In 1975 or so my mom took us to see Lady Aberlin and two purple pandas at the Valley Fair Mall in Granger, Utah. Happy memory. This record came with a gift bag that Lady Aberlin handed out to all the kids. Hear it as it now sounds. Confession: I’ve sung the “meow meow pretty” routine at 3:11 to more than a few cats.

Fred Rogers – “Around the Neighborhood: Puppet Voices”

My parents bought this story 45 at K-mart for me when I was 8 or 9, I’m guessing. (It’s taken from the “U.S. of Archie” American history cartoons of the mid-70s.) My very favorite part of the record is still the first ten seconds. (Sometime in the early 80s, Dallas McKennon, the man who did Archie’s voice on these shows, sang lead on a hard-to-find record credited to the Archies called Drive the Boulevard.)

Archie – “The Great Divide”

This UK bouzouki classic was banned by certain US stations for being too suggestive. The band responded with a new version that apparently spelled out how they were actually introducing a new dance craze, but the mood was already lost.

These pop geniuses had UK top ten hits:
“Hold Tight” (#4, 1966)
“Hideaway” (#10, 1966)
“Bend It” (#2, 1966)
“Save Me” (#4, 1966)
“Okay!” (#4, 1967)
“Zabadak!” (#3, 1967)
“Legend of Xandadu” (#1, 1968)
“Last Night in Soho” (#8, 1968)

Update (12/07): Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof includes a scene where a group of Austin girls get mowed down by a lunatic racer to the sounds of “Hold Tight.” These are some seriously dimwitted girls anyway, but I can’t figure out if (1) all of them are being symbolically punished for their leader’s unconvincing geek-speech about how “Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mitch and Tich” were better than the Who, or (2) they were just working with a bum script.

“Time was when the harmonica was something the Tom Sawyers of America carried around in their pockets, along with a jackknife and rabbit’s foot. Nothing much has happened to jackknives and rabbits’ feet, but the harmonica has come a long, long way.” (liner notes)

The Mulcays – “Til Then”

Oscar Brand has recorded some 1,700,000 folk albums about all manner of subjects. Better check the catalog because he’s probably recorded one about you. Happy Thanksgiving.

Oscar Brand – “Henry Martin”

Henry Thomas was an East Texan who recorded all of his most well known songs in the late 1920s when he was in his fifties, then disappeared. His “Old Country Stomp” and “Fishin’ Blues” feature the slide whistle that caught the ear of Canned Heat and inspired their flute part on their “Going Up the Country” and inspired the Lovin’ Spoonful’s goofy “Henry Thomas.” But his “Texas Easy Street,” in contrast to all that, is just Henry and his guitar, dreaming up a version of the good life.

Some famous covers of his songs:
“Honey Won’t You Allow Me One More Chance” (Bob Dylan)
“Going Up the Country” (Canned Heat)
“Fishin’ Blues” (Lovin’ Spoonful, Holy Modal Rounders, Taj Majal)
“Don’t Ease Me In” (Grateful Dead)

Henry Thomas – “Texas Easy Street”

Welcome to the Boneyard, friends, where all manner of subjects – mostly arts/leisure/media – get dug up and pawed at randomly and attempts might even be made to “unite the joints,” so to speak. Here’s a small image of our mascot, Timothy Spall, who plays Mr. Venus in the BBC’s 1998 production of Charles Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend. Mr. Venus is what Dickens calls a “preserver of [dead] animals” and an “articulator” of skeletons. He continues on about the character like this: “The face looking up is a sallow face with weak eyes, surmounted by a tangle of reddish-dusty hair. The owner of the face has no cravat on, and has opened his tumbled shirt-collar to work with more ease.” Venus is a bitter sad-sack, and he spends most of the story involved in a conspiracy against our heroes, the Boffins. But he changes his ways in the end.