ARCHIE'S ALBUM COVER GALLERY: The BUENA VISTA ERA, Part THREE
ARCHIE'S ALBUM
COVER GALLERY
THE BUENA VISTA ERA
GOOD MORNING, ANGEL
BELLA LINDA
ECHO VALLEY TREASURES
LAS VEGAS TURNAROUND
SUGAR, SUGAR: THE KIRSHNER YEARS
FIFTY SHADES OF SOUL
I CAN LOVE YOU
DON'T CALL IT LOVE: THE ARCHIE RECORDS STORY
HITS OF THE SIXTIES: THE ARCHIES LIVE IN ROME
ARCHIE'S DISCO PARTY
In the year 2124, The Walt Disney Company acquires ownership of the legendary Archie Records catalog! This results in a string of much-celebrated Archies and Archie-related compilations between 2125 and 2141. During the Twenties, their biggest sellers will all be collections of century-old demo recordings: Stone Archie, a tribute to The Rolling Stones; So Much Love!, a celebration of songs by Carole King that will have previously been available in bootleg form only; and Pop-Art-Chie, an Archies album that for the first time features songs written by members of the band. Famous for their covers of Rock 'n' Roll standards, the group never released a self-composed LP in its four-decade existence. Disney kicks off the 2030s with an even more surprising addition to the Archies catalog.
When Country music legend Charley Pride died in late 2020, Nashville immediately began planning tributes to him. The first one to appear was a various artists album put together by superstar sisters Stella and Dolly Parton. Good Morning, Angel, released on the Monument label in March of 2021, featured fine renditions of Charley Pride classics by Dolly, Stella and several up-and-coming Country acts. The newbies all went on to become big stars, except for one: A mysterious group called Festus King Darryl and The Drysdales. Nobody had ever heard of them, although their singing voices sounded vaguely familiar! While heaping praises on all of the acts, The Parton Sisters refused to say much about The Drysdales. Speculation gave rise to rumors, the most persistent being that The Archies were somehow involved! Until the end of his life, Archie Andrews will vacillate between debunking the rumors and leaving open the possibility of them being true.
They chose to do the latter, calling in favors from old friends Chuck Clayton (an honorary member of The Archies who now worked for Dolly) and Fawn Mason (also known as Big Ethel). Up to that point, they were the only singers to ever use The Archies as backing musicians. The clandestine recordings were done remotely, with some group members tracking in Nashville and others in Hollywood and London.
Masquerading as Festus King Darryl, Chuck led the band on a rousing version of "Mountain Of Love", while Mason did the honors on a Gospel-flavored number called "Let Me Live" in the guise of Lula Belle Drysdale! Dolly and Stella Parton gave Chuck supervision over the entire tribute album, so the ruse wasn't hard to pull off. During this time, he was music director for the Dollywood theme park.
GOOD MORNING ANGEL:
A SALUTE TO CHARLEY PRIDE
various artists
Album Produced by CHUCK CLAYTON
Executive Producers:
DOLLY + STELLA PARTON
2130
Two years later, Festus and company made a return appearance on Dolly's homage to a living artist. Permanently sidelined by Parkinson's disease, singer Linda Ronstadt asked her frequent singing partner for a favor: "Would you sing my songs, now that I can't perform them anymore?" Taken aback, Dolly exclaimed: "Hell, no! Girl, I wouldn't do that while you're still alive." "I want to hear you sing them while I'm alive," Linda insisted. "And you're the only one who can do it right." Dolly was reticent, but she finally relented when Linda suggested she interpret her hits in Spanish. The Country Queen could not resist this challenge! Still, some might accuse her of stealing another diva's catalog; how could she make it clear that this album was an homage? Dolly decided that in addition to Spanish lyrics she wanted a "duets" type of format.
Early on, she recruited "The Drysdales" to provide instrumental support on the project; allegedly, the band had recorded in Spanish before (as had The Archies)! Festus King Darryl (aka Chuck Clayton) recommended that she hire a Mariachi band, too, which led to Mariachi Lowrider signing on with their producer Dilton Doiley Briseño in tow. In turn, Dilton recruited his star Tejano act, Olguita + Reginald! This lent the project a pair of great vocal arrangers as well as an exceptional Spanish lyricist in Olga San Quentín. A thrilled Olguita collaborated with Linda Ronstadt in translating her classic hits.
