The Styrous® Viewfinder: Capitol Records

Showing posts with label Capitol Records. Show all posts

June 28, 2025

20,000 vinyl LPs 389: Pink Floyd ~ A Saucerful of Secrets

vinyl LP front cover

cover design by Hipgnosis

photo of album cover by Styrous®

On June 28, 1968, the second album by Pink Floyd, A Saucer Full of Secrets was released by EMI Columbia in the UK and in the US by Tower Records. I'm having a hard time realizing it was over fifty years ago! I didn't actually discover Pink Floyd until 1971 with their Meddle album. A Saucer Full of Secrets, was my second album purchase by the English rock band.

Pink Floyd ~ A Saucer Full of Secrets

vinyl LP front cover details

cover design by Hipgnosis

detail photos of album cover by Styrous®

Pink Floyd ~ A Saucer Full of Secrets

vinyl LP back cover

cover design by Hipgnosis

photo of album cover by Styrous®

Pink Floyd ~ A Saucer Full of Secrets

vinyl LP back cover details

cover design by Hipgnosis

detail photos of album cover by Styrous®

Pink Floyd ~ A Saucer Full of Secrets

vinyl LP, side 1

photos by Styrous®

Pink Floyd ~ A Saucer Full of Secrets

vinyl LP, side 2

photos by Styrous®

Tracklist:

Side 1:

1 - Let There Be More Light, written by Roger Waters - 5:32
A2 - Remember A Day, written by Rick Wright* - 4:27
A3 - Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, written by Roger Waters - 5:23
A4 - Corporal Clegg, written by Roger Waters - 4:07

Side 2:

B1 - A Saucerful Of Secrets, written by Gilmore*, Mason*, Wright*, Waters* - 11:52
B2 - See Saw, written by Rick Wright* - 4:30
B3 - Jugband Blues, written by Syd Barrett - 2:57

Companies, etc.

Manufactured By – Capitol Records, Inc.
Published By – Essex Music, Inc.

Credits:

Producer – Norman Smith

Notes:

Second pressing from 1968, "MANUFACTURED IN THE U.S.A. BY CAPITOL RECORDS, INC." printed at the bottom edge of labels.

Rear jacket includes number, "6" in bottom right corner.
Other jacket text: "Printed in U.S.A." (in circle), "Manufactured by Capitol Records, Inc., a subsidiary of Capitol Industries, Inc., Hollywood and Vine Streets, Hollywood, Calif. · Factories: Scranton, PA., Los Angeles, Calif., Jacksonville, Ill."

Typos and misprints:
David Gilmour's last name is misspelled as, "Gilmore" on jacket and labels
Catalogue number shown on jacket is "ST-5131" with "ST 5131" shown on labels
Track B2 is titled, "See-Saw" on the jacket and "See Saw" on the label

Barcode and Other Identifiers

Matrix / Runout (Side A, variant 1): ST1 5131
Matrix / Runout (Side B, variant 1): ST2 5131
Matrix / Runout (Side A, variant 2, etched): ST 1 - 5131
Matrix / Runout (Side B, variant 2, etched): ST 2 - 5131
Rights Society: ASCAP

Pink Floyd – A Saucerful Of Secrets
Label: Tower – ST 5131, Tower – ST-5131
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Repress, Stereo
Country: US
Released: 1968
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock, Prog Rock

Viewfinder links:

all things Pink (Floyd)

David Gilmore

Rick Wright

Net links:

YouTube links:

Let There Be More Light

Remember A Day

Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun

Corporal Clegg

A Saucerful Of Secrets

See Saw

Jugband Blues

Styrous® ~ Saturday, June 28, 2025

20,000 Vinyl LPs Archive
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February 14, 2025

45 RPMs 91: Tennessee Ernie Ford ~ Sixteen Tons

Tennessee Ernie Ford ~ Sixteen Tons sheet music

Ernest Jennings Ford, born on February 13, 1919, known professionally as Tennessee Ernie Ford, was an American singer and television host who enjoyed success in the country and western, pop, and gospel musical genres. Noted for his rich bass-baritone voice and down-home humor, he is remembered for his hit recordings of The Shotgun Boogie and Sixteen Tons.

Ford was born in Fordtown, Tennessee, and spent much of his time in his early years listening to country or western musicians, in person or on the radio. In his high school years, taking an interest in radio and began his radio career as an announcer at WOPI in Bristol, Tennessee in 1937, being paid 10 dollars a week. In 1938, the young bass-baritone left the station and went to study classical music at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in Ohio.

Ford served in the United States Army Air Corps in World War II as the bombardier on a B-29 Superfortress.

