Casey’s Really Scratchy Record Collection Presents: The Twilight Zone : A Sound Adventure In Space

 

If you are looking for some weird creepy sounds this Halloween, look no further than this weird sixties album by the Marty Manning Orchestra, “The Twilight Zone: A Sound Adventure In Space.”

In 1960, the year this album was released, Marty Manning was a renowned conductor and arranger for Columbia Records. In the fifties, he had worked with such luminaries as Tony Bennett, Vic Damone, Buddy Greco and Barbara Streisand.  He even won a Grammy for his work on Bennett’s “I Left My Heart In San Francisco”. 

Marty Manning In Action

Perhaps bored with arranging strings for tin pan alley balladeers, Manning and producer Ernie Altschuler got together and recorded this freaky way out soundscape.

Filled with traditional instruments such as woodwinds, brass, guitars and pianos, Manning and Altschuler also threw in the kitchen sink of sound using a huge array of percussion instruments (marimbas, xylophones, tympani, tuned bongos, tuned logs!?!) and weird futuristic sounding instruments such as the Martinot, the Serpent (a snake shaped brass instrument) the Bazzimba and the Ondioline (an early synthesizer played by Manning himself). Add in the voice of Lois Hunt,who wails throughout, and you get a set of space age bachelor pad circus music from Mars.

The Serpent

The Ondioline 

In addition to the cover of  “The Twilight Zone Theme”, the album contains such spaced out numbers  as, “Forbidden Planet”, “Far Away Places” and “Spellbound Concerto”.

Not sure what exactly the Columbia Records executives thought of all this but it was the last experimental album Marty Manning ever put out. For the remainder of the sixties, he went back to arranging music for such MOR schmaltzmeisters as Perry Como, Sarah Vaughn and Harry Belefonte although he did release a cool 45 cover of “The Tarzan March” in 1966 under the name Marty Manning And The Cheetahs.

Marty Manning died in 1971.

Although it wasn’t a hit in its time, I like to think it was an influence on future prog rock Gods such as, Yes, ELP and King Crimson. Could that make Marty Manning the Father Of Prog? Sure, what the hell, why not?

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Weird & Interesting Facts about: Screamin’ Jay Hawkins

 

Halloween is only a couple days away and what better way to celebrate than to look at the life of The Godfather Of Horror Rock N Roll, Screaming Jay Hawkins.

Weird & Interesting Facts:

-Jay Hawkins was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio.

—He lied about his age and joined the Army at the age of thirteen and fought in World War II. He was captured and spent eight months in a Japanese POW camp.

—While in the Army he learned to box and in 1949 was the middle weight champion of Alaska.

—An accomplished pianist and guitarist, Hawkins worked as a sideman before going solo in the early fifties.

—In 1956  he recorded his classic, “I Put A Spell On You”. The song was supposed to be a serious ballad but Hawkins got drunk during the session, entertaining the band by screaming and grunting his way through the tune. Legend has it that he was so inebriated during recording that he blacked out and had to relearn the song later in order to play it live. The record eventually sold over a million copies.

—When performing the song live he would jump out of a coffin dressed in a cape and wearing a bone underneath his nose. He would proceed to stomp around the stage screaming, grunting and carrying on. General mayhem ensued. One of his stage props was a stick with a skull on top he named Henry.

—Screamin Jay recorded dozens of albums through the years doing everything from Opera to Country. He recorded several Tom Waits tunes  ("Heart Attack & Vine", " Whistling Past The Graveyard") which suited his both his voice and delivery.

—He acted in a number of movies including “Mystery Train”, “A Rage In Harlem” and “American Hot Wax”

—Check out his documentary, “I Put A Spell On Me” featuring Bo Diddley, Eric Burdon, Arthur Brown and Jim Jarmusch. It can be streamed via YouTube.  You can check it out HERE

—Hawkins was as wild off stage as on marrying six times and fathering 33 kids!

—He died in 1999.

Written by Casey Redmond

Casey’s Website

Casey’s Really Scratchy Record Party #4

 

Snap, crackle, pop. If you love the sound of vintage vinyl you will love this all vinyl mix. Blues, jazz, R&B, Instro, Spoken word and rock n roll from my personal collection. Put up your feet, dim the lights and crank it up. Listen to the show HERE

PLAYLIST 

Peter Gunn (Henry Mancini) One of the coolest themes from one of the coolest detective shows on television.

