The little old lady who gave away millions of free records: Dora Hall
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- Опубліковано 27 чер 2024
- The weird but true story of Dora Hall's unexpected later-in-life fame as a singer and actress, and how she gave away millions of free vinyl records with packages of disposable plastic cups.
Time flow:
0:00 Introduction
1:31 Unboxing
2:41 Who was Dora Hall?
3:56 "Did He Call Today, Mama?"
6:45 My opinion of her singing
7:25 Conclusion
Discovery of a videotape containing long-lost footage from the taping of one of Dora's TV specials: • 1970 Sony Model AV-365...
One of Dora's later TV specials that was released on VHS, featuring breakdancing(!): • Moments With Dora with...
The flip side of the record, which is Dora's version of "Crazy":
• Dora Hall - Crazy - fr...
#vinyl #outsidermusic #45rpm
That is some fine audio quality from a 59 year old record. The singing ain't bad either.
I was thinking it was because the record had never been played since it left the factory.
In addition to having not been played before it appears it is made out of vinyl and not polystyrene is why it sounds so good, and also played on good equipment too.
@orter3903 They have put remarkable effort into what is essentially a marketing giveaway.
it's catchy innit?
I mean, props to the husband for not only encouraging her to sing again, but also giving her a platform using all of the means at his disposal.
Honestly she sounds decent
she's aight.
@@tiobetio9501i thought it was great for a 60 year old woman
Shes good not great, decent is exactly it
I might take that version and spin it at the next seniors dance. I know they’d love it. You know, had she been born 30 or 40 years later, She would have been a good fit with Ila grant. She would have had a good singing career with today’s boomer and silent generation music fans.
She is shockingly good for a singer of this type, and the arrangement of "Mama" on the record really kicks! Another brilliant piece of kitsch history from vwestlife
That drummer's no slouch either!
If this video gets Copyright Matched, then the singer would have succeeded in getting herself known in the entertainment business.
tune already on YT
Shazam recognized it. 32 shazams already.
She sounds better without autotune than some recents WITH autotune...instrumental is very good.
I am yet to hear a singer, good or bad, whom Autotune does any favours in the context of a studio recording. If you have an inconsistent singer, you can just comp the good bits from many takes. If you have a singer with bad tone, well that's just a lost cause. It's a stylistic choice to employ autotune even if it's not made obvious and held to humanly plausible attack and snap.
Autotune just makes everything and everyone sound worse.
@@SianaGearz I did hear a demonstration of what it did to model Katie Price's voice. There again 90% of people randomly chosen people on the street could probably do better than her untuned original.
The sound quality of this 45 just exemplifies the role dust and handling-damage plays in old records sounding so poor.
My excitement to hear her sing was immeasurable, pretty dang good, thank you for a nice bit of history :)))
At my father's law office, we were still using those cups holders and cups in the late 90's, for his clients.
He used his money and influence to make sure his wife would never be forgotten ❤❤
Why can’t more men be like that?
After her and her husband's death, the family refused to comment on Dora's recording career.
It’s such a shame how novel promotions died off around the early ‘00. You don’t even get cool toys in cereal anymore. The last I remember was redeaming a code found in a Pepsi bottle cap for an iTunes song.
The warp isn't a mistake... it's a feature! 😅
You're lucky you got a playable one, actually. Those 45s that came with Solo products were nearly always warped, since they went through a shrinkwrap heater intended for...well, plastic cups, and not polystyrene. But you could still get all of the Dora Hall you wanted, direct from Calam...uhh...Solo Cup HQ.
At least, until they got bought by Dart. When Dart got around to going over the inventory and equipment in Solo's Urbana factory, they came across this enormous pile of Dora Hall vinyl.
The later material must've been what they heard. By the end of Dora's career, these records started to get fairly weird as her vocal capabilities declined. The Dart guys heard a bit, got REAL perplexed, and all of that got tossed. I'm not even sure there were any "archived" records kept as company history.
