Solving A Vinyl Mystery

Last winter while traveling through northern Illinois, I stopped at the Half Price Books outlet in Rockford. This is where the millions of unwanted copies of the Transformers movies and The South Beach Diet go to be sold for $3. They also have some clearance vinyl records and they have some of their better albums in frames on the wall. This particular one stood out to me as I love space-themed albums and I had no idea whose album it was. I snapped a photo of it to remind myself to search it out later when I had time later. 

As you can imagine, "later" turned into several months as that photo got pushed back with Christmas photos and every once in awhile I would be reminded of that vinyl mystery. I finally did a a reverse image search and it turned out that that image was the back cover of the 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack. Here is the front cover: 

The gate-fold has some great photos from the film and an essay on the classical compositions used on the soundtrack.

And here again is the image in question. It was created by artist Robert McCall who designed the round space station and the space suits used in the movie. You can find his webpage HERE.

While the cover had a some wear, the vinyl was just a little dusty with no obvious problems. 

Scarlett approves of the purchase and she also loves the smell of musty cardboard and vinyl. 

And so I framed the album up with some of my other covers including an album by The Association with a moon/space theme. 

Criminal Records' Georgia Musicians Artwork

I recently got to visit the best record store I've found around Atlanta, Criminal Records. The store is located in the Little Five Points neighborhood of east Atlanta and it's a nice mix of new and used vinyl, comics, toys, and just about everything...except trading cards.

It was pretty hard not to notice that they had changed out the signs in front of the store and had added a great map of Georgia that roughly shows where some of the famous musicians from the state are from. Musical greatness might be Georgia's greatest claim to fame and just taking a look at some of these names you may understand why.

Here's a breakdown of some of the most famous Georgian musicians. Many were born here and some made their names here. James Brown was born in South Carolina but got his start in Georgia. The battle for most important musical Georgia town is between Athens and Macon. Macon has the one two punch of Little Richard and Otis Redding while Athens has an amazing quantity of stars from R.E.M. to The B-52's to The Drive-By Truckers to Neutral Milk Hotel.

Here is a more comprehensive list of the bigger stars.

Allman Brothers Band - Macon
Black Crowes - Marietta
Drive-By Truckers - Athens
B-52's - Athens
Gladys Knight - Atlanta
Gram Parsons - Alanta
James Brown - Toccoa
Little Richard - Macon
Indigo Girls - Atlanta
Otis Redding - Dawson/Macon
Outkast - Atlanta
Ray Charles - Albany
R.E.M. - Athens
Widespread Panic - Athens

My Favorite Christmas Album

I finally got the old record player up and ready and so as we get closer to Christmas it is time to dust off my favorite holiday album, Stan Boreson and Doug Setterberg's "Yust Go Nuts At Christmas." Released in 1970, this album brings back so many memories of Christmas in Wisconsin and Minnesota and enjoying a piece pickled herring and some lefse covered in butter and sugar. 

Boreson's singing style also honors the great and strong Scandinavian accents that you hear less and less each year as people have more and more distance from their European ancestral roots. Living down in Georgia now I miss the opportunity to hear some interchange a "V" and a"W." 

Here's the title track:



And my favorite song overall from the album, "Christmas Goose (Snowbird)":