B-29 Superfortress

After the war, he worked at radio stations in San Bernardino and Pasadena, California. At KFXM, in San Bernardino, Ford was hired as a radio announcer. He was assigned to host an early morning country music disc jockey program, Bar Nothin' Ranch Time. To differentiate himself, he created the personality of "Tennessee Ernie", a wild, madcap, exaggerated hillbilly.

Cliffie Stone, a part-time talent scout for Capitol Records, brought him to the attention of the label. In 1949, while still doing his morning show, he signed a contract with Capitol where he released almost 50 country singles through the early 1950s, several of which made the Billboard charts. He recorded a duet with Capitol Records pop singer Kay Starr, became a huge country and pop crossover hit in 1950. A duet with Ella Mae Morse, False Hearted Girl was a top seller for the Capitol Country and Hillbilly division.

He replaced bandleader Kay Kyser as host of the TV version of NBC quiz show College of Musical Knowledge when it returned briefly in 1954 after a four-year hiatus. He became a household name in the U.S., largely as a result of his portrayal of "Cousin Ernie" in the I Love Lucy episodes "Tennessee Ernie Visits", "Tennessee Ernie Hangs On" (both 1954) and "Tennessee Bound" (1955). In 1955, Ford recorded The Ballad of Davy Crockett (which reached number 4 on the country music chart)

Ford scored a major hit on the pop chart in 1955 with his rendering of Sixteen Tons, a sparsely arranged coal-miner's lament. The song's fatalistic tone and bleak imagery were in stark contrast to some sugary pop ballads and rock & roll also on the charts in 1955:

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go;
I owe my soul to the company store...

With Ford's snapping fingers and a clarinet-driven pop arrangement by Ford's music director, Jack Fascinato, Sixteen Tons spent ten weeks at number one on the country chart and seven weeks at number one on the pop chart. The record sold over two million copies, and was awarded a gold disc. The song became a gold record made Ford a crossover star, and became his signature song.

The song, written by Merle Travis about a coal miner, is based on life in the mines of Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. Travis first recorded the song at the Radio Recorders Studio B in Hollywood, California, on August 8, 1946. Cliffie Stone played bass on the recording. It was first released in July 1947 by Capitol on Travis's album Folk Songs of the Hills.

There have been many versions of Sixteen Tons, Paul Robeson, Johnny Cash, B. B. King and there is a fairly recent cover of it by Southern Raised a bluegrass band from the Ozarks.

Tennessee Ernie Ford ~ Sixteen Tons

45 RPM, side 1

Tennessee Ernie Ford ~ You Don't Have To Be a Baby To Cry

45 RPM, side 2

Tracklist:

Side 1:

A - Sixteen Tons, written by Merle Travis - 2:34

Side 2:

B - You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry, written by Bob Merrill, Terry Shand - 2:10

Companies, etc.

    Manufactured By – Capitol Records, Inc.
    Pressed By – Capitol Records Pressing Plant, Los Angeles
    Mastered At – Capitol Records Pressing Plant, Los Angeles
    Published By – American Music, Inc.
    Published By – Frank Music Corp.

Credits:

Conductor [Orchestra] – Jack Fascinato

Notes:

Trailing 1, 2, 4, and ✩ are stamped in the runouts, all other data is etched.

    Rights Society: BMI
    Rights Society: ASCAP
    Matrix / Runout (Label A): 45-14296
    Matrix / Runout (Label B): 45-14297
    Matrix / Runout (Runout A variant 1): 45-14296-D1 4 ✩
    Matrix / Runout (Runout B variant 1): 45-14297-D4 1 ✩
    Matrix / Runout (Runout A variant 2): 45-14296-D5 2 ☆
    Matrix / Runout (Runout B variant 2): 45-14297-D1 2 ☆
    Matrix / Runout (Runout A variant 3): 45-14296-D1 2 ☆
    Matrix / Runout (Runout B variant 3): 45-14297-D1 1 ☆

Originally released by Capitol on Oct., 17th 1955 with "You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry" as A side an "Sixteen Tons" as B side. Later pressings switched the sides cause of the big success of "Sixteen Tons".
See http://www.ernieford.com/SIXTEENTONS.html :"On October 17, Capitol shipped the new record nationwide, and to deejays around the country, confident that "Baby" would be a hit. But, inexplicably, radio stations coast to coast began 'flipping' the single and playing the B side (...) In eleven days following its release, 400,000 singles are sold. Demand for the song was so great, that Capitol geared all its pressing plants nationwide to meet the deluge of orders."

