Christmas Vinyl

The first thing I was looking for and found pretty quickly, a really good copy of Dave Brubeck's Jazz Goes to College:

 

This is a pretty early Brubeck album, one of his first quartet line-ups, and a good representation of his music before he started working in odd time signatures. It was recorded live at Oberlin College and when he was touring mostly colleges in an effort to bring Jazz to a new audience. This is actually a repressing version from 1955, CL-566, with the Columbia 6-eye label, and not the first pressing from 1954 that the seller had marked the album as, but I don't really care. The album is in such good quality that it doesn't matter to me.

Here's a copy of Balcony Rock.

 

The Rodrigo and Vivaldi are about as standard as they come for lute or Classical guitar music, but the Benjiman Britten is always kind of a treat, though it's nice that he's written some pretty prominent stuff for guitar or lute, sometimes I find it a bit hit or miss.

 

This Billie Holiday compilation album was sort of an extra throw-in, it was cheap and the shipping would have been discounted on it. The compilation was originally released in 1954 and consists of recordings from 1935 through 1937, but I have no idea what year this reprint is from. It was again, a NM/M- graded record and plays flawlessly.

 

A sort of an unexpected buy, Draw the line, it was selling for a good deal, was again graded NM/M-, so I added it to my Christmas lot. The sleeve has a bit of wear on it but it has the original inner sleeve and even the order form inside. I've heard some of the songs off of this Aerosmith album before but have never owned the actual album. I think bits of it maybe popped up on the radio or Pandora. It's the original 1977 first pressing and is just as pristine as the rest. The first Aerosmith I've ever heard was probably when I was in middle school or high school in the 80's, and a lot of that stuff sounded pretty mainstream back then. I think I liked the more "heavy meta" side of their music, and not as much as stuff from the mid-late 80's. Plus, the album cover is kind of cool.

&nbps;

This 1981 reissue of Fats Domino's The Fabulous Mr. D was yet another NM/M- graded steal. It was originally released in 1958 and later released together with Fats Domino Swings on CD. It's a great rock/soul album in general and a bit lesser known for Fats Domino.

Here's a copy of "Mardi Gras In New Orleans ".

 

Now to get to the last two gems, a really good copy of Revolver which includes the original inner sleeve and a merchandise order form. It's a late 1978 U.S. reissue from Capitol Records, so it's not the 1966 vintage, it's not even a gatefold. But I had been looking out at a few places for a good affordable copy of Revolver, and lost a few Ebay auctions, but this ended being the best deal I've found. The vinyl itself looks a bit worn but it still plays without any noise.

I also have a copy of Rubber Soul, and both Revolver and Rubber Soul are probably on the lower end of the stuff I like by the Beatles. They're good songs, better than they're earlier pop stuff, in my opinion, but not amongst the best. Still, it's nice to have the context and to be able to listen to songs like "Good Day Sunshine" on vinyl. This and Rubber Soul was really when the Beatles started to change everything. One interesting thing about Revolver was that the Beatles started to use dual tapes to record vocals to get kind of a ghetto chorus effect on vocals, and more pop artists started to use the technique after that.

 

Finally, a mint copy of Led Zeppelin III. It's a 1977 Atlantic Records reissue of the 1970 album, but it's equally flawless as a lot of the other records that I got over Christmas. Looks like it's never been played before. The gatefold also has a neat little wheel you can spin. Wikipedia has an image of the inner wheel that reveals it's a lot more complicated than you'd think by just seeing it through a couple of circular holes. It's classic Zeppelin, and III has more of a folk rock approach to its songs. Afterall, the album was conceived at Bron-Yr-Aur cottage in Wales.

Filed under: Music
1/12/2015