MIKE MILLS
R.E.M.’s bassist salutes The Limeliters’ 1961 album Tonight: In Person.
“Iwas probably 11, digging though my parents’ record collection. Tonight: In Person was a record that a lot of fairly cool parents would have had at that time: they also had Whipped Cream And Other Delights by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass and Tom Lehrer. The sleeve image was simply The Limeliters around the microphone singing and playing, and it looked like so much fun to me. When I played it, something about it just captured my imagination and I probably needle-dropped it a few times in a row every night that I listened to it. They were all extremely accomplished musicians, American, but they kind of took you around the world with this record: there were songs from everywhere, Molly Malone from Ireland, The Monks Of St Bernard, sung in French, and Rumania, Rumania, which they do sing in Romanian. Lou Gottlieb [bass] had a PhD in musicology, so he was a deep diver in this music. The singer, Glenn Yarbrough, was an Irish tenor, so he had this beautiful high voice and the other two were a good bit deeper, so there were these incredible harmonies when they sang together, and I think that’s what really grabbed my attention. On the radio, I was listening to the British invasion, Motown, a lot of bubblegum. This record provided a window into another world. It was intimate; because it was a live record, there was interaction with the audience. They played in nightclubs like the hungry i in San Francisco, and you can imagine them on-stage playing to people drinking and smoking. They were a fairly risqué band, with lots of allusions to adult behaviour, sex and drinking, and I enjoyed the funny parts, even ones I didn’t really understand. It sounded like a party, and it made performing sound interesting. They kind of started it for me. I hadn’t listened in some time until about two years ago. With a musician’s ear, it actually sounded better, but the comedic aspect was not quite as exciting. It’s still lingering around though, and I find myself singing those songs all the time. I don’t doubt that some of those harmonies influenced what I’ve sung in R.E.M. It was such a discovery, it opened my eyes to things I didn’t know existed. It’s the sort of thing you never forget.”
The 25th Anniversary Edition of R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People is out now on UMC.