Donald Seward

When I started buying records at the dawn of the digital era,  entire generations of collectors were dumping their vinyl for CDs and stores were pricing shit to move.  

It's difficult to adjust to an era where former dollar bin staples like Fleetwood Mac and Eagles go for 20 bucks because the kids need something to play on that Crosley they got for Christmas. Fine, you say, who cares?  Let people overpay for junk, for I am a person of taste!  Cool, well Double Nickels on the Dime by the Minutemen now costs 100 dollars...  Basically, if you don't already own a copy of certain things yet, be happy with the mp3 or hope that those great folks at VinylMePlease make your hidden gem the record of the month for August.

But, all is not lost!  If your record wants haven't been recently used in a Netflix series, mentioned by an influential podcast host, or put on the type of world music compilation record that boutique hotels used to play in their lobby bars during Sunday brunch, you may be in luck.  Although the price of super common garbage records and rare high end stuff has gone up, the price of many mid-range records has gone down.  Some of this is due to technology (if anyone is still sampling drum breaks in 2020, they can do so off an mp3), some of it is just due to record trends (today's GOTTA HAVE IT is tomorrow's MEH), and some because the internet has shown that records previously considered rare or exotic were actually pressed up in considerable quality (just not close to you, dog).  This doesn't explain how discovering there are 100,000 copies of a funky Polish prog record has lowered the cost, but each of the 20 million copies of Rumours is now worth 10 times what it was 10 years ago. Many of the Wall Of Fame records of the early 2000's can now be found for less than the price of a Record Store Day Billy Joel Glass Houses (clear vinyl pressing) reissue. 

I recently got a copy of Donald Seward À L’Orgue for 8 dollars.  This is a record I used to see on the wall of every record store in Montreal for at least 50 bucks, and one that used to sell for upwards of 100 bucks on the Internet.  

This would be an interesting lesson in supply/demand, but I doubt that many of these were ever pressed.  It's on singer Tony Roman's Revolution label, best known for a few experimental albums with FREAK OUT TOTAL written on their back sleeves, and for quite a few leftfield pop/rock 45's with a tinge of psych. 

Although Tony Roman was a young man at the time, he had the mentality of an old school music business huckster and would put out anything for a buck (hence the release of Stéphane Chante Engelbert Humperdinck Et Tom Jones), and this record sort of splits the difference between the two sides of the label.  If you want to hear cocktail lounge organ jazz played by a garage rock band, this is the record for you. And I basically just mean "YOU" because this record is an acquired taste, and hence why it now goes for under 10 bucks.  

For the life of me, I have no idea why anyone would ever pay more than 20 bucks for this record.  Even the coolest song on it, "Studio 'B' Funk" is not actually that funky, it's just a fun garage rock jam. If the entire album were nothing but songs like that, I still wouldn't pay 100 bucks for it.  For a white guy from Quebec, Seward does have a nice feel for funky organ material and I'm sure he was great live, but in a world (and a continent) where Jimmy Smith and Johnny Hammond already exist, he's not breaking any barriers.

There are one or two burners on it where the band gets out their fuzz pedals and fucks shit up, but for every track like that, there's two generic blues shuffle instrumentals.  I feel bad for the band, these were guys too old and seasoned to be making actual current experimental music in 1969, but too young to be making easy listening records.  It reminds me a little bit of the first El Chicano record, in the sense that it's the product of young people who are used to entertaining the tastes of older folks (and El Chicano covers "Cantaloupe Island" and Donald Seward covers "Watermelon Man").

El Chicano basically left the lounge roots of their album behind and went on to play more rock based material and had a successful career.  Donald Seward put out another, slightly funkier, organ instrumental record, bought a bar, and by 1975 was out of the music game and selling insurance. C'est la vie.  If you appreciate 60's instrumental records and like fuzz pedals, I highly recommend this record if you can find it for under 20 bucks (and you can).  You can hear "Studio 'B' Funk" here: https://apresski.bandcamp.com/album/studio-b-funk