These sleeves alongside other music-related epheremea are now gathered in a terrific book, accurately titled, The Complete Record Cover Collection (Norton).
It's difficult to browse through the book and see names like Ukulele Ike and the Possum Trot String Band and not want to hear their music.
This is Crumb's cover to a 1978 compilation by bawdy bluesman Bo Carter.
On this track, when Bo sings about troubles with his pencil, I don't think it's an HB graphite he's referring to.
Aloha! When I first started thinking about state songs I knew Texas and Tennessee would yield a bumper crop but reckoned I'd only need an Elvis track and a few steel guitar instrumentals to deal with Hawaii. Not so.
Perhaps because it's been overcast and I wanted some sunshine or the luxury of the bank holiday weekend meant more time rummaging for tunes but I've ended up with my longest post of the journey so far.
So, download these dozen songs, mix yourself a mai tai and sit back and think of Kailua.
Had the Beach Boys actually been to Hawaii by 1963? God only knows. My guess is that by the time of their third albumBrian Wilson and Mike Love had found writing songs about the Southern California beach scene too limiting and wanted to branch out a little. Some trivia: Dennis Wilson was the only Beach Boy who surfed. More Beach Boys:BBC | Amazon | 7digital
One of the pleasures of writing this blog is uncovering connections between songs I'd previously never noticed. To wit Sam Bush, whose Taking Out The Georgia Mail, featured in my previous post, backs Prine with the New Grass Revival on this track from the 1986 album German Afternoons. Some trivia: John Prine has never surfed. More John Prine:official site | BBC | Amazon |7digital
The surf guitar legends recorded their version of the TV theme tune a year after the show made its debut in 1968 and although it ran for 12 years I reckon more people are familiar with the Hawaii Five-0 theme than the TV show itself thanks to The Ventures' definitive rendition. More Ventures:official site | BBC | Amazon | 7digital
The Singing Brakeman isn't specific what "it" is but with hula girls in his sights we can take a pretty good guess. This was recorded in 1929 as America went crazy for ukuleles and Hawaiian music. More Jimmie Rodgers:official site | BBC | Amazon | 7digital
Apparently this is an "Hawaiian war song" but who might be menaced by the combination of steel guitar and upright bass isn't obvious. Andy Iona was an Hawaiian music legend and lent his ukulele skills to Louis Armstrong on Satchmo's tropical recordings of the 1930s. More Andy Iona:Wikipedia
Bob Brozman was unknown to me until I produced the website for Alan Yentob's Story of the Guitar series. This is a great outtake we put on the site:
The track is from is from the album Tone Poems III which traces "the musical history of the great resophonic and slide instruments that were developed in America during the first third of the 20th century". More Bob Brozman:official site | Amazon
If you've seen Terry Zwigoff's wonderful documentary Crumb you'll know that the saucy cartoonist is a huge fan of vintage jazz. Crumb's string band (at times including Zwigoff and Bob Brozman) released three records in the 70s; this nonsense pastiche is from their third. More Robert Crumb:official site | Amazon | 7digital
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