2 Record Offers: Rough Side of the Mountain and TEJ Records

Here's two ridiculous record offers from back when they still did record offers...

Soundalike records seem to be impossible to find anymore in the record bins, but there was a time when they were semi-popular. This one is likely from 1974, and contains re-recordings of hits from that era. Just listening to the backing tracks, some are kind of close ("The Entertainer," "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing"), and some are way off ("You're the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me"). The vocals are awful and all over the map. The aforementioned "You're the Best Thing..." has a Gladys Knight impersonator who sounds like Herbert from "Family Guy." Awful. The best part of this commercial is the over-hyped ad copy, apparently read by The Real Don Steele. The package itself is incredibly flimsy and budget priced, but what would you expect when you "can't reveal the artists due to royalties"?  Right.


I have been looking for the commercial below for years, since I would see it in the early 1990s during cable reruns of ancient sitcoms. I could never find the ad on YouTube because I always thought it was called "My Side of the Mountain." It's actually "Rough Side of the Mountain." As a collection, it's not a bad representation of gospel, with Al Green, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin and The Clark Sisters (their tune sounds a lot like Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster (Jammin')"). According to the track list, they inserted the looooong sermons between songs -- I bet that really interrupts the flow. There's one by Jesse Jackson and one by Rev. B.W. Smith -- why not put all that together on the same side?! Anyhow, Rev. Smith's sermon, "Watch Them Dogs," became a bit of a catchphrase thanks to the line in the commercial: "Who in the hell left the gate open?" They even referenced this on an episode of "Martin." Crazy!


Incidentally, the Aretha Franklin tune used in this album ("Walk In the Light") is from her largely unsuccessful 1960-67 years on Columbia Records, when no one knew what to do with her. Once she switched to Atlantic Records and went full-R&B, she caught fire. In 1972, she released a live double gospel album, "Amazing Grace," which is actually the biggest-selling album of her career. The best tune on there, "How I Got Over," should have been included on "Rough Side"!

For fun, here's a different take on "How I Got Over" from the classic 1974 film, "Uptown Saturday Night."