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CD
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JBH 031CD
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Now for the first time on CD, Trunk presents Hymns A' Swinging by the UK's Mike Sammes Singers and Ted Taylor Organsound. Since this record's initial low-profile birth in the late 1960s, it has become something of an underground classic, and that's because nothing sounds quite like this album at all -- where else could you hear "All Things Bright And Beautiful" as a heavy Latin workout? When else would you encounter a psyched-out sitar interpretation of a Franz Haydn classic? With a surprise waiting for you in just about every track, Hymns A' Swinging will raise a smile, confuse, and possibly even startle you with its brilliance and occasional madness. The line-up includes London jazz sax hero Tubby Hayes jamming along with the vocal talents of the Mike Sammes Singers. From the sublime to the ridiculous, it's a classic religious album, a classic car boot album, a classic novelty album, and some would even say it's a classic London jazz album. And it even has breaks! By the mid-1990s, Hymns A' Swinging was big news amongst the UK's record nutters -- it was funky, fashionably easy, had some killer, loopable intros (just listen to "He Who Would Valiant Be"), and with its intriguing line-up of musicians, prices for old discarded copies were reaching the heavens. Davjon Records, who originally produced and arranged the album, were small, had little distribution, and by the early 1970s, had disappeared just as fast and as unnoticed as they'd appeared. Trunk managed to license two tracks from the record for a compilation of religious oddities back in the late 1990s, and by the early naughties, a bootleg of the whole album on vinyl had mysteriously surfaced. At the end of 2008, Trunk issued the whole album as a download, and now, due to incredibly popular demand, here is the whole record on CD. Legendary easy listening jazz madness starring God.
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