2007 JANUARY 7 #007
Echo: the magazine you play on your phonograph
With a hole punched right through the center, ECHO magazine was a short-lived quarterly publication that consisted of interesting layouts interspersed with flexi records. The listener would fold the magazine open, set it on the turntable and drop the needle on it to hear the recordings.
MP3:
Various Artists - Poetry Is a World of Things (5:44)
Echo neglects to mention the laughter of lovely Brigitte Bardot heard in this little audio montage trip around the world.
The subject of poetry took Echo's tape recorders far and wide for the record that follows: To an upper chamber of Sardi's restaurant to hear France Nuyen, Broadway's original Suzie Wong, read centuries-old Chinese poetry; to a Greenwich Village night club for the brilliant satire of poet Kennith Koch and pianist John Gruen. At the Cambridge Drama Festival, actress Siobhan McKenna discusses her role in Macbeth; from Spain, the cry of Manolo Leiva in a Flamenco filled with pathos and nostalgia; in an eastside Manhattan duplex beautiful Eva Gabor reads a love letter. Finally, in Dublin, the irrepressible Brendan Behan.
MP3:
Springmaid Fabrics - Another Broad in Broadcloth (4:35)
verse by Elliott Springs, music by Paul Dickey
a risque little song, an "ad-divertissement" from the Springs Cotton Mills of South Carolina.
The press was excited about ECHO, offering up reviews like these:
"Stop, Look, and Listen: A New Kind of Magazine" -- Newsweek
"The Alive-in-Wonderland Life Is More Accessible Since Echo Made Its Bow" -- Cue
"Warm up the Rig: We're All Ears!" -- Washington Post and Times Herald
"A New Venture in Audio-Journalism with Exciting Possiblities" -- Des Moines Register
"Echo Mag Parleys Platters and Prose" -- Variety
New York City's talented Designers' Collaborative did the graphics and copy, and United Artists served as the agent supplying the entertainment talent. The performers included such luminaries as actor and dancer Fred Astaire, illustrator Jules Feiffer, humor writer and illustrator James Thurber, burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee, comic Steve Allen, jazz greats the Ahmad Jamal Trio, artist Salvador Dali and comedians Bob and Ray.
The following recordings are from volume 1 number 3 in 1960, which also featured Mary Martin with the Trapp Family Singers, comic Shelley Berman, folk group the Kingston Trio, a posthumous release of former New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia [1934-45] reading the funnies, and a piece by Fiorello playwright and novelist Jerome Weidman.
- Contributed by: Katya Oddio
Images: Page 1 (Cover), Page 3, Page 13, Page 14, Page 18, Page 32, Page 34
