Mike Melvoin: Keys to Your Mind

Open Your Mind Up to Tuna Melt!

Mike Melvoin is well known nowadays as "The Plastic Cow," being the artist who released 1970's "The Plastic Cow Goes Moooooog," and for playing the keyboards on The Beach Boy's "Good Vibrations."

On top of that, he's arranged for and worked with such greats as Lou Rawls, Bill Henderson, Peggy Lee, Joe Williams, Billy Ekstine, Barry Manilow, Pat Boone, The Four Freshmen, Jon Davidson, The Partridge Family, Tom Waits and Wayne Newton.

This is a "pre-Moog" record from 1966. It may not have an actual synthesizer on it, but on top of standard keyboard instruments such as the Concert Grand Piano, Electric Piano, Harpsichord, Hammond Organ and even a Tack Piano, he also includes an Ondioline (which he refers to as his "Secret Weapon"). The Ondioline was a vacuum-tube powered keyboard instrument, invented in France in 1941, that was built on springs so that an artist could shake and wiggle it in order to achieve an actual vibrato.

Lots of wiggly jiggly Beatles and Bacarach on this one!

Mike Melvoin: Keys to Your Mind

1. Sweet Talkin' Guy
2. Looking with My Eyes
3. Eleanor Rigby
4. Here, There and Everywhere
5. Paperback Writer
6. Along Comes Mary
7. Summer in the City
8. Are You There
9. For No One
10. You Are My Sunshine
11. I Want to Tell You
12. Keys to Your Mind

Sid Ramin & Orchestra: New Thresholds in Sound

No Way! That's Even More Dynagroovy!

Okay. It might not be MORE DYNAGROOVY, but it is Definately MORE of the DYNAGROOVE EXPERIENCE!

This one, by Sid Ramin, rocks just as hard as the one by Marty Gold but it's not quite as inventive. There's very little Tuba action here. Still, it's a really great record and I'm sure it helped make a lot of dudes really happy with their recently purchased console stereos back in 1963.

Speaking of which... Remember that in 1963 there weren't that many Stereo systems out there. The amazing Stereo Action series that RCA produced in 1961 and 1962 was aimed at a Very Tiny, but Well Heeled, audience that was made up, mostly, of single men with enough disposable income to shell out for a stereo system (hence the tag "Space Age Bachelor Pad Music").

I had a roomate who worked at a record store back in about 1985. He had all these goofballs who knew not a damn thing about music coming into the store and asking him which CDs they should buy, as CDs were the New Perfect (and, at the time, rather expensive) Thing. He would offer his recommendations and they would purchase a huge load of good music. A week later, they would come back into the store wanting to sell the CDs back and asking which new ones they should get this time. It wasn't that they didn't like what they'd heard, it was just that they had Tiny Brains and Big Fat Wallets.

Too bad that the Record Companies had forgotten how to sell Demonstration Records by that point.

I know that there were at least three others in this series (and I swear I've got a copy of Dick Schory's "Supercussion" around here somewhere), as well as several compilation releases designed to demonstrate the amazing capabilities of Dynagroove, so if any other bloggers offer them you need to grab them up! I'll keep my eyes open in the Thrift Stores around town for 'em. Don't Worry!

Sid Ramin & Orchestra: New Thresholds in Sound

1. Strike Up the Band
2. Granada
3. The Sweetest Sounds
4. April in Paris
5. Varsity Drag
6. Embraceable You
7. Spring Is Here
8. Swanee
9. I Believe in You
10. Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries
11. Hernando's Hideaway
12. Bewitched

Marty Gold & His Orchestra: SOUNDPOWER! Music to the Limits of Audibility

Man! That's Dynagroovy!

The Wikipedia entry on Dynagroove reads as follows:

"Dynagroove is a recording process introduced in 1963 exclusive to RCA Victor that, for the first time, utilized computers ("electronic brains") to modify the audio signal fed to the recording stylus (chisel-shaped) of a phonograph record to make the groove shape conform to the tracking requirements of the playback stylus (ball-point shaped). RCA claimed that Dynagroove had the effect of adding brilliance and clarity, realistic presence, full-bodied tone and virtually eliminated surface noise and inner groove distortion. In addition, Dynagroove recordings were mastered on RCA Magnetic Tape. Hans H. Fantel (who wrote liner notes on the first Dynagroove releases) summed it up with, "[Dynagroove] adds up to what is, in my opinion, a remarkable degree of musical realism. The technique is ingenious and sophisticated, but its validation is simple: the ear confirms it!"

