EPs and LPs

The event of last month was, of course, the issue of The Beatles's LP, orders for which exceeded quarter of a million before it was even issued. I personally watched the eighth copy in a single morning—the day of release—being bought in a small village record shop, outside London. Why is Parlo. PMC1206: PCS3045 so popular that quarter of a million teenagers cheerfully part with over thirty bob each for it? Being old enough to remember being castigated as a young lad for spending four whole shillings on one 78 rpm (by an irate mother who thought no record was worth more than the eighteenpence Decca were charging for their pop singles then), I suppose I belong to the generation of utter squares who are physically unable to 'dig' The Beatles's message. I'll give you that they have a tremendous zest, drive, relentless vitality, yes; but I need more than that for my thirty-odd bob.

You get all these things and the other qualities I need for enjoyment of an LP in Ted Heath's set of "Great Film Hits", which is an unoriginal idea but carried out with such precision, balance and perfect taste by our finest big band, that I would fork out for it on Ace of Clubs p ACLI157—and ten bob less than The Beatles, too. I would name this as the outstanding orchestral LP of the month; the others include the work of three unheard-of German bands, led by Messrs. Henkels, Kasper and Martin in a set called "Hot And Sweet", most of it rather bloodless but very musicianly, on Realm CD RM139; another of those Glenn Miller resurrections under Tex Beneke and with The Modernaires and Ray Eberle, playing on Warner ei WM8133: 0 WS8133 tunes of our times that Miller never knew, as he might have played them; a modern orchestra, subdued but compelling, directed by Steve Allen on London GD HAD8100; some pretty teatime percussion music from xylophonist-glockenspieler-marimbaman-vibraphonist Harry Breuer and rhythm (Audio-Fidelity p 145033FBL: 0 155033FBY); the exact opposite, modern, cool and tinkly, and rather trivial music by Henry Mancini (RCA-Victor 0 RD7585: 0 SF7585); another direct opposite, a set of near-Dixieland numbers played in appropriate but unexciting fashion by a band led by clarinettist Pete Fountain on Coral 0) LVA9218 : 0 SVL9218; an interesting collection of unusual numbers given a meaty, beaty treat ment by Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen on Pye

NJL49 (this set includes Heartaches, which is pilloried beautifully by Allan Sherman in his latest set, "My Son The Nut" on Warner 0 WM8137: 0 WS8137, and there are other things in this that make it the outstanding funny record of the month, but I digress); some clean professional Dixieland under Frank Barber's direction on Realm 0 Rls,1136; and a tinkly set of piano choruses that invite you to join in and sing in the way Winnie Atwell used to do, played by David Lisbon on Philips 0 BL7589. A lone instrumental EP, that is not from an existing LP, is Decca 0 DFE8542, on which Louis Alter and his Balalaika Orchestra revive memories of prerevolutionary Russia hauntingly,

The other El's are five in number, two by girls and three by men. Of the men, two are by comedians, of the old-time slow-speed British variety: Kenneth Williams (Decca 0 DFE8548) works very hard for his occasional chuckle from me, and Tony Hancock (Pye NEP24175) is somewhat less laboured in his famous Blood Donor sketch. The third man is Cliff Richard, continuing as a sentimental troubadour (Col. 0 SEG8272: 0 ESG7900) has a much more acceptable Secret Love than Kathie Kirby's single. The two girls are Vera Lynn, who revives some of her wartime hits on HMV 0 7EG8829, and Petula Clark, who makes The Beatles's Please, Please Me even more ridiculous by translating their "Yeah-yeahyeah" into faultless French (as with all the numbers on the disc), thus: "Oui-otzi-oui". This is on Pye NEP24182.

The LPs, apart from The Beatles' and Allan Sherman's, include the usual assortment of folk-type, ballads, and vigorous chorus-numbers. There is also the new set by Pearl Bailey, "All About Good Little Girls And Bad Little Boys", which is brittle, sophisticated and largely boring to me (Col. 0 33SX1533), and there is another, consisting of waltzes sung as such by Della Reese, with distorted vowels, mannerisms that annoy and accompaniments that barely follow the singer (RCA-Victor 0 RD7584: 0 SF7584).

One of the most attractive of the new ballad sets is on the same label as the last, however, a Dynagroove exposure of the talents of Perry Como (RCA-Victor 0 RD7582: 0 SF7582), in which the Como method is applied with distinction to numbers such as Desafinado and Days Of Wine And Roses. The new Pat Boone, "Guess Who?" finds him coping with the top hits of one Elvis Presley, and doing so more attractively to my ear than the originator (London 0 HAD8109: 0 SHD8109), and Vincent Edwards (TV's Dr. Ben Casey of course) shows that anything Dr. Kildare can do with his voice, he can do at least as well, for he has a pleasant style of singing, as Bruns. 0 LAT8553: 0 STA8553 shows.

Youngsters who want something deeply emotional and lots of it will find the new Bobby Darin LP to their liking (London 0 HAK8102: 0 SHK8102), and those who like their songs vigorous but not from Liverpool should not miss Sammy Davis, Jr. on Reprise R6096. Those who do like their Country-and-Western music Liverpool style should at least try Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, as go doubt they will have already done, on Parlo. PMC1209: o PCS3047, but if you are among those who prefer it genuine, try London 0 HAB8104: 0 SHB8104. This has Bashful Brother Oswald with Roy Acuff and the Smoky Mountain Boys with their assorted strings and harmonicas in a predictably lugubrious collection of c-and-w songs and rtoons'. I take it the Limbo Orchestra from Trinidad (RCA-Victor 0 RD7588: 0 SE7588—this is not a Dynagroove, by the way) are as genuine as they come, but all they present is a collection of tunes played in a slightly sour fashion with lots of frenzied drumming and vocals entirely devoid of any normal musical value.

This stricture cannot be applied to the quietude of Burl Ives (Bruns. 0 LAT8554: 0 STA8554), whose songs are always pleasantly different, like these, or to the breezy outdoorness of Slim Dusty's Australian folk- and other songs (Decca. 0 LK4551), or even to an American group calling itself The Modern Folk Quartet, who sing well and not without humour on Warner WM8135: 0 WS8135. The best group in the light humorous yet folksy line is The Limeliters, though, who dish up another amusing collection, cooked to a turn, on RCA-Victor 0 RD7581: 0 SF7581. I rather think that Jon and Alun are subtly grinding a political axe in some of their numbers on Decca 0 LK4547: 0 SKL4547: certainly the Song Of The Salvation Army is satirical, and the Cockney accent used by the American Kirby Stone Four (Warner 0 WM8134: 0 WS8134) in I've Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts is very authentic indeed.

Jerry Butler is another folk-song merchant (Stateside 0 SL10050), but most of his numbers are put over so crudely, I can only imagine they were aimed at the teenagers. The quietly restrained Red Dress is the melody of Greensleeves, of course. Why "of course"? Well, have you ever heard of a folk-song set without it ?

No doubt all these folksy things have, or at least had, some social significance. After such a welter of them, it's quite refreshing to listen to Clint Ford at work on his favourite oldies (Realm 0 RM 147) and even to Al Jolson, not overly sentimental so much as romantic, in yet another set of unpublished radio broadcasts for Kraft (Bruns. 0 LAT8544). Neither of these artists seem to be trying to get across any message deeper than that of "I'm here to entertain you, and I hope you like it." In the do. JOHN OAKLAND.