Not the best quality, I know, but you can cleary see Ray and his amazing fake moustache!
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( 3 / 162 )
...I was doing my usual check for Ray McVay LPs on eBay - imagine my surprise when I saw one of the sellers has used my picture of Ray from the back of the Roadshow album to illustrate the sale.
It's obviously mine, because I doubt anyone else in the world has stuck a fake moustache on the picture of Ray from the back of the Roadshow album.
How random.
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( 3 / 149 )Here are the results of a recent charity shop trip. the mission? Find some of the worst album covers by Scottish artists. Yep, while hippies were enjoying the Summer of Love in the 60's, and punks were being very angry in the 70's, there was still room for twee shortbread 'n' tartan output like this...
First up, a couple of men in kilts. Original, eh?
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I love this cover - I don't think it could get more boring if it tried. Illustrating a 'Scottish Dance Band' with a piece of rope hardly inspires confidence in the dance-ability of the music.
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Another man in a kilt, this time in a living room, with his trusty accordian close at hand.
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One charity shop had a whole section of Alexander Brothers albums. Here are two of the best covers.
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And finally, the swingingest family in Scotland...
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( 2.8 / 187 )Yup, Herb's staring into the middle distance yet again for these album covers...
From the back of a generic 'Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass' album, here's Herb trying out the classic 'silhouette by the sea' pose. Is he thinking of a lost love or which Beatle's hit to cover in the next album?
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This one's an absolute classic. The heartbroken look is present and correct, as is the chest hair and gold chain...
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...and a look at the back of the same album reveals there's also a Beatle's cover! Could this cover get any more perfect? Well, the picture of the 'America' album cover means there's a double-whammy of winsome Herb-ness. However...
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...a look at the back of the album 'Herb Alpert's Ninth' has a whole montage of melancholic smiles, distant gazes and thoughtful poses.
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My personal favourite is this one of Herb in the mirrors - it's like gazing into an infinite void of wistful glances with the sound of trumpet-based elevator music in the background.
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( 3 / 153 )Honestly, where do you start with this cover?
First, there's the cheesy posing, second, the costumes. Then there's the names badges on the uniforms (and the scarves, oh the scarves), the chest hair, the medallion, the middle-distance stares, not forgetting the saccharine title of the album itself.
Congratulations to the Bee Gees for producing the cheesiest album cover I've seen so far!
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( 3 / 168 )See what I did there? Gotta love puns. Doctor Kawashima says they're good for your brain. Anyway, there now follows some examples of a fashion trend of 70's album covers...
First up, here's minor funksters L.T.D. (that stands for Love, Togetherness, Devotion), and the cover for their Devotion album. Look at their faces! You can tell they're really into it...
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And now the Three Degrees are at it. The one on the left doesn't look too comfortable, though.
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More as I find them!
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( 3.1 / 118 )A couple of non-Eloise illustrations that I've found recently...
From a 60's cook book.
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Another Enoch Light album cover (well, 'Enoch Light Presents'). Obviously done around the same time as Film Fame (my goodness, is that a hint of nipple?). I wonder if he did any more and if they're up to this standard?
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( 2.9 / 158 )Again, I just bought this album for the terrible cover.
I can't read Dutch, but it looks like they're pretty popular in the Netherlands. It seems that the old guy on the left (the only one not wearing the hideous yellow suit but with the slightly yellow face) is Vader Abraham. Heck, they probably appeared in Eurotrash at one point (now, that was a good show!).
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( 3 / 159 )Another charity shop find...
Sadly, at no point during this record does the pope give up the funk. Notice that the record is published by Utopia. This is pretty funny, as Utopia is a Greek concept, and not exclusively connected to Christianity. Read about it here.
The current pope, Benedict XVI, has recently abolished the state of limbo. George Clinton, on the other hand, wants to abolish the state of zero funkativity, which undoubtably benefits the human race better. I know who I'm going to follow...
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( 3 / 132 )Diversion Projects: the world's number one Ray McVay resource! Here's the latest additions to my Ray McVay collection. They're not nearly as good as the albums I used for the special, but it's worth logging them for the sake of completion, and to provide info for other collectors.
