On the Tamiami Trail

...Szeretö Szívvel: Erzsébet és Sándor
Sándor Dioszegi with Bette Bere et al.
LMPS—2, Made in USA, 1979(?)

I've really now settled in into the "a-post-every-Sunday-morning" routine. This now is week #52 and that means I've been at it exactly one year. The 52 different LPs I tackled in a year provide a good sampling of the music I've bought in the South Florida thrift stores, but there are too many skipped genres to be a perfect sampling. Just a few days ago for example, I picked up a copy of The Modern Dance by Pere Ubu—easily one of the best finds of the year—but not quite the record I tend to pay attention to in the context of this blog. There are not really any criteria for selection but I do shy away from those records that are too familiar or too much part of the "official" canon of recorded music. More than half of the (estimated) 500 records I bought at thrift stores the past 52 weeks were bought at one of the many on Tamiami Trail. That street might well be the most densely populated—in terms of thrift stores in proportion to the number of buildings—in the country (probably a grave exaggeration, but just to illustrate my point). Tamiami Trail is known under various guises, in my hometown of Fort Myers the names Cleveland Avenue, Route 41, and Tamiami Trail all refer to the very same street. The name is not an exotic Native American name but a mingling of Tampa and Miami, between which two cities the street runs. I've not explored the full length of the street and I will certainly come across many more great stores in the months to come. ...Szeretö Szívvel (with a loving heart) I picked up at the very same thrift store on Tamiami Trail in Charlotte Harbor as Folk Music from Lőrincréve I wrote about last week. Keeps the Hungarian theme going for another week. This record was not produced in Hungary but in the US though, as performers are first and second generation Hungarian immigrants. And unlike last week's this one is not of folk songs but of so-called art songs. Side one has classical love songs while side two consists of chansons, musicals, and dance tunes. My pick to share this week comes from side B and is called Esti vallomás (Confession of love by twilight—poem by Erzsébet Kutas).

A curious aspect of this record is that there is no record label, not an indication where and when it was printed either, which probably means that it is somebody's private enterprise. What the record does have, and goes into my nice collection of it, is a signature of the composer on its sleeve. The musicians are credited on record: all songs by soprano Bette Bere accompanied by the composer Sándor Diosszegi on piano. The artist who made the watercolor that adorns the sleeve is also named: Csaba Zongor. The watercolor is signed Csaba 79 which gave me an indication as to how to date this record. It's not my favorite sleeve ever but hey...

Peanuts

Showtime at the Drumbeat
Tropical Recording Co., LP – 2470
Southeastern Records, Hialeah, FL, 1964

Showtime at the Drumbeat
backside with signature

The (semi) legendary John Berkely "Peanuts" Taylor (MBE) ruled the show club industry in Nassau, Bahamas in the 1960s and 70s. Peanuts owned the Dreambeat. It was founded in 1964, the year I was born. The club doesn't exist anymore but Peanuts still occasionally delights the tourists coming in to the Nassau seaport with a virtuous drumbeat performance, "a snapshot of the young tiny Peanut that danced its way into hearts over seventy years ago." Records with Peanuts Taylor are not that rare here in Southern Florida, so close to the Bahamas, but I am delighted every time I find one. You can imagine then how I felt to come across this signed copy of Showtime at the Drumbeat to add to my ever growing collection of signed records. More than half of this collection features performers from the tourist nightclub industry. Showtime at the Drumbeat features calypsos by various different performers, all managed by Peanuts, some became well known in their own right (i.e. Richie Delamore, Johnny Kemp). To share with you I did however select one of the four tracks on the album performed by Peanuts himself on goombay and conga drums. All four tracks are untitled and the following is the third. The one track in which Peanuts is most prominently featured.

Trémolos

La Familia Santiago – Trémolos y Alabanzas
Grabaciones Genesis, GR-LP-3

Cristóbal Santiago, San José, Puerto Rico, 1972

Trémolos y Alabanzas is only the third record to appear on the Puerto Rican label Genesis. I wonder how many records Cristóbal Santiago ended up producing before the label would go belly up. Father Cristóbal Santiago recorded this record with his wife Rosa Viruet de Santiago, and their children Milagros, Wifredo, Altagracia, and Rosita. There are also appearances Raffi Amaro and Los Embajadores de Luz on this record. On the photo (above) the four children all look to be about the same age, I wonder what they're doing these days, 40 years after performing in church with their father. Do they still play mandolin? Do they still perform in church? The record is signed and dedicated to Hector Graciani and his fiance Doria Encarna, there's an address and phone number on the label, but whatever I type into a search box I don't get any results that link to this record. I like it when musicians have absolutely no presence on the internet; everything I write here about the Santiago family will be a first. And I can do no better than to make a few assumptions.  

There's something about Christian records that makes me want to revert irony, sarcasm, or even ridicule, when discussing the music. But you gotta believe me that this is something about me, and not about them, the Santiago family. It's me, raised a Christian, and no matter how well I realize the hypocrisy of it all, there remains more than just a little bit of a Christian in me. 

Below you'll find the title track of the record that was written by Cristóbal Santiago.

Ole! Amparo Garrido

08 Ole tus Lunares.m4a
http://www.box.net/files#/files/0/f/121516455/Thrift_Store_Mixed_Tapes

Amparo Garrido: Ole!
record sleeve, Antilla records #582
Armada & Rodriguez of  Florida, Inc.

People go on vacation and on vacation they buy souvenirs. Postcards they buy for a visual memory and records they buy for a memory in sound. Records used to be great souvenirs, People got them everywhere. These days the souvenir records are all at thrift stores: Memories of Italy, Souvenir de Paris, Grüße aus Tirol, and the like, containing romantic night music based on popular melodies in the particular vacation destination. Some of the richer vacationers go on a cruise, or go to nightclubs. Their souvenirs are the records from the singers, the bands or the orchestras performing and the most adventurous traveler returns home with a signed copy. Signed or not, eventually the records end up at the thrift stores. I've collected numerous signed records, the most famous one is a signed (and dedicated) Rusty Warren record. The Lord Saints signed theirs while at work performing their calypsos at a cruise ship and Sandor Lakatos Deki signed a copy of his orchestra's Romantic Music of Hungary—Instrumental Gypsy Tunes. Sometimes a record has even more: Inside a signed record (by a airplane pilot?) produced by the Italian airline Alitalia I found snapshots, religious prayer cards, and business cards. I like it when records are personalized like that. Whenever my record collection ends up at a thrift store some collector will have a lucky day. In my Elvis 45s I stuck collectible Elvis cards, my Jolie Holland and Alela Diane's records are signed and dedicated, and when a 45 doesn't have a sleeve I make one (and you must know that my own hand-made 45 sleeves contain so much more info and interesting visuals than any store bought sleeve would!) 

The person who bought the Amparo Garrido record I have in front of me, must have seen her at the Columbia Hotel in Tampa, Florida. The hotel is advertised in the liner notes and various other recordings made in that hotel are offered for sale on the back of this record called Ole! Amparao Garrido is accompanied on this record by Panchito Calimano Y Su Combo. Ole Tus Lunares, is the opening track—click on the link above for a free download. Enjoy :)