I went on a month hiatus to digitize all of my 45's, and in the meantime, I meant to post the complete recordings of R. Crumb, but I am still one 78rpm away from having that up, so expect to see that sometime in the next month or so. But until then I'll start offering my LP's up for download, and I'll still take requests.
Archie Bleyer for those of you whom don't know, was musical director of the Arthur Godfrey show. There's a great David vs. Goliath story about what a tyrant Arthur Godfrey was and due to Godfrey's jealousy, made some impulse decisions that got his show canceled. The catalyst was firing Julius La Rosa and Archie Bleyer in the same day, and shortly after firing The Chordettes. The year prior to this, Archie Bleyer found Cadence records where his first few releases were Julius La Rosa records, the third of these singles hit it huge on the billboard charts, which most people believe Julius La Rosa's success led to his dismissal on the Arthur Godfrey show.
Flash forward to 1953, now out of a job, Archie Bleyer devoted his entire time to his record label boosting the careers of his other musical acts. Julius La Rosa had hits from '53-'55, The Chordettes had a slew of hits throughout the labels run, and even Archie Bleyer himself had a hit record in 1954 with a song from the musical Pajama Game, "Hernando's Hideaway"
Here I offer you a very early Cadence record. I don't know where it fits in chronologically with the other releases because early Cadence history is a little sketchy during this period, but I believe it is the first record of his "POPULAR 3000 SERIES" from 1954, and I also believe it is the record released right before his hit Hernando's Hideaway. The material is straight pop hits, but its rather nice to hear while doing things around the house, not to mention get an insight at the beginning of the Cadence label which went on to record The Everly Brothers, Andy Williams, Link Wray and Vaughan Meader's First Family LP. As a bonus, I also included his chart topping record Hernando's Hideaway which is a great torch song, it was featured in the film Snatch.
