Well it reminded me of the theme song from Mash. “Suicide is Painless”
And the line goes:

A brave man once requested me
to answer questions that are key
‘is it to be or not to be’
and I replied ‘oh why ask me?’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gO7uemm6Yo

So you see what I mean, and so it goes. I’ll bet you can find a song in something today

www.rockandrollcoasters.etsy.com

DEE CLARK 45 RPM RECORD DRINK COASTER - I WANT TO LOVE YOU

He was born Delectus Clark in Blytheville, Arkansas, and moved to Chicago in 1941. His mother, Delecta, was a gospel singer and encouraged her son to pursue his love of music.

Clark made his first recording in 1952 as a member of the Hambone Kids, who scored an R&B hit with the song “Hambone.” In 1953, he joined an R&B group called the Goldentones, who later became the Kool Gents and were discovered by Chicago radio DJ Herb Kent upon winning a talent competition. Kent got the Kool Gents signed to Vee-Jay record label, subsidiary Falcon/Abner. The group changed its name once again, to “The Delegates,” and recorded for Falcon/Abner in 1956.

Clark embarked on a solo career in 1957 and over the next four years landed several moderate hits, two of which (“Just Keep It Up” and “Hey Little Girl”) reached the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100). His biggest single, “Raindrops,” a power ballad augmented by heavy rain and thunder sound effects and Clark’s swooping falsetto, hit in the spring of 1961 and became his biggest hit, soaring to number two on the pop chart  (behind only Gary U.S. Bonds‘ “Quarter to Three”) and number three on the R&B charts. The narrator of the song tries to convince himself that the tears he has cried since his love left him are raindrops, since “a man ain’t supposed to cry.” “Raindrops” sold over two million copies and remains a staple on oldies radio station playlists to this day, and has also been covered by several other artists in the years since, including David Cassidy, Tony Orlando and Dawn, and most notably Narvel Felts, who took the song to number 30 on the country chart in 1974. Clark himself recorded an updated version of “Raindrops” in 1973.

However, Clark’s biggest hit was also his last. The follow-up to “Raindrops,” “Don’t Walk Away From Me,” was a flop, and he made the pop charts in America only twice more, with “I’m Going Back to School” (1962) and “Crossfire Time” (1963). By the time “Crossfire Time” came out, Clark had moved from Vee-Jay to the Constellation label. Though he continued to record for Constellation through 1966, none of his records charted. Clark had a brief revival in 1975 when his song “Ride a Wild Horse” became a surprise top 30 hit in the UK Singles Chart, becoming his first chart hit in the UK since “Just Keep It Up.”

Afterward, Clark performed mostly on the oldies circuit. By the late 1980s, he was in dire straits financially, living in a welfare hotel in Toccoa, Georgia. Despite suffering a stroke in 1987 that left him partially paralyzed and with a mild speech impediment, he continued to perform until his death on December 7, 1990, in Smyrna, Georgia, from a heart attack at the age of 52.

THIS COASTER IS AVAILABLE AT: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36406080

AL B. SURE 45 RPM RECORD DRINK COASTER - IF I'M NOT YOUR LOVER

Albert Joseph Brown III (June 4, 1968, Boston, Massachusetts) is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He grew up in Mount Vernon, New York. During the late 1980s under the stage name Al B. Sure!, he enjoyed a brief run as one of New Jack Swing’s most popular romantic singers and producers.

Brown was a star football quarterback at Mount Vernon High School in New York, who rejected an athletic scholarship to the University of Iowa to pursue a music career. In 1987, Quincy Jones selected Brown as the first winner of the Sony Innovators Talent Search. Subsequently, Brown went on to work with Jones on several projects, most notably the platinum single “Secret Garden” from Jones’ double platinum album, Back on the Block. On this recording, Brown was one of a quartet with Barry White, El DeBarge, and James Ingram.

Sure has three sons: Quincy Brown (June 4, 1991), with Kimberly Porter; Albert Brown IV (who is an aspiring singer with the stage name “Lil B. Sure!”); and Devin, who resides in Atlanta, Georgia. He also has a goddaughter Paige Hurd.

The coaster pictured here is his hit song “IF I’M NOT YOUR LOVER”  It was #2 on the Hot R&B Tracks in 1989.

Recorded on Warner Brothers

Available at: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36396996

THIS 1 COASTER IS OF JACKIE MOORE - THIS TIME BABY

Jackie Moore’s “THIS TIME BABY” was number 1 on Billboards Dance Music/Club Singles charts in 1979. 

