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It's Opening Day once again, and the Phillies are pursuing their third World Series championship, so it's time for a little baseball related music.   The appeal of Baseball's Greatest Hits (1989) lies almost exclusively with hardcore baseball fans and those who like to bask in its history. It's an interesting and informative artifact but not something a listener would routinely pop in his CD player (if you still have one) on a regular basis because it's a collection of novelty songs that are mostly really, really old. The album has twenty-two tracks that are predominantly songs but it also includes a handful of spoken word radio broadcasts and comedy bits. Among the latter are museum pieces such as Abbott & Costello's famous "Whose On First" (1945), "Lou Gehrig's Farewell Speech" (1939), and "Bobby Thomson's Shot Heard 'Round The World" (1951). Also featured is actor and vaudeville star DeWolf Hopper who rec...

Before 2024 I only wrote about one other comedy Christmas record, I Yust Go Nuts At Christmas by Yogi Yorgeson , but this year I seem to have overdosed on novelty tunes more than a little bit. Perhaps it's because I believe we all need a little more lighthearted fare than usual this holiday season. The 3 Stooges Sing 6 Happy Yuletide Songs is one of my favorite, childhood, Christmas memories. At the time, I thought the Golden Records ' 45 RPM was the funniest thing I ever heard. It offers six very short songs and comedy bits featuring Larry, Moe and Curly Joe, the last of three replacements for the original Curly. My mother was one of those concerned parents who disliked the The Stooges short, often violent films, but she let me watch them anyway because she understood I wasn't going to torture helpless puppies and kittens when I grew up. There isn't much to say about the record except that it's exactly what you'd expect from...

For seven straight years beginning in 1963 - even before they were famous in America - The Beatles recorded annual Christmas messages exclusively for their fan club members as a holiday thank you. They were issued on seven-inch, vinyl records that were very thin, very bendable, and easily damaged. These flexi-discs, as they were called, could not be stacked on record changers. Over the years the tracks have been bootlegged in countless ways, and until a few years ago the only legal release was sent to fan club members in 1970 on 33 RPM vinyl records after the boys from Liverpool went their separate ways. The LP cover shown here is from that album. Finally, in 2017, a limited edition box set  on colored vinyl was released and is now an expensive collector's item. Many Beatles fans managed to hear these records over the years, and with the Internet being what it is, there are several websites where anyone can easily listen to all of them.  Archive.org ...

This is a word for word reposting of a Christmas album review originally published here on December 20, 2008 with a YouTube video added. It's for British Invasion and Beatles fans everywhere. Yesterday, while listening to Little Steven's Underground Garage on Sirius XM Satellite Radio, I was suddenly taken in by a version of "Joy To The World" that I never heard before. The song opened with John Lennon's famous harmonica introduction to The Beatles' first English #1 single, "Please Please Me," before morphing into one of the world's most famous Christmas songs. While the lyrics and melody were true to the original carol the arrangement screamed early Beatles. With my interest piqued I conducted an Internet search where I discovered, The Butties, a Beatles tribute band who released a CD, 12 Greatest Carols , in 2005. All of the songs were arranged in a way The Beatles may have recorded them. The lyrics and melody of "Let It Snow" fit ...

This post first appeared here eleven Decembers ago, and since we're all looking to add a little class to our holidays I'm rerunning it now. Enjoy the humor and have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Singer-comedian Yogi Yorgesson's real name was Harry Stewart (1908 – 1956). Yorgesson was simply a persona the latter used to release over forty songs for Capitol Records beginning in 1949. Stewart was originally a radio announcer in the late 1920s in Tacoma, Washington where he invented an act featuring Yorgesson in the mid-30s. Stewart later took his shtick to night clubs where the Swedish character evolved over the years. Finally - in 1948 - Stewart became a singer and recorded two songs under the Yorgesson name. When the sides proved successful Capitol Records picked up his contract and the following year they released "I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas" with "Yingle Bells...

