1971 Woolworth TV commercial for LPs

TV commercial from another time. (What is the music playing in the background?) (Via Bedazzled!)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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teflon

I don’t recognize the specific track, however this sounds remarkably like other tracks produced in the same era by KPM Music. KPM was a ‘Production Music House’, who recorded generic jingles and tunes that advertisers could use in TV and Cinema productions for small licensing fees. If you’ve never heard any KPM tracks and enjoy they grooviness of the BG music, I’d recommend some digging. KPM Music made some absolutely fabulous go-go, proto-rock, pop, and lounge compositions, some of which have been released as a KPMs retrospectives.
Anonymous

I don’t know who did the music (or what the name of the tune might be), but I agree that it is trying very hard to sound like Strawberry Alarm Clock, or perhaps Ray Manzarek.

However, the voiceover talent really, REALLY sounds like it is probably Paul Frees.

–Patrick
patricio

Aaaaah inflation…
pinehead

Kitschy. Somebody else might have a better answer, but I would guess the music was arranged specifically for Woolworth’s. If someone knows who the composer was, you could probably dig up some more from them.
- Steaming Pile
  
  The artwork appears to be the work of Peter Max.
Anonymous

Don’t know the backing track, but this does take me back.

Woolworths was about the only option in the small town where I grew up. The cut-out bin was fantasic!! I picked up many great, great albums for a quarter – including Sun Ra Angels and Demons at Play, and Jazz in Silouette. Anthony Braxton, etc. Those were the good days.

Also, this seems to be a clue to why 8-track did not make it. 3x the price? No way!
Fred H

The Strawberry Statement?!? Man, I’ve worked in record stores for 12 years, and have never heard that name. Also, I think my being drawn to groovy farfisa organ sounds comes from my parents watching this ad some nine months before I was born.
Michael Leddy

I still have Canned Heat’s Living the Blues from Woolworth’s — a double-album for maybe $1.99. Cut-outs! Cut-outs!
mcmonkee

Dammit! I paid a whole $1 for that sesame street original cast recording album. Granted that was a couple of months ago at SCRAP, but still…
Featheredfrog

“Blind Faith” on an 8-track cart? Wowsers, I wonder if they used the original cover art?
Anonymous

The Association? Herb Alpert? They were trying to get rid of 1966 stock. 1971 records would be Wings, Elton John, or Jethro Tull.
Robert

Groovy! In more ways than one! Ah, for the days of pastel-colored uniforms.
mr_josh

Man, I’ve gotta find a time machine to go back to 1971 and get me some-a-them cartridges!
Holden_Caufield

Ahhh Woolworths! man that brings back memories of Fedco, Gemco and Zody’s. I miss those simple times indeed.
Anonymous

I had a couple copies of the 45 for “Journey to the Center of Your Mind” by the Amboy Dukes, still sealed in cardboard backing “hangers”, with old Woolworth’s price tags on them, priced like $1.78 or something ridiculous.
Anonymous

I totally had that Sesame Street album back in ’72 or ’73.
- Steaming Pile
  
  So did we. I hear they’re hot collector’s items nowadays.
braininavat

I don’t know the tune, but based on the organ stylings, that has to be Klaus Wunderlich, probably from one of his many Hammond Pops albums, available at better Sally Anns everywhere.
purefog

Children, “The Strawberry Statement” was a 1970 SF-college-scene exploitation movie. The Strawberry Alarm Clock was a psychedelic (or, perhaps, faux-psychedelic) band, best known for the song “Incense and Peppermint.”
Anonymous

sounds like an instrumental ripoff of “Incense and Peppermints”
- Teresa Nielsen Hayden
  
  Spliced with “Music to Watch Girls By.”
pkazee

Woolworth was responsible for my being able to build my 1st record collection (45rpm, natch). I would go every weekend to peruse the selections. One of my faves things they had there were mystery bundles of 45rpm records… stacks of ten that one could purchase for $1 (the records at the top and bottom of the bundles were the only ones visible). Most of what one got was immediately disposable, but “treasures” obtained in these stacks included records by Elephant’s Memory, Pacific Gas & Electric and a fun little novelty record titled Flop Top Beer.
JIMWICh

Love the artwork on this. Reminds me of my school notebook from around that time.

Also, this commercial bears that awesome thing that prevalent in the early ’70s, which was to put ’7(n) at the end of anything. Like “Match Game ’70″.

As a kid, I thought it added some up-to-date cachet to whatever it was attached to, but in later years it made me wonder if there was something particularly different about that era (coming at the end of the upheavel of the ’60s and the landing on the Moon, etc.) that made everyone feel like the ’70s were truly like being in the future.
Anonymous

Yeah, the Strawberry Statement doesn’t appear to be a real band.