You know when you go into Wal-Mart or Zellers, and you see those CDs displayed in a prime display area, and they look really shoddy and cheap and they have in great big bold letters "Best of The Eagles" or "Best of Neil Young" or "Best of Led Zeppelin"...the names are in some lousy dull font, not even close to their original logos. Then you see the price tag, and it is only $8.99, so you think about buying it. Then, you see at the bottom of the CD cover, you see "the fine print."

That fine print will inevitably say something like "as performed by the Starlight Players" or "as performed by the Groovy Singers" or something like that.

You, my friend, have been exposed to a fairly large side of the music industry, made up of people who re-record popular songs, and sell them cheap to people who don't really know what they're doing. Fact is, some of the tracks will be really good, though...but the majority will be mediocre or really really bad.

This is not a new phenomenon in the music business. The Golden Ring is a great early example of getting a bunch of session musicians to record a series of popular songs, and release them as an album. The Golden Ring had a series of these records in the 60s, including these two that I found recently in a local Salvation Army store.

These were released on Arc Records from Toronto, so one may assume that the session musicians are from Canada, but it is entirely possible that they could be from elsewhere. Regardless, these tracks are a lot of fun.

From My Way/Galveston/Goodbye:

For Once In My Life
Windmills of Your Mind

From A Minute of Your Time (a tribute to Tom Jones!):

It's Not Unusual
Green Grass of Home

One thing I've always loved about The Golden Ring albums, is the complete lack of effort to disguise that it's a cheap knock-off. I found these two Elvis tributes, both of which were released shortly after Elvis's big 1968 Comeback Special. The liner notes on both volumes say the same thing:

Indications are that we are entering into another era of Elvis Presley. His recent in-person appearances have caused frenzied excitement in all in attendance. Elvis has been a "hit-maker" for better than 10 years now and in this album The Golden Ring perform some of Elvis' recent hits and some of his early hits. The Golden Ring are well known in Canada after releasing many tribute albums on the Arc label. We think that this is their finest tribute and we are sure you will agree.

It has that whole disinterested vibe, doesn't it? Well, so does the recording. It sounds like a typical run-of-the-mill Elvis impersonator. But still, this is a tribute to Elvis! So, I'll offer a single track from each LP.

Are You Lonesome Tonight? (from Volume 1)
Burning Love (from Volume 2)