Recording artists: Chad & Jeremy; Composer: Rachmaninoff; TV series: House of Cards

by  Peter Cates

Chad and Jeremy
Donna, Donna; If I Loved You; World Artists WA 1041, seven-inch vinyl 45 rpm, recorded 1965.

Chad & Jeremy

This 45 features two very pleasant renditions by the talented duo from England, Chad Stuart and Jeremy Clyde – better known as Chad and Jeremy. For me, they have always been more interesting than Simon and Gar­funkel with their Co­lumbia albums, Distant Shores and Of Cabbages and Kings, being the most distinctive.

In 1966, Jeremy appeared as a contestant on the Dating Game and winning while Chad did a turn in Disney’s Jungle Book as the voice of Flaps the vulture. Amazon and its vendors have these two songs in streaming, CD, LP and mp3 formats while original copies of the 45 rpm start at a buck.

Rachmaninoff
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (with Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony); Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain (with Enrique E. Jorda conducting the San Francisco Symphony); Artur Rubinstein, piano; RCA Victor LM-2430, mono lp edition of an album that was released in stereo as LSC-2430; 12-inch 33-1/3 rpm vinyl record; released 1962.

Rachmaninoff

My mono LP that I refer to above stems from a time, 1958 to about 1968, when most new LPs of every musical category came out in mono and stereo editions, mono being a dollar cheaper than stereo be­cause of its lack of separation of instruments between two speakers and stereo’s additional enhanced and vivid clarity. In recent years, however, the mono editions of select rock and jazz classic LPs are generating big bucks because of a full richness and natural ambiance that stereo supposedly lacks much of the time, clean copies of these records being especially desirable! Unfortunately, classical monos are not that much in demand.

The Rachmaninoff and Falla works are very colorful, melodically and dramatically exciting pieces of music played in the closest to perfection manner of the great Artur; the Rachmaninoff was AR’s personally favorite record of all of his output. Finally this mono LP has wonderful sound.

And, of course, both performances are available on CD!

House of Cards

Kevin Spacey

starring Kevin Spacey, is one of the more well-crafted suspense shows of the last three to four years and thus as high quality as my tiny handful of other classics – Dexter, Justified and the Black List. Recommended: MOST HIGHLY !

It deals with a most evil D.C. insider, Frank Underwood, who slithers his way from majority whip to President of the United States. A favored Underwood quote – “Nobody is a Boy Scout, even Boy Scouts! ”

Available on Netflix.