Here it is. This one is not as clean as Vol. 1, but I did my best to clean it up. Check out Harbor Lights:

Favorite Island Instrumentals 2.zip (47MB)

Side 1
Hawaiian Paradise
Mauna Kea
Girl in the Yellow Holoku
Mai Poina Oe Iau
Moon of Manakoora
Paradise Isle

Side 2
Beyond the Reef
Sand
Harbor Lights
Chant of the Islands
Beautiful Kahana
Song of Old Hawaii

According to Space Age Pop, this album was arranged by Francis Bay, “Bay also provided the material for a number of albums released on Directional Sound. Credited to ‘John Evans’ — the Americanized name of his piano player, Jean Evans — or ‘Don Catelli’ — these are certainly the best of an attractive and well-produced (if shoddily annotated) series of glossy gatefolds clearly targeted at the same market as Enoch Light’s Command albums.”

I wouldn’t call the annotation “shoddy” so much as I would call it, um, well, “flowery” maybe? An example:

“A searing alto saxophone carries the argument over bristling timbales and drums…then the alto’s flight with biting trumpets swerves into a rhapsodic piano solo.”

It takes A LOT of words to fill up a gatefold cover. A dog-eared thesaurus is apparently a required tool of the trade.

Of course, gatefold scribblings don’t really matter much in the end, and the music on this album is GOOD, and this particular LP is in pristine shape. Worth a download.

Check out “Patricia” mambo man:

Latin Brass.zip (56MB)

According to the cover, if an antidote could be prescribed for the fretful tensions of modern living, this might well be it! Well, sign me up then.

Song of the Islands:

Favorite Island Instrumentals.zip (56MB)

Side 1
King’s Serenade
Blue Hawaii
My Little Grass Shack
Sweet Leilani
Hilo March
To You Sweetheart, Aloha

Side 2
Drifting and Dreaming
Hawaiian War Chant
My Isle of Golden Dreams
Song of the Islands
On the Beach at Waikiki
Hawaiian Farewell Song

I have Volume 2 of this. If anyone is interested, leave a comment.

Not considered strictly “Exotica,” but the trademark Martin Denny sound shines through here in songs like “Black Orchid.”

From the back cover, “The exotic sound is especially well suited to the influence of jazz. No greater proof of this is necessary than the popularity of ‘A Taste of Honey’ or any of the other superb examples of this exciting combination of musical expression.”

Taste of Honey.zip (40MB)

Perfect listening for a Sunday evening. A mellow set from the Three Suns.

My Isle of Golden Dreams

Twilight Time.zip (46MB)

This is one of K-TEL’s earliest releases. Understandably so (what company wouldn’t want to get a jump on cornering the lucrative Polka market?). My two-year old loves Polka. I put on this record last night and he immediately starting jumping around in a circle shouting “Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!” just like the Backyardigans in “Polka Palace Party.” I’ve found that K-TEL records usually don’t hold up too well over time. Maybe they just get played to death due to the high hit concentrations. This one isn’t too bad on the surface noise, but there are a couple skips. The price is right though. Free for you, 20 cents for me. (Unless you count my time, which is INFINITELY VALUABLE!)

Did you know that in Heaven there is no beer? (That’s why we drink it here.)

25 Polka Greats.zip (42MB)

There’s a lot of great exotica music out there on the blogs that I’ve really enjoyed — hard to find stuff that you don’t see everyday. Here’s one I’ve yet to come across on the tubes. It’s an early Les Baxter release from 1955. There are some classics on here including April in Portugal, Atlantis, Blue Tango and Tropicana. The record is in remarkably good shape for being over 50 years old, but you’ll find a few pops and clicks. I’ve tried to clean it up a little. I found this for 50 cents at a yard sale.

Here’s an Invitation:

Kaleidoscope.zip (28MB)

It’s Monday morning, and really, who isn’t thinking about Tequila. And, of course, anything with “a go go” in the title, has to be quality. You have my personal guarantee. This album was released in 1966, a year that saw another artist with a letter “T” brass band score four Billboard top ten albums.

A word about the Audio Fidelity label. Audio Fidelity records are the gold nuggets in the stream of thrift store record prospecting. I hope to post more AF records from my collection in the future.

The title track:

Tequila a go go.zip (22MB)