Hey Scootaloo96! I discovered these records (and tapes) from your homeland in my country (USA!) · 1:41am Jun 21st, 2015
LPs - Philips
ROCKIN' - FRANKIE LAINE - PHILIPS BBL 7155 - 1957 - American Recording
This and three other UK LPs were purchased at stores in my residence of Tucson. This and two other records were purchased by me at a Goodwill in said city.
Frankie Laine scored tremendously in the US and UK during the '50s; this LP contains performances of some Mercury cuts in HiFi. The album was released in America on the label he was contracted to, Columbia Records; this LP doesn't mention its source to avoid litigation (since at that time, EMI owned its Columbia label, and it was having success with UK stars in its own right.)
SCHUBERT: IMPROPTUS OP.90, D.899, OP.142, D.935 - ALFRED BRENDEL - PHILIPS 9500 357 - 1975
I picked this one up at the Assistance League in Tucson. I wouldn't normally buy LPs in this genre, but I was looking for UK LPs, found this one, and, after witnessing that the rest of the LPs they stocked happened to be All-American, figured, "What the hell? Might as well buy this one!"
LPs - Capitol (Distributed by EMI)
KENTON IN HI-FI - STAN KENTON - CAPITOL - LCT 6109 - 1956 - American Recording
Bandleader's recordings of old hits in the then-newly discovered "High Fidelity" process (This was considered a technological breakthrough back then.)
THE LAST DANCE...FOR LOVERS ONLY - JACKIE GLEASON - ST 2144 - 1964 (copyrighted to 1965) - American Recording
This is one of numerous highly-successful easy-listening LPs by Gleason. He had a highly-successful TV show on CBS as well at this point, but I know for a fact you've seen the Back To The Future films, so you'll be happy to know that Gleason's best-remembered program (The Honeymooners) also happens to be a staple of the main character's family, as shown by the first film's canon.
SILK 'N' BRASS - JACKIE GLEASON - ST 2409 - 1965 (actually released a year later) - American Recording
For my description of this LP, see the one for the earlier Gleason LP. I don't feel like repeating myself in this post.
THE LAST TIME I SAW HER - GLEN CAMPBELL - E-SW 733 - 1971 - American Recording
Campbell's country hit (#21 on the US Country Charts) is the Gordon Lightfoot-penned title track of this LP; it also contains covers of another Lightfoot song ("If You Could Read My Mind", which at that point had become the Canadian songwriter's first big pop hit in America and England), Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through The Night", the theme from the then-newly released film Love Story ("Where Do I Begin"), and the Hollies' "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" - proving that Campbell was one of the few artists who got away with country versions of pop hits in his day (another was Chet Atkins).
LPs - Decca
WE GET LETTERS - PERRY COMO - RCA (Dist. by Decca) - RD-27035 - 1957 - American Recording
Starting out as a barber, Como was a staple of the RCA roster for four decades (his contract with them outliving just about every single contract for a living RCA artist in those decades) and was a TV pioneer as well, with a highly successful variety show. Key parts of its success were a combination of his insistence on wholesomeness - which the '50s had a thing for, if you want a joke - and the fact that, according to Wikipedia,
The man viewers saw on the screen was the same person who could be encountered behind a supermarket shopping cart, at a bowling alley, or in a kitchen making breakfast.
This is an album of 12 songs that viewers requested Mr. C sing on his TV program. All such songs were strong enough to carry over to a record, so this album was constructed. It was a big seller on the LP charts in the US and in the UK back in 1957.
FRIMI AND ROMBERG IN "CUBAN MOONLIGHT" - STANLEY BLACK DECCA - SKL 4095 - 1959
Black's follow-up to his highly successful album, simply titled CUBAN MOONLIGHT, is a collection showing, to quote the liner notes, how much "Sigmund Romberg and Rudolf Friml were given a holiday in the same location as the earlier LP." This record is a lively attempt to show us that.
LPs - CBS (To avoid litigation, this was the UK version of the American Columbia label; the name is taken from the CBS-TV network, of which this UK label was a wholly-owned subsidiary. I have one LP from them at my presence; from an American's perspective, it gave their Columbia Records of the era its share of British stars. It was so successful in England that it was actually named in one of the lyrics of the song "Life Is A Rock But The Radio Rolled Me" by British one-hit wonders Reunion.)
BARBRA STREISAND'S GREATEST HITS - 63921 - 1970 - American Recording
Young Brooklynite who became one of the most recognizable stars worldwide by this point - and, if you look at the list of groups I'm part of carefully, has something in common with me religiously. This is her first compilation LP; it would signal the end of an era of apparent disconnect: her next LP, Stoney End, was produced by Richard Perry, and gave her a chance to legitimately rock out (!), which kinda made sense since she was part of the rock and roll generation. Ultimately, she did so a few times in the years leading up to the release of 1983's Yentl. The thing I learned from the back of this LP is: You British guys must love numbers because lots of them are below the prior Streisand LP covers present on it.
