Found at the Coalition Thrift Store in Ventura, CA, my favorite spot for audio curiosities, was this pair of red Wilcox-Gay lacquer discs containing the tracks “Limehouse,” “That Man of Mine,” “Rumba” [sic], and “Star Dust.” I’ll have more to say about these later, but for now, here are the tracks and label images. Many thanks to Seth B. Winner for the harrowing job of transferring these. (Note that “Lime House” cuts off halfway through because the disc was terribly damaged beyond that point.)
A Home "Harpsichord" Recording
About 12 years ago, while I was writing my dissertation, I purchased two home-recorded seven-inch lacquer discs on eBay (four sides in total), featuring a Henry L. Chelt on keyboard. I listened to the harpsichord side briefly when they arrived, but didn’t quite know how to incorporate it into my dissertation. So, I photographed the label for my site and put the discs away to rest.
Recently, I had the opportunity to have it transferred by the great and esteemed engineer Seth B. Winner, along with the other three sides that came with it. I’ve found the set of recordings useful for thinking about the 1940s-1950s middle-class American milieu occupied by Henry L. Chelt, as well as what was conjured for him by the term “harpsichord.”
I know nothing about Chelt except that there is mention of a Henry L. Chelt Trio in the December 27, 1959 issue of the Santa Cruz Sentinel as playing on the radio station KSCO. Based on the discs, I can also sense his musical points of reference as Classical piano repertoire, boogie, and pop. Chelt’s performance practice tells us that he was likely trained as a Classical pianist. (Scoff as one might at the irregularities in his performance of Chopin’s Polonaise Op. 53, the fact is, the piece is damned hard, he gets the left hand chords right and has some facility with the right hand octaves, too). His performance of Mozart’s “Turkish” Rondo (the disc side labeled “Harpsichord”) shows less evidence of Chelt’s pianistic skill. Likely, he was playing the piece from distant memory, based on chord changes and ornaments that he recalls as being the piece’s essence. For Chelt, the purpose of that disc side seems to have been to demonstrate the “harpsichord” sound on his piano, an effect he seems to have achieved with tacks, or some other alteration to the piano’s hammers.
Before There Was Hooked on Classics, There Was Club 15
Quotations of J.S. Bach’s music in pop recordings fascinate me especially when they are unannounced. Basically, they make me wonder why they’re there. I stumbled upon an example of this a few weeks ago through a thrift store purchase of Club 15, an LP promotion produced by the Campbell Soup Company.
Club 15 seems to have been a club for women to inspire fitness and weight loss. Gymnast Muriel Davis Grossfeld, who competed in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics on the U.S. team, was the club’s spokesperson and exercise advisor. In addition to being featured on two LP albums, she also wrote a 27-page pamphlet on the facets of Club 15, published in 1965 by Campbell Soup Company.
Partly, it was the liner notes that piqued my interest in this LP, and specifically the seeming acknowledgment via scare quotes that Club 15 was something to be avoided: “Here are some ideas for organizing your CLUB and planning ‘fun’ activities.” I was also excited by the inserted booklet of exercises that included drawings both elegant and peculiar.
It helps when you realize the squiggles are supposed to be ponytails.
Not sure I’d be able to get beyond Exercise No. 1.
This does not look like a “fun” activity.
Part D isn’t looking so good.
The record itself features Ms. Grossfeld announcing exercises with musical excerpts meant to last the duration of the exercise. In addition to “Moonlight Sonata” and “Morning Mood” from the Peer Gynt Suite are two Bach selections: the Minuet in G (which had become especially famous in 1965 for its use in The Toys’ “A Lover’s Concerto”), and the Two-Part Invention No. 2 in D Minor.
Exercise to be performed to Bach’s Two-Part Invention No. 2.
Bach in Chino State Prison, 1973
Bach Behind Bars (Westminster Gold, 1973) is the second in Jack Crossan’s Keyboard Kaleidoscope series, in which he plays a mix of pop and Classical standards on harpsichord, clavichord, piano, and celeste--occasionally playing two at once.
In this case, Crosson is live in the gymnasium at Chino State Prison (otherwise known as the California Institution for Men, Chino, Calif.) The repertoire includes a dizzying array of Mozart, Gershwin, Bacharach, the Beatles, Tchaikovsky, Bartok, Beethoven, and some Spanish bullfight music in addition to Bach. Presumably, Bach was chosen as the focal point for the LP cover because his presence in a prison seemed to the producers to be the most jarring. (That they did not play up Bach’s own time in jail seems a missed marketing opportunity). The harpsichord and clavichord are by the Neupert company, and the celeste by Schiedmayer.
