Sent via email, h/t Dan S. – photo sources unknown. Click to enlarge images.
Category: History
Saturday Matinee – Litter Bottle Beetles, Alvin Lee, Terry Bean, Keith Richards & James Cotton
Australian Bottle Beetles [via].
That’s Ten Years After‘s version of the blues standard first recorded by Sonny Boy Williamson. RIP Alvin Lee.
Terry “Harmonica” Bean playing Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Bring It on Home” at the 2012 MS Blues Marathon Expo in Jackson, MS.
From the OMG Dept: Keith Richards and James Cotton performing “Little Red Rooster” during rehearsals for the Hubert Sumlin Benefit concert 2012.
And that’ll do it for another edition of The Saturday Matinee. Have a great weekend.
Natural Sunscreen
Kinda creeps me out, not so much for the snails, but for everything else – the solar cooker, the scary dude lurking behind the canvas recliner, the ominous black car that the thug drove up in…
Apparently that’s Fin Keheler from Sandy UT, attempting to break the Guinness Book of World Records for keeping the most live snails on his face for ten seconds. He succeeded with 43 in 2009, breaking the previous record of 36.
[Found here.]
Introducing The Beatles – COLLECT ‘EM ALL
I spotted an article about the resurgence of the popularity of vinyl records recently. The Missus and I were discussing dumping our collection of LP records (actually, only the Missus was) and I remembered that I had some albums that might be of value to someone. The first one that came to mind was this:
I knew a little bit about the history of Introducing The Beatles. It was their first release in the US. Capitol Records and others had turned them down, but VeeJay Records took the plunge and released it in 1964. Quite the collector’s item for an audiophile, but what might it’s value be?
Copies list on Ebay with a surprisingly large spread for such a well-known rarity: $25-$900. Certainly the condition of the disc and album cover affects the value, but it’s still an odd price range.
So I went to fetch my copy of “Introducing…” and I found TWO – one a bit worse for wear, and the other in good shape. There were noticeable differences. The Copy A songs on the disc don’t match the album cover list, but those on Copy B do, and there is an obvious disparity in printing quality of the cover faces. Both copies have the “stereophonic” banner.
That’s my Copy A on the left with my Copy B on the other left. It’s a single photo of the two copies, side-by-side, cropped for posting.
Here are the reverse sides of the covers. Copy A is matte finish and faded; Copy B is glossy.
Here’s a detail with the bottom of the banners aligned. Both images were scanned and cropped with the same software. Obvious differences are obvious, and they’re even more obvious when one looks closer:
Kinda suspicious, eh? By now I was curious, and I found an article entitled “Collector’s Corner – ‘Introducing The Beatles’ (the world’s most counterfeited album)” penned by a guy who calls himself Happy Nat. The guy knows his stuff, and described the history of the album. There were two basic versions printed due to a dispute between VeeJay Records and Capitol records over recording rights. I determined that my Copy A was Version 2, while my Copy B was Version 1. I also noted that the stereo versions are the rarest, and a genuine copy may be worth thousands, depending on other minor variations.
I was convinced that my Copy A was a counterfeit, but what about Copy B? I was drooling, so I emailed both Happy Nat and Gary Hein. Continue reading “Introducing The Beatles – COLLECT ‘EM ALL”
Equal Rights
[Found here.]
Vintage Vehicles 1-9
Saturday Matinee – Iguana Love, Mantis Love, Don Shaffer & Elizabeth Cotten
Henry Lizardlover, born March 27, 1954 as Henry Schifberg, is a herpetoculturist, writer, and photographer who has lived with as many as 60 lizards in his home.
Iguana love [via].
Mantis love [via].
Don Shaffer was the inspiration behind Radar O’Reilly, a character in the popular novel, movie and TV series “M*A*S*H.” It disturbs me how Hollywood co-opts and distorts the true contributions of people of merit and presents them as caricatures, as they did with Shaffer, Joe Rochefort, Adrian Cronauer, and many others.
Elizabeth Cotten had an interesting self-taught finger picking style that’s difficult to play – unless it’s played left handed on a right-handed guitar (and yes, her last name is spelled “Cotten”).
90 years old, she was still pickin’.
Playing guitar was tough enough for a lefty like me. I was never proficient on guitar or bass, and could never hold a pick; however, I knew some fakes enough to fool some folks. Learning on a re-strung guitar is probably a worse handicap for a southpaw than just flipping it over and keeping the standard tuning. That way, if there’s a guitar handy, you just pick it up and blow the right-handers away (like Jimi Hendrix did).
Wish I’d figured it out way back when. Coulda, shoulda, woulda, all on the Saturday Matinee. Have a great weekend, folks.
Scientific Hot Links
Canada’s House of Common addresses a potential threat to civilization [via].
This song was a hit on pop radio in the early 1960s, and it’s enough to make you wanna puke. [Wiki: The song was composed by Ghanaian musician Guy Warren in 1956 under the original title “An African’s Prayer (Eyi Wala Dong)”.]
The New Dimensions in Testimony program is pretty awesome. More here.
“‘I now have work for 20 years,’ he exclaimed joyfully.” Disturbing true story here.
Classic list of everything blamed on Anthropogenic Global Warming Climate Change: The Warmlist.
ICYMI Department: The Institute for Centrifugal Reasearch: Gravity Is A Mistake. Must see video [via].
Searching for Twitter followers with the promise of absolutely no content, no following and no retweets.
Top image found here, caption inspired by this:
Saturday Matinee – Goats, Martha’s Birthday Party, ICR Documentary, Doc Watson & Friends
Goats. [via]
Martha’s Birthday Party. This is by the same guy behind The Perry Bible Fellowship.
Fascinating short documentary from the Institute of Centrifugal Reasearch [via].
“Bury Me Beneath the Willow” performed live at MerleFest 2002 by Doc Watson, Sara Watkins, Chris Thile, Sean Watkins & Byron House. The song is an old traditional that likely originated in the 1800s. From The Mudcat Cafe, commenter “Stewie” posted this:
Meade’s earliest printed citation for this is Sandburg’s ‘American Songbag’ (1927), the same year as the Carter Family’s recording and 4 years after the first recording by Henry Whitter in 1923. Other recordings earlier than the Carters were: Ernest Thompson (1924), George Reneau (1925), Kelly Harrell (1926), Ernest Stoneman (1926), Burnett & Rutherford (1926) and Holland Puckett (1927). [Info from Meade et alia ‘Country Music Sources’ p 197.]
Very cool. You can hear the Carter Family’s version here.
That’s a wrap for this Saturday Matinee, and have a great weekend.
Slow Commute 1978
1978 blizzard, south of Boston, Massachusetts.
The February blizzard was the second one to hit that year, the first being The Great Blizzard of January. I remember that one – whiteout and windchill of -60F. Assuming your car could even start there was nowhere to drive, and my 5 minute walk to get bread and bologna was brutal.
[Found in here.]
Tacky Raccoons 