Ali And His Gang
Vs. Mr. Tooth Decay
Here is one of my favorite Oddball Private Press LPs. The jacket art is priceless.
At first you might be tempted to blame this mess on Arther Morrison. His name is plastered all over the jacket and sleeve as the producer. And of course, why would he not want to associate himself with Ali, Frank Sinatra and Howard Cossell, amongst others?
You might also expect this LP to be somewhat of a professional effort considering the list of famous names attached to it. What happened?
First, I have to make an assumption as to who funded the project. Was this Morrison's idea? The backing apparently came from St. Johns Fruits & Vegetable Production company in California. Or did St. Johns come up with this idea and contract with Morrison because Morrison was connected to Ali? It's a question of who knew who.
Regardless, someone knew Ali and then, I suspect, Cossell and Sinatra signed on. And from there it was design by committee.
Take the front cover for example. The image of Ali is horrible. It appears to be photographed from an existing printed image. This is not good because you are photographing printing dots and then rescreening the image for this print job. So the image is fuzzy and muddy. And Ali is scary looking don't you think? His left arm is cut off by a rainbow. And why a rainbow? I don't know! Apparently, for some reason, the rainbow was necessary to cover up Ali's left hand. The drawing of Mr. Tooth Decay is horrible. The type treatments are all over the place. The effort smacks of a number of people pissing on the project.
And if you thought the cover was shocking take a gander at the back cover! It is interesting to note that Ali's last name is printed on the BACK cover... but not the front... Why?
Let me stop for a moment and talk about the recording. The recording was produced exactly like the jacket... it is a mess. The story line is so muddled you can hardly follow it. The recordings were made at five different studios and mashed together. Sinatra's recording sounds like it was done with a hand held tape recorder in his car. There is some bad singing. You can hardly understand what ANYONE is saying. And there was a segment of the record where the cast rants on and on about eating vegetables. This makes no sense unless you note that the financier was a Fruit and Vegetable company. So you could say that this is an exploitation record.
On one side of the LP sleeve there is a studio shot of Old Blue Eyes with the kids... where was Ali?
The LP is dedicated to Mary C. Stranahan (don't know her) and Lily Tomlin, Sweet Lily, The Greatest Comedienne In The Whole World. What?!! What did she have to do with any of this?
But the fun isn't over yet! Apparently Morrison was ready to produce a follow-up effort: Ali and His Gang Vs. Fat Cat The Dope King and His Sidekick Peter Pusher! I kid you not... see the sleeve above!
Who was he going to turn to fund this venture? A methadone clinic?
It also looks like T-Shirts and maybe even toothbrushes were produced.
I think Morrison's heart must have been in the right place. But there were issues and this project must have been a nightmare.
