Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Slow Ass Jolene




The summer of '78, Manhattan Beach Brooklyn, listening to a transistor radio and enjoying the sun, DJ accidentally plays Atlanta Rhythm Section's "Imaginary Lover" at the wrong speed and gets hundreds of calls requesting the new Fleetwood Mac single. Well, at least that's how I remember it.

Woke up this morning to an e-mail from Soundsource with a link to the video above. It reminded me of Manhattan Beach, 1978 and the video below.


"Slow Ass Jolene," by the way, creeps me out.


8 comments:

buzzbabyjesus said...

I remember that. At the time I had a Rachel Sweet 45 that sounded like The Atlanta Rhythm Section at 33.

"Jolene" is really spooky sounding.
I like it, but don't need to hear it more than twice.

Shriner said...

Imaginary Lover -- that's amazing.

And I *love* the slow Jolene. Could be a single.

steve simels said...

Until it finally got reissued on CD, I had no idea whether the Residents DUCK STAB ep was supposed to be played at 45 or 33&1/3. Sounded great either way.

J. Loslo said...

Doesn't the original sound a little like Christine McVie? Or am I nuts?

Grey said...

I used to have a Rod Stewart single that sounded like some gritty old blues singer when played at 33 rpm. Did the experiment with lots of other 45s, if memory serves, but Rod's the only one I remember.

The slow "Jolene" is pretty good, but I think I'd prefer it with a different voice.

Jerry Lee said...

These are both good!

This is a little obscure, but "The Friggs Theme" sounds great at 33 or 45 rpms. It's the flip side to "Bad Word For A Good Thing" by The Friggs. Great picture sleeve too.

Gene Oberto said...

@Steve Simels
Back when Duck Stab (still my favorite album name and cover) was released, I had a two hour Sunday night spot on an FM station in Portland, Ore. I played imports from the record store I was full time at and built up a nice following who would come in over the week for the LPs we would play, especially the T Dream, Vangelis, Popol Vuh stuff.

Well, we played The Residents on one of these shows and the phones erupted all week. You gotta know that this was a James Taylor, Carly Simon, Bob James format. It wasn't all negative, beside the one person who said she had nightmares for days. Ahhh, they just don't make them like that any more.

As to the Jolene record, I liked the song at that speed, it really did bring out the sad inferiority but you're right, Sal. That voice was creepy.

Noam Sane said...

I discovered back in my DJ days - specifically my stint doing afternoons at WCKL-AM in Catskill, NY - that if you speed Linda Rondstadt up from 33 to 45RPM, she sounds just like Dolly Parton.

No, seriously.