Titled Bella Linda, the LP was mostly tracked at Clampett Studios in Nashville. Sounding very much like Archie, Betty, Veronica and Jughead, individual Drysdales sang uncredited but prominent harmony vocals on several tracks; the Spanish versions of "When Will I Be Loved", "You're No Good", "Just One Look" and "Tumbling Dice" were practically duets! Credited once again as Lula Belle Drysdale, Fawn "Big Ethel" Mason harmonized with Dolly on "Abrazos Fuertes/Blue Bayou." Also on mike were Emmylou Harris, Nashville newcomer Bryan Ruby and for the final track only, La Ronstadt herself! With Dolly's encouragement, The Queen of Country Rock contributed a few snatches of harmony to "Desperado". While it was overshadowed by the far greater success of Dolly's first Rock 'n' Roll album ROCKSTAR, which was released first, Bella Linda scored its own critical and commercial triumph.
Many years later, when the true identities of Festus King Darryl + The Drysdales are finally revealed, the full extent of The Archies' work with Dolly Parton will become known. Not only had they contributed to the Good Morning, Angel and Bella Linda tributes, they were also involved in the 2023 recording of ROCKSTAR! They were Dolly's backing band when she and producer Kent Wells cut demos for all the song selections. People who hear them swear that they outshine the released versions, which just may explain why Dolly's estate will keep them under lock and key for so long! Buena Vista Media will license both tribute albums for reissue in 2131.
BUENA VISTA MEDIA
BELLA LINDA
CANCIONES DE MI HERMANA
Dolly Parton
2130
The year 2131 will yield a bumper crop of Archies and Archies-related catalog releases. In the Spring, The Walt Disney Company's second collaboration with Discos Fuentes is marketed: A ten-record vinyl box set called ARCHIE IN THE THIRTIES. A follow-up to Fuentes's successful Complete Fuentes albums box of 2125, it documents tracking sessions that The Archies logged as Fuentes recording artists between 2031 and 2033. While it's a project that Cecily Mourgos is excited to be associated with, she's unable to play a leading role in the production of a Fuentes product. She's much more enthusiastic about a forthcoming Buena Vista Media release that she'll have conceived and whose pathway to the marketplace she'll chart and fully supervise.
The "Echo Valley" podcast is known as the online hub of Bubblegum Rock music! Beginning as a radio show in the year 1991, it's still going strong today. The original host, a mystery man calling himself Professor Bubblegum, often featured The Archies as musical guests; in fact, they appeared on both the first and last shows that he hosted. They also hosted his one-off "Christmas Ball" podcast, the soundtrack of which will garner robust sales for Discos Fuentes well into the 2130s. "Prof" found extended Archies versions of classic Sixties Pop songs nothing less than superb! Mostly bypassing whatever their current repertoire was, The Archies could be counted on to perform a beloved Bubblegum oldie for him every time they appeared.
For decades, those podcasts will be presumed lost. The Fuentes label will unearth the holiday special in 2129, but none of the others. By an incredible stroke of luck, the remaining "Echo Valley" shows turn up the following year, stored in the basement of New York's legendary Brill Building! The Walt Disney Company will immediately lay claim to most of the podcasts and in 2131, Buena Vista Media will market a deluxe long-playing vinyl box set containing 36 Archies performances. That box set, Echo Valley Treasures, will score another big catalog hit and come to be seen as a textbook of vintage Bubblegum music. For that reason, it will stay in print longer than any other BVM Archies release!
BUENA VISTA MEDIA
ECHO VALLEY TREASURES:
SUGAR POP GOLD
VOLUMES ONE, TWO + THREE
The Archies
Produced by
NANNY + THE PROFESSOR
2131
In early 2014, just before Archie Records was sold to Jason Blossom, Archie convinced his bandmates that their next album should be a tribute to the music of Daryl Hall + John Oates. Unfortunately, he failed to convince the duo's manager at the time, who threatened a lawsuit when he got word of Archie's plan! The project only got as far as a hastily-recorded album demo, meant to solicit Hall + Oates' involvement in the recording sessions. Many years later, Archie will give the demo to Hepzibah Baumgartner, his archive manager. She's also the mother of Archie's son, Elijah (Veronica Lodge having passed away in 2054), and Andrews will have learned of the demo's existence from her. After her death, he'll search for and find it among her effects.
