THE EDGAR ALLAN POE AUDIO COLLECTION - Vincent Price & Basil Rathbone

YEAR: 2000

LABEL: Caedmon

TRACK LISTING: To --, Alone, The City in the Sea, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Haunted Palace, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque of the Red Death, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Black Cat, The Raven, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, The Cask of Amontillado, The Bells, Annabel Lee, Eldorado, Ligeia, The Imp of the Perverse, Morella, Berenice, The Gold Bug

IMPRESSIONS: It was so nice to see this CD box set on the audiobook shelf at my Borders in 2000. I snapped it up on 40% off day. As luck would have it, these Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone recordings were ones I hadn't managed to track down up to this point; deriving as they do from some rare 50s LPs long out of print. Price, of course, is a veteran hand at these types of records but Rathbone proves himself every bit as adept reading Poe's immortal tales of terror. The only caveat I have (and its a fairly substantial one) is that the volume level is ridiculously low on these CDs; even when I maxed the volume to put them in my ipod, they are still only just audible. For such melodiously magnificent voices, that is truly a crime worthy of a homicidal ourang-outan!

MY FAVOURITE TRACKS: Alone, The City in the Sea, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Haunted Palace, The Masque of the Red Death, The Black Cat, The Raven, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, The Cask of Amontillado, The Bells, Annabel Lee, Ligeia, The Imp of the Perverse, Morella

FACT SHEET: THE EDGAR ALLAN POE AUDIO COLLECTION is a 2000 5 CD set consists of several Caedmon albums of Edgar Allan Poe readings by Basil Rathbone and Vincent Price originally released in 1954. All the readings are by Basil Rathbone except LIGEIA, THE IMP OF THE PERVERSE, MORELLA, BERENICE and THE GOLD BUG which are read by Vincent Price.

TALES OF TERROR - Nelson Olmsted

YEAR: 1956

LABEL: Vanguard

TRACK LISTING: The Pit and the Pendulum, A Cask of Amontillado, The Tell-Tale Heart, Masque of the Red Death, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Strange Case of M. Valdemar, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, The Signal Man, What Was It?, The Mummy's Foot, Markheim, The Body Snatcher

IMPRESSIONS: Whereas this 2 record set was made up of two Nelson Olmsted albums released in 1956, I bought the 1970's vinyl reissue sometime around the late 70s. This too I bought at the Wee Three Records in the Moorestown Mall. Nelson Olmsted's voice is perfect for storytelling (hence his being in such great demand as an old-time radio actor) and his voice perfectly brings to life these stories. The tales are actually very efficiently condensed into tracks which last around 8-9 minutes a piece without losing any of the major story points. Probably my favourite piece on the album is "WHAT WAS IT?": the story of a strange invisible creature captured by the narrator. Of course, there's also THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER which is another favourite.

MY FAVOURITE TRACKS: The Pit and the Pendulum, A Cask of Amontillado, The Tell-Tale Heart, Masque of the Red Death, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Strange Case of M. Valdemar, What Was It?, The Mummy's Foot, The Body Snatcher

FACT SHEET: TALES OF TERROR is a two-record set which was actually culled from two separate 1956 LPs by Nelson Olmsted: SLEEP NO MORE and TALES OF TERROR. Nelson Olmsted was a very busy radio actor as well as a character actor in films; his radio show (also entitled "Sleep No More") is the basis of these recordings. The first record of the set features all Edgar Allan Poe tales except for Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge". The second record features Charles Dickens' "The Signal Man" and "Markheim" as well as Fitz-James O'Brien's "What Was It?" and Theophile Gautier's "The Mummy's Foot".

