FREE RECORDS GIVE-AWAY
La Vice and Company
Two Sisters from Bagdad
Jazzman reissue, limited to 1000 numbered copies
Behold one of two or three LPs that I would actually pay more than $1000 for. This thing is deep in Detroit record collecting legend. Stories that folks have sent angry emails to Popsike asking them to remove completed auction listings so as not to obscure how rare it may or may not be. That hundreds of copies were destroyed in a basement flood. That it wasn’t really that good of a record.
The main driver behind the demand and apocrypha behind this record is the unparalleled funk of the track “Thoughs Were the Days” (sic). Featured on Numero Group’s “Good God” A Gospel Funk Hynmal” comp from 2006, that’s clearly how most folks became aware of this disc. But with literally no more than a handful of original copies known out there, even just getting to hear the rest of the album was a task, one even I was unable to accomplish until this straight full reissue landed in my lap.
In the hubbub after the “Freedom at 21” flexi-disc had sold for $4000+ on eBay, I half-jokingly offered up a copy of said flexi as a straight trade for “Two Sisters From Bagdad” on the record nerd site Waxidermy. The response was “A one-tracker for a one-tracker.” Even just last week, a buddy deep and dear to this record said everything on this record except “Thoughs Were the Days” was “soft.”
So with the understated, repetitive opening of “Happy and Blessed” and I couldn’t help but feel frustratingly PISSED that I’d gone so long without hearing this. The variety on the album is wonderfully varied, slightly odd and the EXACT thing I imagine when I cannot sleep at night.
Background: this LP is the soundtrack accompaniment to a play of the same name that ran at Music Hall at Detroit’s Center for the Performing Arts for two weeks in August 1973. The production was a flop and the description below may explain why so few copies sold in the lobby of the performance…
“The play was the story of two sisters who met their earthly demise very early in life and were joined together in Heaven. But there was also a character named Jake, who was an agent from Hell whose job was to recruit people from Heaven because Hell was not getting the people they were used to receiving. Well, Jake got a little frisky with one of the sisters and it appeared that one of the sisters became pregnant and the two were kicked out of Heaven and had to go to Hell. Of course, the Devil took a liking to the other sisters while Jake was wrestling with this thing called LOVE.”
(quote from Ernest Garrison, composer/arranger for the album, brother-in-law to “Bagdad’s” playwright, La Vice Hendricks)
To me, odd, hodgepodge neighborhood productions, something only a couple hundred people ever saw, with no filmed evidence and (seemingly) no extant script…this is what I live for. Such a unique snapshot of a time and place, that no matter how in-depth liner notes may go, no matter how clear they explain the premise of a Hendrick’s “personal commitment to introduce non-racial comedy to a city that has been separated by crime, narcotic and racial differences” highlighted by an all-black ensemble…I will NEVER really know or understand what exactly it was like to witness the performance. It is the absolute definition of ephemeral. And honestly, I feel like the songs legitimately smoke and all those record nerds calling this a “one-tracker” are out of their minds. I STRONGLY urge to give this one a listen, even just to appreciate the industriousness of an endeavor, that while failed during its time, is beautiful and compelling near 45 years after its creation.
Side notes:
- I think the drive behind my appreciation for this record is the same as my newfound and ever-spiraling appreciation for school band and church records. So many unexplored possibilities! So many flops! You’ll never know or find them all…that makes good collecting.
- My mother-in-law and her younger sister were literally “two sisters from Baghdad” (the production got the spelling wrong) living in Detroit in 1973. I oftentimes play fantastical feats of imagination and conspiracy theorist trying to make them the inspiration for this record.
- My grade school put on a production of a play I recall as named “Let’s Put on a Show” in the mid-Nineties. We did similar productions every year. Equal parts musical and spoken dialogue, I am DYING to know who in the hell actually wrote these things? How did they get into the hands of my music teacher? Was this a profitable endeavor for the composer? I believe my brother has a VHS copy of the entire show and I am DYING to see it, to go back and relive the awkwardness (each production had a token “rap” song that always received HUGE laughs from the largely white and moderately suburban parents that, even as a child, felt misguided). We never put on a production of ANYTHING that I’d heard of/seen ANYWHERE else. No “Annie”, no “Godspell”…just some random rinky-dink thing that I’d never hear/see again in my life…AND IT DRIVES ME CRAZY. I’ve gone on here before about the difficultly of a memory that has no outside corroboration…these things PAIN me. Bro is supposedly working on getting a transfer. I will happily upload to YouTube if it happens.
