Year: 2007

My twin sister commented in the Stones Sell Out post that she hadn’t heard “Tell Me” in 40 years. So I’ll play the piece of plastic she listened to 40 years ago, “Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass).”

The record belonged to our sister Liz, and it somehow — ahem! — ended up in my collection. But that’s good! Because I sealed it in an LP bag and that hasn’t been opened in 25 years. Until now. The scan above was made from the interior booklet of pictures, but it isn’t completely original, as I cut in the photo of Brian Jones. A third shot of Keith was just too redundantly redundant.

The LP is in mono, and that’s also a good thing, because when the song appeared on the “More Hot Rocks (Big Hits & Phased Cookies)” LP collection, it was in (boo!) re-channeled mono, aka fake stereo.

I’ll give you “Tell Me” two times, to take advantage of a nifty feature of the embedded audio player. If you open one, the other pauses. This will make it possible to click back and forth for instant comparison.

The first transfer was made with the LP just as it was, coming out of the long-sealed bag.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JAN07/TellMeTake1.mp3]

This second transfer was done after I had cleaned the record using a Nitty Gritty machine.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JAN07/TellMeTake2.mp3]

Hear any difference? Perhaps not. It depends on your speakers. The machine can’t repair groove damage, of which there’s plenty, but I bet it got out the residue left behind from the cigarettes that Liz was puffing her room! 😉

Edit: I tried a little equalization on this. The spectrum analyzer says this looks better. Let’s see if it sounds better.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JAN07/TellMe.mp3]

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/JAN07/TheRollingStones.flv 400 260]

Here is a bizarre, but essential, 1964 appearance by the Rolling Stones on, of all things, The Red Skelton Show. Too bad they lip-synched, instead of performing live. How young they were!

Despite the bad boy image the Stones projected, they had in fact already gone commercial. In 1963 they produced a jingle for Rice Krispies.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JAN07/RollingKrispies.mp3]

One of the songs in the video is Bobby Womack’s “It’s All Over Now.” I’ve always been knocked out by that record. Here it is, taken from a 1982 British LP I’ve played dozens of times that still sounds fantastic.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/JAN07/ItsAllOverNow.mp3]

Eric and I were up on the roof this afternoon. He was taking in the view and I was cleaning the gutters, after tossing the Xmas tree over the stone wall in the back yard. So, even though Christmas is over (and you’ve maybe had your fill of Ross Bagdasarian) I’m inspired to play Carol’s favorite Chipmunk Christmas song, “Up On The House-top.”

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/JAN07/UpOnTheHouseTop.mp3,http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/JAN07/UpOnTheHouseTopSlow.mp3]

I was going to save this for next year, but who knows how long I’ll be able to keep up this blog? This one doesn’t have David Seville in it, so the half-speed version is particularly enjoyable.

We’ll go nuts here one more time with Ross Bagdasarian and the chipmunks. I usually don’t bother with “official” Web sites, because they’re often long on hype and short on useful information, but Ross Jr.’s is an exception. It has plenty of hype, but it’s also a must-see for the fascinating story of his dad’s winning gamble on the purchase of a home tape recorder in 1958. Click the picture or here to go there.

The song that saved Ross from financial ruin was “The Witch Doctor.” It’s on the audio player, followed by a half-speed version that will play automatically.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/JAN07/WitchDoctor.mp3,http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/JAN07/WitchDoctorSlow.mp3]

Bagdasarian later re-recorded “The Witch Doctor” in a chipmunk version. It’s in stereo, making it possible for me to isolate the right channel with the chipmunks, as you’ll hear in the second cut.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/JAN07/WitchDoctorRemake.mp3,http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/JAN07/WitchDoctorRemakeSlow.mp3]

Something I don’t know is which came first in 1958 — “The Witch Doctor,” or Sheb Wooley’s “The Purple People Eater.” I’ll have to count on my Pop Musicologist best buddy, Dennis F. Rogers, for assistance on that question. To spare you from listening to the entire song run at half speed, I’ve spliced a couple of the parts with the chipmunk voice.

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/JAN07/PurplePeopleEater.mp3,http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/JAN07/ShebWooley.mp3]

What’s interesting to me is that the slowly-spoken voice (I’ll assume it was Sheb’s) doesn’t work very well when sped up. The trick isn’t as easy as Bagdasarian made it sound. Also, Ross had a unique voice anyway. Somehow, he just sounded like a nice guy you’d want to know. Sort of like Tom Hanks, come to think of it.

Once again let’s look back at the fun Ross Bagdasarian post. Super son Eric gave me a fun idea. How about hearing what David Seville’s voice sounded like sped up, when he wasn’t speaking s-l-o-w-l-y as he did when performing as the chipmunks? Sure. Whhhhhhhhyyyyyy not?

[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/JAN07/ChipmunksFast.mp3]

As you can hear, speaking normally wouldn’t have worked. How many times did Ross have to practice doing those voices slowly to get the speed to come out just right? I don’t believe infinitely variable tape decks were available back in those days, so all he could do was go from 7.5 ips to 15 ips.

I found a brief video clip of Bagdasarian as David Seville and the Chipmunks. It’s from a 1960 Ed Sullivan show appearance, although that date seems a year too late to me. The puppets are performed by Lou Burin.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/JAN07/Bagdasarian.flv 400 300]