Cricketones

An 7 inch EP on the Happy Time label from 1962 with delightful splatter effect vinyl that Damien Hirst would be proud of.Not sure who the Cricketones were - just a house band one suspects.......................................................................................................................................................................Wikipedia says - "Cy Leslie reorganized Pickwick Sales Corp. in 1952 out of Voco, which had begun in 1946 producing recorded greeting cards, elaborately designed kiddie picture discs with cardboard backings and finally multicolored vinyl records. Cricket was the successor to Voco, making its debut with Pickwick itself on May 25, 1953; "my wife's birthday" as Leslie later recalled. Cricket was the first product line offered by Pickwick Sales Corp. According to Leslie, "Good fortune introduced me to an early genius, Eli Oberstein. He owned a vast catalog which included many children's albums, which he agreed to lease, thus beginning Pickwick's first licensing – The Pickwick Cricket line of children's records." Many of the early records were credited under the collective banner of the "Cricketone Players," or some variant thereof. The 1953 lease from Oberstein produced roughly the first fifty Cricket Records, and the remainder were recorded in a scatter-shot fashion afterward. Cricket singles sold for 49 cents each. Cricket Records are often anonymous, or credited cryptically to non-entities such as "Cricketone Orchestra." Among established name artists to appear on Cricket were Gene Autry, William Bendix, Smiley Burnette, Bobby Colt, Dennis Day, Eddie Dean, Leif Erickson, Ray Heatherton, Boris Karloff, Maury Laws, Gisele MacKenzie, Norman Rose and David Wayne. Cy Leslie himself is credited on C-85 as the leader of The Calypso Tones. There are no credits on records in the 6-inch series, though these largely duplicate material that appeared in other formats.[citation needed] Cricket Records started out strong, competing well against Golden Records, the main producer of postwar kiddie records. Leslie recalled that the Golden and Cricket concerns often had their booths set up next to each other at record shows. Cricket Records, however, were not sold in record stores but on racks in department stores and were, therefore, stocked by rackjobbers. Later in the 1950s, Pickwick turned its attention to low-budget licensing deals with majors such as Capitol Records, Mercury Records and RCA Victor. These contracts proved enormously profitable, and required more of Pickwick's attention. In 1968, both Cricket and its sister label Happy Time Records were phased out, though back stock on both labels continued to be available for a time."......................................................................................................................................................................|Cricketones - Little Red Riding Hood...................................................................................................................................................................Cricketones - Kiddie Songs

Mitch Miller

More kiddie song stuff from Mitch Miller and Orchestra featuring Gilbert Mack, Anne Lloyd and The Sandpipers from 1962.............................................................................................................................................................................Wikipedia says - "As a record producer, Miller gained a reputation for both innovation and gimmickry. Although he oversaw dozens of chart hits, his relentlessly cheery arrangements and his penchant for novelty material – for example, "Come on-a My House" (Rosemary Clooney), "Mama Will Bark" (Frank Sinatra) – has drawn criticism from some admirers of traditional pop music. Music historian Will Friedwald wrote in his book Jazz Singing (Da Capo Press, 1996) that "Miller exemplified the worst in American pop. He first aroused the ire of intelligent listeners by trying to turn — and darn near succeeding in turning – great artists like Sinatra, Clooney, and Tony Bennett into hacks. Miller chose the worst songs and put together the worst backings imaginable – not with the hit-or-miss attitude that bad musicians traditionally used, but with insight, forethought, careful planning, and perverted brilliance." At the same time, Friedwald acknowledges Miller's great influence on later popular music production: Miller established the primacy of the producer, proving that even more than the artist, the accompaniment, or the material, it was the responsibility of the man in the recording booth whether a record flew or flopped. Miller also conceived the idea of the pop record "sound" per se: not so much an arrangement or a tune, but an aural texture (usually replete with extramusical gimmicks) that could be created in the studio and then replicated in live performance, instead of the other way around. Miller was hardly a rock 'n' roller, yet without these ideas there could never have been rock 'n' roll. "Mule Train", Miller's first major hit (for Frankie Laine) and the foundation of his career, set the pattern for virtually the entire first decade of rock. The similarities between it and, say, "Leader of the Pack", need hardly be outlined here. While Miller's methods were resented by some of Columbia's performers, including Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney, the label maintained a high hit-to-release ratio during the 1950s. Sinatra, in particular, would speak harshly of Miller and blamed him for his (Sinatra's) temporary fall from popularity while at Columbia, having been forced to record material like "Mama Will Bark" and "The Hucklebuck." Miller countered that Sinatra's contract gave him the right to refuse any song."......................................................................................................................................................................Mitch Miller - Old MacDonald Had A Farm...................................................................................................................................................................Mitch Miller - The Owl & The Pussycat