And since you’ve made it this far…FREE RECORDS! It probably slipped past most folks, but TMR did three co-release 7-inch singles with the wonderful folks at Numero Group last year. La Vice and Company’s “Thoughs Were the Days” b/w “Yes I Do” was one of them. Word out there says 200 pressed but it may have been a little more than that. Anyway, I’ve got a stash here. Post a comment, a good one. Maybe it relates to the feelings/thoughts I described above? Maybe it doesn’t. I’ll pick one (or a few) and you’ll get some free, limited edition 7” singles landing in your mail box. How cool is that? And if you’ve got a line on an original…I am listening.
here it is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xlgs_6NF5I
It was an obscure song I listened on the radio once and I managed to write down the band and the title.
Years had passed and I never managed to listen to it again on the radio or online.
Then a few more years later, during the napster era I managed to find alow quality mp3 of the said song and I was so excited!
And a few years later, I was old enough to own a credit card and have access to eBay and after some searching and waiting it was mine. The 7" of Rapunzel by Novak. A hand drawn cover and a black vinyl with an obscure song on it. It might not sound obscure to other people but untul today I find this song weirdly awesome. <3
That’s a cool tale. I loved that Good God record. But I’ll tell you there aren’t a lot of albums I would pay $1000 for. To me this isn’t one of them. But to each is own. Now for that a Freedom at 21 I might open the coffers. To me that’s the coolest release of all time. I can’t imagine being a fan a finding one in a tree in my backyard. It would be just like winning the lotto. I might have a better shot winning this contest. Free is my favourite price.
What I dig about going to the record store is the culture. It’s awesome to be in a place with like minded people. I love hearing new music playing on the stereo in the background. Sometimes it’s something brand new or sometimes it’s something that the employee in the store feels everyone needs to hear. It’s not always my taste but sometimes I wonder how in the world they knew to introduce my to this new music. for this I am a grateful to the record store.
In the 70s I got sent to a weird hippie school for smart kids in Sydney. They taught us crazy stuff, and I learned stop motion animation. So, for all of fifth and sixth grade, I worked on an animated version of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (to the over the top live version by Elton John). It was heavily inspired by Ken Russell (Tommy and Lisztomania). It eventually clocked in at nearly seven minutes of hand-drawn cardboard cutouts making the lyrical imagery very very literal, on scratch 8mm. It was really surreal and colorful. I handed it in as a final project for my sixth grade and left the school. Later, I heard that the teachers sent it to the government channel, and then, for years afterward, they broadcast it as filler if they had dead air between programming. People would see it and tell me they’d seen a short cartoon with my name at the end. I tried to get a copy of it, but never was able to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kjGLY4sRO8 smelly moshpits!
back in elementary school I was in a play version of “alice in wonderland”. I say I was in it but more like I had no choice in the matter. in past forced school productions I wound up right where I wanted to be, in the offstage choir ensemble. but this production I was an owl on stage with dance moves and all. I don’t remember how my character fit into the play but I assume it was part of the mad hatter tea party. even as a kid I thought it was an abomination. I should ask my mom if she even remembers it. and what her thoughts on it were. my only other memory that intertwines is that like a year later, the choir teacher (who often farted in class) was fired for stealing stuff out of kids backpacks in her class. and my gut reaction being, figures.
Very interesting and cool. Wish I had something to offer, but all my records are still boxed up until repairs are finished from Hurricane Irma :( Thanks for always letting us know the odd & peculiar history of some damn cool records!
I have nothing productive to add, so “hi”.
Your comment about miss spelling in production brought to mind my bewilderment over the varied spelling of “sixteen saltines” or is it “sixteen salteens”? I remember seeing on the label of the 7" that it was spelt “salteens” yet on the sleeve it was spelt the conventional way. The same alternation is also seen on the CD as opposed to Vinyl edition of Blunderbuss. I always wondered if this was down to URP/ manufacturing or something that was done purposefully.
Since you asked, my “December 1978 El Segundo Chorus” probably fits into this category. Crazy cool my middle school recorded an album. No hidden gems for the masses or obscure songs for curious crate diggers, but so fun that my 12 year old daughter could hear my singing voice at age 12, thanks to a reluctant solo.