There may be 50 tracks on this album, but only about 5 of them are worth listening to. There's a decent cover of Vehicle, and the upbeat take on Bad Moon Rising is quite funny when you hear "Hope you are quite prepared to die" sung in a Mecca dancehall style. The rest of the album consists of too many medlies and tacky party music to be considered worthy, especially when the best tracks are repeated on Top Pop Party (below).
Interesting album cover, though - what on Earth is the guy on the right wearing?
Let's Singalong and Dance to 50 Great Party Hits (1969 - 1974)
Tracklist
Since there are 50 tracks on this album, I won't write a long tracklist, just a quick summary of each side.
Side A: Party Dancers (Simon Says, Knees Up Mother Brown, E Viva Espana) - Pretty terrible stuff (the tracks say it all).
Side B: Party Pops & Rockers (Vehicle, Bad Moon Rising, Spirit in the Sky) - Decent covers of more poppy tracks.
Side C: Party Sing Songs (Oh! Susannah, Camp Town Races, La Bamba) - Did people really listen to this stuff at parties in the 70s?
Side D: Party a Go-Go (Yellow River, Greensleeves, Mexican Samba) - Well, it's got the decent cover of Greensleeves on it, but it's generally pretty bland.
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Well, that's an unflattering picture. How bad were the photos they didn't use? Anyway, musically, it's the usual hit-and-miss covers of popular hits, with the version of Na-Na-Hey-Hey being particularly noteworthy. Since this album is similar to 50 Great Party Hits, if you had to choose between one or the other, I'd go for this album.
Top Pop Party A Pop Singalong (1970)
Tracklist
01. Good Morning Freedom
02. Yellow River
03. Love Grows Where my Rosemary Goes
04. Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town
05. Melting Pot
06. Hitchin' a Ride
07. Goodbye Sam Hello Samantha
08. Na-Na-Hey-Hey
09. All Kinds of Everything
10. In the Summeertime
11. Don't You Know
12. Gimme Dat Ding
13. Bad Moon Rising
14. Cottonfields
15. Early in the Morning
16. United We Stand
17. Everything is Beautiful
18. Down the Dustpipe
19. Young Gifted and Black
20. Spirit in the Sky
21. All Right Now
22. It's All in the Game
23. Up Around the Bend
24. Vehicle
Just to be nice, here's a picture of the inside of the album, and proof that the lady on the front doesn't always look that bad...(I have no idea whose signature that is)
And to finish, here's a picture of Ray on the back of the album (no moustache!).
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Don't let the glitterball on the cover fool you. This is smooth big band all the way, the kind of music that people dance to in movies set during World War 2. It's not bad, but disappointingly it's not funky, either.
Dance Dance Dance the Modern Way (1971)
Tracklist
01. Those Were the Days
02. A Wonderful Day Like Today
03. Poeme
04. The Last Waltz
05. Deep Purple
06. Tara's Theme
07. Fascination
08. Greensleeves
09. My Own
10. I Wanna Be Around
11. Noche De Estrellas
12. Tango for Two
Another rare picture of Ray without his moustache from the back of the album.
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Like Dance Dance Dance the Modern Way, this is an album of pleasantly forgettable big band music. At least the cover doesn't lie this time. Isn't £2.21 an odd price?
The World of Old Time & Sequence Dancing (1974)
Tracklist
01. Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree
02. Memory Lane
03. Welcome Home
04. Lili Marlene
05. A Man Without Love
06. Tango Now or Never
07. Dance of the Hours
08. Poem
09. The William Two Step
10. When the Saints Go Marching In
11. Yellow River
12. On Mother Kelly's Doorstep
13. The Skye Boat Song
14. Serenade
15. The Ugly Duckling
Another picture of Ray on the back of the album...
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If you're looking for bland, ballroom dancing background music, then this is the album for you! If you're looking for something on a par with the 'Theme From 2001' cover from the Roadshow album, avoid at all costs (as if the covers of Grandad and Lily the Pink wasn't warning enough).
Old Tyme with Ray McVay (1971)
Tracklist
01. Try to Remember
02. Grandad
03. Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
04. Lily the Pink
05. Yellow Submarine
06. All I Have to do is Dream
07. Almost There
08. Steptoe & Son (Old Ned)
09. Music to Watch Girls By
10. If I Were a Rich Man
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