Mitch Miller

More Mitch Miller this time with Jack Mercer doing the voice of Popeye on this Gala Goldentone 6 inch 78 from 1962. The other side features Mike Stewart, Gilbert Mack and The Sandpipers with the story of Scruffy The Tugboat........................................................................................................................................................................Wikipedia says - "Popeye the Sailor is a cartoon fictional character created by Elzie Crisler Segar, who has appeared in comic strips and animated cartoons in the cinema as well as on television. He first appeared in the daily King Features comic strip Thimble Theatre on January 17, 1929. Popeye also became the strip's title in later years. Although Segar's Thimble Theatre strip was in its tenth year when Popeye made his debut in 1929, the sailor quickly became the main focus of the strip and Thimble Theatre became one of King Features' most popular properties during the 1930s. Thimble Theatre was continued after Segar's death in 1938 by several writers and artists, most notably Segar's assistant Bud Sagendorf. The strip, now titled Popeye, continues to appear in first-run installments in its Sunday edition, written and drawn by Hy Eisman. The daily strips are reprints of old Sagendorf stories."......................................................................................................................................................................Mitch Miller - Popeye The Sailor Man........................................................................................................................................................................Mitch Miller - SCruffy The Tuboat

Mitch Miller

............................................................................... On the Gala Goldentone label from 1962 - a 6 inch vinyl bright orange disc. Nursery rhymes and children's songs sung by grown ups....................................................................................Wikipedia says - " Mitchell William "Mitch" Miller (July 4, 1911 – July 31, 2010)[1][2] was a prominent figure in the American music industry. Miller was involved in almost all aspects of the industry, working as a musician, singer, conductor, record producer, A&R man and record company executive. Miller was one of the most influential figures in American popular music during the 1950s and early 1960s, both as the head of Artists and Repertoire at Columbia Records and as a best-selling recording artist with an NBC television series, Sing Along with Mitch. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester in the early 1930s, Miller began his musical career as an accomplished player of the oboe and English horn, and recorded several highly regarded classical albums featuring his instrumental work, but he is best remembered as a conductor, choral director, television performer and recording executive."........................................................................... Mitch Miller - 10 Little Indians.............................................................................Mitch Miller - The farmer In The Dell

Swinley Sings & Plays

A curio from the pile of records and books I bought this morning from the Age UK shop that were selling off everything for " A bag for a £1" - today only. This EP caught my eye. It has no sleeve but I love the simple graphics/lettering on the label. Swinley seems to be a school in Brackell Berkshire. This was recorded in 1935 so puzzled why it's on a vinyl 45 and not on a 78? A bit of detective work found the County Recording Service but they only seemed to have made things for Julian Cope and more recent stuff so doubt if it's the same place. Curiouser and curiouser!
The record itself is rather dull and sounds like something Uncle Mac used to play on his radio show in the 50's.

Swinley Sings & Plays - Side One

Swinley Sings & Plays - Side two

Frank Luther (re-Up)

Found a couple of years ago in a charity shop in Westcliff - on - Sea in Essex. One of Frank's records for children. I remember his classic "Three Billy Goats Gruff" that used to be played all the time on Children's Favourites on the radio throughout the 50's and 60's.

"Frank Luther (August 4, 1905 - November 16, 1980) was an American country music singer, songwriter and pianist.
Born Frank Luther Crow Lakin, Kansas, he was raised in Bakersfield, California. A trained pianist, he moved to New York City in 1928 to pursue a career in music. A country music singer, he was one of the first "Urban Cowboys", performimg country music at big city clubs as "Frank Luther and his Pards." He is remembered as the composer of "Barnacle Bill The Sailor" written with Carson Robison.
He married Zora Lyman, a fiddle player who performed and recorded with him. Eventually, Luther shifted his focus to children's songs, enjoying considerable success with his recordings on which he sang and told stories. Among the popular albums for children that Frank Luther released were "Raggedy Ann Songs & Stories" and "A Child's First Birthday Record."
For his contribution to the recording industry, Frank Luther has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street.
Frank Luther died in 1980 in New York city."


