Spike Jones - Spike Jones In Stereo: A Spooktacular In Screaming Sound!

Since the early 1940s, Spike Jones’ endlessly inventive recordings had made an art out of honking car horns, gunshots, burps, sneezes, hiccups, and all other manner of musical insanity. But, in 1959, monsters were big Hollywood business. Spike Jones In Stereo: A Spooktacular In Screaming Sound! appeared on Warner Bros. Records later that year.

Spike’s longtime arranger, Carl Brandt, commented “The Spooktacular was a complicated album. We finally broke it down and ended up scoring it like a movie, because it had to be done in bits and pieces.” And, the results were astounding. Taking advantage of the new format of stereo (just beginning to take hold across the country), In Stereo pushed the audio separation to its limits.

Credited to Spike Jones And The Band That Plays For Fun, vocals were handled by then and future superstars. Paul Frees was not only the “voice” of Boris Badenov, but thrilled and chilled the millions who rode Disneyland’s The Haunted Mansion as its unseen Ghost Host and tour guide. Thurl Ravenscroft was grrreat as Tony The Tiger, and became beloved after singing the iconic “You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch” from 1966’s How The Grinch Stole Christmas. George Rock helped propel Jones to #1 in both 1948 and 1949 singing “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth,” and Loulie Jean Norman, who sang in Disney’s Alice In Wonderland (1951) and Peter Pan (1955), later “sang” the wordless theme for the 1966–69 television series Star Trek.

Spike Jones In Stereo became a classic, even appearing in horror magazine advertisements through the mid-’70s. Its stature only grew with appreciation from Dr. Demento and “Weird Al” Yankovic, who said “If I’ve got any kind of goal, it’s to aspire to be in this generation what Spike was in his.”

So, prepare yourself to (re)discover Spike Jones In Stereo—newly remastered, available for the first time in nearly 50 years. “I think this album will make you laugh. It’s never not funny,” Leslie Ann Jones shares in the new liners from Joe Marchese (theseconddisc.com)—which also feature new interviews with Spike’s other children, Linda Lee Jones and Spike Jones, Jr. “His music was always multi-generational. I think he would be very pleased now that it’s still reaching new audiences.” Fangs for the memories, Mr. Jones.