It's a cracked vinyl acetate enclosed in an envelope labeled "ongoing project: 2073". That's the year Archie dies! Andrews will confirm that his mother was too distraught to even begin a Vox project. In the year 2132, Buena Vista Media will use technology of the future to repair the acetate and convert its contents to micro-digital sound.
Cecily Mourgos prepares Las Vegas Turnaround for release with Elijah Baumgartner Andrews's help, but this album is really her baby all the way. Like her grandfather, frequent Archies sound engineer Tom Mourgos, she'll be a huge Hall + Oates fan! And while this album won't set the charts on fire like Stone Archie, So Much Love or Pop-Art-Chie, many 22nd century Archies fans will judge it the best of Disney's archive excavations. Andrews and Mourgos will call Las Vegas Turnaround the "crown jewel" of their collaborations! The title track will see major Disco/Dance chart action after it's remixed by Jump Chillins, Buena Vista Media's chief sound engineer.
ARCHIES FAN CLUB/BUENA VISTA MEDIA
THE SONGS OF DARYL HALL + JOHN OATES
LAS VEGAS TURNAROUND
The Archies
2132
In 2133, Disney finally gets around to putting The Archies' early hits back into print. Sugar, Sugar: The Kirshner Years is arguably the best single-disc Archies compilation since their original Greatest Hits album in 1990. From it, remixer Jump Chillins extracts the fifth of ten number one Disco records that The Archies will score posthumously: The appropriately titled "You Make Me Wanna Dance"! An international smash, it rocks parties all summer long; never mind that the track is over 150 years old!
KIRSHNER/BUENA VISTA MEDIA
ORIGINAL KIRSHNER RECORDS MASTERS
SUGAR, SUGAR:
THE KIRSHNER YEARS
The Archies
Music Supervision:
DON KIRSHNER
2133
By the early 2130s, Elijah Baumgartner Andrews will be determined to assume more control over the Archie catalog. The fact that Disney owns the masters is but a minor obstacle, as far as he's concerned! Flanked by a battery of powerful attorneys, Elijah will negotiate an indie label, headed by him and distributed by Disney. The agreement is that Tiger's Milk Records (a revived imprint owned by the Archie Andrews estate) will market Archies reissues like Destination Love and Hits Of The Fifties that are too obscure and/or esoteric for Disney to consider. The first Tiger's Milk release will teach Disney executives a stiff lesson about undervaluing their holdings!
The album Fifty Shades Of Soul was legendary among longtime Archies fans. Begun in 2007 but never completed, it was to be an unprecedented Sixties songwriter showcase, designed to establish the group as master interpreters of the Great American Rock 'n' Roll Songbook. The proposed two-record set was conceived by Archie, who tried repeatedly to record it in some form. Ultimately, he gave up; but his son Elijah will belatedly realize his dream project.
Of ten song medleys intended for the album, only two were tracked: Tributes to balladeer Jim Doris and Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees. To these, Elijah will add a Flamenco Rock medley in Spanish which will have scored a dance club hit in 2111 and seven previously unissued demos. Then he'll comb the Disney tape archive for choice rarities that had been unearthed by Discos Fuentes or Vox Sound + Image, the reissue label responsible for global Archiemania back in the 2070s; and finally, he'll hire some of the world's finest Latin musicians to overdub everything! His subsequent remixes will make most if not all of the album selections sound new, even though 90% of the contents are previously released.
Among the most coveted Archies recordings are the aforementioned demos: They were recorded for an aborted reboot of the Partridge Family TV series set in 1959, with music provided by the band. The finished masters are owned by EMI Music, and that company will never agree to license them; Elijah gets around that obstacle by programming the demos instead. The only problem is, they were sung by associates of The Archies instead of by The Archies themselves! In response to criticism, Elijah will respond: "Bree Spellman and Rod Mack are the singers, and they both worked closely with The Archies. Bree toured with the band in 2011, and Rod performed on stage with them several times. Besides that, the group was known to occasionally feature guest vocalists." He'll never hesitate to showcase Archies sidemen, and over the next decade, his Tiger's Milk label will release their demos on a regular basis.