Love Potion #9 (The Clovers) The original version of this Leiber & Stoller classic...The Clovers formed in 1946 in Washington D.C and were still going strong as of 2013...,The group has had a total of 31 members over it’s 71 years of existence.

Outskirts Of Town (Jimmy Reed) Shuffle or die!

The Naked City. I found this album at a used record store. The Naked City was an American Television showed that aired from 1958-1963. It was a hard boiled detective show in the mold of Dragnet and Peter Gunn. At some point, they must have released this album as a companion piece to the show but I can’t find information on it.

Got To Get You Off My Mind (Southside Johnny) The actual name of the band is Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes...The Jukes came out of the same Jersey Shore scene as Bruce Springsteen and Little Steven Van Zandt...Van Zandt produced the album on wrote some of the tunes. Springsteen also contributed a couple...A great cut from their great 1976 debut album, I Don’t Wanna Go Home. A classic lost soul, blues and R&B workout. Worth searching out.

Shoeshine Boy (Gerry Rafferty) Back in the Sixties, long before Baker Street, Rafferty was in a musical duo called the Humblebums with Scottish comedian Billy Connolly...This cut was originally credited to The Humblebums but was re-released under Rafferty’s name after the success of Baker Street...Great early seventies folk-rock...George Harrison meets Cat Stevens meets Harry Nilsson.

Carmalita Rap (Jim Croce) This was included with a couple of other monologues on a Croce greatest hits record...Sounds like his stories were as good as his songs.

Careful Man (Jim Croce) From the same record...It should have been a hit.

Ring Them Bells (Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs) Sam &company are remembered more as a novelty act nowadays but, as this cut illustrates, they were a pretty good R&B outfit.

I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire (Ink Spots) Great vocal group of the thirties and forties who were a huge influence on fifties doo-wop groups...This is their best known song.

Batman Theme (The Bat Boys) Pickwick Records was famous for releasing cheesy knock offs of the hits of the day...The song and album are credited to The Bat Boys but it is doubtful any such group existed. Probably just a group of session pros who probably knocked the whole album out in one session...Still it’s a fun listen,

The Man From U.N.C.L.E (The Challengers) The Challengers were one of the best and most popular of the early sixties surf bands and this song proves why.

If You Live More (Mose Allison) Mose: The coolest of the cool.

Listen to the show HERE

Written & produced by

Rock N Roll Casey Redmond

September 2020

Casey’s Website

Jud Strunk: The Forgotten Troubador

Jud Strunk was a seventies singer/songwriter. In the early part of the decade , he had a big hit with “A Daisy A Day” a bittersweet tune about the devotion of an elderly widower. 

Although his heyday was at the height of the mellow singer/songwriter era, he didn’t fit into the long haired hippie style of the time. He dressed conservatively, kept his hair combed and well above the collar and he played the tenor banjo instead of an acoustic guitar.

Strunk was raised in Buffalo, New York and graduated from the Virginia Military Academy in 1959. In the early sixties he toured as a one man show for the United States armed services. He acted on Broadway and made appearances on Bewitched and was a regular on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.

A Daisy A Day hit the upper reaches of both the pop and country charts in 1973. He placed other songs in the country charts including Bill Jones General Store, The Biggest Parakeets In Town and The Next Door Neighbor’s Kid.

The astronauts on the Apollo 17 lunar mission brought along a copy of Daisy A Day making it the first song ever played on the moon!

A native of New York, Strunk moved to Maine in 1960 and became a Maine folk hero of sorts. Many of his songs were about the characters and places of his adopted state. He ran for a Senate seat there in 1970 and reportedly lost by only one one vote.

Strunk’s music falls into the early seventies folk/country style. Think a mellower John Denver. (Yes, I know, that seems impossible.) He was a good songwriter with a lot of humorous story songs and nostalgia for a simpler time. The production often tips his music into MOR territory with an over use of strings and backing vocals and his banjo is too often buried in the mix. Despite these drawbacks, Strunk’s song craft and humor still manage to shine through.

Sadly, Jud Strunk is all but forgotten today. Amazingly, none of his studio albums have ever been released on CD and you won’t find any available on any music streaming services either. You can still pick up used vinyl copies on Amazon, e-Bay and Discogs for a couple bucks and there are some videos of him performing live on YouTube. He is well worth checking out.

Strunk, a licensed pilot, died in a plane crash on October 5th 1981. He suffered a heart attack just after take off. He was 45 years old.

Written by Casey Redmond

October 3, 2020

For more information on Jud go to,

http://judstrunk.com/

Casey’s Website