The Cruisin' Years

I'm not sure about you, but this winter has sucked pretty hard for me. All that polar vortex crap (speaking of suck) has just about done me in. And it's made me seriously question my career choice, since the 24/7-ness of my job requires me to BE there in any weather.

Two workfriends just got back from cruises. They haven't told me what kind of entertainment they saw...but I bet it was nothing like what I'm gonna serve up for you right now. Time was, the only entertainment you had on your ship was some Italian band mixing it up with old "Amore Scusa' me"-type Italian songs and "now sounds." Maybe if the band kept you entertained enough on your cruise, you could get them to autograph their album for you as a memento to take home.

Then that band could maybe keep you entertained enough at home to fire up the old Astro-Sonic Magnavox once in a while.

Or not.

Hit any thrift store at any given time and you're bound to find at least one old cruise ship album there, autograhps and all. If you do, look 'em over. Sometimes you'll get 12 tracks of Amore Scusa' Mi...sometimes you'll get some surprises. I'm not at the stage yet where I can offer compilations, but I can offer you one track at a time for your picky-choosy pleasure. To christen this post, the Romy Formica Theme by...well, the Romy Formica Orchestra, silly! Who'd you expect? (And why's he named after the stuff your counter is made with?) Typical of the music you'd hear on a lot of cruise albums. Recorded underwater before a live audience. Or maybe just the audience was underwater:

A lot of cruise albums just have songs like The Donkey Song, from the cruise album kings, The Rolando's (The Rolando's what? You're killin' me here). WARNING: man-made animal sounds.

Some albums are more adventurous. Here's a foggy little version of Glen Campbell's hit By The Time I Get To Phoenix by Il Milionari:

Here's "Il Mil" again, with a colorful version of a Procol Harum hit. And so it was that later...they decided to sing in Italian.

Here they are doing a whole song in Italian. The song: Black Is Black, originally by Los Bravos - a Spanish group with a German lead singer. Singing in English.

Now, one of the world's shortest versions of Satisfaction, from Murolo-Salviati.

It's The Rolando's again, still with that apostrophe. But this time, maybe a little soul.

And finally, a real off-the-board choice, again by The Rolando's. I bet some of you don't remember the original. I forgot who did it when it hit in 1970 (and can't explain why I remember that). Turns out it was a group called Christie.

Bon Voyage!