Song of the week #10
Hot Vinyl
One of my earliest musical memories is of listening to a selection of 45 rpm singles brought home by my brother Alan in about 1959. Many of them were ex-jukebox copies from the coffee bar in nearby Liphook and had their centres punched out to fit the large spindle on the jukebox. We therefore had to invest in a box of centre adapters so they would play on his Dansette record player. Although I may have taken artistic licence by describing them as "given away", they were certainly a lot cheaper than the six shillings and eightpence, which was the asking price for 45s at the time. They were scratched and the sleeves were torn and often didn't match the label of the single, but I can still remember the sleeve and label designs and the smell of the hot plastic which the disks were made of. Although nowadays we describe these disks as “vinyl” at the time they were just called “45s” to distinguish them from the 78s of the 1940s and early 50s.
This was, of course, three or four years before the Beatles and Rolling Stones appeared on the scene sweeping all before them. The names I remember from this period include Duane Eddy (who was a particular favourite of my brother's), Johnny and the Hurricanes, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly and Cliff Richard and the Shadows.
I've given the song a more modern treatment in the style of late-period Dire Straits, with an over-driven Dobro resonator guitar playing an "England" football chant rhythm.
I couldn't resist trying to re-create Duane Eddy's signature guitar sound and, although purists may disapprove, I used my Variax guitar to emulate not the Gretsch 6120, which was the weapon of choice for both Eddie Cochran and Duane Eddy, but the Gibson ES335 instead, which is one of my favourite Variax emulations. Also I wasn't able to reproduce the exact reverb sound used by the master of twang as he used a 2000 gallon empty water storage tank with a speaker at one end and a microphone at the other! (Tried it - didn't fit in my studio...),
Also listen out for a quotation from “Johnny Remember Me” (at about the 2 minutes 56 second mark) which was a massive hit for John Leyton in 1961.
Hot Vinyl
Back in the day when vinyl was king
You’d buy three 45s for next to nothing
And if you dared to wait till the end of the day
Well the man from the coffee bar would give ‘em away.
Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot)
Well the records were scratched and the sleeves were torn
But the music made you feel like you’d never been born
There was Johnny and the Hurricanes and Red River Rock
And Duane Eddy’s twangy guitar it was hot.
Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl. (Ooh, hot, hot)
Hot vinyl. (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl.
Well, I remember ev’ry label; I remember ev’ry sleeve
I can recall ev’ry colour like you’d never believe
All those fancy designs are locked inside of my head
From the Top Rank orange to the Parlophone red
Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot)
But just the smell of hot vinyl brings it all back
As the next forty-five crashes down on the stack
And I whisper Amen to a rock ‘n’ roll prayer
For the auto-change arm on the Dansette player
Well you can say what you like about your shiny CDs
And your websites streaming all those MP3s
Oh, but they’ll never replace the way the needle moves
Two minutes of magic in a spiral groove
Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl. (Ooh, hot, hot)
But just the smell of hot vinyl brings it all back
As the next forty-five crashes down on the stack
And I whisper Amen to a rock ‘n’ roll prayer
For the auto-change arm on the Dansette player
Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl. (Ooh, hot, hot)
Hot vinyl. (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl.
Hot vinyl (Ooh, hot, hot) Hot vinyl. (Ooh, hot, hot)
