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I kept mine in a small, brown, fake-leather box (which might have cost $1.50 at the Winn's Five and Dime about eight blocks away from my home). I still have it... full. It holds - well, let's see - forty-five 45s. I hadn't realized that clever touch until just now.
And I have a lot more too.
1
My guiding principles in record-collecting in those days were to have only songs I really liked (not to please or impress someone else), to end up with a collection that was generally different from anyone else's, and to buy songs recorded by the original artists, rather than by one of the many who recorded "covers" of the most popular hits.
Still today, when I mention "Ain't That a Shame," for instance, my wife thinks I'm talking about Pat Boone! That would be like my thinking of Fats Domino when she mentioned "Love Letters in the Sand" or "Bernadine." I don't think I was prejudiced in those years against white performers, but it sort of seems that way looking back. I didn't ever buy "Hound Dog," for example, but if I had it would have been Big Mama Thorton's, not Elvis's. I wouldn't have bought Peggy Lee's "Fever" (great though it is), but Little Willie John's.
Twenty years ago or more, I spent some time with my 45s, and I put in order in my little brown case what seemed to me at the time my favorites. They all hiss and some crackle a little, as they probably always did. Three or so are actually scratched, chipped, or even broken: "Peggy Sue" and "Ruby Baby" are examples. The records in the box have labels like Chess, Atlantic, ATCO, Decca, Coral, Mercury, Capitol, and Dot. Fats Domino is on Imperial, and Little Richard on Speciality. Some of the labels may have brought out only the one song I bought, labels like Friendly and Bell, for instance.
You may want to skip over this next part. Here's the whole list of records in the little box, in order of the best first:
Maybellene by Chuck Berry
Only You by The Platters
Ain’t It a Shame by Fats Domino
Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and His Comets
Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis Presley
Blue Monday by Fats Domino
Speedoo by The Cadillacs
Short Shorts by The Royal Teens
Seventeen by Boyd Bennett
Little Darlin’ by The Gladiolas
All I Have to Do Is Dream by The Eberle Brothers
Jim Dandy by LaVern Baker
Don’t Be Angry by The Crew-Cuts
Dream Boat by The Drifters
My Blue Heaven by Fats Domino
Don’t You Know I Love You by Bobby Charles
Long Tall Sally by Little Richard
Switchie Witchie Titchie by The Midnighters
Burn That Candle by Bill Haley and His Comets
Smokey Joe’s Café by The Robins
Honky Tonk Song by Webb Pierce
I Feel Good by Shirley and Lee
The Girl Can’t Help It by Little Richard
Whispering Bells by The Dell-Vikings
Young Blood by The Coasters
The Chicken and the Hawk by Joe Turner
Sweet Little Sixteen by Chuck Berry
Breathless by Jerry Lee Lewis
I’m Walkin’ by Fats Domino
Ruby Baby by The Drifters
Muskrat Ramble by The McGuire Sisters
Thirty Days by Chuck Berry
When My Dreamboat Comes Home by Fats Domino
From the Bottom of My Heart by The Clovers
Send Me Some Lovin’ by Little Richard
Chain Gang by Bobby Scott
Fools Fall in Love by The Drifters
Don’t You Know I Love You by Fats Domino
Sixteen Tons by “Tennessee” Ernie Ford
Why Do Fools Fall in Love by Frankie Lymon
and The Teenagers
Train of Love by Johnny Cash
Sh-Boom by The Crew-Cuts
Peggy Sue by Buddy Holly
The Green Door by Artie Malvin
I’ll Never Stop Loving You by Doris Day
with the Percy Faith Orchestra
2
There are a couple of "slow tunes" in that group, of course, but that was not my main interest in that selection process some years back. But at the same time as I selected those for the box, I did make a separate stack of my favorite (or my other favorite) slow tunes. Not all, but more of them were by traditional singers... In other words, my parents would have recognized their names.
The labels were from the bigger companies too: RCA Victor, London, M-G-M, and Columbia, along with more of those big-name labels I mentioned in the first group: Mercury, Capitol, Decca, and so on. But there are a few other, smaller labels too even in this group, like "X" (the label included the quotation marks), Cadence, and Epic.
Frankly, I listen to the slow tunes more these days than those in the box. This stack seems especially terrific:
Cara Maria by David Whitfield
with the Orchestra of Montavani
Johnny Darling by Sandy Stewart and the Excels
11th Hour Melody by Al Hibbler
The Great Pretender by The Platters
It’s All in the Game by Tommie Edwards
Hey Little Girl by Gary Stiles
Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup
by Nat “King” Cole
It’s Almost Tomorrow by The Dream Weavers
Born to Be With You by The Cordettes
Over the Mountains, Across the Seas by Johnnie and Joe
How Important Can It Be? by Joni James
and the Ray Charles Singers
Oh, My Papa by Eddie Fisher
with the Hugo Winterhalter Orchestra
The Miracle of Love by Eileen Rogers
with the Ray Conniff Orchestra
Band of Gold by Don Cherry
(also) with the Ray Conniff Orchestra
Eddie My Love by The Fontane Sisters
with the Billy Vaughan Orchestra
Don’t Stay Away Too Long by Eddie Fisher
with the Hugo Winterhalter Orchestra
The Magic Touch by The Platters
Love Me Tender by Elvis Presley
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing by The Four Aces
featuring Al Alberts
Little Things Mean a Lot by Kitty Kallen
Unchained Melody by Roy Hamilton
with the Don Masingill Orchestra
Hold My Hand by Don Cornell
Moments to Remember by The Four Lads
with the Ray Ellis Orchestra
You’re the Apple of My Eye by The Four Lovers
Smile by Nat “King” Cole
with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra.
Even the names of the orchestras here are familiar... and of course, for slow tunes, having an orchestra is important.
...And I still have quite a few 45 records to list in Part Two of this Reminiscence.
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