Decidedly weird, though. There's mentions of these in RE/search's two-part "Incredibly Strange Music" series, for example. And they all have that "up" feeling production...not bad on just one 45, but can you handle dozens of tracks with feels like you get from Muzak's "Stimulus Progression" series? How about HUNDREDS? It's all fun on one track, but around the time you have to deal with a few dozen, the whole thing starts to get somewhat oppressive. The chirpy production, the quasi-peppy vocals, over and over and over and over and over and...
I heard some years ago from one of our area's weird music aficionados that HE thought the Dora Hall "oeuvre" might've been an MKULTRA project that never got shut down. Yeah...I could see that. 😵😂
I think she sounds great. My grandfather listens to a lot of music from this era while driving, and Dora's voice is right in line with other, more commercially successful singers. Like you said, there was no editing, this is the real deal. Thanks for sharing.
It's rare to find a Dora Hall record in good condition considering the fact that most of them became frisbees. There are collectors of her singles, though.
There were top arrangers and musicians involved in the recordings. The recording in the video was from a session produced by HB Barnum, and had a lot of name brands performing in the studio and behind the scenes. Her husband spent tons of money on them.
The arrangement on her cover version of Nancy Sinatra's "How Are Things In California" is superior to the original, although her vocals are not.
Her singing talent may seem OK nowadays, but at the time of the record's release, her skills were sub-par compared to most singers putting out records.
I would have kept the music arrangements separate , invented an orchestra name and release a LP of "x Plays the Songs of Dora Hall"
What a neat story! Dora sounded good with an arrangement which was perfectly suited to her voice.
This is not sarcasm, I am being dead serious.
I want to hear you talk about decades old plastic cups.
I am a coffee fiend and I can listen to mellow voiced men talk about it all day.
So get on it, chop chop.
"Chop chop" is a term that should be condemned to history, knowing its history.
@@guessundheit6494 Wait, 'chop chop' is problematic? Can you explain further? I wasn't aware!
@@guessundheit6494and searching it up... It's really not that major.
According to Wikipedia it's from the British occupation of China. I'm han Chinese but I don't know any of the most milquetoast stuffed shirts who would even know the history let alone get offended by it. Then again I find Oriental very folksy.
@@guessundheit6494 ...it really doesn't seem that major of an issue.
WOW! She really did have a lovely voice! I'm glad you gave that record the spin it's been waiting for all these years too, look after those solo cups-they're amazing!
Pleasantly surprised here. Her voice is naturally good. There would have been little to none vocal enhancements in those days. Lots of people today can only dream of sounding that good warped, yet go on to have a career anyway, thanks to auto tuning
I don't understand how anyone musically minded, especially if they play an instrument, would have a huge problem with accuracy of pitch. I don't. Beauty of tone is another issue altogether. This is a physiological factor. Barbra Streisand was said to have forgone plastic surgery to reshape her knobby nose because said nose was a huge factor in why her singing sounded good.
She sounded great even in a warped way! I loved the old gimmicks company's had to get you to buy their products back then.
RCA's claim for its 45s was they would (on its record players) play warped
She was also 30 years older than her husband; even today, that kind of age gap is pretty rare!
I think you've confused her husband with her son, who was given the name Robert Leo Hulseman, but I'm guessing tended to go by Leo Hulseman. He was born in 1932 anyways.
@@curlswheatly5393 possibly… she was born in 1899 I believe.
She sings very well to my surprise
Just one word: Plastics. There's a great future in plastics.
The Solo Cup collector community probably all gasped in unison when you opened the shrink wrap to that pristine package!
The stingyness of having a giant hole in the bottom of the brown holders so you can't use them for anything else once the white inserts are used up.
yup
It was likely a safety feature as well. Chances are this plastic wasn't designed for scalding hot coffee or for food contact. By having the hole, it avoided people using it without the inserts.
I was wondering why would they give you disposable paper cups when you could just use the perfectly fine plastic ones...
Consumerism at its worst - a "solution" for a non-existent problem. Just get a ceramic mug.
@@j.f.christ8421 I can see it. The paper lining doesn't need to be washed. If you have the plastic outer cup you can use less paper than you do with a modern disposable.
Dude this was awesome - I picked up some of her stuff at a recent 45 auction, she's pretty plucky and fun! And she's not half bad either. Thanks for this one, man, fun stuff!
