How in the world did this record manage to avoid a lawsuit from the real Beatles when it was released in 1965? This is NOT a rare Beatles record. It’s actually a pretty good group harmony record that was made in Philadelphia by a disc jockey and television host who called himself The Geator with The Heator and The Boss With The Hot Sauce.
His real name is Jerry Blavat, born 3 July 1940 in South Philly to an Jewish dad and Italian mom. His popular radio show was syndicated in Camden, Atlantic City, Trenton, Pottstown, Wilmington, and Allentown. Click here to read more about his incredible life. You can also buy his autobiography, You Only Rock Once, on Amazon.com.
Here’s The Girl I Love by The Beatles on Quest 101 from 1965:
The singers are not credited, but we now know who they were. They called themselves the Lytations, a mixture of guys from the Ly-Dells and Quotations. They also recorded a fake version of the incredibly rare Stormy Weather by The Five Sharps (which I featured here on 26 September 2009), calling themselves The Five Shits. But take a closer look at the label again. One of the composers was “J. Lemmon,” which is clearly a spoof on John Lennon. It’s “A Miracle Production (If It Sells…It’s A Miracle!) The other composer, J. Strong, was actually Jack Strong, lead singer in the group. The other guys in the group were baritone Kenny Harper, first tenor Frank Torpey, second tenor Bob Bintliff, and bass Billy Giangilio.
The flip side is something completely different, and actually very cool. Here’s For Yon Tunas Only by Jerry Blabber (a parody of Jerry Blavat):
Some sources say this record is only worth ten bucks. Others say it’s worth a thousand bucks. Who knows? All I know is I have a few copies of it in my record vault. I’m getting ready to sell all my records on eBay soon and I’m sure I’ll start the bidding on this one at ten dollars and see what happens.
I’ll be at a huge broadcast convention all next week in Las Vegas, so I might have trouble posting updates here. It’s the annual National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention and it’s really massive, bringing people together from the film industry, television and radio stations all over the world. If you’ll be attending that show, please stop by at the MusicMaster booth and say hello. I’ll be in booth C1131 showing off MusicMaster. To honor the occasion, I’ve decided to feature some records made by radio guys, starting with this one.
Whenever I’m in Las Vegas, I like to stop in and see my friend Rich Rosen at his incredible record shop, Wax Trax at 2909 South Decatur. If you run into me there we can dive through the record racks together!
Don’t touch that dial. Keep it locked on MusicMaster Oldies, where you’ll hear the greatest hits of all time, and the greatest stiffs of all time too!