Frank Luther - Mr. Small

The Bumper Fun Album

" The Best from BBC TV and Radio Children's Programmes" it says on the sleeve and includes samples from Listen With Mother, Play School, The Flumps, etc. and featuring the voices of Brian Cant, Rolf Harris,Lionel Morton, Gorden Snell etc. On the BBC Records label from 1979.

Wikipedia says of Brian Cant -

"Born in Ipswich, he currently lives in Buckinghamshire and is married to writer and director Cherry Britton, sister of TV presenter Fern Britton and actor Jasper Britton. They have three children, daughter Rose, and twins Christabel and Peter. He has two sons from his first marriage, Nicholas and Richard, who is also an actor. He is the son-in-law of the British actor Tony Britton and brother-in-law of the television chef Phil Vickery.
In 1999 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, referring to this in an interview with BBC Breakfast which was shown on 24 November 2010.

Cant is particularly well known for his work on many BBC children's programmes from the 1960s to the 1980s, including Play School, Play Away, Trumpton, Chigley, Camberwick Green and Bric-A-Brac. He was performing in drama-based BBC TV Schools Programmes about the Romans when he heard that auditions were being held for a new children's pre-school programme which was to be shown on the new BBC 2 channel. At his audition he was asked by programme editor Joy Whitby to get in a cardboard box and pretend to 'row out to sea'. He pretended to fish from his 'boat' and caught a wellington boot full of custard. He was cast as a presenter and first appeared on the third week in May 1964, and stayed with the programme for twenty-one years, becoming to many viewers 'Mr Play School'.
During the 1990s Cant starred as 'Brian' the farmer in the children's puppetry television programme Dappledown Farm, as well as providing the voice for one of the characters, Harry the Heron.
Cant is the storyteller of the UK version of Jay Jay the Jet Plane, and the narrator for the popular Canadian children's show Bruno.
Aside from his work on children's television, Cant is also an established actor. In the 1960s he appeared in two Doctor Who stories, in 1965 as "Kert Gantry" in The Daleks' Master Plan[3] and in 1968 as "Tensa" in The Dominators. He was one of the guest presenters used in the 1982 series of the game show It's a Knockout after Eddie Waring retired.
In 1998 Cant parodied his previous contributions as a narrator in 'The Organ Gang', a weekly segment in Lee and Herring's This Morning With Richard Not Judy, a BBC TV Sunday afternoon comedy show."

Tracks are as follows =

1. Party Time - Toni Arthur , Lionel Morton and Jonathan Cohen
2. Underneath The Spreading Chestnut Tree/ Standing on One Leg - Brian Cant
3. London's Burning/ The Sun Has Got His Hat On - Louise Hall-Taylor, James Earl Adair and Children's Choir of Christchurch, East Sheen.
4.Simon Says - Gorden Snell
5. Turkey In The Straw/ Papillon - Rolf Harris & Long Stratton V.C. Middle School, Norwich.
6. Trip To The Moon - The Flumps
7. Tomorrow - Katherine Stowell and members of the Girl Guides Association.


Bumper Fun Album - Side Two

The Blue Tail Fly

A "kiddie record" this time with very gaudy "politically incorrect" cover found in a charity shop a few years back. Plays at 78rpm but only 7" across.

Kiddie Rekord King says -

"The end of the 1940's saw a proliferation of companies producing seemingly countless series of kiddie records. Some of the larger producers started releasing the more popular records e.g. Christmas carols, fairy tales, bestsellers) as parallel issues in both 78 and 45rpm formats in the early 1950's. The cover artwork was usually identical in both. Eventually after 78s were phased out entirely, the 45's continued to be released into the 1980's until they were phased out in favor of CD's and cassettes.

One of the most famous children's series from this era was launched in 1948. Golden Records, a part Simon & Schuster, publisher of the famous "Little Golden Books", started issuing small (6"), almost indestructible yellow plastic records. This series was an immediate hit with both parents and kids. They were available at almost any grocery market for 25 cents. Most of the first issues were musical story renditions of Little Golden Books. The child could read the book and follow along with the record. The series continued well into the 1960's, and to this day remains as probably the largest of all kiddie record sets. Sadly, Arthur Shimkin, the founder of Golden Records, visionary and personal friend, passed away on December 4, 2006.

