do I simply begin?

The story of Kit Ream begins in the 1960s. Kit was a very wealthy heir to the Nabisco cookie fortune. And living such a charmed life up to that point, he had instant access to anything he wanted. Women, cars, the very best in anything and everything. And drugs.

And then someone gave him acid.

From here, the story goes off into multiple tangents. Some say his behaviour became increasingly erratic over time, others say he was at a party one night and bought and ate his dealer's entire stock of acid in one night on a whim. Who knows? All that is known is things were never the same again for Kit Ream.

He spent the rest of the '60s and most of the '70s in a psychiatric hospital as the acid wore off (which is probably an indicator of how much acid he actually ate), staring at his own reflection in a mirror. Before the decade ended, he was deemed recovered enough to be released. After which, it's been said he tried to start a religious cult (which has been discredited by sources close to Ream.)

He also recorded and released a vanity album titled All That I Am, from which we hear this incredible selection.

Listen to the entire tune. The drugs have already been done for you. Just turn it up loud. If you dare...

Merry Christmas From History's Dumpster!

Bossa Nova

"The smooth Bossa Nova sound somehow gets horribly lost and ends up in Newark, New Jersey for this low-budget Diplomat release. If you’re looking for some kind of Stan Getz Verve samba, you’ve come to the wrong place. This record is best played on a big wood veneer stereo that’s the size of a small car. It’s one of those records that my parents might have picked up at the grocery store while they were buying cocktail weenies for the big “grown up” party Saturday night. There’s a real nice b-movie vibe going on here......." - The Thrift Store DJ

http://www.records.fruityfamily.com/?p=19 (Download on link)

And who were the Brasileros?

They were some pretty notable jazz musicians, brothers Bill Barron (tenor sax) and Kenny Barron (piano), Ron Carter (bass) and Charli Persip (drums) They were successful individually and as session players on many classic jazz albums and recorded for Diplomat during a pretty lean time in their careers. This was all I could gather on this particular 1962 album.

"Brasileros....Brazilians....They're all the same....."

But this was never printed on the jacket. Synthetic Plastics Co., like most budget record labels, never printed much in the way of liner notes and nothing on session information (but for some reason, they always made sure you knew the engineering data on the bottom of the back cover!)

I had to research the rest.

Very few albums released under pseudonyms on budget labels have any real stars on them. This group, Lou Reed and a few others are the only ones that come to my mind.....

Enjoy!

Halloween Hits "Oops! I Did It Again"

Imagine this body........

.......with this voice.

Sweet dreams guys.......

"L.A. Is My Lady" Frank Sinatra (1984)

The year was 1984 and Frank Sinatra had just released a long awaited new album.

This was a pretty big thing. Whenever Sinatra put out a new album, the world of music paid attention.

This album however would be Sinatra's last album of new material. 

This video has a ton of cameo appearances, including Van Halen, Donna Summer, Missing Persons, Michael McDonald, Cheryl Tiegs, Dean Martin, LaToya Jackson and of course, Michael Jackson.) When you get a call from Quincy Jones asking you to appear in Frank Sinatra's video, who is going to turn him down?   

BREAKING NEWS: Pepsi Trademarks 'Jazz'

PepsiCo, the world's second largest soft drink company, has claimed trademark protection on the word "Jazz" and has issued cease and desist orders to anyone currently using the word other than in reference to their diet cola product of that name.

Pepsi Jazz has been on the market since 2006, while the word "j---" goes back to around 1915, but PepsiCo was able to exploit a loophole in the burgeoning field of ridiculous intellectual property claims. "No one had trademarked the word," said Pepsi spokesbastard Phil Clabbard, "so we took the opportunity to secure our brand property. We feel this will eliminate confusion that may be usurping our brand integrity and product recognition. From now on, when anyone says 'Jazz,' everyone will know they mean 'Pepsi Jazz.'"


More below.....

























































APRIL FOOL!!!!

(http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=28849#.UT_eeqrIkiw)

Easter Records

Easter music isn't anywhere NEAR as prolific as Christmas or Halloween music. A lot of people don't even know it exists.  

Here's a sample...... 

