3 Chords & the Truth: Satisfaction guaranteed

Look at the Big Show as being kind of like the Monkey Ward catalog long ago and far away -- we have a little bit of everything.

This week's edition of 3 Chords & the Truth  will prove that to you. Just like last week, and the week before that, and the week before that, and the week before that, and the week before that. . . .

And we even have a little David Rose off of that 1962 Montgomery Ward promotional LP, in honor, of course, of the ex-department store's 90th anniversary some 52 years ago. So there you go.

Make sure you check out all the other departments in our audio store, though. Lots of good stuff around every corner and down every aisle.

We're sure you'll like what you find on the Big Show, and that's a proposition we stand behind 100 percent. As our slogan goes, "Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back."

OF COURSE, every episode of 3 Chords & the Truth comes to you absolutely free of charge, but you know what we mean. When it comes to our hand-picked variety of the world's greatest music, 'satisfaction guaranteed" means just that.

Even if no money changes hands.

Oh, God, I'm rambling. Don Draper, get me out of this!

What?

Oh, right -- brevity. Wrap it up. Gotcha.

IT'S 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.

Vintage vinyl o' the day

You don't have to ask me twice whether I want to buy -- $2.50 . . . cheap! -- some flaming red vinyl.

I almost don't care what's on it, though in this case, I lucked out. It's classic David Rose, from a 1962 promotional album put out by Montgomery Ward in honor of the venerable department store's 90th anniversary.

This was one of nine put out that year by Ward's, which called the special releases the Nine Top Artist Series. Obviously, with artists like Rose and his orchestra, Lawrence Welk, Artie Shaw, The Ink Spots and The Three Suns, these LPs did not represent the Nine Top Artist Series for Teenyboppers.

Click on album covers to enlarge

But speaking as someone who was a toddlerbopper in 1962, I still think it's all pretty jake . . . er, cool . . . er, groovy . . . er, exemplary.

WHAT I ALSO think is pretty exemplary are my memories of great old department stores like Monkey Ward's, as everyone called the late, great company back then. It was one entity of what I guess you could have called the Holy Trinity of Retailers -- Sears and Roebuck, J.C. Penney and Montgomery Ward, founded (if you do the early-'60s math) in 1872.

Ward's succumbed to modernity in 2000 but was sort of resurrected in 2004 as an online retailer by a company -- itself since acquired by yet another company -- that bought the name and intellectual property of the gone-bust giant. Meantime, Sears and Penney's are hanging on by their fingernails, mere shells of what they once were commercially and as cultural icons.

THE MUSIC with which Montgomery Ward celebrated its success once upon a time remains, though. Music, unlike institutions, never dies.

Though time marches on and memories eventually fade, the music plays on. The music plays on.

And it plays on 3 Chords & the Truth. Be there this weekend. Aloha.