I had the full Dora Hall LP as a kid called Children for Dora Hall. It was what you would expect.
Also Issued as two 7in EPs
The real hero of this video is the stylus being able to track through that warp.
What a great story. I was expecting a really poor recording and was very surprised by the quality. I'd have that in my playlist any day!
That record is quite warped and surprising that the record still sounded good and same goes to those cups! I’ll say her husband and herself knew it was a good idea to put a record in the package of cups and I would agree too! If only companies could do it today but I bet they won’t as they probably know most of their consumers are not audiophiles or don’t have a record player
How about a CD?
I do remember a few years ago, when 7-UP bottles contained redemption codes for iTunes inside the cap (I think it was 7-UP, but don't remember off the top of my head). Also, wasn't there a time in the 70's or so that records were being "printed" on backs of breakfast cereal boxes? But beyond that, not going to hold my breath that we will ever see anything like this again in modern times.
Now they put a link with a QR code. Not as sexy though!
@@ryanortega1511 Dying medium, not too many people still have things with optical drives in them.
@@ryanortega1511 I've gotten some CD-ROM games which were from cereal boxes. I think there was also a DVD with the Super Mario Bros TV show and some others.
You may have to add this to Discogs ! Unless I'm not checking correctly, I can't see this coupling of tracks for her on Discogs. 'Mama did her call for me today' was released by her on many single versions, but not with 'Crazy' on the other side, so you may have a rare one ?... Interesting.
There were many variations of her records.
The songs were mixed and matched as A-sides and B-sides on multiple pressings on their Calamo, Solo, and Premore labels.
@@kurtl4761 Hidepusly complex. Wonder how many folk got 6 versons of Crazy all with different sides !
@@highpath4776 Only record collectors decades later have multiple pressings.
Most consumers in the 1960s only fell for the Free Record gimmick once, unless they were addicted to buying Cozy/Solo Cups for the cups themselves.
I remember when I was a teenager in the mid eighties Solo had mail away offers for free "country" or "rock" records/cassettes. I sent away for them and lo and behold, Ms Dora Hall! I got them on cassette so I could tape over them...which I of course did. I also joined her fan club just for kicks.
Not what I expected… I was imagining hearing the soothing sounds of a 60 year old lifetime chain smoker (think “Nina Blackwood”). But lets talk about those cups - was Solo in the business of creating landfill for the sake of creating landfill, or what?
Calamo Records was merely a private label for her work too. Interestingly enough they played mix and match with songs and sides for those records. "Did He Call Today" is also backed with "Franklin Street" on another Dora Hall Calamo pressing. I also find it interesting the producer is H.B. Barnum. A very talented singer in his own right and record producer who has his own body of work. It is no wonder it sounds as good as it does.
The one I ordered has "I won't give him up" on the other side. It is also from Calamo Records. It sounds like a pretty good song also.
All These Years Latter And This Channel Is Still The GOAT
I don't mind buying more Cups just for the EPs. Her voice is good at that age! Now i am addicted.
I was impressed with how well that warped record played. As you started to tear into the plastic, I thought "There is no way they are giving away the hit version of the songs, this is essentially going to be (what Oddity Archive calls) a 'Record Ripoff." My suspicions were correct... Perhaps a cover would be a more accurate term, but you get what I am saying. Ben Minnotte's critique might be interesting, but I suspect he would say that it's "not bad enough."
One old remedy for record warpage was to put the record between two clean sheets of glass in the sun.
Some old covers were quite good.
@@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648 In the UK Elton John played session piano for Avenue Recordings, and later Chart Singer Tina Charles' early career was on similar cover LPs.
"Blinded by the Light" by Manfred Mann's Earth Band is my "go to" for a cover being VASTLY superior to the original. Even wilder is "All about the Pentiums" is a NOVELTY KNOCK-OFF of "All about the Benjamin's. There's NO need to say which is better! Weird Al for the win!@@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648
@@highpath4776 Reg Dwight to be pedantic. 🙂
"So let's open up this this almost 60 year old cellophane and see what my free record is" has never been uttered before .. brilliant ❤🎉❤
I have seen many hundreds, if not thousands of her 45s, on various labels, in the last 50+ years. I always wondered who she was. I wondered how she could sell so many records and not even be mentioned by anybody. Thanks a lot!