A HORNBOOK FOR WITCHES - Vincent Price

YEAR: 1976

LABEL: Caedmon

TRACK LISTING: How To See Ghosts or Surely Bring Them To You, A Hornbook For Witches, Witches On the Heath, The Ballad of the Jabberwock, All-Saints' Eve, Dreamland, The Sands of Dee, Thus I Refute Beelzy, Don't, The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall

IMPRESSIONS: "Stories and Poems For Halloween" for sure. But since Halloween is 365 this is an album you can enjoy year-round. Vincent Price's 70's era melifluous voice carries you away on these wonderful poems and horror tales -- some of which have been favourites of mine my entire life. "Thus I Refute Beelzy", for instance, was included in my much-loved hardcover of horror short stories called "HAUNTINGS" with illustrations by the great Edward Gorey; I have had this book forever and my mother used to read to me from it before I could read! Ahhh, you say, so THAT'S what's wrong with me! Then there's "The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall" which I bought at school from the Scholastic Book Club catalogue (or some equivalent) in the first or second grade entitled "THE ARROW BOOK OF GHOST STORIES". Then there's such fun and informative flights of ghostly folklore like "Don't" and "How To See Ghosts...". This album is a treasure -- and there are several more on Caedmon by Vincent Price from the same time period I'll discuss at some later point.

MY FAVOURITE TRACKS: How To See Ghosts or Surely Bring Them To You, A Hornbook For Witches, Witches On the Heath, All-Saints' Eve, Dreamland, Thus I Refute Beelzy, Don't, The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall

FACT SHEET: A HORNBOOK FOR WITCHES is a spoken-word album recorded by Vincent Price featuring short stories and poems described on the cover as "Stories and Poems For Halloween". The title of the album is taken from the Arkham House book of poems by Leah Bodine Drake published in 1950. The book was Drake's first book and the only one published by H.P. Lovecraft-inspired Arkham House publishing company. It was released in a very limited edition of 553 copies of which 300 were given to the author; this make it one of the rarest Arkham editions out there. Four of Drake's poems are included on the album: "A Hornbook For Witches", "Witches On the Heath", "Ballad of the Jabberwock" and "All-Saints' Eve". Maria Leech's "How To See Ghosts..." opens the album and Edgar Allan Poe's "Dreamland" and John Collier's "Thus I Refute Beelzy" also appear.

TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION - The Alan Parsons Project

YEAR: 1976

LABEL: Mercury

TRACK LISTING: A Dream Within A Dream, The Raven, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, (The System of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, The Fall of the House of Usher, To One In Paradise

IMPRESSIONS: Like Mike Oldfield's OMMADAWN and Frank Zappa's JOE'S GARAGE, I first heard this album because of family friend Ronnie whose eclectic tastes have helped shape my own since I was a kid. The original album I came to know was the "Orson Welles-less" version; it was only later I got the remixed album which included Orson's recitations. Before I even went to kindergarten, my mother taught me to read. And what did she teach me to read on?: TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION by Edgar Allan Poe! So any album featuring song adaptations of Poe tales just had to be a winner with me.
MY FAVOURITE TRACKS: The Raven, The Cask of Amontillado, (The System of) Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, The Fall of the House of Usher, To One In Paradise

GUEST ARTISTS: Orson Welles (narration), Leonard Whiting (narration, vocals), Arthur Brown (vocals)

FACT SHEET: TALES OF MYSTERY AND IMAGINATION is The Alan Parsons Project's first album. All the songs are based upon short stories and poems by Edgar Allan Poe. "The Raven" was the first rock song to use a digital vocoder. The prelude of the instrumental piece "The Fall of the House of Usher" is based on Claude Debussy's operatic fragment "La chute de la maison Usher" composed between 1908 and 1917. The original version of the 1976 album was remixed in 1987 with added narration by Orson Welles, additional guitar passages and altered production techniques including added 80's-style reverb. According to the album's liner notes, Welles never met Alan Parsons or Eric Woolfson (the nucleus of the Project) but sent them a tape of his performance after the album came out in 1976. Leonard Whiting is a British actor best known for appearing as Romeo opposite Olivia Hussey in the film "ROMEO AND JULIET" as well as playing Victor Frankenstein in "FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY". In July 2010, Classic Rock magazine named the album one of the "50 Albums that Built Prog Rock".