Barcode and Other Identifiers

Matrix / Runout (Side A): F1-693-D3
Matrix / Runout (Side B): F2-693-D10

"Tennessee" Ernie Ford* – Sixteen Tons
Label: Capitol Records – F3262
Format: Vinyl, 7", Single, 45 RPM, Los Angeles Pressing
Country: US
Released: 1955
Genre: Rock, Pop
Style: Pop Rock, Vocal

Viewfinder links:

Johnny Cash

Tennessee Ernie Ford

B. B. King

Kay Kyser

Ella Mae Morse

Paul Robeson
Kay Starr

Sixteen Tons lyrics

Net links:

YouTube links:

Sixteen Tons ~

Jeff Beck and ZZ Top

Johnny Cash

Geoff Castellucci

Tennessee Ernie Ford

Tennessee Ernie Ford (live)

B. B. King

Raised Southern

Paul Robeson

Styrous® ~ Friday, February 14, 2025

45 RPMs Archive
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June 20, 2024

Music Note: The Beatles ~ Yesterday & Today

Yesterday & Today by the Beatles, probably one of the most controversial album covers in music history, was released by Capitol Records on June 20, 1966, 58 years ago.

Known as the "butcher cover", it was taken by photographer Robert Whitaker and shows the band dressed in white coats and covered with decapitated baby dolls and pieces of raw meat. Although the photo was intended to be part of a larger work critiquing the adulation afforded the Beatles, the band members insisted it was a statement against the Vietnam War. Others interpreted it as the Beatles protesting the record company's policy of "butchering" their albums for the North American market. In response to retailers' concern over the gory subject matter, Capitol immediately withdrew the LP and replaced the cover image with a shot of the band posed around a "steamer" trunk.

the Beatles ~ Yesterday & Today
steamer trunk cover

photo by Robert Whitaker

The original LP became a highly prized item among collectors. Since some of Capitol's pressing plants merely pasted the trunk image onto the existing LP covers, the album also encouraged a phenomenon of stripping back the top layer of artwork in the search for a banned butcher cover.

Having been deleted from Capitol's catalogue in the early-mid 1990s, Yesterday and Today was reissued on CD in 2014.

Viewfinder links:

all things Beatles

Robert Whitaker

Net links:

The Beatles Bible ~ Yesterday… And Today

Beatles Music History ~ Yesterday And Today the in-depth story

Rare Records ~ The Beatles Butcher Cover – Yesterday and Today

Ultimate Classic Rock ~ When the Beatles Courted Controversy

YouTube links:

THE BEATLES – Yesterday And Today LP Mono 1966 (Peeled Butcher Cover)

The Beatles & The Butcher - The Story of Yesterday & Today

Styrous® ~ Sunday, May 16, 2021

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Music Notes

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April 6, 2021

Capitol Records ~ the inner sleeve: The Capitol Tower

Capitol Records record sleeve

photo by Styrous®

Sixty-five years ago today, April 6, 1956, Capitol Tower, the home of Capitol Records was dedicated. It was the first circular office tower designed in America.

Capitol Records record sleeve detail

detail photo by Styrous®

That day is crystal clear in my mind as it was at the pinnacle of the Golden Age of Sci-Fi, I was deep into it and the building was right out of one of the books and pulp magazines I devoured. I thought to myself it was the future coming to life right in front of me. Little did I know my life would witness MANY Sci-Fi fantasies come true.

Located at 1750 North Vine Street in Hollywood, a neighborhood in the central region of Los Angeles, California, it is thirteen stories tall and 92 feet in diameter. The photo below shows the Capitol Records Building seen from the Hollywood and Vine intersection near sunset on June 30, 2009.

Capitol Records headquarters building
photo by Downtowngal

Designed by Welton Becket with Louis Naidorf, a young architect from Becket's office, serving as project designer the earthquake-resistant Capitol Records Tower is the world's first circular office building. Home to several recording studios, it is one of Hollywood's most distinctive landmarks. Although not intended as a tribute to record players, its wide curved awnings and tall narrow tower mimic the appearance of a stack of gramophone records atop a phonograph. The building was commissioned by EMI after its acquisition of Capitol Records in 1955 and was completed on April 6, 1956.

Capitol Records tower elevation drawing

According to Atlas Obscura (link below), the light at the top of the tower on the Capitol Records Building sends out a secret message. It was the former president of Capitol Records, Alan Livingston, who got the idea to have the light on top of the building send out a signal in Morse code. The word chosen for this secret message was “Hollywood.” When the building opened in 1956, Samuel Morse’s granddaughter Leila Morse had the honor of turning the light on.

Capitol Records Building construction - 1955
photographer unknown

Photographer Ted VanCleave has done a series of very dramatic and beautiful black and white images of the Capitol Records Building. Phaidon has issued a book, California Captured which features the tower. According to Slipped Disc, the tower has been shut down and its staff laid off; and Moses Avalon says it has been converted to condos (links below).