I’m a sucker for vintage space and/or rocket-themed cover art, and you can imagine (it’s okay, I give you permission) my excitement when the spaced-out, black hole of vintage music behind the interstellar cover art is actually magnetic and borderline whimsically enchanting.
I’m on the hunt for another copy of Destination Moon, as the bottom left corner has a bit of Moon juice spilled on it (as you can plainly see). This album was released in 1958, so I’m going with the (by no means made up) story that the Ames Brothers ACTUALLY traveled to the moon to record AND press this album, but in their hurried attempts to jettison back to Earth to disperse their space-rock discovery amongst the lemming-like Earth creatures, they accidentally spilled a large amount of Moon juice on a few boxes containing Destination Moon, packed and ready for worldwide distribution. Yeah, that’s it…
Late 50s Jazz Pop with a theme that’s… I’m sorry; I have to… out of this world. I don’t own anything else by the Ames Brothers, but my intergalactic curiosity for more, good-time, secretly wholesome, space-themed 50s music will undoubtedly point me to the direction of the orbiting cluster of space debris called, the Ames Brothers.
The Prudent Groove 
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My friend Bud Webster died just this year: too soon. Back in the 90s, he used to present a slide-tape talk of LP covers from past to recent past on science-fictional themes, and called it “The Sci-Fi Hi-Fi Show.” This album, and the title track, were a vital part of the presentation. The show was great—Bud was a collector who worked in a record shop and had access to a lot of those plastic disks, and we’d see the same props (space suits, fake aliens, space ship looking small and far away in the background) and the same backdrops in multiple incarnations. I’m pretty sure the lunar landscape in this one saw more than one musical astronaut.
Bud saved this for the end, and played the full track. The audience was happy to sing along when they got to the refrain at the end of each verse. Alas, the last time he gave the show, my cassette recorder died before the end, so I missed it.
I came here to download the album art. I just ClipGrabbed the audio of the track from YouTube so I can put it on my music player and think of my pal. Yours was the best-looking of the lot, even with the green area which Mr. Ames seems to be inspecting minutely. Thanks!
What a great story! Bummer your cassette recorder died. Since this post I’ve acquired another, cleaner copy that I can send a picture of. I usually decrease the size of the original photos by half to save on space, but I can send a pic at full quality. Shoot me an email at theprudentgroove@gmail.com and I’ll send it to you in the morning. Thanks for stopping by!