[Vintage-Audio] Re Bob's Danny Davis Thoughts

[Duane Fischer, W8DBF]

Hi Bob,

I think that you and I are going to have to get out that old Louisville 
Slugger from decades past and give the somewhat bloated painted plaster 
piggy bank a swat! Let the chips fly where they may! Use some of those coins 
on a landline now and then, rather then wait for you to be somewhere in the 
mobile, the solar flux just right, the winds of Fate blowing in our favor 
and so forth to communicate! We have much to discuss Robert! Besides, some 
of it is really none of the business of those nameless ears that may be 
listening!

One Floyd Cramer album that I have has written on the outside jacket that 
Floyd got paid something like $150 per hour if his name was mentioned as the 
piano player on the album and $75 per hour if not. Of course this applies to 
him doing session work, 'not' his own albums!

I am pulling those numbers out of my memory Bob, and that was read to me 
many decades ago. Hence, I may not have them right. You know those figures 
must be from the late sixties or seventies, as by the eighties I am sure 
they were double that, if not triple!

I wonder how many songs out of the RCA Nashville Studio B did have bits of 
Morse sneaked into the background? There is the one I mentioned previously 
by Ray Stevens, "Save Me From Myself". Did I send you the two CD set of the 
"Best Of" series I put together of Ray Stevens songs? I sent you so darn 
many Robert, that I would have to check the original file to know!

I want you to know this Bob: I have "NEVER" given, or even made and was paid 
for, as many albums as I sent to you! It was a huge amount of work, but I 
wanted you to have some material not available on commercial CDS from some 
of the great vinyl that I had. I knew that you would play them, enjoy them 
and protect them.

Do not bother about the song about the Titantic. I am not interested in it 
Bob. If it had been some unusual or little known song by Ray Stevens, then I 
would be interested. Thank you just the same.

I was recording different versions of "Amazing Grace" for a Ham friend in 
Florida. I was positive that I had one done by Folk Artist Joan Baez. 
Unfortunately my old albums by her were on a label that wore out with less 
then twenty plays. I think it was Columbia. Never had an album wear out like 
those did! I could not find the song among anything that I had left.

Finally, the old blind dude discovered that one of those commercial CD cases 
was a two CD set! Could the world's only totally blind professional 
Magician/Illusionist get it open? No way! I was considering precisely where 
to smack the sucker with my late Father's Carpenters hammer when reason took 
over. Somebody came to the door to deliver some spaghetti that I had 
ordered, so I had them open it for me! The song was on the second CD 
alright, but Joan was singing it along with the audience! Not at all what I 
wanted! I still have not found the version where she does it as a solo and 
plays the guitar.

Oh Oh! Sounds like bad weather may be moving in, so I better get off line. 
Later.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Nickels" <w9ran at oneradio.net>
To: "Vintage home and professional audio equipment from 1975 back" 
<vintage-audio at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 11:51 PM
Subject: Re: [Vintage-Audio] Re Bob's Danny Davis Thoughts


> Duane Fischer, W8DBF wrote:
>>
>> Either my ears deceive me, or it is Floyd Cramer on keyboard! No 
>> mistaking Floyd or the incomparable Nashville sound!
> Sorry Duane, I misread this as a statement rather than a question.  But 
> yes, Floyd Cramer was the "stock" piano player for the Nashville Brass. 
> Of the two LPs I have, he's credited on one and not on the other, but I 
> suspect he played on all of them.   As your expert ear would be best able 
> to detect!
>>
>> I got asked last night about Ray Stevens song about the "Titantic". 
>> Something about a Black boxer Jack Johnson and being denied passage 
>> because he was black. In this particular case, discrimination worked in 
>> Mr. Johnson's favor! I have never heard this song, have any of you? When 
>> did it chart?
> Well now you're going to have me digging through my Vinyl Archives, also 
> known as the big shelf of records under the basement stairs before long! 
> First, it wasn't Ray Stevens, this was the handiwork of a folk singer 
> named Jaime Brockett.  He rose to cult status in the 1969-early 1970s era 
> with his debut album, "Remember the Wind and the Rain", which featured the 
> 13 minute long talking blues number "The Legend of the USS Titanic". 
> I've read that this was a take-off on an old Leadbelly tune, but I haven't 
> heard the original if this is the case.  Back in that era, the main source 
> of pop music in my Nebraska hometown was KOMA, Oklahoma City that 
> blanketed the midwest with its 50,000 watt signal.   We also listened to 
> WLS, but it was not as strong, and played more commercials.   But in 1969, 
> tuning around the AM band late at night would produce yet another rock 
> station, one hailing out of Little Rock Arkansas and truly something "far 
> out".  This was Beaker Street, an underground radio show hosted by one 
> Clyde Clifford (who I learned later, as a ham who actually got in to the 
> DJ business from being a transmitter engineer).   His trademark sound was 
> a continuous background of weird spacey noises and sound effects - there 
> would never be any dead air, only the spacey sounds with Clydes low-key 
> commentary, and the music.  It was so cool - the first "underground music" 
> program on a commercial AM radio station, and a 50,000 watt blowtorch at 
> that.  I still have many albums and CDs today that I first heard and 
> developed a taste for as a result of hearing them on Beaker Street, and 
> Jaime Brockett was one of them.
>
> And what is really wild is Clyde Clifford (who actually had a day job as a 
> healthcare worker) still does the Beaker Street program on Sunday nights 
> on an Little Rock FM station and streams it on the internet.  I've 
> listened, and it is exactly like it was back then.  As he puts it it, 
> "KAAY was sold into religious servitude and I thought,  this is the last 
> time I will ever do this" on the night of the final program.  Fortunately, 
> it hasn't quite turned out that way!   Thanks to zillions of people like 
> me who grew up listening to this unique sound.   If I can get an 
> electronic version of the Titanic song,  I will burn it to CD for you. 
> It's quite entertaining, especially in the context of 1969 culture.
>
> 73, Bob W9RAN
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