Among the more unusual recording careers a pop star ever experienced belongs to Tony Burrows (born April,14, 1942), a British singer who was a member of six different bands in the late 60s and early 70s. In America, five of them were one-hit wonders that fell into either the novelty or bubblegum sub-genres of pop-rock music. Some of them weren't even real bands, just studio concoctions organized simply to promote a composer's song. In 1967, The Flower Pot Men had their only hit in Britain with a song that had a pronounced, psychedelic, post-Pet Sounds, Beach Boys vibe. "Let's Go To San Francisco" reached #4 in Burrows' native land but that was before he joined the group. So, while this doesn't personally give him the distinction of being part of a sixth one-hit wonder, it's another outfit he was involved with that became infamous for having only one hit. The record never charted in America. Later, Burrows became a session singe...

They finally came and took Jerry Samuels away - for real this time. Samuels - whose death was reported today - was known as the one-hit wonder, Napoleon XIV, who became almost famous for recording and releasing the 45 RPM record " They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" It became a #3 hit for Warner Brothers Records in the summer of 1966 and it's perhaps the most bizarre novelty hit to ever climb near the top of the Billboard Hot 100. This spoken word single was made using only percussion instruments with a siren added for effect and was partially recorded by employing the same studio technique that the late David Seville used to alter the voices of The Chipmunks. At first the listener believes Samuels is "singing" about a woman who left him, but soon we realize it's about his runaway dog. " I  cooked your food ,  I cleaned your house, and this is how you pay me back for all my kind, unselfish, loving deeds. Hah! Well you just wai...

In the early days of The Beatles' career they didn't get a lot of respect. Serious music lovers often considered them a youthful joke, and others looked upon their songs as nothing more than minor variations of "yeah, yeah, yeah." Others fixated on their unique hairstyle and clothes. Some people even thought they were evil and symbolic of the decline of Western civilization. But at the same time the Fab Four received a lot of love, and many individuals on both sides of the love/hate meter knew how large the boys loomed as cultural and media phenomena. There were a lot of attempts to cash in on the Liverpool band's fame while the iron was hot because it was widely believed they could be a flash in the pan. There were trading cards, magazines, models, pennants, buttons, and dolls. I once owned a metal Beatles lunchbox. Some people even made records about the band and it seems special attention was paid to the quartet's cuddly drummer, Ringo Star...

The First Hot 100 Of the 60s is a 4 CD set featuring all of the songs, in order, on the Billboard chart for the week of January 4, 1960 starting at #1 and running through #100. It was only a couple of years earlier, in August 1958, when the first Hot 100 was published and in just two years it became the ultimate guide to the US singles market. At the time of this chart Billboard determined a song's popularity based on sales of 45 RPM singles and radio airplay. Today, a song's ranking in the United States is based on the total sales of both physical and digital formats, radio airplay, and online streaming. So, it's possible that if the current methods were used in 1960 the chart may have had a very different look. We'll never know. Hot 100s always included many genres and they usually contain some classic tracks along with a lot of simple-minded dreck. The January '60 chart is loaded with one hit wonders and novelty songs but it was also home to a lot of fam...

Click on image to enlarge I've always tried to keep this blog as classy as possible. Controversial topics such as politics are discussed only when there is a relationship with a piece of music that I've written about, and you'll never see any coarse language here at all. Rest assured, for those of you who like it that way things won't be changing in the future. However, I have some sad news today that is forcing me to be less than 100% polite and I'm asking you to indulge me just this once. After 67 years, Mad Magazine , the hilarious rag that always brings back some of the top memories from my youth is mostly going away. I remember riding my bike to the local pharmacy to pick up the latest issue but after August 2019 it will no longer be available at newsstands. Beginning in September Mad can only be purchased in comic book stores or by subscription. I haven't read a copy in decades but I'm still sad that it's gone. Future issues will feature ne...