@Sky Six Wallich’s Music City was located on the Northwest corner of Sunset & Vine and operated from 1940 to 1978. Hello, Wallich's Music City became the premier record store in Southern California and the world's largest specialty record store. The store was also the first to have demonstration booths for listening to records. These booths were strictly for trying out a set of LP records prior to the actual purchase. Our local city of Lakewood was a few miles East of Bixby Knolls. For us, it had the row of listen booths to listen not to music, but to listen to the Hot Rod Drag Racing LP album in 1959. That was music to our ears. One of the earliest hot rod/drag racing sounds albums ever produced. It may be the first one from 1959 and as a person that has listened to most of the albums from that time period, it is the best for pure sounds without any continuous announcers babble during a powerful start or final run to the lights. If there is one drag racing sound LP Album that you need to have in your collection, this one tells you specifically who is racing who and what they are driving. 1959 was a good year and the producers were right on the ball with this recording. You know exactly who is racing, what they run and sometimes the speed and E.T. It is the best of all drag racing LP albums produced. Bar none… There have been plenty of albums, have great looking covers and the sounds are wonderful, since 1959. But, 99% of the say something like: “a 34 Ford racing a Model A in round two Altered class.” That is as good a description of who or what is sounding loud. Some don’t even go that far. A 57 Chevy vs a 69 Ford, etc. So, who made the specific sound? The Ford or Chevy? What motor, what class? Etc. The other LP Abums over the years look good, sound ok, but unless your digital mind is full of information on who is running what, it is a mystery to just listen to those sounds. If you want drag racing sounds in the background of a garage as noise when working, some of those other albums are ok for noise. But, it would have been nice to label who was racing and what the racers drove. After a while, it gets like just a loud noise of sounds. Sitting in a tunnel hearing a jet take off… it is a jet… not a fighter jet, a twin engine jet or a new passenger jet taking off from the builder’s assembly line. Just a jet. A great fellow HAMB person sent me a different copy of a local So Cal drag racing recording that I have never seen (or heard) and I am still going through the tracks to get a good recording to match my old 60s films. If and when I do, I will post them on my You Tube channel and the HAMB in a story. What got me interested is that a whole bunch of So Cal racers from Lion's Dragstrip made the trip back to Detroit for the U.S. Nationals that September in 1959. I had taken 16mm color films of most of the top racers during the Spring and Summer and they just happen to trailer their hot rods/dragsters across country for the races for the late Summer/early Fall event. Jnaki If you have found the LP album, you have one historic album. Ours is still in our few left over albums we still have, just sitting in our stereo cabinet. We gave away our whole collection of old LP albums to our son and granddaughter’s collection of records. Their display is a tall wall to wall shelving with all of their records old and new, plus our old original 60s-70s LP albums. We no longer listened to those albums in the digital age, so, they needed a good home other than a lot of boxes in the garage. Note: By 1959, we had already started our drag racing at Lion’s Dragstrip and were looking into the next level of racing participation. So, it comes as no surprise that we took a trek to Wallich’s Music City in Lakewood to buy the latest LP album on Hot Rods and Drag Racing In Stereo. It was in December of 1959 and the location was perfect. Wallich’s had self-service record racks, wrapping products in plastic and installing listening booths where customers could sample records before buying. Sitting in a sound proof room with headphones on and listening to our favorite So Cal racers against the best from all over the USA was fun and a new thing for us. Now, we could listen to the sounds of So Cal racers and match them with our films during our teenage hang out film viewing get togethers. We weren't the only ones to buy this record of drag racing sounds, but at the time, it was one of the first and best recordings that actually told the listeners, who was running against the other. It truly was a listening paradise for the first time. When the 16mm color films were in the projector ready to watch from the previous week’s races at Lion’s Dragstrip, everyone was ready. We all saw the “silent” films and everyone had their own sounds emanating from their creative minds and lips, much to the laughter of the others. It was difficult to do, as the stereo player was in the other room, and the living room was where the screen and projector was set up. Of course, it was never on the exact track or film to coordinate the sounds with the films. But, we all hollered and hooted when a local racer was shown and the sound was the exact racer, just one month later in a different location, namely Detroit, Michigan was playing in the next room. Here is a sample of the Kenny Lindley/Don Hampton streamlined FED dragster on film and the exact sound from the tracks of the Hot Rods and Dragsters In Stereo LP album. This coordination was done digitally after I had the LP digitized and my films were also digitized to make coordination editing easier. Don Hampton/Kenny Lindley 1959 SOUND The film taken of Kenny Lindley/Don Hampton at Lion’s Dragstrip, Summer of 1959. The sound edited from September Labor Day Championships in 1959, only a few weeks later. All able to be put together in the digital age. So Cal racers + sound recordings used for You Tube videos I was so happy with the results that I jumped into the other listings and found the coordinated films to go with the sounds. The whole project was rounding out the edited sound added to the Sidewinder film clips to make a nice showcase for the 1959 version of the Joe Mailliard Speed Shop/Paul Nicolini Design “Sidewinder” rear engine race car from Long Beach. The clips were of racing at Lion’s Dragstrip during the Summer of 1959. The sound, of course was from Detroit in 1959. Sidewinder SOUND 1959 Go to the J NAKI “You Tube Channel” to view the rest of the “SOUND” collection of this 1959 US Nationals at Detroit with So Cal racers. If you have a smart TV with streaming channels, get the You Tube Channel. Then you can see these old films in a larger, almost life-size viewing with your quality sound apparatus and stereo. It is much better on a larger screen than on a dinky phone, a large desktop monitor screen or even a 17 inch laptop. Note 2: For some reason, some of the old HAMB posts with my films have now had advertisements added by mistake from someone's glitch. The original ones on the J NAKI You Tube channel do not have advertisements. Check out all of the "sound" ones from this particular 1959 recorded album on the Channel. When one views it on a big screen TV with quality sound, the recorded sound from the old 1959 Detroit was done well and the sound over the large screen TV comes out blasting. Even my wife, from the kitchen/dining area says… “that sounds really cool…” Yes! YRMV
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