"The process was not received well by some industry commentators, such as the founder of Stereophile magazine, J. Gordon Holt, who in December 1964 wrote a highly unfavourable article entitled "Down with Dynagroove!". Dynagroove was also sharply criticized by Goddard Lieberson of the competing label Columbia Records, who called it "a step away from the faithful reproduction of the artist's performance;" and by Harry Pearson, founder of The Absolute Sound, who termed it "Dynagrove, for that wooden sound." Holt, a noted audio engineer and writer of the 1960s and 1970s, slammed Dynagroove as introducing "pre-distortion" into the mastering process, making the records sound worse if they were played on high-quality phono systems.

RCA discontinued Dynagroove without fanfare in the late 1970s."

Whether it was a step forward or a step backward can (and, I'm sure, will) be argued by the experts 'til they're all blue in the face. The fact is that RCA created an entire slate of releases produced specifically in order to show the extreme dynamic capabilities of the Dynagroove process and those records are treasured to this very day for the music more than the recording technology involved.

One such recording (my personal favorite of the lot) is "SOUNDPOWER! Music to the Limits of Audiobility" by Marty Gold and His Orchestra. This is one killer record. Marty uses it as a opportunity to stretched his highs and lows as far apart as possible using the entire orchestra in dramatically inventive and creative ways.

If you've never heard "I Concentrate on You" performed on a Tuba, now's your chance!

Marty Gold & His Orchestra: SOUNDPOWER! Music to the Limits of Audibility

1. I'll Remember April
2. Stella By Starlight
3. The Moon Was Yellow
4. The Terry Theme from "Limelight"
5. Without a Song
6. Harlem Nocturne
7. Shangri-La
8. A String of Pearls
9. I Left My Heart in San Francisco
10. I Concentrate on You
11. Till There Was You
12. Misty

Sounds Galactic: An Astromusical Odyssey

Re-Upped and Re-Mastered! An Astromusical Odyssey.

This one was up for a relatively short time on the old site and it's a Really Awesome record, so I figured I'd better post it again.

This record is a Space Age Pop Monster. The back of the cover contains the only clue to it's actual contents in that it sports a line that says "Arrangements JOHN KEATING".

I find it rather hard to believe that Arranging was the only thing John Keating did on this record, though, as it is easily comparable to Keating's "Space Experience" records. It's possible that someone else conducted the orchestra, but it certainly has the John Keating Sound (including a fair amount of synthesizer work).

If you didn't get it before, you now have another opportunity. DO NOT LET THIS ONE PASS YOU BY!

Sounds Galactic: An Astromusical Odyssey

1. Theme from '2001'
2. Spinning Wheel
3. Aquarius
4. Nocturne
5. Across the Universe
6. Up, Up and Away
7. Good Morning Starshine
8. Telstar
9. Clair De Lune
10. Round Trip Mars

John Andrews Tartaglia: Tartaglian Theorem

It's, Like, Science or Something!

"The Tartaglian Theorem is, basically, an application of exciting new orchestral arrangements to high-quality, contemporary compositions in a manner that finds the middle ground between the inventiveness of the arranger and the inspiration of the composer. The formula is sound!"

So say the notes on the rear of the jacket in which this record was packaged. Some of you are probably already familiar with this theory from listening to some of the Now Sound compilations on which some of the tracks from this album have been included (such as The Sound Gallery Vol. 2, Ultra-Lounge - On the Rocks I & II, and Look Into the Flower [Trip on Psychedelic Grooves with Blue Note]). It's a very groovy record!

John Andrews Tartaglia: Tartaglian Theorem

1. Poto Flavus
2. Wichita Lineman
3. I Am the Walrus
4. I'm Gonna Make You Love Me
5. Light My Fire
6. Abraham, Martin & John
7. America
8. Collage: Like to Get to Know You / Give a Damn
9. Sleep

I was unable to find much info about John Andrews Tartaglia online. This is from the aforementioned album jacket: "West-Coast born and raised, Tartaglia began his professional career in the Los Angeles area as John Andrews, with the "Tartaglia" dropped on the advise of early associates as "too hard to remember." His past efforts include, among other things, music for many of the hits of the Buckinghams, Tiny Tim, John Stewart and Al Martino. Here Capitol presents him in his first feature album as Tartaglia – just plain "John Andrews" being considered too hard to remember!"