RCA Victor's youth series that began in 1944 became known as the famous "Little Nipper" series in 1950. Many of the popular Disney stories, which were made into movies, as well as the more popular TV shows of the day (e.g. Howdy Doody, Tom Corbett Space Cadet) appeared in this series and today are among the more valuable and popular of all kiddie 78s.

A few companies became known as strictly "children's record" producers. In addition to those mentioned in the previous paragraphs, many readers will remember: Peter Pan, Cricket, Columbia Playtime, Record Guild of America, Voco, Young People's Records/Children's Record Guild (a division of the Book of the Month Club), Mercury Childcraft and Playcraft, Red Raven (picture discs). Then there are those small companies that produced few kiddie records, let alone any others. Unfamiliar as the following are, they, nevertheless, contributed to the plethora of products: Pied Piper, Rocking Horse, Pilotone, Melodee, Toono, Belda, DeLuxe, Winant, Allegro, Magic Tone, Karousel, Twinkle, Color Tunes, Musicraft, Little John, Little Pal, Merry-Go-Sound, Mayfair, Musette, Caravan. This is a small sampling of some of the lesser-known labels of the post WW2 era. In addition, an entire section of my book will focus on educational, instructional, and religious series of children's records. Most of these are not avidly collected, but are, nevertheless, part of the legacy of kiddie 78s.

Besides standard records, a large number of picture-discs came out, including several that could be cut out of the back of cereal boxes. With a picture disc the whole record is a graphic image or photograph. The grooves are either cut right into the picture, or on a clear laminate of plastic that is affixed to the picture disc. One places the needle right on the record's picture. As a rule, picture discs are more valuable than standard records. "


Kenneth Lynn - Blue Tail Fly

Chorus - O'Susanna/ Camptown Races

Henry Blair

Scratchy old 78's bought at a charity shop the other day. A frequently played song on the radio of my youth - particularly Childrens Favourites.

Wikipedia says-

"Sparky was portrayed in the first three episodes in the series by Henry Blair, but was later voiced by Lee LeDoux and June Foray. The series was produced by Alan Livingston with orchestration by Billy May. The piano pieces on Sparky's Magic Piano were performed by Ray Turner. The voice of the piano was generated by Sonovox, an early version of the talk box. The series also featured many voices familiar to fans of Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons, as well as notable Capitol music artists, such as Stan Kenton.

Sparky albums were originally released on standard shellac 10-inch 78 RPM records, usually with three discs in each album and sold in the book-like covers, whence the term “album” originates. These six-sided record albums had a total playing time of about 20 minutes. In later years, the series was reissued on vinyl 78, 45, LP, and CD.

Sparky’s Magic Piano was the most popular album in the series. It is one of the few children’s albums of the period to remain available. Therefore the original 78s have a relatively low collectors' value. However it is not easy to acquire a complete set of the original wax records. The wax records are distinguishable by their black Capitol labels. Vinyl 78 versions are more common, with purple Capitol labels and sometimes a “Bozo Approved” logo in the corner of the album cover.

The unusual popularity of Sparky’s Magic Piano can be attributed to the fact that the album is not only an excellent work of children’s fantasy; it also has a useful moral that was inspirational to any child practising a musical instrument or studying classical music. Thus the album is a practical teaching tool as well as entertainment.

Because of the success of Sparky’s Magic Piano, two of the subsequent Sparky albums (Sparky's Music Mix-up and Sparky's Magic Baton) also involved talking musical instruments giving lessons for music students. Therefore the series seems to have taken a different direction to that which may have been originally intended. (The first album about talking trains was not musical, and was more dramatic than educational.)"

Henry Blair - Sparky's magic Piano Pt. 1

Henry Blair - Sparky's Magic Piano Pt. 2

Henry Blair - Sparky's Magic Piano Pt. 3

Henry Blair - Sparky's Magic Piano Pt. 4

Henry Blair - Sparky's Magic Piano Pt. 5

Henry Blair - Sparky's Magic Piano Pt. 6

Thomas Edison

Aimed at children this LP on the Mr. Pickwick label (1978)is a strange pseudo educational record - a series which intends to shed light on the lives of famous Americans such as Abraham Lincoln, Henry Ford etc. with stories, songs and sound effects. This LP about Thomas Edison the inventor makes hardly any sense atall. A trite story about a little boy who was fond of burning down barns and sitting on eggs to make them hatch?!


