DOuG pRATt

Guess the 45 Flip Side

The A-side of this single by a British band went to #1 in the US in 1966, and it sounds nothing at all like the lovely little ditty on the B-side.

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D.F. Rogers says, “Needs more megaphone!” You are correct, sir! The song “Wait For Me Baby” is the flip side of the New Vaudeville Band’s megahit with a megaphone from 1966, “Winchester Cathedral”. I’m always amazed by how a 40+ year old piece of plastic that was beat on when new can sound so good. I doubt there were many original Rudy Vallee records from the 20’s that were playable in ‘66.

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The YouTube player has the New Vaudeville Band performing the song, with the first tune, “Peek A Boo” being more interesting because it’s not familiar. (From there it’s an easy leap to Tiny Tim and to Robert Crumb’s Cheap Suit Serenaders.) Then Petula Clark sings “Winchester Cathedral” followed by a more familiar performance of her own hit, “This Is My Song.”

The original “Winchester Cathedral” LP, in my hands at this moment, doesn’t have “Peek A Boo”, so I had to find it elsewhere.

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The New Vaudeville Band, 1966

5 comments July 5th, 2009

The Death of Ron Decline

Do I have anything good to say about the late Allen Klein? No, I don’t. He was an opportunistic, dishonest, unscrupulous scumbag. Eric Idle and John Belushi were dead-on with their Ron Decline parody in “The Rutles”. Hey look, there’s Al Franken, the new senator from Minnesota, with his old comedy partner Tom Davis.

The first LP I ever bought with my own money was “Let It Be” the day it was released, and I immediately noticed that Apple Records had become “an abkco managed company”. Even as a kid of fourteen I was suspicious of what that meant.

In this picture the second scan is from an 80’s British LP copy of “Let It Be”, and you’ll notice that the name Harold Seider is missing. Seider was Klein’s attorney, and later he was John Lennon’s lawyer.

Since “Let It Be” I have tried to avoid Allen B. Klein Company products, with the only exceptions being on vinyl. As a consequence, my Rolling Stones collection is minimal. One of the exceptions is the Stones outtakes LP, “Metamorphosis”. I bought it for a couple of bucks in college as a cut-out, only a year after its release in 1975.

“Metamorphosis” has a some tracks worth noting, including the Dylan-influenced “Memo From Turner” and a good alternate version of “Out Of Time”. The best song, I think, is “Each and Every Day of the Year”. Unfortunately, it’s in fake stereo that includes phase shifting as well as frequency separation, so it sounds lousy if forced into mono.

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5 comments July 5th, 2009