Old Enough to Forget

Before Frank Mills punished the world with "Music Box Dancer" in 1979, Hagood Hardy had an unusual cross-over with "The Homecoming" back in 1975. Okay, to the purists out there yes "Music box Dancer" was actually recorded in 1974, but then "The Homecoming" got it's start in a commercial for Salada tea in 1972. What this has to do with anything is beyond me, but there you go. By 1978 Mr. Hardy was a known commodity with his brand of piano tinkling and it made sense that he put out a Christmas album at some point ... and then it happened.  A Very Special Christmas  was licensed to K-tel from Attic Records. Who knows how this came about, but there was a time the little label from Winnipeg wasn't that little. The album features sixteen tracks that cover all of the required bases. It should be noted that this album predates the A Very Special Christmas anthologies of Christmas music by about a decade. Those were good, but each album was a lit...

Albert Hammond is a name I knew as a kid because I loved "I'm a Train" a song that appeared on one of the K-tel collections I had. When I recently found a copy of Dynamite I got reacquainted with Mister Hammond and it got me thinking, "Surely he did more than just the train song." Surely (and don't call me Shirley) he did. I was actually quite surprised at how many songs of his I did know. As a solo artist he had recorded and released "It Never Rains In Southern California" in 1972, and when he found the hamster wheel life of a recording artist to be too much he turned to writing for and with others. A few of the songs he had a hand in: "99 Miles from L.A."  "I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love"  "The Air That I Breathe"  "When I Need You"  "To All the Girls I've Loved Before"  It was his solo work I was interested in, and it just so happened I found a copy of his 1974 self titled release. ...

When I was a kid for a long time (kid time) my record collection was one album - Dynamite . Then it doubled when I bought Canadian Mint . Of course my memory is a tad flawed, but it wasn't until '75 I bought Four Wheel Drive as my first real album and I had those K-tel records for what seemed like forever. Dynamite and Canadian Mint were indelible records. For a generation who grew up on these weirdly edited hits and oddly sequenced collections we owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Philip Kives who managed to make Winnipeg Manitoba the centre of the musical universe ... for a little while.  I was feeling a tad nostalgic the other day and decided to see if I could find my musical Rosetta Stone records. Apparently there are others like me, and when I asked about them Bob pointed me to a section that was set aside for K-tel compilations.  Oooh. While it wasn't a huge section it did yield not one, but two very nice copies of Dynamite at two very different price points ... and I ...