A firm believer in the old adage "you have to spend money to make money", Elijah will spend several million dollars on this project; but the expense will be well worth it. Not only does his re-imagined Fifty Shades of Soul album become a Number One Catalog album, it also goes Top Ten Pop, scores The Archies' second Best Catalog Album Grammy Award and spins off five hit songs to boot - one of them a Rod Mack vocal culled from those controversial demos! The Disney company is completely caught off-guard by the album's runaway success, all except for Cecily Mourgos. It comes as no surprise to her; she's heard most of the Archie catalog and knows what a goldmine it is! Cecily immediately gets to work on a new release that will make the most of other supposedly esoteric recordings; but even with Elijah Baumgartner Andrews helping her, this ambitious project will take several years to finish.
TIGER'S MILK RECORDS
ORIGINAL ARCHIE RECORDS MASTERS
FIFTY SHADES OF SOUL
The Archies
Executive Producer:
ELIJAH BAUMGARTNER ANDREWS
for Archies, Incorporated
2135
Tiger's Milk Records will follow up Fifty Shades Of Soul with another two-record set long coveted by fans. I Can Love You: The Archies Produced by Ralfi Chingas contains Archies rarities tracked during the first five years of the Archie label. This time, the overhead expense is negligible; Republic USA Music will have prepared I Can Love You for release in 2055 before deciding to cancel it, so a complete album master already exists. Elijah Baumgartner Andrews need only update the mix, but unfortunately lower production costs won't result in greater profit!
ORIGINAL ARCHIE RECORDS MASTERS
I CAN LOVE YOU:
Executive Producer:
ELIJAH BAUMGARTNER ANDREWS
for Archies, Incorporated
2137
This compilation won't be anywhere near as successful as its chartbusting predecessor. Stalling outside the Catalog Album Top Forty, I Can Love You yields just one hit: A long-lost recording of "Billy Sunshine" (a Chip Taylor song cut by Betty in 2005 but never released). The estate of Archie Andrews contains many such treasures, and future Tiger's Milk releases will lean heavily on them. Much to Elijah's chagrin, The Walt Disney Company will keep its library of Archie masters under much tighter reign going forward!
The Tiger's Milk Catalog will have seven album releases:
FIFTY SHADES OF SOUL, 2135
I CAN LOVE YOU, 2137
HITS OF THE SIXTIES DEMOS, 2139
ÉXITOS DEMOS, 2142
THE GRASS WILL SING DEMOS, 2143,
ARCHIE @ THE APOLLO, 2145
JUMP BACK DEMOS 2147
Most of these LPs are collections of demos culled from the Archie Archives. The very first Tiger's Milk release will have been Soul Motion, a compilation of Atlantic Records tracks marketed 'way back in 2048!
In late 2137, Cecily Mourgos becomes an executive in Disney's film music division. Going forward, Jump Chillins will oversee Buena Vista Media's Archies releases. His tenure begins ambitiously, with the first-time release of Hits Of The Sixties: The Archies Live in Rome. Issued in the revived DVDvinyl format whose prototype will have appeared a century earlier, it documents a 2012 Italian TV special starring The Archies. Fans will have clamored for its release since it first aired, and when it yields two more chart-topping Disco remixes ("Kicks" and "Blame It On The Bossa Nova"), their appetites are whetted for more overlooked rarities.
CHERRY VAGINA/BUENA VISTA MEDIA
ARCHIE'S DISCO PARTY
The Archies
Executive Producer:
ELIJAH BAUMGARTNER ANDREWS
for Archies, Incorporated
2141
They'll be disappointed, because Jump Chillins won't be the eager excavator that his predecessor was. Most subsequent additions to the catalog aren't new productions; instead, they're updates of compilations released by Vox Sound + Image during the previous century. Not that there's a lack of new album concepts; Elijah Baumgartner Andrews comes up with one every few months! However, the man he'll angrily call "Jump the Chump" shoots down most of his ideas. Archie's Disco Party, a 2141 remix album that Andrews later disparages, will be his only real collaboration with Chillins; so Archiemania's "Disney renaissance" effectively comes to an end that same year. It will be left for Elijah's Tiger's Milk label to take the lead on Archie reissues in the 2040s - a development that suits him just fine!
