This Month's Thrift Store Vinyl Sharity

Here is a slightly different offering this month: five 45s I have recently acquired.

Number one: Matthew's Southern Comfort [Ian Matthews], "Ballad of Obray Ramsey"/"Woodstock" Decca 45 32774 (1970)

Looking at the single, "Ballad" is clearly the a-side here (it is from Second Spring), but the Mitchell cover was the Fall 1970 hit (it would appear on Later That Same Year). So I'm not quite sure of the release date--plus it seems to be a cut-out, with a punch-hole through the center label and disk. And, yes, he spells it Iain Matthews in real life, despite what Decca says.

Next: David Rose and His Orchestra, "The Theme from 'The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm'"/"Black and Tan Fantasy" MGM 45 K-13086 (1962)


I haven't seen this film--or at least I don't remember having viewed it, although I'm the right age--but I can't say much about Rose's theme. It is funny that the b-side is one of his "Stripper" compositions. It doesn't quite seem a natural paring.

Number Three: Roy Black, "Frag Nur Dein Herz"/"Good Night My Love" Polydor 45 52 728 (n.d.)

A search on the late German Folk-Pop artist Roy Black mainly results in links to Snoop Dogg's cover of "Schön ist es, auf der Welt zu sein." This 45 is unrelated to most of that.


"Frag Nur Dein Herz" sort of sounds like "The Lemon Tree Song." Just saying.

Number four: Frank Sinatra, (with the Reprise Children's Chorus, featuring Nikki Costa) "To Love a Child"/"That's What God Looks Like to Me" Reprise 45 29903-7 (1982)

This is apparently Sinatra's last 45 on Reprise. And it is among his last singles ever. I'm all for the resuscitation of the Reprise material--hey, I like Cycles--but I don't know about this Eighties stuff. It is a rather saccharine song, really. And the tie-in to Nancy Reagan doesn't make the song any more endearing, either.


The b-side was recorded in 1979, which is a fact worth knowing.

And finally: Hickory Ridge Band, "Drinking and Singing" /"Smokin'" Seagram's 7 International Battle of the Bands 45 IBB-82-13 (1982)

I'm sure the story of the 1982 Seagram's Battle of the Bands is a weird one (this gentleman competed with another, puppet-wielding, group; this guy was a Texas winner)--of course that was before Seagram's actually owned Universal Music, so I'm not sure what exactly the top winner received. According to this myspace page, a band named The South took "seventh prize" which allowed them "to record a single 45 as part of the prize with a thousand records pressed!!!" And Indiana's Southern Crescent recorded "If They're Women" as their single.


If this 45 is any suggestion, it seems the "Finalist" prize was to record a promotional song for the company. Although the same composer wrote both of Hickory Ridge's songs ("Smokin'" is an instrumental), the A-side should be titled "Drinking Seagram's 7 and Singing about It, Specifically Noting and Articulating the Brand Name." So perhaps the artist-winners revised one of their songs to have plenty of See-grams Whiskey references, or the B-side is really the winners' single, or both.

Tracks and covers are right here.