I imagined the recording would be a rare glimpse into an exciting moment in the 20th century reception of historical keyboards and Classical music. But, as Edward Pearlstien describes in the liner notes, the prisoners’ response to Crossan was mostly tepid, save for some initial, so-called “appreciative whistles” for his wardrobe (“red velveteen dinner jacket, pink ruffled shirt, and large bow tie”) and a minimal burst of enthusiasm at the end. Apparently, after the performance, some longterm prisoners were overheard to say that "classical music represented the society from which they were excluded and indeed had been alienated at the time they committed their crimes."
The clip here starts at the end of the second-to-last track "If I Ruled the World" and ending a bit into Bach's C Minor Fugue from WTC Book 1. Though, sadly, some of the applause seems to have been edited out, one can hear a small bit of prisoners' enthusiasm, along with Crossan's banter (and a quick reference to the clavichord as being the appropriate instrument for playing the WTC). My favorite part is when one of the prisoners tells Crossan: "I'm ready for it!"
Also, if you're wondering why the clavichord sounds so loud, it's because (as explained in the notes) there's "a microphone stuck in its guts to amplify the otherwise inaudible sounds."
"Work Song" on the harpsichord, 1966
Derek & Ray consisted of Derek Smith and Ray Cohen (not to be confused with the brothers Derek and Ray who played with the band Gentle Giant). The first couple of Derek & Ray albums featured the two men playing Baldwin pianos. The next 3 albums (The Cinema Scene Today, Interplay, and The Keyboard Sounds of Today!) featured Derek playing harpsichord and Ray on piano. Generally speaking, the albums featured jazz keyboard arrangements of Top 40 M.O.R. hits, sometimes with orchestral accompaniment.
A review in High Fidelity magazine of the 1966 Keyboard Sounds of Today! (pictured above) referred to the album as "a fertile bid in the almost-music market." Another review, from the American Record Guide, gave similarly faint praise to the album: "The twin team of Derek and Ray make for a mildly exciting combination."
Obviously, when I found this LP for 49 cents at the CAAN thrift store in Ventura, CA, I was more than mildly excited. (Even though the record itself was pretty banged up, as though it had been listened to and then stepped on). Whereas the 1st of D&R's harpsichord-piano records featured some kind of German factory-made harpsichord, the next two feature a more historically-informed model, possibly by the Boston maker Eric Herz. (In each of the 3 albums, though the liner notes mention that it's a Baldwin brand piano, they don't say anything about the maker of the harpsichord).
To me, the tracks on Keyboard Sounds of Today! sound a bit more like music than those on the other 2 releases. In particular, the 1st half of their cover of Cannonball Adderley's "Work Song" (below) seems almost pretty good.
"Bump the Bach" by Carl Barok
"Bump the Bach" / "For You Anna Magdalena" is a mysterious single released on Intercord and Sirocco in 1977 and 1978, respectively. Initially, I thought that Carl Barok was a nomme de plume. But then I found that he also released a single called “Blue Nights in Granada” (Mustang, 1977) under the same name, which does not seem to have any tie-in to Baroque music. So now I'm not sure. From what I can tell, the artist performing under the name Carl Barok was based in Germany.
Side A starts with a spoken intro from Barok (channeling Bach) in which he counters the public perception that JSB's music doesn't "swing." He then moves to a strange rendering of Prelude I from the Well Tempered Clavier Book I.
Side B covers the G Major Minuet from the Anna Magdalena Bach Notebook and includes a spoken dedication from JSB to Anna M about halfway through (where he moves into creepy territory through mention of Anna's "small hands").
One website listed the genre as “electronic down-tempo,” but perhaps “disco” would also apply. If it qualifies as disco, this would make one of several disco covers of Bach pieces that I've found (most from Europe or Latin America).
If you know anything about Carl Barok, please email me immediately.
Bach's Life Story on Record
Some of my favorite moments in Bach reception history come from commercial children's recordings and films that tell his life story. I'm especially drawn to ones from the 1950s-70s that make his career trajectory map onto the postwar ideal of the "self-made man"--an ideal that has gained traction lately via Madmen and the character Don Draper. Both Bach and Draper were orphans who grew up poor, worked their way up purely by the sweat of their brow, became breadwinning family men--all the while keeping a certain undomesticated masculinity that crops up in sexual proclivities, uncooperativeness at work, occasional stick fights, and maybe a stint in jail.
One example includes the Story of Bach LP (pictured here), which was part of an enormous British series for children featuring biographies of famous historical or fictional characters (such as Beethoven, Chopin, or Rip Van Winkle). In this excerpt, C.P.E. Bach tells the story of his father J.S.'s life, including the part where he becomes an orphan and his brother Johann Christoph offers to put him up for awhile.
And although the record is for children, Side B does include a brief reference to Bach’s sexuality when a church official nearly catches him “in the act” with Maria Barbara. Bach assures him not to worry, since she is a cousin. The official replies, “We’ve all heard of those kind of cousins.”
