Walking After Midnight

Calvin Coolidge

Walking After Midnight

Hidin' Out

4 Star CC-15
Promotional Record

This is the kind of recording you can do. Here's the recipe ::

1/ Take the two originals "Walking After Midnight" and "Hidin' Out" by Patsy Cline

2/ With Audacity (a very nice freeware) or any other sound editor, modify the speed from 45 rpm to 33 rpm

3/ That's it, a new artist is born, Calvin Coolidge. Simple, no?

Ellis Nassour has the details. From his book "From Honky Tonk Angel" :

    The record was a practical joke cooked up by Bill McCall, head of 4 Star Records.

    Suddenly, with the incredible sales of "Walkin' After Midnight," there was a cover recording, as often happened with a major hit. Disc jockeys everywhere were inundated with Calvin Coolidge's rendition and received calls from the label's irate promotion director wanting to know why they weren't programming it.

    "This is a hot record," he'd say, "the first male version." The deejays responded that the record was terrible. "Oh, you think so, huh?" he replied. A typical answer was, "It's nothing like Patsy Cline's record." The promotion man would counter, "That goes to show how much you know. Take that record and speed it up and we'll see about that!"

    The prankster was none other than Bill McCall, who slowed Patsy's version to 33 1/3 rpm, then pressed a 45 rpm single.

Using Audacity, I've created in a similar manner a cover of Walking by Lil' Hillary, 8 y. old, the latest teenage sensation.

The two Calvin Coolidge tracks and the two other versions of Walking converted from the "Calvin Coolidge" recording (Patsy Cline & Lil' Hillary) can be found in this archived file