Old Enough to Forget

The '60s, baby they were the best of times, they were the worst of times. On today's instalment of what the fudge were they thinking , we have the Tijuana Voices Sing Merry Christmas an album that's deliberately packaged to make you think this is The Tijuana Brass, or a cheaper knock off of Julius Wechter and The Baja Marimba Band. The difference was that Julius was on A&M the home of the Tijuana Brass and Mr. Alpert was the A in A&M. Whereas the Tijuana Voices were on Pickwick/33 a budget label, known for repacking stuff at a discount. Yeah we have the pseudo Mexican moustaches and sombreros that screams '60s kitsch. You could be forgiven for thinking this was Herb Alpert, at least that's what I'm telling myself, because I feel like I got suckered. Except that it's exactly what I had hoped it would be, so I guess it all worked out in the end. For all that it was a dollar well spent. Like I said, this delivered exactly what I was expecting to hear. T...

Another of the Pickwick releases I seem to keep finding. There is no date, which is pretty standard, but it's a pretty safe bet this collection of songs goes back to the '50s and probably early '60s. Pickwick seemed to delight in packaging budget collections and here on The 12 Days of Christmas it's a pretty standard collection of the the big classics. As I've come to expect with these records, they are short. Woefully short. The majority of the songs clock in at just over two minutes, and a couple are under the two minute mark. Although the Jimmie Rodgers version of "The 12 Days of Christmas" is a second shy of the three minute mark - at least according to the back of the jacket. Bonnie Guitar pulls of the longest song with her arrangement of "O Holy Night" that was really nice. I actually thought it was going to be a guitar piece played by a Scotsman - Bonnie Guitar , get it? It wasn't.  The songs run the gamut, but are all very much of an...

For number Four it's a mixed bag of five albums for your reading pleasure. Three out of five were new to me which is always an adventure. I think my favourite find in the bunch this time around was the Joe Walsh release. I do love me some Joe Walsh. Gotta say, four months in and holding steady. It's the last Sunday in May so without further ado ... Five for Fighting No.4 Joe South - Games People Play (1970?)  Moon Joyce - The Infinite Edge (1985)  Wang Chung - Points on the Curve (1983) Joe Walsh - The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get (1973) Nestor Pistor - Nestor Pistor for Prime Minister (1978) Joe South - Games People Play (1970?) I was intrigued by the cover and figured this could be an interesting discovery and at worst I'd be out a buck. This was a re-issue on Pickwick, which meant it was licensed from Capitol and the songs were cobbled together from different releases. Not quite a greatest hits, but it was a mixed bag of pretty interesting tunes. Trying t...

White Christmas was a pretty hard album to date - there doesn't seem to be a lot of good information on it, but the nearest I can figure is Capitol licensed this out to Pickwick and they packaged it up and released it in 1970. It's a compilation likely taken from some of Jackie Gleason's prior holiday releases, and from what I've read about the budget re-issues is less is more, but most of the time, just less.  This was one of the many Christmas albums I snapped up from the dollar bin, and this cleaned up amazingly well. It's nearly perfect, what a score. Here we have The Great One (who was the great one long before old 99 laced 'em up) pulling out all of his lush strings and easy listening magic and applying his touch to nine holiday classics. I'll admit, this was never my favourite style of music, but there is a certain nostalgic charm to this stuff - in small doses, and I can deal with a short collection of relaxing and "happy" strings. It'...