AT THE MIGHTY HAMMOND X-77 ORGAN

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DENNIS DALE McLAIN is a sensitive, talented musician who throws baseballs. He is not, in his own words, a “ballplayer who plays the organ.”

He leads his own Denny McLain Quintet in the off-season when the Detroit Tigers are caged for the fall and winter hiatus, and in 1968 the swingin’ little McLain combo not only performed on the Ed Sullivan CBS-TV show but in Las Vegas and half-dozen cities in the Middlewest as well.

This is Denny’s first record.

He completed the twelfth tune (“By The Time I Get To Phoenix“) just minutes before he raced to Tiger Stadium in a driving rain. There he crushed the Cleveland Indians 13-1 for his 23rd victory of the year, propelling him three days ahead of the “unbreakable” Lefty Grove 31-4 record which no other American League hurler has come near in nearly 40 years.

Denny picked the songs himself. He chose his own musicians. Ralph Terrana’s unconventional Tera Shirma Studios on Detroit’s Livernois Avenue provided the settings.

The 24 year-old McLain, who weighs 200 pounds, recalls that music was always “terribly important” to him, even as a child.

“My father played records much of the time around our house, “Denny recalls. “Mostly I remember Frank Sinatra things. And even when I was playing baseball on sandlots, before I got into Connie Mack and American Legion baseball, I was crazy about music.”

McLain was born and reared in the Chicago area. At Mt. Carmel High School he racked up a 38-7 mark as a hurler. In his professional game at Harlan, Ky., in 1962 (he was just 18) he fashioned a no-hitter, but the Chicago White Sox, who owned his contract, somehow failed to protect him from the first-year draft. Detroit picked him up for the $8,000 waivers fee.

He was 16-6 for the Tigers in 1965 after pitching for the Bengals’ farm clubs in Duluth, Knoxville and Syracuse. In ’66 McLain went 20-14, and in ’67, plagued by a leg injury, he still went 17-16 for the Tigers who missed the pennant in the last game of the year, winding up tied with the Minnesota Twins for second place, only a single game behind the triumphant Boston Red Sox.

Denny is a strong-willed, impulsive man who speaks his mind bluntly. He has the erupting, violent temper of the Irish and it frequently flairs. He considers “For Me” (the Latin ballad popularized by Steve Lawrence) to be the “maddest, swingin’est track” in this debut album and for sheer ballad beauty–and soul–Denny picks “Lonely Is The Name.” “But the other 10 tunes are pretty darned good, too,” he adds.

McLain’s musicians on all selections in this album comprise Bob Schneider, tenor sax; Ernie Skuta, trumpet and flugelhorn; Eddie Kayne, string bass; and Eddie Demetrak, drums. They are the same musicians with whom Denny works on his personal appearances in the off-season.

Denny lives with his young daughter and son in the Detroit suburb of Farmington. Mrs. McLain is the former Sharon Alice Boudreau, brunet daughter of the great old shortstop and field manager Lou Boudreau who later became a popular baseball announcer for the Chicago Cubs.

“I am proud of this first album,” Denny says. And then, stomping the gas pedal of his bright red Pontiac as he swings onto the freeway from the Livernois off-ramp, he makes another comment:

“When it’s all said and done some day in the future,” he muses, “I hope they will remember Denny McLain as an outstanding professional musician.”

NOTES BY DAVE DEXTER (Capitol Records)

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NOTE: LP notes taken from the Capitol Records album, ‘Denny McLain At The Organ’ ST 2881 (back cover). Released in 1968

CAPITOL RECORDS

BILLBOARD | SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

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The above Billboard (9/28/68) ad was digitally re-imaged and restored by Motor City Radio Flashbacks