Harold Dorman

I took great pains to get the sound just right. The cables got loose, I’d have to fiddle with them to make sure the sound was balanced properly. I’d check the speed on the turntable, adjust the anti-skating, clean the record surface with my discwasher equipment (brush, antistatic gun etc.), adjust the bass, the treble, speaker placement. I’d very carefully clean the stylus with special equipment and fluid.

Then I’d play some scratchy old 45 that had been used on an old portable (obviously mono) record player in someone’s bedroom, that may have been used as a frisby, and I’d hear this:

Pshhstbbszztashtxxlwwtttsss standing on a mountain looking out on the city aptttrsswqrrtzzxzxzxzsssssplpsltttsssx the way I feel is a doggone pity rtrtryygggerrssssssnsssvxxxszzsc...

But... all the scratches would be faithfully reproduced...

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Harold Dorman:

• Mountain Of Love – His only hit, from the spring of 1960. A song of could-have-beens, love as a mountain, and what good is a mountain? It’s nice to look at, but you can’t take it home. The Beach Boys did this on their Party album, and Johnny Rivers put it back on the charts in 1964, and it fit him like a shoe. (There are two versions of this song, one with strings, one without. I have the one with)