Thomas Edison - Side One

Pinky & Perky

EP on the Columbia label from 1962. Accompaniment directed by Brian Fahey. Pinky & Perky were a popular puppet duo on children's television who did versions of many of the pop songs of the day. I suppose the American equivalent would be The Chipmunks.

Wikipedia says -

"The title characters are a pair of anthropomorphic puppet pigs created by Czechoslovakian immigrants Jan and Vlasta Dalibor. The puppets, who had only very limited movements, looked very alike. Pinky wore red clothes and Perky blue, but this distinction was little use on black and white TV, so Perky often wore a hat.
Pinky and Perky spoke and sang in high-pitched voices created by re-playing original voice recordings at twice the original recorded speed; the vocals were sung by Mike Sammes[1] while the backing track was played at half normal speed (Sammes did the same job for Ken Dodd's Diddymen, as Ross Bagdasarian did for the original Chipmunks in the early 1960s) - hence the expression "Pinky and Perky speed", when an LP record is played at 45 rpm or 78 rpm instead of the correct 33⅓ rpm. Pinky and Perky would often sing cover versions of popular songs, but also had their own theme song "We Belong Together."
They had their own TV station "PPC TV". They also performed comedy sketches usually with a human foil (similar to Basil Brush). Actor John Slater worked with them as a straight man for many years, enduring soakings from water pistols and such pranks. Other human companions included Roger Moffat, Jimmy Thompson, Bryan Burdon and Fred Emney.
Their show included other puppets, such as The Beakles (an avian parody of The Beatles), Topo Gigio, a famous mouse puppet who appeared in many later episodes, as well as a female pig. Other puppets included Ambrose Cat, Basil Bloodhound, Bertie Bonkers the baby elephant, Conchita the Cow, Horace Hare and Vera Vixen."

Tracks on side two are -

1. The Hippopotamus Song
2. Woody Woodpecker
3. Nellie The Elephant



Pinky & Perky - Side Two

Brinton Turkle

An EP I found (no sleeve ) in the Hospice shop today. I was intrigued by the name and the title. Turns out to be a rather dull story about a boy and his pet seagull.



"Brinton Turkle was born on August 15,1915 in Alliance, Ohio. He drew constantly in school. "Unfortunately, none of my school teachers appreciated it. If only one elementary school teacher had egged me on, I think I would have acquired art skills much earlier than I did." Turkle had an immense interest in the theatre, but the uncertainty of that life wasn't appealing. After a job in advertising in Chicago, he married and moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he was able to indulge his theatrical interests. He had an ambition to write and illustrate three children's books so he could dedicate them to each of his three children. He was awarded a Caldecott Honor in 1970 for Thy Friend, Obadiah (Viking).

Turkle writes, "In writing, I use all sorts of tricks to capture the attention of my young audience: suspense, humor and even charm, when I can muster it. But no matter how successfully I may entertain, I am really up to something else: subversion. My abilities are implacably lined up against the hypocrisy, materialism and brutality that so pervade our society. As my readers leave childhood behind, I hope that they will carry with them an appreciation for such alternatives as integrity, mutual respect, kindness and reverence for life. These alternatives are in my books and I pray that exposure to them will play a part in the construction of a better tomorrow."


Brinton Turkle - Thy Friend Obadiah

Show And Tell

A curious EP on the Mono Gram label via Pickwick International back in the 60's . One assumes you bought the combined record player TV/slide show thingy and then bought the records which include a plastic strip with tiny transparencies embedded into it to play on your machine. One side is the story of How The Whale Got It's Throat - part of the Just-So stories by Rudyard Kipling and the other side is an excerpt from Saint Saens "Carnival Of The Animals".

