Our Lady of Perpetual Obsolescence Vinyl Rescue Mission and Orphanage

Our latest offering brings us the husband and wife team of Tony and Kathy Rich, a guitar and singing lounge duo that entertained vacationers in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania.

If you’ve ever surfed on over to Bellybongo, you may remember that Magnus shared an album from the Riches a while ago. Although the album we’re sharing here has the same title, the cover art and most of the songs are different. It must have been released after the one Magnus shared because the liner notes on that one state that Tony and Kathy have two beautiful daughters. On this release, the number of beautiful daughters has increased to three.

For most of the recording, the tunes are presented in simple but serviceable arrangements. Some kind of rhythm box holds down the beat, Kathy and Tony trade off lead vocals, and Tony holds the whole thing together with his guitar accompaniment. There are no other musicians credited in the liner notes, so I’m assuming Tony overdubbed the electric bass and other guitar parts himself.

Although the arrangements are simple, Tony and Kathy sprinkle in a lot of little touches that really make the tunes their own. Be sure to check out the guitar imitating a ticking clock in Colour My World, the breathing and whispering in Close Your Eyes, and the way they transition from song to song in the Love Medley. Personally, I think that Miserlou is the stand out track.

As to what the Riches are doing these I cannot say. It’s obvious from the recording that they really enjoyed performing together. Let’s hope that they are still out there together and continuing to enjoy their honeymoon. Have fun listening and as always, Enjoy!

Download all the mp3s and cover art in one 39 MB zip file.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Album Shares. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.