"Easter Parade" Rosemary Clooney (1955)

"Eggbert The Easter Egg" Rosemary Clooney (1952)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAYM2EBiVbw

"Little Johnny Chickadee" Rosemary Clooney (1952)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2g5M8qCtG0

"Bunny On The Rainbow" Rosemary Clooney (1952)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_n3YNDE1Zs

"Peter Cottontail" Rosemary Clooney (1955)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjrL9mPLOZA

"My Choc'late Rabbit" Rosemery Clooney (1955)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7GOFm3lFUk

While Rosemary Clooney has some sort of record in Easter song recordings. she wasn't the only one.

 "Easter Mornin'" Gene Autry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6m8WzBOSCI

"The Horse With The Easter Bonnet" Gene Autry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSnMZdjvcq4

Yma Sumac

Yma Sumac "Voice of The Xtabay" (10" inch LP, 1952) Right here is where "Exotica" music began.....

Before Minnie Riperton and Mariah Carey, Peruvian singer Yma Sumac was considered to have the widest vocal range of any known singer, over FIVE octaves (that's a range going nearly the entire human vocal spectrum, from a gut-deep basso to an ear piercing C-note. The best opera singers can barely accomplish two octaves.)


But WHO was she?

She was reportedly descended from the last Incan emporer, Atahualpa (although no DNA evidence was ever presented, it's a claim supported by the Peruvian government.)

It was also claimed in the 1950s she was nothing more than a housewife from Brooklyn named Amy Camus (and "Yma Sumac" was this name backwards.) However, that rumor has been discredited by several Peruvian and Argentinian records she recorded for Odeon in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

The shellac doesn't lie......

Her popularity peaked in the 1950s during the hi-fi craze. Her exotic look, music and voice made her very popular with young hi-fi fans. In fact, before the first formal hi-fi demonstration albums, it was her records that were the bench test of hi-fi enthusiasts.

One of her most famous was Mambo! (10" inch LP, 1955)

 

Here's Side One.....

Yma Sumac died November 1, 2008.


 

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......

Colonel Sanders' Tijuana Picnic

I didn't know where to categorize this. Under Food, Restaurants or Music. Well, it's a little of all of the above.

Could you think of two things that could be more further apart than Herb Alpert-like brass music and Kentucky Fried Chicken?

Before these unholy Taco Bell/KFC combo restaurants started popping up everywhere (do these corporations even know that when you're really in the mood for Original Recipe, the LAST thing you want to smell is greasy tacos and vice-versa?) and bizarre things like chipotle started showing up on KFC's menus, such a union meant automatic BANKRUPTCY to whoever was serving it. And rightly so. Leave the fried chicken and the faux Mexican food to the specialists. And keep them separate.

Of course some whiny corporate suck-up will say "But think about it; let's say mom and dad wanted KFC food and the kids wanted Taco Bell food. Wouldn't it be great if they could each have what they want under one roof?"

And then people wonder why kids are so spoiled today. Because when I was growing up, eating out was a TREAT. And a RARE treat at that. We NEVER argued or complained about where we were going to eat because ANYTHING was better than ANOTHER night of meatloaf.

I could sympathize with the Colonel when he said two years before his death in 1980 that he wished he never sold Kentucky Fried Chicken. I wish he hadn't either. You just don't know heartburn until you had just eaten strips of Extra Crispy and chipotle sauce in a gummy tortilla, no matter how much lettuce and cheddar cheese shreds they put in it.

But let's go back to the late '60s and this vinyl gem. I don't know how exactly it was distributed, but seeing as it was on Mark 56 Records (a company that specialized in producing custom albums for businesses to be sold cheaply or just given away as a loss leader for another product) it was probably given away with a bucket of chicken or sold for 98¢.

It's a generic album of trendy Tijuana Brass knockoffs (that sound was HUGE in the '60s) that corporate America was pushing on every supermarket sound system and FM radio station they could for middle class suburban moms of the late '60s who wanted to be hip, but didn't want anything to do with pot (and ended up alcoholic instead.)

I especially love the liner notes the Good Colonel wrote on the back of this album. Who would've known he was as much an expert on Latin-tinged pop jazz as he was pressure cooking chicken?

Actually, he wasn't. They were ghost-written. But he sure knew how to sell Kentucky Fried Chicken.....

Here's a sample: