100 Records

Don Adora’e recorded for DMade between 1963-1967. He kept his identity a secret by wearing a mask onstage and in the recording studio. His given name was Don Adora’e, so the mask didn’t keep anyone from knowing his true identity. He ran a dry cleaners in Passaic. He became locally famous for his delightful singles. He filled the local high school dances, and the kids loved him. Although he never got out of Passaic, Don Adora’e has lived up to his fantastic moniker. He is still loved in Passaic, and is a popular singer/local TV personality, lending his pipes to local commercials for used car places and furniture stores.

Just Weird, Local Legends, Pop, Uncategorized

Cover for "Cheap Extensions"

Who isn’t totally fascinated by pop musicians whose personal lives catch your attention almost as much as their music?

The Fabulous Romantic Tony Zullo, also known as Mr. Magnificent, Mr. Fabulous, The Mighty Magnificent & Absolutely Unstoppable Tony Zullo, The Lovely T. Z., and in the ’80s simply as XTZ, crashed out of the Youngstown funk scene in the early ’70s with a blistering jam entitled “Open Letter to Tricky Dick.” A slew of recordings followed, as well as a wake of bad business deals, faulty contracts and failed marriages. The marriages with their subsequent (and almost immediate) divorces typically coincided with a hit single and thus provided an emerging pattern that endured for the next fifteen years.

In the mid-’80s, he faded briefly before re-appearing in 1989 with the tremendous hit “The Cadillac (That Took My Lady Away).”

Here’s the back for of the cover for “Cheap Extensions,” one of his first and funkiest singles. The bassline alone is one of the most recognized, having been used in several blacksploitation movies in the ’70s. Despite his record company putting up a fight, Zullo insisted on the leather-and-thread case for this single, which is now quite rare to find intact.

Side B

Hits, Just Weird, Pop

How about that new Joanna Newsom record, huh? Pretty great. But enough people are writing about her. Sonny Smith recently turned me onto this really incredible singer that I can’t stop listening to. “Earth Girl Helen Brown,” is her monkier. She had an sad, strange life, which explains the weirdo, fascinating music.

Earth Girl Helen Brown "Hit After Hit" (Side A); El Rincon Record Palace 002

Helen Brown was born in Vancouver, Canada, but raised in an Athens, Georgia-based religious cult, and was blinded in one eye from a childhood baseball injury. As an adult, she dropped out of Evergreen and traveled the country for a while as a nomadic psychedelic folksinger, before forming her first band One Eyed Tramps. For years, she lived alone in a mountaintop in southern Alaska, where she befriended a Cherokee Shaman (later revealed as a fake) who encouraged her to pursue a frustrating academic career. Rampant drug use, frequent fainting on stage, and occasional self-inflicted knife wounds on stage led to more interest in her stage antics than her music. However, a few sides did emerge in the late ’90s (recording dates unknown), which feature a unique mix of country, girl group, R&B, and ghoulishness. Crude and amateurish at best, these recordings are appreciated for their sincerity and intensity of feeling.

 The record I’ve been listening to a lot lately is a 7″ (Shown above, great cover): “Hit After Hit,” on Side A and “So Long, Jerk” on Side B. The label is “El Rincon record Palace 002″ which I can’t find anything else about–maybe it was a home recording that was released after they were found in the ’90s. The recordings are barely audible but her anger and pain come through. The song titles break my heart a little bit. There’s something ironic in the title “Hit after Hit”: It’s like she is struggling with fame or acheivement–having “Hits”– but there’s this vulgarity and hardness to them that speaks of violence as well. Obviously, “So Long, Jerk” is about ending a romantic relationship, and it’s in this ’60s psych-folk style, but there’s something almost punk about it. It’s hard to think of this woman ever sitting behind a desk as an academic. There’s something truly wild in her voice.  

Albums, Folk, Hits, Just Weird