One of the relatively few artists who emerged in the early ’70s to enjoy a run of success with a Southern soul-based sound, this Florida singer recorded her best material for Atlantic in Miami with noted session players like the Memphis Horns and the Dixie Flyers. Putting her earthy pop-soul to ballads and mid-tempo material, much of it written and crafted by producer Dave Crawford, Moore had a half-dozen R&B hits for the label; the biggest, “Precious, Precious” (1970) and “Sweet Charlie Babe” (1973), were also small pop hits. In 1972 and 1973, she cut some tunes in Philadelphia’s Sigma Sound Studios with a slicker feel, with generally successful results. There was nothing especially earth-shaking about Moore’s style or material, but it was solid stuff with a grittier feel than much of the soul music in vogue at the time. After leaving Atlantic, she had one more sizable R&B hit, “Make Me Feel Like a Woman” (1975).  By Ritchie Unterberger, AMG

THIS COASTER IS AVAILABLE AT: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36352033

THE TASSELS 45 RPM RECORD DRINK COASTER - THE BOY FOR ME

This drink coaster was made from the actual,  recycled 45 rpm record.   The song displayed on the coaster is the flip side of  The Tassels #1 hit “To A Soldier Boy” .  It was recorded in 1959 on Madison Records.  The Madison label was started in 1958 by Larry Uttal in New York

 This label also produced THE VISCOUNTS and THE BELL NOTES. The final single issued on Madison is perhaps the most valuable of all to record collectors. Late in 1961, Uttal signed a young Paul Simon and a couple of his friends (Howie Beck and Mickey Borack) as Tico and the Triumphs. Just as their first single, “Motorcycle” [Madison 169], came out, Madison closed its doors. The master, along with Simon’s contract, was sent to Amy Records. “Motorcycle” [Amy 835] stalled at #99 on the charts nationally, but did better in the New York area.

The Tassels came from northern New Jersey among such groups as the Shirrells, Joey D, the Starlighters and the four seasons. The Tassels’ patriotic hit To a Solider Boy was written by Mary Glen Gaudet, mother to John Gaudet and Rochelle Gaudet Alessi, the brother and sister pair who fronted the group.

THIS COASTER IS AVAILABLE AT: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36351270

JOE TEX 45 RPM RECORD DRINK COASTER - I GOTCHA

Joe Tex was known for Southern Soul. His raspy-voiced, jackleg preacher style also laid some of the most important parts of rap’s foundation. He is, arguably, the most underrated of all the ’60s soul performers associated with Atlantic Records, although his records were more likely than those of most soul stars to become crossover hits.

Joseph Arrington Jr. on August 8, 1933 in Rogers, TX.  His professional career as a singer began onstage at the Apollo. He won first place in a 1954 talent contest and duly secured a record deal. Although his early releases on King Records, Ace and the Anna Records labels were considered by some to be derivative and generally disappointing in sales.  Tex’s career didn’t take off until he began his association with Nashville song publisher Buddy Killen, after Tex wrote James Brown‘s 1961 song “Baby You’re Right.”  In 1965, killen took him to Muscle Shoals, not yet a  recording center, and they came up with “Hold What You’ve Got,” which is about as close to a straight R&B ballad as Tex ever came., after which Tex was signed to Dial Records.

In 1966, his “I Believe I’m Gonna Make It,” an imaginary letter home from Vietnam, became the first big hit directly associated with that war. His biggest hit was “Skinny Legs and All,” from a 1967 live album.

His last major hit of that time was “I Gotcha”. Written by Tex and released in January 1972, went to #2 for two weeks, and stayed for 20 weeks in the listings.

He died in Navasota, Tx in 1982.

YOU CAN FIND THE JOE TEX COASTER AT: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36338920

RED FOLEY 45 RPM RECORD DRINK COASTER - DON'T BLAME IT ON THE GIRL

 Red Foley was one of the biggest stars in country during the post-war era. Born in Blue Lick, KY on June 17, 1910.  His 1951 hit “Peace in the Valley” was the first million-selling gospel record. A Grand Ole Opry veteran until his death in 1968. He is also a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, who named him “one of the most versatile and moving performers of all time”.
In 1941 he signed a lifetime recording contract with Decca records. After a performance in Fort Wayne, IN, on September 19, 1968, Foley died of a heart attack. Among the survivors were his daughter Betty, a popular country vocalist in her own right, and another daughter Shirley, the wife of pop crooner Pat Boone.

YOU CAN FIND THIS COASTER AT: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36331353

We were born in the 50′s, smoked in the 60′s, reeled in the 70′s, and melted in the 80′s. The 90′s made us shiny and the new millenium made us more expensive.

We miss the 50′s. And so it goes….we traveled back. We collected, we bought, we listened and we sold. But to our dismay, not everyone took very good care of us and we began to pile up. Elvis couldn’t shake his hips on the turntable, Smoky had no tears, Frank was singing about New Jersey instead of New York and Lulu sir’red nothing!

The Madness Had To Stop! It was the second coming! A rebirth without three wisemen, but with two kids of the 50′s and they bore Rock & Roll Coasters. A tribute to the greats who had been scratched or warped, who skipped or trembled. We lovers of Music have our collections that we dust everyday, our breath slides across the shiny blackness to rid it of fuzzies that somehow appeared…but sometimes an accident happens. Sometimes our kids think it would be fun to play frisbee with our White Album or use Italian love songs for italian matchbox racing!

We can save you, we don’t perform miracles…but we do provide a platform for your drink when you are crying a river over your broken vinyl.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ROCKANDROLLCOASTERS