Wikipedia says -

"The Show 'n Tell was a toy combination record player and filmstrip viewer manufactured by General Electric from the 1950s to the 1970s.
It resembled a television set, but had a record player on the top. Records and slides were sold for it in combination. The slide strip, which was a flat plastic key 8 inches long containing a strip of 16mm color film, was inserted into the top of the device. As the record played (typically telling a story), the slide strip, through which the images were projected on the screen, would automatically advance to illustrate it. The mechanism by which the slide advanced was purely mechanical, and was based on the rotation of the turntable, so proper operation required manually spinning it a few revolutions before beginning the presentation.
It also functioned as a standard record player, able to play 16, 33⅓, 45, and 78 RPM records through its built-in speaker.
The Show 'n Tell was also sold as the Show 'n Tell Phono-Viewer by CBS Toys, in the early 1980s, under the brand name "Child Guidance." These devices, which were drastically redesigned from their earlier version, only had two speeds (33⅓ and 45), and could not play full 12" LPs. However, the Phono-Viewer could optionally move the projected image off the built-in screen and onto an outside surface (such as a wall or screen).
Licensed film strip and record packages were produced for many different children's properties, including Disney and Sesame Street."



Show & Tell - How The Whale Got His Throat

Little Marcy

Not a great deal from the boot sales lately but did find this curiosity today for a few pence. Little Marcy is a ventriloquists doll and well known amongst collectors of strange records. It's on the Word World Wonder Series label out of Waco Texas. It has a price tag of 1:98 dollars on the sleeve depicting Marcy and her animal friends.
It was released in 1968.

"Marcy Tigner, her puppet Little Marcy, and her unusual "child-like" singing voice, found her art, her niche, in the only venue available to so many like her - Christian childrens' music. Over three decades her unusual act has been fascinating, inspiring, sometimes repelling audiences from all over, depending on one's beliefs and point of view. Even today, when her music is often categorised as 'bad' or 'disturbing,' people find confirmation of their faith in it - and in fact, it stands head and shoulders above most of the other work in the genre thanks to top-notch production values.


Her albums have been released and re-released under various labels and at various prices, as was (and probably still is) typical for the genre. What we have here is an attempt - likely foredoomed to failure - to list every "Little Marcy" album and related release ever, along with whatever other data we can glean from thrift store record purchases and random bits of research."


Little Marcy - Side Two

The Lone Ranger

A rather distressed and battered Ep on the Brunswick label I found today at Age Concern. I apologise in advance for the terrible state of this record which been used as a frisbee and run over by a truck at some point one imagines - hence the jumps and clicks all the way through but I thought you might like to hear it anyway. I have fond memories of this show on the TV back in the 50's on the tiny flickering black and white screen. That theme tune has become quite iconic now and still sounds amazing.

Wikipedia says -

"The Lone Ranger is an American radio and television show created by George W. Trendle and developed by Fran Striker.
The title character is a masked Texas Ranger in the American Old West, originally played by George Seaton (radio), but more famously by Clayton Moore (television), who gallops about righting injustices with the aid of his clever, laconic Native American companion, Tonto. Tonto usually referred to the Lone Ranger as Kemo Sabe, meaning "trusty scout"]. Departing on his white horse Silver, the Ranger would shout "Hi-yo, Silver, away!" as the horse galloped toward the setting sun, followed by someone asking "Who was that masked man, anyway?" "Why he's the Lone Ranger." The sayings, as well as the theme music from the William Tell Overture, are indelibly stamped in the memories of millions of Americans (and Britons) who came of age during the decades of the show's initial popularity or viewed the television series run nearly continuously for past fifty years. Reruns of the Lone Ranger as portrayed by Clayton Moore are still telecast today (August, 2010) sixty-one years after their production and initial broadcast. The character has become an icon of American culture."



The Lone Ranger - Meets The War Horse

The Lone Ranger - Saves The Booneville Gold

Frank Luther

Found a couple of years ago in a charity shop in Westcliff - on - Sea in Essex. One of Frank's records for children. I remember his classic "Three Billy Goats Gruff" that used to be played all the time on Children's Favourites on the radio throughout the 50's and 60's.

"Frank Luther (August 4, 1905 - November 16, 1980) was an American country music singer, songwriter and pianist.
Born Frank Luther Crow Lakin, Kansas, he was raised in Bakersfield, California. A trained pianist, he moved to New York City in 1928 to pursue a career in music. A country music singer, he was one of the first "Urban Cowboys", performimg country music at big city clubs as "Frank Luther and his Pards." He is remembered as the composer of "Barnacle Bill The Sailor" written with Carson Robison.
He married Zora Lyman, a fiddle player who performed and recorded with him. Eventually, Luther shifted his focus to children's songs, enjoying considerable success with his recordings on which he sang and told stories. Among the popular albums for children that Frank Luther released were "Raggedy Ann Songs & Stories" and "A Child's First Birthday Record."
For his contribution to the recording industry, Frank Luther has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street.
Frank Luther died in 1980 in New York city."

