Hello and welcome to Your Old Pal Will's Vinyl-O-Matic. In this episode, we continue to cruise through Albums that begin with the letter A as in Alpha. If you would like to follow along at home, point your browser in the direction of vinylomatic(dot)com(slash)s05e03. While you're there, tell me your Top 3 Songs about Diseases, you know like Huey Smith's "Rocking Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu" or Peggy Lee's "Fever" or Silver Apples "A Pox on You". I'll share the results in the next Vinyl-O-Matic Amplifier Newsletter in Spotify playlist form. And now without further ado: A is for "Apple O'".

"Money Money Money" was certainly something ABBA generated in the 70s. That was one of the many fine compositions from their 1976 Atlantic Records album Arrival. Preceding that, we had one of the finest live acts in the Bay Area in the 2000s. I refer to Gravy Train and their number "I Wanna Wanna Wanna Wanna Wanna Wanna Get Rid of You" from their 2005 Kill Rock Stars release Are You Wigglin? We got witchy with The Kinks "Wicked Annabella" from their amazing 1968 album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. Definitely explore that album if you've never heard it before. And way back at the top of the set we heard from the first Bay Area band that I fell in love with after moving out here in the early part of the 21st Century. Deerhoof brought us their lead track "Dummy Discards a Heart" from their 2003 record Apple O' on Menlo Park Records. Next up, did you know that Haydn composed music for clocks? Here is one of those compositions in organ form.

Welcome back to Vinyl-O-Matic. We started that set off with Joseph Haydn's composition The Musical Clocks as performed by Marilyn Mason. That is from a promotional record called The Art of the Organ Builder by the Schantz Organ Company to demonstrate their craftsmanship. That was followed up by what you could experience if you had been in Madison Square Garden on June 10, 1972. Yes, that was the entrance music Elvis Aaron Presley chose for his tour that year. And indeed that was pretty all right, especially with James Burton on the guitar. Finally, we got all doom-y with a track called "Constructing a Spire to Pierce & Poison the Infinite" from the 2017 album As We Cup Our Hands and Drink from the Stream of Our Ache by Wisconsin artist Cavernlight. That was released by Gilead Media on crystal clear translucent vinyl. Next up, how about something from a quartet of prog rockers trying their hand at some early 80s pop-rock.

Who is Jeanette MacDonald? Do you even know old films, dude? Nevertheless, that was Judy Garland Live at Carnegie Hall and her rendition of San Francisco. Before that, Harry Belafonte confirms that indeed women are smarter than men on his live at Carnegie Hall album from 1959. Cheap Trick was captured live before a theoretical live audience on their 1979 album Live at Budokan. Full disclosure: I have lifted a guitar riff from "Hello There" for one of my own musical endeavors, and I only steal from the best. Speaking of lifting musical bits, we heard Carl Palmer doing his best Hal Blaine impersonation in prog-rock supergroup Asia's smash single "Heat of the Moment", a song written by bassist John Wetton, with Geoff Downes on keys and backing vox, and yes, Steve Howe on guitar. Sounds like an early 80s A&R guy's dream come true. And now, a Shel Silverstein songs that helped get Johnny Cash's career back on track.

The "ats continue". We just heard Ray Charles at the Newport Jazz fest from 1959. That jam is called "Hot Rod" and features Ray on alto sax. Before that, we hear the Dave Brubeck Quartet at Newport in 1956 with their rendition of "Take the A Train". And starting things off, Johnny Cash counted down his death-row life in "25 Minutes to Go" from his stellar 1968 album At Folsom Prison.
That rounds things out for this episode. If you have any questions or comments about what you have heard, please drop me a line: will(at)vinylomatic(dot)com. You can find show notes for this episode and many others by visiting vinylomatic(dot)com. When next we meet, our journey will continue through albums that begin with the letter A as in Alpha, and we might even make into albums that begin with the letter B as in Bravo. Join me, won't you?