Five Dollar Singles

Herb Albert & The Tijuana Brass — Mexican Road Race (2:26)

pub. A&M 1967, 840

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Vroom-vroom. See you tomorrow.

Herb Albert & The Tijuana Brass — Wade In The Water (3:05)

pub. A&M 1967, 840

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Herb Albert is a guy who’s still alive and being generally a philanthropist, and the “A” in A&M Records.

And, as you probably know, Wade In The Water is an old (originally published in 1901) Black Spiritual; which is strange, considering every session musician in Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass was white.

See you tomorrow for the B-side.

(also, yeah, yeah, this post was late.  sorry.)

It’s finally here.

Yes.

No words for how happy I am.

The Fontane Sisters — “Silver Bells” (3:11)

pub. RCA Victor 1953, 45 RPM Single, 47-5524 

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Come on.  Christmas is a little under four months away.  I shouldn’t be listening to this.

A-side here.

See you Monday.

The Fontane Sisters — “Kissing Bridge” (2:28)

pub. RCA Victor 1953, 45 RPM Single, 47-5524 

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The only evidence I could find of this single even existing in this form is here; apparently it got to number 21 on the charts in the very beginning of ‘54.

I can’t be objective on this one.  I hate Christmas music.  It’s not a secret.

The Fontane Sisters are apparently still poignant; topping charts from ‘49 to ‘54, they recorded a great deal with Perry Como.

And apparently there’s a ski resort in New York called “Kissing Bridge”.  Also, apparently there’s a website that gives weather updates, including conditions at ski resorts, called “Weather Underground”.

See you tomorrow.

Happy Wednesday.

David Terrry and his Orchestra — “Swingin’ Shepherd Blues” (2:28)

pub. RCA Victor 1958, 45 RPM Single, 47-7153 

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Check out the A-side here.

This song was the first hit of Moe Koffman, reaching the charts in ‘58, initially titled “Blues à la Canadiana”; seemingly re-orchestrated here in the same year.  This is one of 300 versions of the song.

Yep.  See you tomorrow.

David Terry and his Orchestra — “March From the River Kwai / Colonel Bogey” (2:15)

pub. RCA Victor 1958, 45 RPM Single, 47-7153 

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I had no idea what to expect when I pulled this record out of one of the boxes.  Then I started playing it.  I was dumbfounded.  “Wait.  This… this is the song from Spaceballs.  What.  What.”

Actually, the song “Colonel Bogey March” has a lot of history behind it.  Yes, it’s the “dink dink” song from Spaceballs.  It was also on The Parent Trap, The Breakfast Club, A Very Brady Sequel, and most famously, The Bridge on the River Kwai, a movie from 1957 whose score included a song which expanded upon the original composition.  Written by the British army Lieutenant and Bandmaster F. J. Ricketts in 1914, he’s credited on the single as his pen name, Kenneth J. Alford.

The original composition has wide spread use:  it’s an official march of a branch of the Canadian Armed Forces, the namesake of the scoring of “bogey” in golf, and the tune behind many ear-worm like songs.

So this version, recorded above, is a version of the score from The Bridge on the River Kwai with a counter-melody written by Malcom Arnold in 1957, titled “The River Kwai March”; the re-orchestration here gets neither part of the title correct.  And, not surprisingly, there is no biographical information available for David Terry online, other than his involvement with several different presses of this same score by RCA, most with the same B-side, but some being part of a two record set—not this one, though.

So, speaking of which, be sure to come back tomorrow for our B-side, “Swingin’ Shepard Blues”.

Simon and Garfunkel — “Flowers Never Bend With The Rainfall” (2:15)

pub. Columbia 1966, 45 RPM Single, 4-43617

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Check out the A-side here.

This B-side was from their immediate, rushed recording session in response to their success with “The Sound of Silence”.  The A-side from this single ended up on their album cleverly titled “The Sound of Silence”, while the B-side ended up on “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme”, which was released about nine months later.

Simon and Garfunkel — “I Am A Rock” (2:57)

pub. Columbia 1966, 45 RPM Single, 4-43617

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I AM A ROCK, I AM AN I-HI-HI-LAAAAND~!!

First of all, it’s a pretty heinous crime how warped this record is.  The file above is a digitization at a pretty high tracking weight—actually, a little higher than I was comfortable with.  I was pretty excited when I pulled this out of the stack.  And yes, I admit, this wasn’t a random pick; I was getting some sort of protection on each single (about fifty were just shoved in a record box without sleeves) when I saw this one among a few others that made me really excited.

My job researching this single was made extremely easy by its Wikipedia page, so here’s a really quick back-story.

Simon & Garfunkel are an iconic folk rock duo that joined forces in ‘57 and disbanded in ‘70; though they got back together in 2003 and are now playing the occasional show.  They exploded in popularity with their ‘65 single, “The Sound of Silence”; before that, they were very poor and even more poorly known. 

I Am A Rock was written by Paul Simon alone and released in a more acoustic version on his first and relatively unsuccessful solo album, The Paul Simon Songbook, in 1965.  Extremely disenfranchised with the album, he even wrote in the liner notes:

There are some here that I would not write today. I don’t believe in them as I once did. I have included them because they played an important role in the transition. It is discomforting, almost painful, to look back over something someone else created and realize that someone else was you. I am not ashamed of where I’ve been and what I’ve thought. It’s just not me anymore. It is perfectly clear to me that the songs I write today will not be mine tomorrow. I don’t regret the loss.

Immediately after the single “The Sound of Silence” reached the Billboard Hot 100 chart (where it peaked at #1 for the first couple weeks of ‘66), Simon & Garfunkel rushed back to a studio in the United States, with Paul Simon returning from England, to record songs based on the more “rock”-like template they had created.  Thus this version of “I Am A Rock” was born, which reached #3 on the Hot 100 and insured the group’s success.

Thanks for reading and come back tomorrow for a write-up on the B-side, “Flowers Never Bend With the Rainfall”.