Tommy Roe-"Hooray For Hazel"
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Topic: Tommy Roe-"Hooray For Hazel"
Posted By: jimct
Subject: Tommy Roe-"Hooray For Hazel"
Date Posted: 14 May 2010 at 10:55am
| My commercial 45 (confirmed as ABC 10852, is vinyl, with deadwax of "ABC 13480 -1B") has a listed time of (2:28), but an actual time of (2:31). Please note that the last :02 of the 45 fade are very barely audible. The three current database CDs that include this song (all stereo) run either (2:25) or (2:27). After timing hundreds upon hundreds of 45s, every once in a great while an original 45 mix will just totally shock me/blow the doors off the stereo and/or LP mix I'd become used to. Well, this was the case for both this song AND his other 1966 Top 10 hit, "Sweet Pea" (for which Pat already has a 45/LP version database notation.) This is another painful reminder of that now-legendary-world-class bad decision by MCA, who by now most of us know threw out the 60's/70's mono 45 mixes in 1979, due to space limitations. As a funny aside, Roe toured with the Beatles in the UK in '63. Roe loved them, both as people and musicians, and he promised Brian Epstein he'd hand-deliver their current UK hit 45s to the top A&R guys at his label, ABC. He did. The next day, Roe got verbally destroyed by the head of A&R, telling him "Tommy, they are AWFUL! You just concentrate on making hit records; please, let US be the talent scouts!" Funny, you never hear a name associated with an assessment that ended up costing ABC millions and millions of dollars, isn't it? Can't help but wonder if that same bonehead executive (promoted several times since rejecting the Beatles, no doubt!) was the one who pointed to the dumpster for those precious Dunhill single masters 16 years later. Damn it, I want names! (Hey, any super sleuths out there?) :) |
Replies:
Posted By: Yah Shure
Date Posted: 14 May 2010 at 12:10pm
|
Jim, I'll never forget the first time I played "Sweet Pea" on KDWB-AM. I'm sure you can guess where this is going. :) Mr. Roe punched his time card and left ten seconds early, leaving me scrambling to have to hit the next song when I was expecting the longer 45/mono LP ending. "Sweet Pea" proved to be the first of many songs in the station's library that I ended up redubbing from my own 45s. I didn't trust the station's turntables, so I dubbed to HQ cassette at home, hauled my deck to the station, then dubbed to cart. The results still sounded great on the air, especially that "Sweet Pea" mono mix.
I ended up returning to the station a couple years later, only to discover that my successor had decided to upgrade from the older Fidelipacs to Scotchcarts, and in the process, had reverted to all of those $%@#* album versions and remakes I'd meticulously weeded out. He wasn't old enough to have known the difference, but still... You can count me as of those who savored the last few barely-audible seconds of "Hooray For Hazel." The stereo mix never sounded right to me, folded down or not. I guess it's up to us to come up with The Complete ABC/Dunhill Labels In Mono boxed set, complete with copious notes, tons of photos and no CDs! Just think of the savings on shipping costs and licensing fees!! Release date: April 1st.:) |
Posted By: bwolfe
Date Posted: 14 May 2010 at 12:33pm
|
Those ABC/Dunhill tunes have such a great bottom to them in mono. I can't stand the ping pong stereo mixes. ------------- the way it was heard on the radio |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 15 May 2010 at 10:06am
| Is the general consensus here that the stereo database CD appearances of Tommy Roe's "Hooray for Hazel" should have an "LP mix" or "LP version" comment next to them? |
Posted By: Pat Downey
Date Posted: 17 May 2010 at 4:11am
| Todd I have edited your post to remove any reference to myself and apologize for any confusion on my part as to what that reference implied. |
Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 17 May 2010 at 6:24am
I'd aways heard the purge took place earlier in the 70s before MCA acquired ABC. I can kind of see the rationale that "no one cares about mono anymore", but what a sad loss of unique (and often superior) mixes.
ABC was hardly the only label that passed on the Beatles. Didn't Capitol/EMI turn them down the first time they were shopped to them as well?
I hear ya! Did the same myself at an AM oldies station I worked at in the late 80s. PD there should have known better since he grew up with the music as well, but I guess took the easy way out & used album/CD versions since no doubt they were cleaner & less cue burnt. Re-dubbed a lot from my own collection. |
jimct wrote: