Tommy Garrett's 50 Gee-tarrzz

Ahh yes, another crap picture from my unsteady hand on the digicam. I really need a tripod, huh.

Anyways, tonight we have a Liberty Premier series LP of Tommy Garrett, specifically "The 50 Guitars of Tommy Garrett", doing some very nice latin-mexican flavored goodies.

Tommy Garrett was a guitar player (duh!) but he liked to get all these OTHER guitar players together and make albums like this one. He called (according to the sparse liner notes) Laurindo Almeida, Barney Kessel, Howard Roberts, Al Viola, Bob Bain, Tiny Timbrell, Bill Pitman, Jose Barroso, and "...many others whose exclusive contracts do not allow their names to be included..." to get in the studio for three days and produce this. Well, actually, Felix Slatkin produced this. Which is why it sounds so.... Slatkin-y I guess.

Liberty Premier series discs had the black printing on the gold labels, and were suppoed to be their 'audiophile' series of stereo LPs. I have yet to find a sonically bad one, and they're usually good for decent lounge music from the early 60s. You can usually find some good'uns at the thrift stores...

Here are the cuts, for your El Martini pleasure...

Guadalajara
Come Closer To Me
Frenesi
Be Mine Tonight
Adios
La Virgen de la Macarena
Besame Mucho
You Belong To My Heart
La Bamba
Perfidia
South of the Border
Granada

Oh, on the La Bamba cut, don't expect Ritchie Valens, it's a whole lot more like mariachi-without-horns. Like this LP. But it's nice.

Enjoy!