My first blog post of 2020, finally. I wanted to start off the new year with an idea for a blog series I’ve been kicking around in my head for some time, which I’m calling the “99 Cent Record Bin Adventures”, dedicated to pretty much exactly what it says, digging through the forgotten vinyl of the ubiquitous “99 cent” section you find in every record store and thrift shop. Seattle is one of the music capitols of the world, so naturally we have more record stores (ergo more vinyl records) than most other cities in the United States, and each one of these record stores and thrift stores have a section for cheap vinyl. The 99 cent bins in Seattle are a goldmine for a cheapskate collector like myself, not simply because I find old vinyl that may actually be worth serious money - for instance the Curtis Mayfield record from 1975 “There’s No Place Like America Today” record that I bought for 99 cents and sold the next day for $45 on Discogs - but the 99 cent record bin is also full of records that are so unusual, vintage, brilliant and weird that I must buy them to own them. I’m on the lookout for good lounge music from the 60’s and 70’s, foreign pop music, movie soundtracks, field recordings, classical music, seventies soft rock, K-tel compilations, and all of these genres are always in abundance in the 99 cent bin! Hunting for good records in 99 cent bins is as much about finding what you want as it is about finding what you never even knew you needed. The fact that I pay less than a cup of coffee to get these gems is icing on the cake, and really the main impetus for this blog series.

My plan for this series is not only to show off the awesome retro cover art and photography on these records, but also to share the subtle cultural and historical insights these old records open up to us when we look and listen closely. It’s super nerdy and cheap hobby, but I’m a man of simple pleasures and as I get older, I find I’m more and more drawn to these vintage, obscure sounds on vinyl records, like I saw and heard growing up in the 70’s. Of all the arts, music is best at tugging our heartstrings, and has the ability to surface deep emotions through nostalgia of hearing music that is so tied to a certain period of time in our memories. Popular music, unlike classical music, locks us into musical tastes based on the generation we grow up in, at the age we formulate our tastes and opinions.

Here’s what I found this week…..

FARON YOUNG
Save the Last Dance For Me

Mountain Dew Records, 1966
Purchased for $1.99 (VG+/VG+)

Faron Young, the “Hillbilly Heartthrob,” was a talented, unique country music singer with lyrics that have a wry, verite, hard-livin’ style of storytelling that made him a success with the Honky Tonk crowd, but sidelined him out of the mainstream, or “living room” country scene. I only knew his name from a song title by the superb 80’s UK jangle rockers Prefab Sprout (fronted by Paddy McAloon, himself another wry, cynical storyteller) in the 80’s. I recently bought SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME and WINE ME UP at a local Goodwill not only because the Prefab Sprout song had always made me curious about his sound, but the album covers, particularly for Save the Last Dance, are freaking awesome! Look at that font and colors, they’re so retro. Funny enough, both albums feature photos obviously from the same photo shoot, and a quick look at Discogs shows these were released fairly close together.

SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME was released in 1966 on Mountain Dew Records (lol), on the upswing of his musical career, During his heyday, he starred in a few low budget western films, and was a regular guest on country music TV programs.

His musical career started to disappear in the 70’s due to some weird behavior (among other things spanking a girl in the audience at one of his concerts for allegedly spitting on him) and though he continued to record in the 80’s and 90’s, he never really got back into the public eye, which is believed to have been a factor in his suicide in 1996.

THE JUGOSLAVIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA
Balalaika Serenade

Decca, 1957
Purchased for $1.99 (VG+/NM)

There were so many things about this album that made me buy it at a local Goodwill. For one, it’s an international record and it features the National Orchestra for a former Soviet bloc country that no longer exists, two it’s in impeccable condition, and three that cover art looks amazing in it’s pristine cover. The vinyl - pressed in 1957 on the Decca label - was super clean and played flawlessly. The music itself is a really fast folk music played on a variety of stringed instruments, and has a very recognizable Balkan sound. Not something I would play everyday, but it’s a fun occasional listen and something maybe to sample. In my Google research, I found the short blurb in a screenshot below of an old Billboard magazine.

BRAHMS / PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op.68

Decca, 1957
Purchased for $1.99 (VG+/NM)

I bought this wonderful specimen for a whopping 50 cents at Everyday Music on Capitol Hill, so I had no problem taking a chance on the sound given it’s obvious age, and that lovely postwar modernist ink painting on the front. Also of considerable note is that it’s a rare recording by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra with longtime conductor William Steinberg, whose tenure lasted from 1952 to 1976. The performance was recorded in 1961, on the emerging technology of magnetic 35mm film, which was an analog equivalent in clarity and tonal range to digital recording. Side note for collectors and beginning vinyl hunters: if you see anything that is recorded on 35mm film, buy it! If for nothing else than to experience the sound quality of this type of recording on a vinyl record.