As a curator of bygone days you are top notch!
I remember the Cozy Cups from back in the day when I was a kiddo (1970s) but never knew you could get a record with the cups - how cool is that?
Can't wait to watch the Doral Hall TV special - what a great Monday this is becoming!!!!
Thanks for the info! We remember the solo cups, and the free Dora Hall 45’s. We always wondered who the woman was because we never heard her on the radio. The record we got with our cups was “raindrops keep falling on my head” and “everybody’s Talking”. A blast from the past. LOL!
I came to this video because I found one of her records for $1 and wanted to know who she was before buying. She sounds worth every penny!!! What a gal!!
If Dora Hall was alive today, she'd do a killer cover of Red Solo Cup! 😅
that's what i thought!
I remember looking at order forms on the back of Solo cup packages and wondering who in the heck this Dora Hall person was. Now I know!
Amazingly that Dora Hall song is available on Apple Music.
This was an interesting story and product (much as I lament the wastefulness of the disposable cups) - thanks for uploading it. Before you started the playback I was apprehensive, worried that she was going to have been a poor, deluded soul with little self-awareness (the inimitable Margarita Pracatan springs to mind), but I was pleasantly surprised. She's not the strongest singer, she doesn't have the most distinctive voice, but she's entirely competent. I doubt many would have sought out her albums, but if you went to a local live show or she was singing at a cabaret you went to I think you'd be thoroughly satisfied and entertained. And good on her for keeping it going until such a great age.
I sent away for one of their "hit records" in the early '70s; I guess they stopped enclosing them in the package. "I Heard It Thru The Grapevine"...by Dora Hall on the Cozy label. Haven't thought about that until seeing your video! Thanks for the memory trigger!
That Pickering cartridge is awesome.
It is very resilient to warps, which is a great reason to use it. I could never get past the retro appearance of it. The stylus housing sticks out like the bottom lip of a spoilt child. 😅 With the right turntable, it sits well.
Those cups were still pretty common, in the early 90s, mostly at work places. They used them at a gas plant I worked at, as a teenager and at several of the places my friends worked. All the ones, I remember, though, the base cup was more of a gross, yellow, color. They were good for a place with lots of blue collar employees who couldn't be bothered to do dishes, after coffee break.
I was surprised on how the song and the voice was really good
I enjoyed the song. I'm even more impressed by how good that record sounded in spite of being so warped. (Trivia time, because someone had to: after a considerable delay, Shazam identified it. I'm the 42nd person to have ever done so as of this writing. It appears the original recording can be had today in contemporary formats.)
About two months ago, Dart Container closed the long-running Solo plant in Urbana, Illinois. For now, the building sits empty with its fate uncertain. It had been in operation since 1972.
Dora Hall sounded pretty decent; surprisingly so, and let's face it, the top notch band accompaniment and backup singers made all the difference. :)
I like her voice. I also like the whole cup package design and layout. On a further positive note you introduced Dora’s (or reintroduced for some) music to 206 thousand more people
Every single time the camera panned over the juxtaposition of "disposable!" and "plastic!" the tiny violin spoke again with sorrow to my heart.
Thank you for your virtue signaling.
Brilliant. Not a bad singer at all, there wouldn't have been much studio time for take after take and perhaps not much enthusiasm from the producer either so they are great performances all things considered.
Solo plastic plates have been used as recording blanks for cutting phonograph grooves into as lathe-cut records.
There's also home science kit things that use the cups as phonograph cylinders
I was expecting something pretty bad but she was actually very good!
Those Solo Cups were included with coffee service at radio stations. Great nostalgia thanks for sharing.
I really enjoyed the song🎼
What a unique find! Nice video!
As a kid, I remember those Solo coffee cups being the way you drank coffee at the pot luck dinners in the church fellowship hall. I haven't thought about those in decades!😊
VWestlife keeps the soul of UA-cam alive with gems like this!
That singing is far better than I was expecting. Odd to buy disposable cups (at least to me), but if you're going to get them either way a free 45 is an awesome inclusion!
