Sam Sacks - "Sing it Again, Sam!" (1961)

You know that scene in Mel Brooks' 1968 movie "The Producers" when the house is packed and ready to take in Bialystock and Bloom's (Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, FTW!!!) "Springtime for Hitler" musical, sight unseen, and the opening number comes across as a gushing love letter to Adolf Hitler? To a theater full of Heebs, in New York City? Then the shocked stares and gaping mouths? 

Then, Dick Shawn appears as an East Village hippie version of Hitler, slanging his way through the scene and into the hearts and funny bones of the audience, who finally get the joke? Thus dashing the multi-millionare scheme for Bialystock and Bloom to deliver a "sure-fire flop", financed by little old ladies? 

Yeah, well not so here, chum. "Sing it Again, Sam!" by Sam Sacks is deadly serious... and absolutely fucking hilarious.

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Spirit - "Clear" (1969)

Let's go all the way back to the 1980s when I was a kid of nineteen or twenty. The tunes coming out of that decade were pretty much a crapshoot: hair metal and "We Are the World", along with bands allegedly being "alternative", initializing their names, and poised to be corporate-sponsored arena rock... with a message. The real alternative acts were being celebrated in one-off or serialized 'zines, made by the disaffected youth such as myself. By using the art of xerography, and often scamming for the office supplies to make our productions look sweet, we were going beyond Flipside and MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL... and the great thing about those bands and singers who wouldn't be heard otherwise, is that they packed the music that influenced them into their guitar cases. It wasn't all punk and new wave, either. Through them, and my beloved Sunburst Records in Huntsville, Alabama (I salute you, Jay Ratts!), I became reacquainted with Tim Buckley, Big Star, and John Cooper Clarke... then hello, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Fairport Convention, Todd Rundgren, The Dwight Twilley Band, Girlschool... and this brilliantly insane band of jazzy psychedelic rock outlaws called Spirit.

By the time I picked up a pristine used vinyl copy of "Clear" for three bucks, it was already sixteen years past tense, yet the sonic boom grooved into the vinyl wasn't dated in any way. The album cover was intimidating with four of the members seemingly inside drummer Ed Cassidy's head, yet further investigation into their other albums and magazine interviews revealed a most content bunch of gentlemen... and Cassidy was always smiling big.

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Geoff & Maria Muldaur - "Pottery Pie" (1968)

Fresh beginnings are healthy and I've always been partial to firsts. I was born on the first day of July. I've never been on an airplane, though I would definitely prefer to fly first class for the simple fact that I don't like to be smushed together with total strangers. The poet, Allen Ginsberg, was famous for saying, "First thought, best thought," and he was right... and my first thought is that I would love to fly first class on my birthday.

However, my birthday was a week ago, so fuck my life.

Geoff & Maria Muldaur's first album is a hoot. They were previously part of Jim Kweskin's Jug Band (pictured below). Being half a Jew, I can get away with saying that this is good old-fashioned yankee Jew hippy folky blues, wandering aimlessly in a thick cloud of weed smoke, barefooted on creaky, wooden slat floors, and bumping butts to old Sippie Wallace 78s like R. Crumb illustrated (also see below).

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Zounds - "The Curse of Zounds" (1981)

English anarchist punk fucking rock. That really angry shit. You know you want it, mate.

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Dolly Parton - "Hello, I'm Dolly" (1967)

Dolly Parton learned a hell of a lot from Kitty Wells, Patsy Cline, and Loretta Lynn, and she bottled all that raw country-funk sass into her first album... and at the age of twenty... thank you very much.

If you are having a rotten day, listen to this record. Absorb it into your heart. Listen to anything by Dolly Parton. I love Dolly Parton.

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