It was 1972 and I had a summer job so an extra $4.20 wasn't a terrible problem. LP's-records-cost $4.20 a piece in 1972, at least at the COOP in Harvard Square. Let me tell you, that was considerable money. I began collecting records by emptying coffee cans filled with change out on the floor and counting and rolling the coins. Every so often there'd be an extra $4.20 Jim Nabors was a huge star in 1972. He's still with us in his 80s. But if you remember 'Gomer Pyle' don't go looking for current photos of nice boy from North Carolina. The gag of Gomer was that this bumpkin with the good heart had a magnificent baritone voice. Jim Nabors post Gomer had a big career singing in night clubs and in Pops concerts all over the world. Jim's friendship with Marilyn Horne, the great mezzo-soprano, goes back over 50 years. It was a great idea forty years ago to bring the two together for a recording of Man of La Mancha. The show was a hit of recent memory, Nabors performed a cut down version of it on the road and Miss Horne was HOT after starring as Carmen at the Met. The recording was made in New York and what a cast! Jack Guilford as Sancho, Madeleine Kahn as the irritating niece and Richard Tucker, then the snior tenor of the owrld as the Padre. The recorind has been out of print for thirty years. It has never madeuit to CD. You mighr find a tattered LP in a dustbin. Hone and Nabors went on the "greater flory". Still, it was a lot of fun-and a delightful souveir of a greatshow. A friend of mie found a clean LP and made a CD out of it for me!
Christopher Purdy is Classical 101's early morning host, 7-10 a.m. weekdays. He is host and producer of Front Row Center – Classical 101’s weekly celebration of Opera and more – as well as Music in Mid-Ohio, Concerts at Ohio State, and the Columbus Symphony broadcast series. He is the regular pre-concert speaker for Columbus Symphony performances in the Ohio Theater.