It is a moment of existential joy for me to receive feedback and (wow!) a letter of comment from a reader! The following are words from Fred Argoff, writer and publisher of long-running zines Brooklyn, Anachronism , Watch the Closing Doors and probably other projects I am currently unaware of. He passed away shortly after I received his letter. May his memory be for a blessing.
“… It’s the summer of 1969 and I’m wandering around in my local record shop (I wonder how many kids these days have any idea what that means!) There on the shelf is an album with a weirdly painted cover. But what is important to me is the album is by George Harrison. An album by a Beatle? I had to have it-and so I bought a copy of Electronic Sounds.
I had no idea that the image on the cover was a literal representation of the record. No songs per se, just about 43 minutes of Moog synthesizer-generated sounds. It was a disappointment to me, but I held onto my copy of that record. More than half a century later, and I can still say that in all these years, I’ve only met one other person who has Electronic Sounds.
Years later I found out that Harrison shut down the Zapple label shortly after the record came out. It is now considered to be a collector’s item. -
Fred Argoff, Brooklyn NY.
Forgotten 45’s
We’ve all heard Johnny Cash’s rendition of Ring of Fire but have you heard the version by Steve Allen? Yes, that Steve Allen, the square looking hipster who was a prolific musician and television personality in the 1950’s & 60’s and first host of The Tonight Show. Steve was what these days might be termed a Renaissance man—he wrote books, composed music, acted in films … anyway one can not go wrong when encountering a Steve Allen record (or more rarely, a cd) in the Bargain Bin. Ring of Fire is not a common 45 though it was released on the Dot label, a major company back in the day. Presented here as an instrumental, it preserves the Mariachi feel of Johnny Cash’s version, along with the great bass lines. The flip side is a cover version of Horace Silver’s Song of My Father with Allen on piano. It’s jazz at its best. There’s even some marimba on this track. Great music if you can find it! Steve is pictured on the cover of this journal along with one of my jazz heroes Joe Pass holding Joe’s first LP “Sounds of Synanon” - a true gem.
