This particular disc, Scotty Scott’s Chattanooga,
Nashville, Battlecreek Trek backed with
the amazingly awful Antique Hunter’s Craze was issued by the Film City label at some point in
the (I would guess) mid to late 60s. Film City was formed by Sandy Stanton, the
guitarist, bandleader and erstwhile record company mogul who had already
founded one other company - Fable – and who would go on to launch several
others, including J-Rad, Opossum and Wesley. Rodd Keith was Stanton’s first
star performer, and when he moved on to Preview he replaced Rodd at the
Chamberlin with Ron Solovay (a.k.a. Leigh Crizoe, read here) and then Frank Perry. The keyboard work on this particular disc is rather
stilted, which makes me think it’s unlikely to be either Rodd or Frank, who
were both more stylish and ‘bouncy’; it could be Ron Solovay, but it’s more
likely to be Sandy Stanton himself.
Like all the best (or worst) song-poem records little
attention has been paid to detail. The rhyming couplets are awful, the lyrics
have been awkwardly shoehorned in to fit the music and no one, not even our
Scotty, can be arsed. Heaven.
Antique Hunter’s Craze
reminds me of Singin’ Jack Curran’s The Barber Shop, from song-poem/vanity record maven Dolly O Curran
(featured almost exactly six years ago on this very blog and reposted below).
Dolly O Stech-Curran began her song-poem career sending in lyrics to Preview:
Suzie and Rodd, a.k.a. Rodd Keith and Suzie Smith recorded one of her songs, I’m
the Wife.
Scotty Scott issued at least one other 45, A Friendly
Smile backed with I’m Crying
Again, which seems to have been the debut
release from the tiny Chime Records of Hempstead, New York. Both sides of that
single were written by Will Wheeler and one J. Gardener: the same pair of
songsmiths composed several of the tracks issued by Chime, and Wheeler also
produced many of the singles issued by the company, including Groovin’
is Easy by Paper Cup (CH 111) and Homer
Briarhopper’s My Happy Clown (CH
107). Chime also issued the rather groovy garage classic Mr. Zeppelin
Man by Nick D’Angelo’s Farmers. Guitarist,
songwriter and singer Nick now goes by the name of Nirantara Däsa and devotes
his life to spreading the teachings of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta
Swami Prabhupada.
Enjoy!
Hard to understand the fascination of musicians and artists for these oriental "philosopers" such as His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada.
ReplyDeleteAnother who had a huge influence in the West (and still has apparently) is Meher Prasad. Pete Townshend (of the Who) for one is a "baba lover"
see http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/in-love-with-meher-baba-by-pete-townshend-19701126
For a "baba lover" definition see
http://oldwax.blogspot.fr/2016/02/yes-i-love-you.html