BIRMINGHAM RECORD COLLECTORS
DEDICATED TO THE COLLECTING OF MUSIC, ITS PRESERVATION AND LASTING FRIENDSHIP
THIS MONTH’S MEETING
SUNDAY, MARCH 12TH 2:00 PM
HOMEWOOD PUBLIC LIBRARY 1721 OXMOOR RD BIRMINGHAM, AL 35209
NEXT MEETING, APRIL 2ND 2:00 PM THE FIRST SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOTIFICATION: BOTH THE APRIL & MAY MEETINGS WILL BE HELD ON THE FIRST SUNDAY
THIS MONTH’S MEETING
Unfortunately,last month our scheduled speaker, Larry Parker had to postpone his visit but said he will get over here soon. So, stay tuned for when Larry will be with us.
This month we will have our in-house Doo Wop aficionado Bob Friedman presenting Part II of his Doo Wop program playing more of his 78’s for us. And of course, Bob will give us so much info about the songs, the groups and the labels. Hope you can make it. You won’t be disappointed.
BRC MUSIC HALL OF FAME MEMBER HAS UPCOMING LP RELEASE
BRC Music Hall of Fame member Victoria Hallman has an upcoming LP release. Below is the press release from Omnivore Recordings including the when and where. Check with your local record stores as to the availability. I have heard that here in the Birmingham area both Seasick Records and Renaissance Records will have copies available on Record Store day April 23, 2023. Congratulations to Victoria for this special LP to be now released after 40 years.
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Unissued Buck Owens-produced album from 1982 featuring The Buckaroos plus three 1980 demos featuring James Burton, Hal Blaine, and more.
Victoria Hallman began her career at the age of four; recording her first record when she was six, and appearing on The Steve Allen Show while still in grammar school. She would soon open for Bob Hope, and eventually become part of Buck Owens’ touring band. Owens brought her to Hee Haw, and subsequently took her into the studio in 1981 to record a solo album.
Backed by The Buckaroos, and co-produced by Buckaroo Jim Shaw, Buck and Victoria recorded a successful album they were both happy with, but due to life and career challenges for both, fell through the cracks and disappeared. Or, so everyone thought…
In 2006, Victoria and Shaw decided to look for the tapes for the release, but they were nowhere to be found. Over a decade later, Hallman joined the Authors Guild after writing her book Hollywood Lights, Nashville Nights: Two Hee Haw Honeys Dish Life, Love, Elvis, Buck & Good Times In The Kornfield, where she was contacted by a record collector who had found an acetate with her name on it. It was the lost album!
Forty years later From Birmingham To Bakersfield finally sees the light of day! Produced for release by Hallman, Grammy® nominee Randy Poe (also author of Buck ‘Em: The Autobiography Of Buck Owens), and multi-Grammy® winner Cheryl Pawelski, with Mastering and Restoration by multi-Grammy® winner Michael Graves, the release sounds as fresh as it did when it was first recorded. In addition to the album, three bonus demo tracks from 1980 are included—recorded with a band that included James Burton on guitar, Hal Blaine on drums, and bassist Emory Gordy, Jr.
The packaging contains photos, ephemera, and liner notes from Poe featuring new interviews with Victoria about her career and the discovery of this lost piece of Country Music history. Available on LP for Record Store Day April 23, 2023, the CD and Digital will be available April 28, 2023. So, get ready to take the journey From Birmingham To Bakersfield!
LONG-TIME BRC MEMBER PASSES AWAY
Some of you will remember BRC member Harry Benjamin. Mr. Benjamin passed away recently. Mr. Benjamin and I would work the front table at many BRC record shows and was a great guy.
DID YOU KNOW?
Time for some interesting music trivia. It has to be true because I read it in a book, right? Enjoy.
The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP was the first pop LP with printed lyrics.
Speaking of the Beatles, the first British musician with a #1 pop hit was Mr. Acker Bilk. “Stranger On The Shore’ was the song and 1962 was the year.
The first foreign-language #1 pop song was Kyu Sakamoto’s ‘Sukiyaki’.
In 1977 The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band became the first American pop band to tour the Soviet Union.
On Oct 11, 1975 Billy Preston was the first musical guest on Saturday Night Live. He performed his hit song, ‘Nothing From Nothing’. Twenty minutes later Janis Ian performed.
The first album release on CD was ABBA’s 1981 album, The Visitor.
Remember Roberta Flack’s hit recording, ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’? It originally was a poem written by Lori Lieberman entitled ‘Killing Me Softly With His Blues’. It was penned after Lori saw Don McLean perform ‘American Pie’ and other songs at his concert. ‘His Song’ replaced ‘His Blues’ when Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel wrote the music for it. Lori Lieberman did the first recording but it was not successful.
OK, everybody sing, ♪♪ Mama Told Me (Not To Come) ♪♪. What a fun song done by Three Dog Night. I am sure you sang along with it at least one time but did you know that Three Dog Night did not record it first? In fact, the group was the fourth to record the song. Eric Burdon & The Animals were first to record the Randy Newman composition. P. J. Proby and Newman himself followed. Then four years after Burdon did it, Three Dog Night did the definitive version.
Eric Burdon & The Animals
The Animals’ classic 1964 hit ‘House Of The Rising Sun’ was reportedly captured in one take. The band was in the studio for a total of eight minutes: four to rehearse and four to record. Cost: $5.
“Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah’ was too silly to be true, correct? Here is the rest of the story. Robert Sherman, comedian and songwriter Allan Sherman’s son spent a few weeks at a summer camp and wrote his father to please come and get him. When this didn’t work, Robert threw a butter knife at a fellow camper in hopes to be sent home. It worked. But later that summer Robert asked his songwriting father to let him go back. Allan Sherman then wrote the song set to Ponchielli’s classical melody, ‘Dance Of The Hours’. The song went to #2 on the pop chart. By the way, the fellow camper was not injured by Robert’s knife toss.
‘Stay’ by Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs remains the shortest song to reach #1 on the charts. It comes in at 1:36. But what song even shorter than that one charted? It was “Some Kind-A Earthquake’ by Duane Eddy coming in at 1:17.
Duane Eddy
BRC RADIO
Check out our latest radio shows or what some people call podcasts at birminghamrecord.com. Click on ‘RADIO’ and listen to some long-lost music and even some new sounds. There is a wide variety of music now that we have 3 hosts doing shows which provide a wide-range of musical genres.
Latest shows:
http://www.birminghamrecord.com/brc/brc-radio-2-26-23/
http://www.birminghamrecord.com/brc/brc-radio-2-19-23/
See ya,
Charlie