If you can believe it, one of my very first cassettes as a kid was as the soundtrack to “Imagine That.” I remember listening to the song “Mr. Squirt and Mr. Squee. But I had no idea who Dora Hall was. And it was on cassette. I think I’ve only seen it since on LP.
That lady had a belting voice. Nice. That wobbly old record though. Wow lucky your stylus is extra articulated
She sings good. Laughed when I saw my drink of choice at the end. Shame they weren't released outside of this.
Pickering XV15/625E, oh what a trip to adolescence! That cartridge provided a lot of bang for a buck back then ❤
I remember seeing her "Once Upon A Tour" vanity TV special on a local channel when I was about 10 and I remember thinking, hmmm, she must be some really legendary old show biz icon I've never heard of.
Groovy. Far Out. Outta Sight. A real trip. I'm talking about how well your tonearm, cartridge and stylus handled that carnival midway ride. Wunnerful episode. 👍
i LOVE the fact that Dora Hall fanclub form pamphlet is written on a Typewriter and just Photocopied :D LOVE how that looks
I remember these cups in donut shops as a kid.
1:41 The way all the cups just fell over had me bust out laughing!
I LOVED IT! ♥
What a great treat & piece of music and cultural history. Thank you for sharing!
Wow, I've heard of musicians and singers going solo, but this is a new level! Well, maybe an old level considering the timeline, but still 😂
This is a cute story. Her voice is surprisingly good too!
what a lovely tune and very sweet of her husband, just a lovely story all around.
Fantastic video…..how did you find this?
She wasn't a bad singer. Did a bit of reading about her there.
Jackie DeShannon is the original artist for "Did He Call Today, Mama"
She's great! I think she deserves to be discovered by a large audience, and hopefully this will help.
I used to order Solo brand beverage cups for the store I used to work at. Got through hundreds of thousands of the things. Never knew this part of the story.
Though it does sound a though Dora had something a little stronger than coffee in her Solo cup.
Oh, so *this* is what it means when a vocalist starts their own Solo career.
That was much better than I expected.
She had a good husband who encouraged her to be creative again and helped share her music creations. She's a good singer too.
Honestly, there's something sweet about a guy giving his wife the ability to be heard by people even as a "free" record.
It's sad, really, because as others have mentioned she sounded like a fine singer... but if I bought those expecting a "hit record" and got Dora, I would have been furious and (sadly) never given her a chance.
I just rescued a Dora Hall 45 from the local record shop's free bin. Thanks for the history lesson! As soon as I can evict my cat from the top of my Portfolio I'll give it a listen 🙂
Not bad all all 🙂
Yes she can sing....such a timeless voice.
great show thank you
this is why i love vWestlife, every single video is filled with knowledge, humor and really cool showcases.(and yes the first thing I thought about the music was those drums sound impeccable!) and YES, Dr Pepper Cream Soda is soooooo good!
What a weird, but wonderful story😃
Great sound quality and the song is nice.
Wow, this sure brings back memories. My parents had these cups for when our aunts and uncles and cousins would visit us for all sorts of occasions. Theirs were red and blue so maybe mom bought two sets? I wonder if the cups themselves are still available. Thanks for this video, it sure brought back memories of a simpler time.
1:58 A "hit record". Ha... they got you!!
That record sounds surprisingly good though. And they're singing is very good too.
Absolutely fantastic video topic thank you so much this is wonderful
My dad in the mid to late 1970s had these disposable coffee cups in his shop.
Wow! That was like if Petula Clark had been born as an American country music artist.
I was surprised to hear you suggest that she needed auto-tune! I thought she sounded rather good.
Not bad at all. I found myself enjoying that recording.
I remember those Cozy Cups from church luncheons as a little kid. I don’t remember ever hearing one of the Doris Hall records, though.
At least Dora Hall's singing isn't bad and that song 'Did He Call Today Mama?' was written by Randy Newman who wrote, composed and sung the soundtrack to Disney/Pixar's Toy Story years later.
Never knew that a 45 single can fit into the packaging of Solo cups which back in '65 was sold for 85 cents at Kresge's.