- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- Recording artists on Hot Platters include Deep Purple, LaBelle, T. Rex, Ry Cooder, Randy Newman, Norman Greenbaum, and Gordon Lightfoot, and Fanny.
Hot Platters (Various Artists) (1971): In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Warner Bros. Records and their affiliate Reprise Records put out dozens of albums filled with songs from their recent releases. Reprise Records was founded by Frank Sinatra in 1960 and might be the very first record labels that was started by a recording artist. The acts on those albums are mostly well known, but typically not the individual songs. These albums were heavily advertised for mail-order purchases, at least on album sleeves in that period; and they also were attractively priced, I think at $2 or so. The idea (and their advertising copy confirmed this) was to entice music fans to purchase whole albums once they had heard selected songs. Collectively known as the “Warner/Reprise Loss Leaders” (and having their own Wikipedia article), I have picked up several of them over the years (usually for more than $2 though!). Hot Platters is one of these loss leaders; the schlocky cover design is in the style of a vintage restaurant menu, and the back cover features a doctored drawing of the chef on boxes of Cream of Wheat cereal. There are also subheadings on individual album sides: “Blues Plate Special”, “Stout Hearted Stew”, etc. Recording artists on this album include Deep Purple, LaBelle, T. Rex, Ry Cooder, Ronnie Milsap, Randy Newman, Paul Stookey (of Peter, Paul and Mary), Norman Greenbaum, Gordon Lightfoot, the Beach Boys, the Kinks, and the early all-woman rock band Fanny. Selections include John D. Loudermilk performing his own oft-covered song “Tobacco Road”; the title song “It Ain’t Easy” from the Long John Baldry album that I own, It Ain’t Easy; and a rendition of Norman Greenbaum’s #1 hit song “Spirit in the Sky” by the Stovall Sisters; they had provided the background singing on the original hit recording.