I've been thinking for quite a while now about creating a wall display of some of my old record albums. After many years of collecting, I have a whole pile of pretty interesting stuff from the 50s through the 70s. If you think they made some wacky album covers in the 70s, you need to go back and visit some photo galleries of things from earlier decades. I particularly love how the bachelor pad notion would produce combinations of alluring females with, well, just about anything else. Want to attract listeners to the music of Marty Gold's Organ Ensemble? Just paste a photo of a fine lady in a cocktail dress over those keyboards.
At a local art and craft store, I found some fairly inexpensive frames made for hanging LPs on the wall. Now, as you walk up the first set of stairs to our second floor, you can see the album covers of Miles Davis (Tutu), Connie Francis (Best Of), Jan & Dean (Drag City), Boots Randolph (Hits), Andre Kostelanetz (Tender Is The Night), Patti Page (Golden Hits), Frank Sinatra (Songs For Swingin' Lovers), and Mary Gold's Organ Ensemble. It's kind of cool to have this mostly retro art shown in modern frames, but on the plaster walls of a house build in 1825. Also nice to be able to easily change out any particular cover (a feature TheWife™ appreciates, as she's not so hot on the Love & Kisses album).
What the heck does this have to do with Seth Walker? Well, while I was flipping through those dusty boxes of LPs, it struck me how diversified music was back in the 50s and early 60s. For all of the stilted conformity of the culture, the music was all over the place with the spectrum bookended by smooth orchestral recordings to cats-on-piano jazz. Coming back to the modern era, if you're not paying attention, you might be tricked into thinking that musical diversity has vanished. I mean, just look at the Grammys. There's 'country' music, and there's pop and... uh... that's it!
Article comments
1 - Connie Phillips
I saw those frames awhile back and had the same idea (for my office, not the stairwell), but decided at the time they were way to pricey.
Sounds very cool, as does the music.