Andrews' final collaboration with Cecily Mourgos is a box set that will have taken four years to compile. It's heralded by an ultra-long-playing vinyl sampler featuring several never-before-released tracks from the Archie Records vault. Standouts include "Let Yourself Go", a forgotten Supremes hit covered by Josie + The Pussy Cats; "Gonna Have A Good Time Tonight", a blistering Vixens take on an old Easybeats hit; and the Burt Bacharach-penned "Hot Spell" sung by Big Ethel, former leader of The Vixens. All three will became circuit deejay favorites!
ARCHIE RECORDS/BUENA VISTA MEDIA
DON'T CALL IT LOVE:
THE ARCHIE RECORDS STORY
2137
The Archies were the best-known act signed to Archie Records, but by no means were they its only stars. During its fifteen-year existence, the label also scored smash hits with Josie + The Pussy Cats, Kevin Keller, Toni Topaz, Olguita + Reginald (that's Reggie "Gino" Mantle and his wife Olga San Quentín performing Tejano duets), Blue-Eyed Soul (Juggy Jones with Kevin Keller) and a solo Juggy singing French Disco songs. Not to mention Big Ethel's cult single "Bitch Better Bring My Pizza", her only Gangsta Rap recording!
Buena Vista Media's vinyl box set Don't Call it Love: The Archie Records Story reissues eight of the label's most collectible albums. Bonus single and EP tracks will be chosen by Elijah Baumgartner Andrews, and Jump Chillins will prepare sparkling quad stereo mixes. The superb sound quality will garner raves from micro-digital audio buffs! Unveiled at a Disneyland press event and marketed during the Christmas season, the box set flies out of warehouses even though it contains just a handful of Archies hits. This collection isn't about The Archies, though: It's about how Archie and Veronica Lodge-Andrews realized their dream of running the best indie label in the world.
ARCHIE RECORDS/BUENA VISTA MEDIA
8 45 RPM Singles
8 33 1/3 Extended Play Singles
8 Long Playing Albums
A BOX SET FEATURING VARIOUS ARTISTS
DON'T CALL IT LOVE:
THE ARCHIE RECORDS STORY
AN ARCHIES, INCORPORATED PRODUCTION
Executive Producer:
CECILY MOURGOS
2138
Today's market fragmentation can't compare to niche marketing of popular music in the 22nd century: There'll be no dominant music genre in that era! (Legitimate) Gold and Platinum record sales will be hard to come by. Yet Don't Call It Love will earn a verifiable Platinum record award in less than three months! The box set tops album charts in the United Kingdom, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Germany, México, Spain, Sweden, South Africa, the United States and half-a-dozen other countries. Its phenomenal popularity attests to the enduring high quality of Archie Records product.
BUENA VISTA MEDIA
ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY SOUNDTRACK
HITS OF THE SIXTIES:
THE ARCHIES LIVE IN ROME
AN ORIGINAL RAI PRODUCTION
Music Directed by
RON DANTE
2140
So Buena Vista Media starts a new decade with yet another huge catalog hit: The aforementioned Hits Of The Sixties: The Archies Live In Rome will break for a Number One smash on Billboard's new DVDvinyl chart! With The Archies doing justice to the classic hits of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, its success won't come as a surprise to anyone involved; but even without such excellent material, Archie-related compilations are now proven good investments. A deluge of books, films, musicals, TV specials and merchandise will appear in the 2140s, making 21st century Archie-f*cking-Mania look tame in comparison! The Walt Disney Company won't ever have reason to regret investing in the Archie archives.
A MARVELOUS LIE PRODUCTION
Text by HAMPTON JACOBS
Art by STUFFED ANIMAL
A homeless artist born 24 June 1960
Styling by LIZ TINSLEY
Fashion by JULIE FAZIO, DONATELLA GRANITO and
TANYA HYDE for HENRIETTA la del BARRIO
