Every month, I go to the thrift store to buy a record. There are only two specifications for which record I buy:
1. It has to be by an artist I have never heard of.
2. It has to cost less than $5.
This is Thrift Vinyl. Enjoy.
On our trip to Asheville, Amy and I had a few hours to kill. We made our way down the hill to Safe’s Attic, a consignment shop that uses its profits for battered women. The record section was in the back left of the small building, right beside tubs of old hats and used candlesticks.
There wasn’t a very large selection of records to choose from – candlesticks and hats were more their specialty. However, I ended up leaving Safe’s Attic with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Hawaii’s Greatest Hits by Leo Addeo and His Orchestra. With a total of 45 cents for both records, I walked out with a perfect second installment of Thrift Vinyl.
I did a bit of searching around for any information on Leo Addeo, and I found that he was a house arranger for RCA in the 1950s and 1960s. He was also in charge of the marimba band for RCA’s “Living” series.
What I found most interesting is that Addeo was an Italian American living in Brooklyn, he studied violin as a child, but somehow, his specialty was Hawaiian music.
Hawaii’s Greatest Hits is a perfect example of why vinyl is so effective. There is a nostalgic charm that comes from hearing these Hawaiian standards on a growingly unpopular medium.
And even more so, vinyl is the best way to hear the record’s mix. It is a wonderful mixture of Golden Age radio harmonies, slow and deliberate rhythm sections, and the whining slide guitar that carries most of the songs’ melodies. It wouldn’t be a true Hawaiian record without a slide guitar at the forefront.
The song selection is what you would expect from a record called Hawaii’s Greatest Hits. “Blue Hawaii” and “Aloha Oe” are probably the most well known (and usually only known) Hawaiian songs. However, the choice of songs isn’t too predictable. “One Paddle, Two Paddle” is a really fun way to kick off the record – you can’t go wrong with lyrics like these: “One paddle, two paddle/Three paddle, four to take me home” accompanied by several sets of “doo-be-doo-wah’s.”
Still, the album is ultra cheesy, and there is no way around it. However, I was really surprised to come across a certain, unassuming track. “Quiet Village” is a slow instrumental; it’s the third track on side 2 of the record. It’s a modest track with modest placement on the record. However, when I was listening to it, I heard a direct connection between it and The Beach Boys’ song “Pet Sounds.” “Pet Sounds” is an instrumental on the second side of Pet Sounds, but the correlation goes beyond song placement. The songs sound almost identical in many ways. Both have similar percussion parts, a surf guitar, repeating minor melodies, selective bass notes underneath, and guiros keeping time through the entire song. The resemblance is uncanny.
Hawaii’s Greatest Hits is a great record to have in my collection. It’s relaxing music that is really meant to be heard via vinyl. Though it seems a little odd at first, Leo Addeo and His Orchestra were obviously professionals at Hawaiian music, so it only makes sense that they give us the island’s biggest hits.
But, just in case I haven’t sold you, I’ll end with an excerpt from RCA’s description:
“Have you ever noticed how certain kinds of music will produce immediate and involuntary associations in the mind of the listener? When you hear a German oom-pah band, don’t you develop a sudden craving for knackwurst and sauerkraut? Or when you pick up the strains of a musette accordion doesn’t an image of a sidewalk café or that triumphant arch flash through your mind? Such music has a certain wistfulness, a déjà vu, that can’t always be accounted for. So too it is with the music of Hawaii.”
