Sit Properly

It’s Ekadasi! Haribol! On Saturday I posted a tape produced by Golden Avatar Productions. And today I’m posting a record produced by them. This is a fun record called Every Town & Village. It’s definitely one of the rarer releases, though it does seems to be one of the few that was released exclusively in the US.

Unlike most of the albums, this one has full production credits. You can read them on the back of the album cover.

The songs on Every Town and Village were recorded at the 1972 San Francisco Ratha Yatra and the New York Temple. It was released in 1972.

It was impossible to separate the individual songs into tracks as often one song would fade into the next. I wanted to preserve that feeling so each side is one track. It’s much better this way, I assure you. However, this does mean that I won’t have previews for you. My apologies.

Side One

1) Samkirtan 1:40 – A great tune. I don’t know who is leading, but the tune is great. I’m pretty sure I’ve not heard it before. Luckily, it’s repeated quite a lot. Simple kirtan with harmonium, kartals and mrdanga.

2) Temple Kirtan 11:13 – This slow but kind of rowdy kirtana seemed like a bunch of fun. We don’t really have kirtans like this anymore. Sort of a subdued rowdiness. It picks up the pace in the end. It’s blissful, trust me.

3) Samkirtan :50 – And it’s back for 50 seconds of fun!

4) Arati 5:13 – A really sweet recording of Gaura-arati with Hansadutta on vocals (I’m pretty sure about this). Though it does slightly speed up towards the end, our dear vocals restrains himself and stays pretty much on script.

5) Samkirtan 1:41 – What a way to end side one!

Side Two

1) Samkirtan 1:40 – And why not start side two the same way? Same great melody!

2) Jaya Radha Govinda 5: 58 – This, I assume, was recorded in New York at the Radha Govinda Temple. Though I seem to think I hear Malati Prabhu’s vocals in the response (she’s fairly noticeable). Whichever, this is slow and sweet.

3) Samkirtan :54 – Hey! How about 54 more seconds of it?! Jaya!

4) Jaya Jagadisha Hare 8:53 – I think this was also lead by Hansadutta. This is the slowest rendition of Jaya Jagadisha that I’ve ever heard. It’s kind of droney, but nice. It picks up a bit towards the end. Hansadutta does a bit of improvising, but not much at all (especially compared to the European recordings).

5) Samkirtan 5:30 – Same tune. Heck, maybe it’s all of them put together into one long cut. It’s hard to tell, while this one is a wonderful melody, it doesn’t change much. Only the mrdanga gets a bit boisterous. Still, this is one great kirtan!

As requested, I have better quality scans for this one. My scanner isn’t quite big enough to do album covers, and for that I apologize. The bottom 1/2″ of the cover is cut off. I’ll try to even it out for next time.

Anyway, this is a rare one. There’s one up on Ebay for $100. But why spend it when you can just download it here?

Click here to download the entire album in one big zip file! (85 MB)

[ps - the higher quality scans are *not* in the zip file - you'll have to grab them right from here - sorry]