This is Leo Kottke’s take on the Santo and Johnny instrumental from 1959. (Man, I didn’t remember Leo’s was from so long ago, 1981, it’s closer in years to the original than to today!). My folks had the Santo and Johnny album and I remember it being played in our house in Algonquin.
It brings back memories of playing albums and 45s on our “Hi-Fi”, a blond wood box that predated our Monkey Wards stereo in the “antique” trunk. (See: Here Am I) I especially remember the thick, black and red plastic tube spindle that you placed over the thin metal LP spindle to play 45s.
Novelty 45s and instrumentals, such as “Please Mr. Custer” by Larry Verne (“I don’t wanna go!” “Forward, Ho!” “Nooo!”) from 1960, “The Epic Ride of John H. Glenn” by Walter Brennan from 1962, the “B” side to “Old Rivers”, “Ringo” by Lorne Greene (1964), “the Stripper” (1958) and the theme to “Bonanza” by David Rose.
We played LPs like “Bonanza,” a soundtrack album from 1961 with each of the stars singing (I could be wrong about this, I may need to get it from my mom to verify), and a group of comedy albums such as “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” (1960), “The First Family” (1962) with Vaughn Meader as JFK, “Inside Shelly Berman” (1959), and “My Son, the Folk Singer” (1962) with Allan Sherman.
A couple years later I used this stand alone RCA player to listen to my first albums, “This Diamond Ring” and “Everybody Loves a Clown” by Gary Lewis and the Playboys, “A Hard Days’ Night,” “Help!” “Revolver”, and “Rubber Soul” by the Beatles, and my first comedy albums by the great Bill Cosby, “Bill Cosby is a Very Funny Fellow, Right!” (1963), “Wonderfulness” with the classic “Chicken Heart” bit (1966), “Revenge” (1967), and “To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With” (1968).
I did seem to have bent towards comedy in my early listening that matured into Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Tom Lehrer, The Firesign Theatre, Monty Python, Albert Brooks, Martin Mull, and the National Lampoon albums in the 1970s. I don’t think I’ve bought a comedy album since Monty Python’s Contractual Obligation Album, though I now subscribe to the Steve Dahl Podcast Network, which gets me great comedy from Steve, Kevin Matthews (when he gets his head out of his “Libertarian” ass), Dino Stamatopolous, and the Matt and Brendan Show,
Musically, in the late 60’s I was into Paul Muriat and Mason Williams (after the early infatuation with the Beatles and Gary Lewis), but I also recall buying all the Chicago albums, especially the hugely awaited “Chicago at Carnegie Hall” LP set from 1971. At $10, it was quite a purchase for a 16 year old with no income besides lawn mowing, etc., but it came with 4 self-indulgent albums, plus two large posters of the band, a poster of Carnegie Hall (on my wall at home, I was/am an architecture geek, I wanted to write my master’s thesis about the White City, the Columbian Exposition of 1893, but could not find a topic that an advisor at WIU would buy into, since I had no architectural history background), a voter info booklet, and a 20-page booklet about the group.
Reminds me of another story…at Blackburn College there was a guy who lived in my dorm who was a bit of a neat freak, his colognes had to be arranged on his dresser just so, His clothes were all neatly folded and placed in the drawers, and he had a huge poster of Chicago (not the one from the album, but one he had bought at a concert) and had it on his wall. My friends came into his room one time to move things around, just a little, then had the bright idea to sign the poster. Tom W. signed it “To BJ, All the Best, Love, Chicago” in black magic marker. When BJ came back to the room and saw this he went ballistic and we never goofed with his stuff again.
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