September 16, 2012

20,000 Vinyl LPs 9: Jack Scott and the birth of Stereo Pt. 1

photo of album cover by Styrous®
(click on any image to see larger size)




I started the Vinyl LP series because I have over 20,000 albums I am selling; each blog entry of the series is about an album from my collection. Inquire for more info.

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I don't recall where, when or with whom I first heard a stereo recording but I recall I was blown away and hooked. It was recorded music as I'd never heard it before. I was astounded!

I remember the first stereo album I bought. It was by Jack Scott who was born Giovanni Domenico Scafone Jr., on January 24, 1936, in Canada. I like the name, G. D. Scafone, Jr., however, in those days an ethnic name didn't work if you wanted to be an established entertainment profile and names had to be "Americanized" to make a person palatable to American "taste", whatever that was or even now is.

photo of album cover back by Styrous®

Scott sang rock-a-billy in a lightly twangy, tenor (slightly on on the baritone side at times) type of voice that made teen-aged girls swoon. Of course, teen-aged girls did that a lot in the fifties (well, they did it in the forties, and the sixties, so I guess not much was different). Every guy felt super cool when he sang, The Way I Walk (YouTube).

I remember dancing with a lovely girl named Ann to his slow, sexy ballad, "My True Love" (YouTube), and getting all hot 'n horny (me, not her, or so I though at the time). I remember desperately wanting, but her not giving in; proper girls didn't do that in the 50's so I never forced it (it would be another 10 years before the sexual revolution would relieve me of my restrictions). To this day I can still remember hearing Jack's smooth, sexy voice crooning the lyrics while we bumped and rubbed against each other as we danced and my barometer rose (I got that expression from Mark Thompson, a local weatherman in SF decades ago; he was signing photos of himself somewhere and on everyone's photo he wrote, "May your barometer always rise.", I thought it was a great euphemism). 

I ran into Ann a decade or so later and she had become a beautiful, loving mother to a delightful girl. I met her husband and got to know them over a period of time. During that time, when we were alone once, Ann told me that all those years ago she'd almost given in several times, "If you'd only pushed a little harder" (oh, my, isn't life grand?!?). Somehow, I lost touch with her again. I hope she's well.

You can hear Scott's music on YouTube, of course:

My True Love on YouTube
Leroy on YouTube 
No One Will Ever Know on YouTube 
The Way I Walk on YouTube
Goodbye Baby (my favorite song on the album) on YouTube
Goodbye Baby a later version of the song on YouTube.

  photo by Styrous®

A great big thanks to Jack Scott for starting me off to a new world of Stereophonic listening pleasure. 

Ann vanished a long time ago but she and the song we danced to linger on in my memory. So, to my sweet, lovely, Ann, wherever she may be, thank you as well.


Jack Scott website



Styrous® ~ September 16, 2012


The skinny on stereo continues in
20,000 Vinyl LPs 11:
Jack Scott and the birth of Stereo Pt 2

And there is an update in
20,000 Vinyl LPs 19:
Jack Scott and the birth of Stereo Pt. 3


The entire collection is for sale. Interested? Contact Styrous®

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1 comment:

  1. 12/27/12
    RobGems.ca wrote:
    Yes, Jack Scott's first album on Carlton Records is great in true stereo (if you can find it; mono copies of this album are more common),but I hate to burst your bubble with this information:only ten of the twelve tracks are actually in true stereo. If you have a pair of headphones handy the next time you hear this stereo album,"My True Love" and "Leroy" are actually in fake electronic stereo! This single was probably recorded in mono before the rest of the album was recorded, and was issued as a single about three months before the album's arrival. Other than that, the rest of the album is most certainly in true stereo. And after the Carlton label went out of business in 1963, the stero master tapes were considered MIA for decades after that. Not even Jack Scott himself knew what happened to the stereo master tapes went to when a fan asked him about it in 1984. They were finally re-located around 1998,to be issued on a couple of stereo C.D.'s afterwards, about four decades of being lost. Two other rock-related true stereo albums from around this period were noteworthy: Duane Eddy's "Have Twangy Guitar, Will Travel" (with seven songs in tue stereo),and "The Teddy Bears' Sing" Album,released on Imperial Records(which caused Phil Spector to despise true stereo afterwards after listening to the results; he preferred to record his songs in mono.)

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