Boris Karloff "Tales of the Frightened Volume 1" (Mercury, MG 20815, 1963), "Tales of the Frightened Volume 2" (Mercury, MG 20816, 1963)
Here are a pair of cool albums released in the early ’60’s that were spun out of some other projects with the same name. To quote some of the info I found around the internet:
(The) magazine was a tie-in to a syndicated radio feature. “The Frightened” was one of several proposed radio features that were packaged by Lyle Kenyon Engel. The project never really got off the ground and it is not clear how many, if any, were actually aired. The vignettes in this series were written by Michael Avallone and read by Boris Karloff. Each issue of the magazine contains one of the vignettes, neither individually titled or bylined. Several years later Karloff’s readings were released as a phonograph record and the texts were published as a book by Avallone.
and:
The music that runs underneath Boris’s voice slowed down and twisted about is Tom Dissvelt and Kid Baltan’s masterpiece recording of “Song of The Second Moon”, reissued as “The Elektrosonics-Electronic Music” (Philips)
There’s more data out there (Google it on up), but that’s the long & the short of it. Containing some nice creepy stories read by one of the most soothingly spooky voices ever to work in the realm of horror, these were ripped off of a pair of very clean copies that a pal of mine graciously loaned me. Enjoy!
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Thank you for posting these wonderful records. I have always enjoyed Boris Karloff’s voice.
Fantastic!!! Thanks so much for VOL 2!!!
I can’t wait to see whats next.
Looking over the list of stuff over at SSS and can’t help but drool over them..especially,
“Monster Rally”
“Dinner With Drac!” (1976)
“Monster Dance Party”
“The Vampire Speaks”
I hope these pop up…wink, wink.
Witches’ Brew: Pot Full of Songs for Oral Language Development , Is this the song that went “Witch’s Brew, Alaca-zama-kazoo”??? If so I remember singing it in music class in grade school.
I think I got a bunch of your stuff from Tiki Tim last year. You made my Hallowe’en.
Thanks,
Dr.Terror
Cool, thanks! I’m sure all the titles you mentioned will make their way up soon enough too.
It’s true; last Halloween I gave both Tiki Tim & Keith from Old Haunts (as well as a few other fine folks) access to a lot of my files so that they could post them on their blogs, so you might’ve run across a few of my rips already. Hopefully I’ll have enough new stuff here to keep it interesting for a while though.
It just keeps getting better every time I come here. You’re like the spooky uncle who lives in a haunted old house — always a surprise every visit!
Thanks,
Mr. Miller
Thanks for these! Couple of weeks ago I brought out his version of “Peter & The Wolf”………he was under-rated for sure. Grateful & Cheers!
this is great, but what about *this* week’s post?!?
He could tell you, but then he’d have to kill you. Right Steve?
These two are way in the tip-top tier of spooky halloween records. I love them all but these are darn near perfect combos of music, writing, voice work, and effects. I have a copy of the book as well, and there are about another 10 stories that don’t appear on either of the two record volumes. I’ve always wondered if Mercury doesn’t have an unreleased set of “Volume 3” tapes sitting on a shelf somewhere, wouldn’t that be the holy grail of Halloween finds?
Hello– I did a little work & put together a musical soundtrack for the Frightened series. I took the tracks from a share I d/l’ed of that album “Electronic Music- The Elektrosonics”, and I edited the songs to the match the speed they play on the Frightened album; I posted it on my own blog, here:
http://harveysmidnighthour.blogspot.com/2006/08/are-you-one-of-frightened.html
Now you can hear that strange creepy music without the narration.
Excellent albums from a top horror icon.I seem to remember some Caedmon(?)spoken word releases with both Boris Karloff and Vincent Price?I picked up a cassette years ago with one side dedicated to each.You’d certainly be King of the Gods if you posted any of the Vincent Price albums from the late 60’s or 70’s.Thanks for the great post!
Yours Cruelly,
B.W.
can some one please upload bori karloff tales, I seem to get here to late file not found. pleasesssssssssssss. and thank you for all the hard work too. tigger
Thankyou very much…..always loved these….especially at this time of year!!
Thankyou very much!!!!!!! LOVE THEM
Thanks for posting these wonderful recordings. Boris Karloff is one of the greatest actors ever. If you want to hear another take on “The Hand of Fate” – watch the movie Targets (P. Bogdanovich) in which Karloff plays “Byron Orlock”, a character partly based on himself. The version is shorter but maybe even better, and there’s an added poignancy in that it was Karloff’s last film.
Thank you for posting these two great LP’s. I love these stories and Karloff’s delivery. I think “The Hand of Fate” is my personal favorite.
If there’s anyway these could get reposted for enjoyment on various travels, I would be eternally grateful.
Yeah. Reposting would be nice. I have Vol. 1 but have never found a copy of Vol. 2