Top of the Pops albums, Nos. SHM 735 and 740 both hit the No. 1 spot on the “Record Retailer” National L.P. charts, topping such fabulous super stars as the Rolling Stones, and Simon & Garfunkel.
We’re so thrilled we want to climb the highest mountain and shout the good news to all the world.
Thanks again, you lovely Pop fans, for making possible this wonderful double.
On this album we feel we’ve made the best ever selection. So help us to complete a fabulous hat trick by rocketing this issue to No. 1.
Please remember Hallmark “Top of the Pops” is consistently Britain’s best-selling L.P. record.
Teenagers ! Kids ! Switched-on Mums and Dads ! Here it is, our latest Top of the Pops album at a price you can all afford! Look at the list of titles, and you’ll find that most, if not all, are way up in the charts. Our talented musicians and vocalists have produced a wonderful sound – we think some of the tracks sound better than the original hit recordings made by the top international artistes – but don’t take our word for it. Just try this really fab album and you’ll know at once that we’re right; our string of previous smash successes on Top of the Pops albums is a great tribute to all you good folk who appreciate beautiful pop music. If you’re happy, so are we. So go, go, go with this record, and if you love it, tell us, tell your friends, tell the whole wide world that Hallmark records have made another hit album.
In 1971 record buyers of this particular series were still being described as “ravers”. What’s more the demographic of the Top of the Pops series apparently also included “Hippies and yippies and, …switched-on Mums and Dads“. The BBC must by this time have regretted not having trademarked the “Top of the Pops” name as this successful series of albums had little or nothing to do with the famous TV show of the same name.
Sleeve Notes:
Thank you, Ravers; you sent our last issue of ‘Top of the Pops” (SHM 710) soaring high in the national L.P. charts.
Well, you’ve written to us, telephoned us, screamed at us and cajoled us to move, move, move – but fast – with the release of our next issue, and here it is, hot off the press; sizzling with red hot, top-pop numbers straight out of the current charts.
All the tunes, made famous by Super Stars of the Pop World, have been faithfully recorded by us in London specially for you. Once again we are sure you, all of you – Hippies and Yippies and Skinheads; Schoolkids and switched-on Mums and Dads will help to make this fabulous album a high-stepper in the L.P. charts; for this L.P. will electrify you, send you way, way up in space’.
Let’s try to make this No. 1 this time, O.K? Thanks a lot!
Here comes No. 9 in the series of “Top of the Pops”. There are a few “Greats” like Sinatra or the Rolling Stones who can successfully repeat a winning style; but the great majority of songs in the Hit Parade at any one time differ from each other and so give the Parade a constantly changing freshness and variety.
In making each “Top of the Pops” LP we particularly notice all this, partly because it poses us some pretty ticklish problems. For instance, hardly any two titles involve precisely similar groups of musicians. As a result we find ourselves at times in the middle of thirty or forty people – could be Brass, Strings, Woodwind, Percussion, Rhythm, not to mention Voices – all belting away happily, whereas ten minutes later we may solemnly be distilling something equally potent with less than ten. This makes for the spice of life, and thus never a dull moment. So if you enjoy this one as much as we did making it, it means only one thing – congratulations, you’ve bought a winner!
“Manuel and The Music of the Mountains” was the pseudonym of prolific musician/arranger and composer Geoff Love. We have another Geoff Love album cover here which was released under his own name rather than Manual. The Studio2 Stereo series of albums from the 1960s and 1970s was EMI’s dedicated label for serious music consumption.
Do you know the song of wood thrushes as dusk begins and the coolness of an early autumn air holds their warbling between high trees? That is the question posed by this record. So, do you? These words and much more (see the back cover of “Arthur Fiedler/Boston Pops – Embraceable You” below) were written by Clare W Van Ausdall. Not much is known about her except that she was commissioned to write for many record releases, back cover notes, booklets and across a range of genres. That’s the kind of job I’d like. Just a shame there are no vacancies any more.
Sleeve Notes:
Do you know the song of wood thrushes as dusk begins and the coolness of an early autumn air holds their warbling between high trees? Or do you know the little murmur of a thousand night moths near the river’s edge, their wings luminous like milky dust in the violet light of evening? Can you summon up the echo of rain or the trees’ sighing, the transformation of a seashell held against your ear or the rustle of a brocaded skirt on a pebbled walk? Remember these things, for they can be the sounds of Love.
Have you seen the yellow sunlight lying suddenly on a pink cheek, the arch of elms in some springtime meadow, a pair of playful smiles coming together like the winking image of goldfish seen through the surface of pond water? Or the gleam of ripe grapes picked together in clusters, or the blue-outlined, ivory-centered flame of a candle, or the elaborate fancy of a garden spider’s web, serene, immaculate on an early morning? Remember these things, for they can have the look of Love. Perhaps you recall the scent of emperor poppies at midnight, or the tang of wet hickory logs in a country fireplace, the clear bitey smell of pine needles rimed with frost, the natural perfume of the skin fresh from salt water and the froth of the sea. Remember them; they can be the fragrance of Love.
If you know the sounds of Love, the looks of Love, the fragrances of Love – the splendors of Love, we might call them – then you know the music of Love, the music of shadows and dews, starlight and sunshine, of cool woodland flutes, of violins in various colors of repose.
When two people love each other, the things they see together, hear together, become aware of together are precious for all time. Those are the things the music of Love immortalizes. Nightingales sing about them, poets write of them. The songs you will encounter in this album, for instance, are longs of Love for Love’s sake, full of Love’s beauty. There is the sound of nightingales and poetry to them. And the sound of splendor.
VOLUME 72 of the world famous Top Of The Pops series of records has just been released, and record shops everywhere are reporting thousands of customers clamouring for their copies. A spokesperson for Red Hot Records Ltd. said “This happens every time the Top Of The Poppers release a new LP. It’s even worse now there are 16 smash hits taken straight from the charts on each record. We are totally exhausted trying to cope with the demand. I wish they’d stop doing this to us.”
The producer of this disc Tony D’Amato was crucial to the success of the Phase 4 Stereo series also by Decca Records. Phase 4 sold handsomely and is still in demand today via CD with vinyl versions going for high prices.
Label: Decca PFS 4242 Album Design: Trantor/Impac Association Photograph: Rayment Kirby
Side One: 1. Gentle On My Mind – Glen Campbell 2. The Price I Pay To Stay – Jeannie C Riley 3. Sixteen Tons – Tennessee Ernie Ford 4. Orange Blossom Special – The Buckaroos 5. Since I Met You, Baby – Sonny James 6. Harper Valley PTA – Billie Jo Spears 7. Big In Vegas – Buck Owens
Side Two: 8. Okie From Muskogee – Merle Haggard And The Strangers 9. Right Or Wrong – Wanda Jackson 10. With Lonely – The Hagers 11. Wabash Cannon Ball – Hank Thompson 12. Deck Of Cards – Tex Ritter 13. Wings Of A Dove – Ferlin Husky 14. Ode To Billie Joe – Bobbie Gentry