I also own a tape from this company:
BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER - SIMON & GARFUNKEL - 40-63699 - 1970
This duo was one of the most successful pop acts of the post-Rock-and-Roll age, breaking their company's history of disconnect with the young, and releasing highly successful albums. This was the last one they did before their split, which is hard to explain due to the fact that it took Michael Jackson - who, as part of the Jackson 5, was becoming a teen idol at the time of this LP's release - 12 years to make an album that would take this one's "Highest-Selling Of All-Time" crown. In England, this LP was seemingly on the charts for YEARS: It topped the charts in 1970, and wound up on the Top-10 Highest-Selling UK LPs of the Year not once, not twice, but THRICE over the course of its remarkable life and legacy. This album spawned such hits as "Cecilia", "El Condor Pasa" (one of the first big UK Single hits to really use Latin music), "The Boxer", and the title track, which remains one of our most uplifting and inspirational songs worldwide, and has been covered by MANY artists over the years.
LPs - PYE (Mom went bonkers when I introduced her to this label; she's used to wacky things, but blushed when she realized this was an actual record company; the company was highly successful in the '60s and '70s before being renamed to PRT in 1980.)
PIECES OF HANCOCK - TONY HANCOCK - NPL.18054 - 1960
The famous British comic's highly successful follow-up to This Is Hancock. Hilarious liner notes lead up to equally hilarious LP. Unfortunately, where I live, we don't see this talented man very often.
THE BEST OF PETULA CLARK - NSPL 18282 in Mono cover - 1969
Clark was already a huge star in England by the time she got her breakout US record, "Downtown", in 1965; it's not on this LP, but it is on the LP below. She wound up having a string of British-American crossover hits for the rest of the mid-'60s. This album showcases a few of them.
THE PETULA CLARK ALBUM - PET 1 - 1972
Another compilation of hers I own. Clark's prominence, already having weakened by 1968 in the US, was declining in the UK at this point. On this album, find the theme song from the film The Thomas Crown Affair, some Beatles covers, a rendition of the hit that revived Ol' Blue Eyes' career, a cover of the one hit of something called the megaphone movement of the mid-'60s, and a rockin' rendition of a show tune.
LOVE AND KISSES FROM THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN - NSPL 18490 - 1976
The overwhelming success of their single "United We Stand" in 1970, brought BoM to Pye's progressive rock subsidiary, Dawn. Speaking of Dawn, Pye was grooming them up to be the UK's answer to Tony Orlando's group of that name. The one big hit they would score under this persona was "Save Your Kisses For Me", which topped the UK charts for seemingly an infinite number of weeks, won the Eurovision Song contest that year, was a US Top 40 hit in its own right, and was the opening track of this LP. It's also a track my mom remembers very fondly: she thanks me for getting this LP, and, imagine the happy nostalgia flowing inside her when I put it on my record player and played it for the first time in her adult life.
Tapes - United Artists (TransAmerica Insurance, which bought United Artists in 1967, had acquired Liberty Records and its subsidiaries the next year, and merged both Liberty and United Artists to create the label's UK division, whose records and tapes were EMI pressings marketed and distributed by TransAmerica. TransAmerica either was proud to have, in England "more No.1s, by Don McLean and Kenny Rogers, and a number of Top 5s by artists as varied as Hawkind, Billie Jo Spears and Laurel & Hardy" according to a website on British record companies, or "did not have a clue about running a record company" according to the story about Liberty Records that could be found on Both Sides Now Publications; I highly recommend it if you're looking for US discographies of well-known US labels, a job they do splendidly.)
AMERICAN PIE - DON McLEAN - TCK 29285 - 1971 - American Recording
Songwriter McLean's legacy was validated by this excellent LP. First song my mom ever learned was the title track, which topped the pop and easy listening charts in the US, hit top-5 in England, was covered by Madonna, and was later given a Star Wars-themed parody by the one and only "Weird Al" Yankovic, who, in addition to getting the OK from McLean, had the honor of McLean's frequently singing of the Star Wars-themed lyrics when performing the original in concert as a result of its frequent playback from McLean's children. The album itself is listed in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, and had another hit single in its hands, "Vincent", which later became a hit for Josh Groban.
That's awesome
3167607 UPDATE: I re-assigned the UA USA sleeve (which E-SW 733 came in when I got it) to my US copy of the vinyl for Don McLean's American Pie (which, when I discovered it as a leftover from my mom's record collection, was sleeve-less) whilst crafting an inner sleeve for the Campbell offering, which was based on one of the inner sleeves the Pink Floyd LP Atom Heart Mother (on EMI's Harvest label) came in: pinkfloydarchives.com/Discog/UK/LP/AHM/AHM2/IS.jpg ; I came up with the decision to put the record in that sleeve is because I believe that sleeve may have been used for all releases coming out of EMI at that point, regardless of label (E-SW 733 came out on Capitol, to which Glen Campbell was signed at that time, and of which EMI was the owner)
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