Frank Luther - Side One

Frank Luther - Side Two

Crackerjack

This LP on the BBC label is from 1974 gives a flavour of the much loved children's variety show that graced our TV sets back in the 60's and 70's. Who could forget the much coveted "Crackerjack pencil" or Double Or Drop? The regular troupe of players included Leslie Crowther, Ronnie Corbett and Peter Glaze ( included here ) along with Don Maclean, Jacqueline Clarke and Christine Ozanne. So prepare for some corny jokes and silly songs including Jake The Peg, Talk To The Animals and the old Ray Stevens classic Gitarzan.

Wikipedia says -

"The shows were filmed in front of an audience of mainly children at the BBC Television Theatre (now the Shepherds Bush Empire) and were quite frantic. The format of the programme included competitive games for teams of children, a music spot, a comedy double act, and a finale in which the cast performed a short comic play, adapting popular songs of the day and incorporating them into the action. One of the highlights of the show was called Don and Pete, being Don Maclean and Peter Glaze in a silent comedy style section lasting maybe five minutes. Shows had them fishing, as sweepers, barbers, at a riding school, on a building site, on a farm, at a circus, window cleaners, bellboys, removals, etc.
One of the most memorable games was a quiz called "Double or Drop", where each contestant was given a prize to hold for each question answered correctly, but given a cabbage if they answered incorrectly. They were out of the game if they dropped any of the items they were holding or received a third cabbage."



Variuos Artists - Crackerjack Side One

Ann Stephens

I rarely buy records from the Oxfam shop as the prices tend to be a bit steep but for 49p this seemed like a bargain steeped as it is in nostalgia for far distant innocent age when we had "Children's Favourites" on the wireless ( long before the radio was invented ) Also someone called Uncle Mac who used to introduce it every Saturday morning. I think his name was Derek McCulloch? A kindly old uncle figure who smelled of Werther's Originals and had a wooden leg.
I suppose it's just the nostalgia that makes this EP on the HMV label so appealing.

The sleeve notes don't tell us much about the precocious Ann but it does say-

"Ann was an HMV recording discovery, for when they needed an Alice for their Alice In Wonderland series in 1941. Ann was the successful applicant out of 700 who were auditioned for the company. Her debut on record was successful and instantaneous, and her natural, untrained voice endeared her to a nation and led her to being offered several film parts."

The whistler on Dicky Bird Hop is Ronald Gourley. The orchestra on Buckingham Palace and Christopher Robin is conducted by Clifford Greenwood. The orchestra on the other two songs is conducted by Henry Geehl.


Ann Stephens - Buckingham Palace

Ann Stephens - Dicky Bird Hop

Ann Stephens - Teddy Bears Picnic

Ann Stephens - Christopher Robin

Alphonse The Horse

Not much to say about this one. A slightly creepy horse to scare children at their Christmas parties! Sleeve art done by a horse with a crayon. On the Alphonse Productions label from 1977.


Alphonse The Horse - Space Ride

Alphonse The Horse - Jungle Safari

Alphonse The Horse - You're A Star

Alphonse The Horse - Silly Statues

Happy Monsters (Re-Up)

A really odd record I bought today at a boot sale. It was released on the Happy House label ( Made In America ) in the 60's I imagine. One side a has a story and the other is all songs ,or rather, tunes- sub funk backing tracks that have percussive intruments like bells, marracas and squeakers layered over the top in a strange haphazard fashion. The resulting mess is quite alarming! I recognise a few tunes here including James Brown's "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag". Maybe you can spot some others? Goodness knows what children thought of this when it was played at their parties!

I've had many requests for this to be uploaded again with the story side of the record - so here it is.


Happy Monsters - Story

Happy Monsters - Ooog Frug

Happy Monsters - Monster Rock

Happy Monsters - See See Monster

Happy Monsters - Clap Your Tentacles

Happy Monsters - Kiss Me Ooognight