BY JIMMY IBBOTSON
I like to listen to LPs when I play pool. My son and his buddies have learned to drop the needle on some areal music. I used to be able to find LPs for a buck apiece; now, I am more excited to find a mint version of Born To Run or Surrealistic Pillow for $5, than fill my shelves with discs that weren’t cared for.
The other day I found a bunch of great titles at The Great Divide. It could have been John Denver’s collection. The discs bad been played on good equipment and handled by someone who only touched their edges. I started to pick out the ones I wanted. Sandy Monroe got out the big book and checked the prices. His assistant looked the packages up and checked for clues, like the color of the label, to determine if it would cost me $5, $10, or $20 to take them home.
The one that I couldn’t wait to hear was Nicolette Larson’s last work: I’d’ worn the cassette out 10 years ago. Here was her voice, waiting for me on a mint condition LP. The bass would shimmer off the needle and we’d stop clacking the pool balls to hear her lyrics.
I also had an Everly Brothers Greatest Hits that looked like it had never been played. I know why. It wasn’t a new compilation of the hits that made it to the radio in the late fifties. The lads had re-recorded the songs, late in their careers. My sister had “Bye-Bye Love” and “Wake up Little Susie” on 45 rpm, drop-on-the-big-spindle discs. We wore them out. I went nuts when I found out how much brighter the B-sided sounded. I learned some obscure songs that way.
Yeah. The Everly Brothers were as important as anyone but Elvis in that era. They were the obedient sons of a guitar player who saw the boys as his meal ticket. He put together a family gospel band that did a Saturday morning radio program. The boys grew up singing simple harmony as only borhters can. Felice and Boudleaux Bryant were a songwriting couple who found their way onto the show. They saw Don and Phil’s potential and supplied them with songs that spoke of the fun and pain of romance.
The boys followed their father into the studio and dutifully sang these sweet songs into a microphone that looked a lot like the ones they had grown up with. They plugged the purity of their hearts and voices into records that I danced to. They probably recorded this LP as much different people. Years on the road killed their dad and their young spirits; their missions became millstones as they tried to support their own growing families, playing casinos and nostalgia shows.
Some business manager informed them that the only way to avoid foreclosure was to re-record the hits. Old contracts still directed all profits to the old label to pay back expenses that were never recouped — so men in their forties went into the studio and tried to recreate the magic. Don told Phil that he was never very good. Phil told Don that it was the booze that was talking. They both told the producer that they had been there in the fifties, and knew how to make records just fine without his help.
It’s not just the Everly Brothers who have duped us into buying a CD or an LP of falsely marketed music. There should be some warning on the label. “Don’t think you are getting the original, hit versions of these songs. The songs aren’t really the greatest hits now, are they? We don’t claim that you will get the same genius on this collections. Those records were recorded with divine inspiration, and the singers and musicians were wrapped in the glorified white light of love. This package was recorded with the best intentions by 12-steppers and drunks, who are trying to hold onto a lifestyle that has ruined them and their families.
