Partly a spoof on Jukebox Heart and part legitimate new category on Jukebox Heart. I know it seems like a stretch for a category, but this is all about children’s records. Oh, not the run of the mill stuff – no Burl Ives or Marlo Thomas thrift store rejects here. No. But there are some children’s records that are unimaginably creepy and surreal. That’s what Juice Box Heart is all about. Some of these records have been produced specifically for children, but somehow the test of time has made them go horribly wrong. Other selections will be just so brilliant when taken at face value that they altogether transcend the notion of “Children’s Record” and become their own unique entity. Others, like the debut of this series, are about children and have their own unique irony about them.

And we start with 1962’s “Listen, Son…”, a collection of poetry readings by Philadelphia’s Jack Pyle. Jack Pyle was a morning AM radio host and minor celebrity in Philadelphia in the lat 50s. So it is no wonder this was released on Philly’s Cameo/Parkway imprint, the huge Philadelphia label that gave us Dee Dee Sharp, Chubby Checker, The Orlons and Bobby Rydell in the late 50s and 60s.

This record is just the creepy. From the jacket’s photo of a shadowy male silhouette standing over a sleeping little boy to the strains of the Hammond organ opening each piece. Billboard’s 1962 review referred to the cover image as “warm and touching”. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?

Listen, Son
[audio:http://www.jukeboxheart.com/juicebox/pyle/pyle.mp3]
8:26 | 7.72MB