jim henson

Set to the tune of
Simon & Garfunkel's 1965 hit,
'I Am A Rock', this Star Trek novelty tune got some airplay on college radio stations and elsewhere, beginning in 1996.

Recorded in the SF bay area, the disc's insert notes identify Jeffries Tube as being Phil Brotherton and Todd Lookinland (former child actor - - and yes, brother of Mike 'Bobby Brady' Lookinland).

Some googling reveals that both of them have worked in film as model makers and visual effects artists.

It looks as though possibly they may have met when they were both working on Tim Burton's 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'.

Listen to:
Jeffries Tube - I Am A Spock
(Frenchy The Record cd-single, 1996)
(click for audio)

See also: Filk music

Yes, the story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter's path from boxer to prison convict to advocate for the Wrongly Convicted is a fascinating saga, but uh, really I just liked this old photo of him spinning tunes.

This photo ran in the October 24th, 1964 edition of The Saturday Evening Post, in an article about the upcoming championship boxing match in which Carter was the contender for Joey Giardello's middleweight title.

Carter lost the match that December. It was just a couple of years later that he received the first of his two convictions for three 1966 murders. Those convictions were finally overturned in 1985, after Carter had spent almost twenty years in prison.

Bandleader, composer and inventor Raymond Scott had risen to prominence and acclaim by the late 1930's, and remained busy for decades.

Following World War II he left radio and toured the US with a new line-up in his orchestra.

In the course of just the next few years he would compose scores for films and Broadway shows, establish Manhattan Research, his electronics corporation, and patent a couple of 'electro-mechanical music inventions'.

By 1947, when the first of these 78s was released, Scott had a new nationally broadcast radio show, and had embarked on another tour with yet another new orchestra line-up.





Listen to:
Raymond Scott and his Orchestra -
Tired Teddy Bear
(MGM 78, 1947)

(click for audio)









This MGM recording of 'Huckleberry Duck' was a new version of one he'd done with his
'New Orchestra' on Columbia back in 1940.
The melody was among the Scott repertoire that had been adapted for inclusion in various Warner Bros. cartoons.

Listen to:
Raymond Scott and his Orchestra - Huckleberry Duck
(MGM 78, 1947)

(click for audio)








Listen to:
Raymond Scott and his Orchestra -
Jackrabbit
(MGM 78, 1948)

(click for audio)



1948 and '49 would find Scott composing more scores and inventing more 'gadgets', including his first electronic music synthesizer.
He also established his own label,
Master Records, and formed his 3rd incarnation of the Raymond Scott Quintette.

By the end of '49, he became the bandleader on CBS' 'Your Hit Parade' program, a position which would soon take him from radio to television heading into the 1950's.

(Bio information via the Scott 'timeline' at The Official Raymond Scott Website.)

- See also: This and all my previous Raymond Scott posts gathered together on one page.