Bargain bin digging has been limited for a few months now…but of course there are still some items picked up before the pandemic hiding in the “to-play” stack. Here’s a few more samples of what can be found out there for little outlay, if you’re willing to dig a bit.
Bonnie Owens, Don’t Take Advantage of Me: Owens is definitely a familiar country music name. But while Buck is lionized in the country music firmament, Bonnie is less remembered today. Often that is because she was married to both Buck Owens (where her professional surname originated) and Merle Haggard. However, she actually put out a record long before either of those two Bakersfield stars — an early 1950s duet outing with Fuzzy Owen, himself a legendary figure in the Bakersfield music scene as a musician, songwriter and label owner who helped launch Haggard’s career. Bonnie had some mid-1960s country chart success as well, several of which are on Don’t Take Advantage of Me, her first long-player. This album includes material back to 1963, and is essentially a compilation of her singles for Fuzzy Owen’s Tally label and some early Capitol material. It’s all unadorned, straight-up Bakersfield sound, and anyone who likes the music of Buck and Merle will also like Bonnie’s ‘60s material. (Capitol T/ST 2403, 1965)
Barney Kessel, Kessel/Jazz: Contemporary Latin Rhythms: Guitarist Barney Kessel recorded an avalanche of material during a decades-long career that started in his teen years. From working in Big Bands and backing jazz vocalists to studio work for film soundtracks or teen pop records as a member of The Wrecking Crew in L.A., Kessel’s playing crossed into most genres at one time or another. As a leader, he is possibly best remembered for his small combo jazz sessions in the 1950s and ‘60s for the Contemporary label, but during that time he also recorded some one-off projects for other labels. One of those is this outing for Frank Sinatra’s Reprise label, which from the musical arrangements is aiming at the bossa nova/samba trend at that time sweeping the LP buying public. Kessel/Jazz is an oddity for the early U.S. bossa nova albums I’ve heard; it’s a non-standard jazz combo, for one thing — three guitars, trumpet (Conte Candoli), woodwind (Paul Horn), vibes (Victor Feldman), marimba (Emil Richards), bass (Red Mitchell), drums and percussion. The songs are also unexpected, as a bossa nova rhythm is applied to “Blues in the Night,” “Days of Wine and Roses” and other seemingly odd choices (they do take on “One Note Samba,” though). Overall this almost slides into easy listening territory except when Kessel takes a solo and fires it up. It’s hard to go wrong with anything you can hear his guitar playing on. (Reprise R/R9-6073, 1963)
Norman Greenbaum, Back Home Again: Norman Greenbaum first hit the pop charts in 1966 as a member of Dr. West’s Medicine Show and Junk Band, with the left-field jug band novelty “The Eggplant that Ate Chicago.” (I am not making up any of that.) The band’s first album is pretty solid otherwise, as are some follow-up singles that went nowhere. But within a couple years Greenbaum had set out on his own and signed to Reprise. Even if you don’t recognize his name, you know the result of that pairing: “Spirit in the Sky,” one of the ultimate hippie rock anthems and a song durable enough to survive appearances in many movies and commercials, and even an ‘80s synthpop cover. Rolling Stone caught up with Greenbaum a few months back to discuss the song’s ongoing legacy. That one tune would be pretty much it for Greenbaum’s commercial career, though two more albums followed. Back Home Again, from 1970, is an amiable rural rock/folk collection that shoots off in a few directions trying to find another magic combination without hitting on it, though there is a lot of good music here. The lead single was “Canned Ham” (again, not making this up), a funky rocker that may have been a hit had it been about anything but canned ham. (Reprise RS 6422, 1970)
Slade, Keep Your Hands off My Power Supply: I have to admit, this is a record I have been avoiding for years, despite liking Slade quite a bit. But … it showed up in a mystery record grab bag from Communication, so I got brave. A reworked version of the U.K. album The Amazing Kamikaze Syndrome, their only Billboard Top 40 hits in the U.S. are on this album: “Run Runaway” and “My Oh My.” Frankly, I do not remember hearing “My Oh My” at all back in the ‘80s. It’s a template for the power ballads that would come to the fore via hair metal later in the decade. “Run Runaway,” though … well, that’s why I avoided this album. That song bugged the crap out of me back in the day. It’s not nearly as bad as I remembered, but still...the combination of ‘80s production, Celtic moves and Slade just doesn’t work for me. Those two singles were produced by John Punter, who had not worked with the band before; admittedly, it did get the job done to put them back on the charts, and finally break through in the U.S. Thankfully for this listener, the rest of the album was produced by Slade co-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jim Lea, and, despite the intrusion of some chintzy keyboards, mostly sounds a lot more like the preferred ‘70s incarnation. (CBS Associated Records, FZ 39336, 1984)
Cool Colonels, On Tour: Big Band music — particularly dating from the 1960s — is out of my normal environs, but this looked just intriguing enough to pick up. It’s a custom pressing from King Records in Cincinnati, which was a point in its favor. All the songs are originals, by Dick Fenno, described on the sleeve as a California writer and arranger, and graduate of the forerunner of the Berklee School of Music. Plus, looking closer at the picture on the front, it’s kids; the players are all from Dixie Heights High School, South Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. For a high school private press album, this is about as professional as it gets. The playing is solid, the songs provided by Fenno are interesting and swinging, and it’s fairly well recorded to boot (it’s not live, despite the title). Searching around a bit online turns up a few stray references here and there about Fenno, but not too much. Some of them are on the Facebook page of his son Richard Fenno’s band, the New Flamingo Swing Orchestra, so at least one of his children has kept the Big Band sound alive to this day. And there are a few other Cool Colonels releases on Discogs. Anyone who likes swing music would like this one. (no label, probably 1963).
Possum: Capitol Records released a ton of obscure rock-oriented disks from the late 1960s into the mid-1970s, most of which seem to only appear all these years later stamped or otherwise cut out for promotional purposes. That’s partly because Capitol also ground up their returns and melted them down into other records (which itself is why so many Capitol pressings of the era are noisy), so non-sellers were destroyed rather than sold at a discount. Whatever Capitol was up to with that business practice, it’s a shame they didn’t try harder to promote a lot of these albums because quite a few of them are very good. I usually pick up any I see that are unfamiliar, and while some have over the years become in-demand collectors’ items, many are still mostly unknown. That seems to be the case for Possum's self-titled album. I can find the band listed on Discogs and that’s about it. Clicking around there does disclose that guitarist/singer Jim Baker was in the ‘60s garage band Kings Verses. Baker wrote most of the songs here, with assistance on a few from the band’s other singer-guitarist, Ron Weddle. Musically, this is probably too country for the rock audience Possum was likely going for, and too weird for a country audience to pick up on. As described in the album notes by Anthony d’Oberoff, “Their sound is a break with conformity and a return to tradition...A return to tradition evolving into a NEW KIND OF TASTE.” It ain’t Eagles, that’s for sure. It’s worth noting they did employ a few heavy hitters as extra players: steel guitarist Red Rhodes, multi-instrumentalist Ry Cooder, and drummer Ron Tutt. (Capitol ST-648)