Merrill Womach is a longtime fundamentalist favorite of those of us who are compelled to shove our closets full of unusual vinyl. In a nutshell: He was a Spokane undertaker who survived an early 60’s plane crash on Thanksgiving Day. It disfigured his face, but not his spirit or voice. He became a musical Christian minister, pumping out albums that evidently sold by the score (they’re all over the place, it seems) and he also starred in a short 1975 film called He Restoreth My Soul. On top of all this, he runs a robust funeral music business and he could probably beat any one of us silly record geeks senseless.

Update: Merrill Womach RIP, December 28, 2014

Merrill Womach – “Happy Again”

The clip below shows Helen Shapiro – with Beatle props – doing her 1963 hit “Look Who It Is” on Ready, Steady, Go, almost a year before the moptops’ plane landed in New York City. The husky-voiced Helen had a handful of big UK hits in the early sixties, and the Beatles actually first toured England as her supporting act. And this is the craziest thing to me: she was only 16 when this was filmed. (Did her moment with George Harrison in the clip inspire this 1964 album cover, I wonder?)

Helen Shapiro – “Look Who It Is” (1963)

I discovered my dad’s “I Feel Fine”/ “She’s a Woman” 45 in a basement box when I was a grade schooler. It was pretty scuffed up, so it sizzled enticingly when I put the needle down. The opening riffs on each side of the single blasted through with such abandon that I forgot all about the white noise. It turns out the white noise enhanced the music, giving that 45 an irreplacable, unique quality.

So if the experience of finding a little treasure box in our basement – which contained a single so fabulous that I can say in all honesty that I first took drugs when I was eight – makes it easy for me to say that “I Feel Fine” is one of my favorite singles, maybe what I’m really saying is that it’s my favorite material single. Is there more legitimacy to one’s experience with music and the value one assigns to it when it’s tied in with one’s tactile relationship with it, like this Beatles 45 with white noise so unique that it added something precious to the mix? Or the experience of pulling out a hidden box and finding it there in the first place? (Or what about a song’s relationship with a beloved radio? For example, I’m sure none of the Top 40 hits during the summer of 1979 would mean as much to me as they do now had I not gotten my first transistor then.) I don’t think I’m talking about fetishism when I say that the music most meaningful to me has a distinct material tie-in.

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When the Beatles CDs came out in the late 80’s, I was convinced producer George Martin had made some sort of terrible mistake, especially with “I Feel Fine,” “She’s a Woman,” “I’ll Be Back,” and “Yes it Is.” These became my four main reasons why I thought CD technology was killing something vital in music. And no one else seemed to care. Then I realized, a long time later, that only the US versions of these songs had reverb, which is what I was missing so badly. So when the “Capitol Albums” box sets came out, which featured the crucial American mixes, I was a reasonably happy consumer and put my voice-in-the-wilderness complex behind me. Still, even though I know vinyl purists can be a silly bunch, when it comes to “I Feel Fine” there’s still ultimately no other way for me than that very same 45 I first discovered. Here’s a straight dub of it compared to the Past Masters Volume One CD version (that red number ones album that everyone owns uses the same dead UK mix).

The Beatles – “I Feel Fine” (Capitol vinyl 45)

The Beatles – “I Feel Fine” (Past Masters Volume One CD)

She’s the ultimate chanteuse in my book, but you still need to sort through a lot of pedestrian stuff in her mountain of albums if you want to be sure not to miss anything particularly exquisite, like “Avec Des Si.” The song first appeared on a 1968 French EP and then showed up on a US album (exclusively, for a while) in 1969. (I know this from hanging out at the Francoise Hardy Discographie.) The beauty of this one is that the verses sound a bit garden variety until they morph into these throbbing, multicolored, swirling choruses. It’s the last song on the record, and the first time I heard it, I just sat there in my chair, the needle spinning in the inner groove after the last chorus fade, wondering what on earth I’d just heard.

Francoise Hardy – “Avec Des Si”

It’s 1979 – I’m ten years old and I’m at the drugstore with my mom. We run into my friend and his mom. He shows me what he’s just bought with his allowance money – the new single by the Knack. I end up going home with them and we listen to both sides of his 45 over and over and eat Zingers for the rest of the day.

I’m linking to the clean radio version here, with the line that ends with “chance” instead of the one that ends with “pants” and the line that ends with “place” instead of the one that ends with “face.” I prefer this one to the intolerable Get the Knack album version because the thought of singer Doug Fieger salivating over a minor happens to creep me out. (He’s the guy second to the far right and he’s always reminded me of a leering cop show character who ends up in handcuffs before the closing credits roll.)

The Knack – “Good Girls Don’t” (45 version)

The Jo Kurzweg ensemble is like a German Living Strings/Andre Kostalanetz Orchestra for the polka party set. Each track is a medley of at least four different tunes sung by booming ghost choirs over electric guitars and alternating rock and polka beats. Here’s the first portion of one of these medleys. It features a Mendelssohn piece which some may recognize as the revamped American church hymn “O God the Eternal Father.” As for the cover, is this really the group? No clue, but I like to think so.

Jo Kurzweg – “O Täler Weit, O Höhen” medley

Q: What do these these three songs have in common?
A: They’re each US Top 40 hits that feature the kazoo.

Del Shannon – “So Long Baby” (1961)
Dion – “Little Diane” (1962)
Ringo Starr – “You’re Sixteen” (1973)

If you’re already familiar with this song either as a U.S. hit by Mac and Katie Sissoon (UK-based Trinidadians) in ’71 or the Euro smash by Middle of the Road that same year, you might especially enjoy this tender treatment by a Finnish now-you-see-’em-now-you-don’t outfit called Briard.

Briard – “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep”

This Scottish group became the Marmalade around 1966, at which point they recorded the proto-Hendrix single “I See the Rain.” By 1968, they were a UK hit-making machine with songs like their no big deal cover of “Ob-la-di Ob-la-da” (a UK #1) and their biggest US hit, the memorable “Reflections of My Life” (1970). But back to DF and the Gaylords – I think “That Lonely Feeling” is a masterful slice of early Beatle-ish balladry and wow, that guitar solo is a remarkably tasteful little affair.

Dean Ford and the Gaylords – “That Lonely Feeling”

Here’s a slithering organ riff to creep into your skull. This aired on French TV in 1963 and I don’t think it ever saw official release until it showed up on a 2000 compilation. Gillian Hills was a British actress/singer who worked the Paris circuit during the early ’60s. Would a native French speaker pick up on her accent, I wonder, and would that give this particular clip starring the predatory Gainsbourg an edgy “lost girl” aura? Hills and future Gainsbourg duet partner Jane Birkin would later share a tumble with David Hemmings in Blow Up (1966).