This Brahms symphony is heavy and processional, and has a powerful rhythmic undertone in the beginning and end, with more calming passages from the wind section and digressions to the serious tone from the strings and brass sections. Brahms himself stated that the work took him 21 years to complete from sketches to its final form, and indeed it’s a symphony that sounds as complex as you would expect from someone “perfecting” it for over two decades. Brahms was also a very proficient in drinking alcohol, which probably played a part in the “finishing touches” that took so long.

PERCY FAITH AND HIS ORCHESTRA
Malguena, Music of Cuba

Columbia Records, 1958
Purchased for $.99 (VG/NM)

Percy Faith is one of the best know names in 20th century easy listening and his records are rife in the dollar bins. I don’t usually buy Percy Faith albums because his orchestration and is too old-fashioned for my taste, and he didn’t transition well into the groovy disco Seventies the way many of his contemporaries like Paul Mauriat or Caravelli did. Though he’s often credited with establishing the easy listening orchestra sound (and was Musical Director of Colombia Records in the 50’s), his interpretations are usually lackluster affairs and I skip over most of his albums when I’m recording hunting. MALAGUENA is a rare exception and it’s surprisingly common to find in 99 cent bins so your chance of finding it is high. The cover art is amazing (like a lot of his other cover art over the years), and the copy I purchased had a NM sleeve (as you can see in the gallery to the right) and a vinyl that plays decently despite some low level surface noise.

Interestingly enough, this record was released one year before Castro and his rebel army took control of Cuba, right as more mainstream travelers from the U.S. and Europe were visiting the small Caribbean island to sunbathe and gamble, just like the scenes in Godfather II. In fact, Percy Faith wrote the “Love Theme” for the first Godfather movie in 1972! While MALAGUENA has no musical sounds that would be considered authentically Cuban (and likely no Cuban musicians either), songs like the recognizable “El Bodeguerro” and “Tumbando Cana” feature more latin percussion and faster tempos to push the lush string arrangements into unique territory.

Percy Faith would go on to release several different Latin American themed concept albums like MALAGUENA over the next decade, based on musical styles from Brazil and Mexico, and they’re more or less on par with this, so IMO the latin part of his discography is worth a listen, and definitely worth the dollar or two to buy.

UNKNOWN ARTISTS
Immer Hinein Ins Vergnugen [Always into Pleasure]

Europa, 196?
Purchased for $.99 (VG/VG+)

In the late Sixties and early Seventies, there as an abundance of these “recorded live at a _______ party”, featuring a live recording of singers and a band, (maybe drinking?), performing the type of sing-along songs people would sing at their drunken festivities. I’ve seen them for both Italian and German music, but the Germans really produced a lot of these sing-along records, sometimes called “schlager” records or schlager music. Schlager music is the German equivalent of Mitch Miller and epitomized by the eternally shaded Heino, and though it’s scorned by any German under the age of 50, it’s really no different than any other “pop” music produced in the Sixties and Seventies.

Recently I saw four completely different German records on the “live party” theme and bought this one mainly because the cover art was super groovy - the fonts, colors and those late Sixties beauties drinking it up at a party. The music is basically a “recording” of a sing-along party, though how much of it is live vs. mixed together later is debatable. There’s a full-on Schlager band playing the type of music you hear at Oktoberfest, and lots of different singers, and everyone in the studio is clapping and cheering. There’s a lot of banter and crowd talking during song breaks, and though I have no idea what they’re talking about, it sounds great.

It’s so cool I digitized the album for you and you can listen to as much as you like at the youtube video! Listen at 14:24 when the guy sings “Komm lass uns feiern mit dem hippies und die EL ESS DEEEEEE” … when I heard that alone, it made my day folks.

MOZART/
STUTTGART PHILHARMONIC
Requiem, K.626

Vox Stereo, 196?
Purchased for $.99 (VG+/NM)

Mozart’s REQUIEM is one of this best known works and the subject of much speculation about it’s commission - itself this speculation was partially the basis of the final plot twist in the incredible 1984 movie Amadeus. The movie connected so strongly with audiences because it humanized a historical figure in such an authentic and humorous way, and it subsequently won the Academy Award for best picture. If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend the directors cut released in 2002 and available now to stream on Amazon Prime.

This record was part of a giant lot of classical records (in nearly perfect condition) I found at another local Goodwill. I mean, they were in amazing shape for their age, and mostly on great labels, which is something common to used classical vinyl. I assume most people that bought classical music took great care with their records because crackles or surface noise on a classical record is terrible given how much classical music relies on long passages of seamless melodies, and not rhythms which can mask imperfections in the vinyl. The one I am highlighting here is on Vox, a budget classical label that’s been around since the late 40’s and still puts out releases today. The cover art on this Vox record is spectacular, and the recording is top-notch.

Thats all for now, see you next week!