FOR THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 1, 2018

DEAR JERRY: I found some 78s at a flea market, and the price was only 10-cents each. Some were trashed, but a few looked good enough to play.

One in particular got my attention, by Red Ingle and the Natural Seven With the Might and Main Street Choral Society. The song is shown exactly as "Cigareetes, Whuskey, and Wild, Wild Women" (Capitol 15045).

The label describes this as "Outdoor Chamber Music," but I would call it a hillbilly novelty. Regardless, it begins with Ingle saying something like "A preachment dear friends you are about to receive, on John Barleycorn, nicotine, and the temptations of Eve."

Did this record make any of the national charts?

I know it makes no sense, but decades ago I heard something very similar on a pop hit. If you can confirm that, then this pesky earworm might go away.
—Julius Mansfield, Jackson, Tenn.

DEAR JULIUS: The earworm culprit is "Let It All Hang Out" (Verve Forecast KF-5058), a Top 10 hit in November of 1967.

But more than just having "something like" the preachment you quote, they used the exact same sermon heard on Red Ingle's Capitol 78 rpm, from 1948.

Interestingly, first pressings have the title as "Let It All Hang Out," but later singles, and their album cover (Verve Forecast FT/FTS 3036), show it as "Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out)." The disc label itself uses only "Let It Out."

Neither the singles nor the LP make any mention of their borrowing a portion of "Cigareetes, Whuskey, and Wild, Wild Women," that, by the way, was written by Tim Spencer of the Sons of the Pioneers.

Red Ingle's best seller was "Temptation (Tim-Tayshun)" (Capitol 412), a No. 1 hit in 1947, and it too is a novelty.

His next chart appearance was with "Cigareetes, Whuskey, and Wild, Wild Women," which reached the Top 15.