Screen shot from Bach Is Beautiful.
In 1970, AIMS Instructional Media Services released a film entitled "Bach Is Beautiful" (a play on the era's "black is beautiful" movement) that gave a similar account of JS's life. Synopsis: Bach was an orphan, had to walk 30 miles just to hear a concert, had to write out manuscripts by hand, and (lacking patrons) had to "work" to sustain his wife & kids. I've included just the audio from the film here--in the film, cartoons of Bach are interspersed with footage of 1960s listeners and performers of his music.
A 1952 release on Vox, Johann Sebastian Bach, was a bit less dramatic in its presentation of the composer's various life struggles--save for a suddenly informal mention in the liner notes of the composer being "peeved" about not getting the choirmaster job in Weimar.
Recorded Medical Library's Classics Series, 1961
In 1961, Wallace Laboratories marketed its prescription drug brands Milpath and Soma through 2 boxed sets of 7-inch 33rpm records. These records most likely served as trade ads and would have been distributed to doctors (as opposed to the general public).
Side A's of the records featured presentations by various doctors on treatments for things like peptic ulcers, duodenal ulcers, overactive appetite, orthopedic problems, etc. Side B's featured Westminster, Epic and Vanguard Records recordings of Classical music standards like Schubert's "Trout" Quintet, Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 18, No. 5, and Brahms' Hungarian Dances.
It also appears that Wallace Labs released a Christmas record promoting Milpath and Vanguard recordings of carols and Respighi's The Birds.
Based on information on the labels, Milpath was to be used for any variety of gastrointestinal problems, whereas Soma was for joint stiffness and post-surgery pain relief. (In actuality, Milpath seems to be best known as an addictive sedative).
The record I found a couple weeks ago features Dr. Joseph Bandes talking about "Combined Drug Therapy in G.I. Dysfunction: Increased Benefit through Diminished Side Reactions." (And of course I originally assumed that G.I. referred to General Infantry and not gastro-intestinal). Side B features the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam playing Bach's "Air on the G String." In the excerpt below, the announcer makes a point to say that the performance is of the piece "as originally composed"--and not a transposition into G.
I'm curious to know more about the strategy behind this campaign.
The LPCover Lover has found a previous example of the Classics being used to market GI treatments, but in that case, the Classical piece that was used was topically related (Marin Marais' "Table of a Bladder Operation").
Frank Stein and the B.G. System, "Mysterious Barricades," Diamonds DI 1725
Frank Stein and the B.G. System play Stein's psych rock arrangement of F. Couperin's 1717 "Les Barricades Mistérieuses". Side 1 features Stein's arrangement of an anonymous 15th century English keyboard piece called "My Lady." I have not been able to find any info on this release, but I think that the Diamonds label may have been based in Switzerland.
This performance makes the Mysterious Barricades sound a little too much like Pachelbel's Canon for my taste, partly because of the plodding tempo. Stein's decision to stagger left and right hand on beat 4 of seemingly every measure also gets kind of old. But I appreciate that he created some variety in timbre by using the instrument's different stops.
Horn, Harpsicord [sic], and Do Not Disturb, Barry Pohl & the Concessions
"Barry Pohl and the Concessions" was formed in 1966 as "the Basement Concession" with the following lineup: Jeff Breeh (bass), Eddie Taylor (drums), John Buono (rhythm guitar), Ron Renninger (vocals) and Barry Pohl (vocals). Ralph Affoumado was manager and his business partner, Alan Braverman, funded the recording; Bravamado Enterprises is a reference to Braverman.
Renninger generously contacted me last year to provide these details on the band. He explained to me that he formed the band when he was only 16, the band's name was changed to Barry Pohl and the Concessions for marketing reasons, and that he and Pohl were the only band members who performed on the recording of "Horn, Harpsichord..."; the rest were session musicians.
Another interesting post on this recording can be found here: http://emscee.com/foolsparadise/?p=1343.
The recording quality is pretty bad on the original.
"18th Century Barrelhouse," Sylvia Marlowe
Sylvia Marlowe was a classically-trained harpsichordist who played from time to time on the revolving stage in the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center and on the radio program "Lavender and Old Lace." She also inspired the harpsichordist character in Francis Steegmuller's 1949 novel Blue Harpsichord.
Francis Steegmuller, Blue Harpsichord , 1949
Her first jazz harpsichord recordings appeared on her album From Bach to Boogie Woogie (General Records, c. 1940). "18th Century Barrehlhouse" was part of a series of fox trots, "New Portraits of Old Masters," which she recorded in 1947 on Decca & Brunswick, and is an arrangement of J.P. Rameau's "Tambourine" from his Suite in e minor.