EBiN vs. Godzilla!

Galveston Island, 1967

"Music to Watch Girls By"

If ever there was a slice of musical heaven writ 'specially for mine own ears, it is The Bob Crewe Generation's "Music to Watch Girls By." And if there ever was a song into which I would want to climb into and crawl around within (and stay), it is "Music to Watch Girls By." Sounding suspiciously like Herb Alpert and Tijuana Brass or Henry Mancini at moments, it's so beautifully rooted in 1960s-era lounge culture I can barely stand it.

Two hours in Sherman

I found all but a couple of sixteen structures I'd mapped, as well as several additional other things I had not planned on. In chronological order (as I found them), a Herculean labor of love:

"Thru Spray-Colored Glasses"

From the soundtrack to the 1969 surf film Follow Me, this is Dino, Desi & Billy doing a groovy favorite of mine:

About the song (in case you were wondering):

A heavenly pop vocal track, one of the last tracks ever recorded by Dino, Desi and Billy. The production (by Stu Phillips, who did the Hollyridge Strings and some cool soundtracks) is dreamy and soft, perfectly matching the idealized lyrics (the world seems so wonderful...etc).

(source)

"Hallo, Mister X"

An instrumental used in the videogame Fallout New Vegas. The composer is a German dude named Gerhard Trede. He appears to have been someone from the Swing Era(?) who later got into electronic music. Or I could be completely wrong about that. Either way, I really love "Hallo, Mister X." Here is a short bio of Trede:

An hour in Denison

Denison, Texas - did it ever really get over the advent of color TV?

"Johnny Guitar"

Yikes, this guy was Johnny Guitar??

The "Mil cut"

Well, I feel like a real local now. I finally managed to make it over to Milford's Barber Shop to get what, once upon a time, the college kids supposedly called a "Mil cut."

Main Street at midday

Main square at dawn

This is Dón Antonio Gil y' Barbo, known of as being "the father of Nacogdoches." The statue is located near the spot where y' Barbo's home, the Stone House/Stone Fort, once stood. I could easily imagine him really standing there on his front porch, as he might have many times on similar, cold early mornings, master of all he surveyed.

"Audrey"

In honor of Dave Brubeck turning 90 today, here is "Audrey," the opening track to the 1955 album Brubeck Time. Brubeck had this to say about the song and the song's co-writer, Paul Desmond:

"...it was Audrey Hepburn that we had in mind, and we never realized that she ever had heard this tune. There was no communication like that. And because she was so important at the United Nations for the work she did with children, when they did a memorial service for her there, her husband asked that they play what you just played.

And they said that she usually played it every night or put it on her headphones as she walked through her garden in Switzerland. So it was wonderful to hear that. I wish Paul Desmond had been around to know that she listened to it and liked it."

(source)

Hoplessly devoted to Olivia Newton-John

I've posted before about my fondness for Olivia Newton-John, dating back to when I was in 4th or 5th grade, but just let me reiterate: Wow!

I was eleven or twelve when this one came out, and I remember like it was yesterday, yesterday, yesteday....

Abandoned in Hempstead

Hempstead, Texas

"Dream a Little Dream of Me"

From his 1957 album Bing with a Beat, here is Bing Crosby's version of "Dream a Little Dream of Me." According to this source, Yoko Ono gave John Lennon an old-fashioned jukebox as a gift which Lennon "stocked" with Crosby records. This is one of the songs John played repeatedly: