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"Velvet Gloves and Spit" Comments

I bought this LP on Halloween 1968, right after it first came out.  It's
the original cover, with Neil's face spread over both the front and back
covers and the mannequin photo inside.  It does not contain the song
"Shilo".  This was added later, when the cover was changed.  I also have
the CD with the later lineup.

The songs on the LP and CD are also in a different sequence.  The LP
starts with "Sunday Sun", while the CD starts with "Two-Bit Manchild".
Then, the rest of side 1 are the same songs as appear on tracks 2-5 on
the CD.  "Shilo" (misspelled as "Shiloh" on my copy) is track 6 on the
CD.  Track 7 on the CD is then "Sunday Sun", while "Two-Bit Manchild"
leads off side 2 of the LP.  The rest of the album is the same on both
LP and CD.

As I said in the first paragraph, Neil's face is spread over the front
and back covers.  The top half is on the front.  The back is actually
below the front, not to the side of it.  Below the bottom half of his
face on the back cover is the quote:

'And half of her was velvet gloves, the other half bein' spit.'

(Single quote marks in the original.)

I have never been able to find out where this comes from.  Literature is
not one of my strong points.

Below this quote is the list of songs.  "The Pot Smoker's Song" is
marked "Not recommended for air play before screening."  The inside of
the album credits the kids of Phoenix House in New York for much of "The
Pot Smoker's Song".

Neil discussed this album on "The Joey Bishop Show" twice.  On Oct. 4,
1968, before the album came out, he mentioned it to Bishop, particularly
"The Pot Smoker's Song".  On New Years Eve, 1968, he was asked about the
album by substitute host Jack Carter, a fellow Brooklynite from the
Brighton Beach area, particularly the mannequin picture.  Neil said that
the picture was taken outside at a mannequin factory in Los Angeles.
But he didn't say why the picture was taken.  I think it was just
intended to be his way of doing something a bit out of the mainstream,
as was being done a lot in the late 1960s.  Pretty tame today, though.

As for the music itself, I loved 7 of the 10 songs back then.  I did not
like "The Pot Smoker's Song", "Knackelflerg", and "Honey Drippin'
Times".  If I wasn't too lazy, I would get up and move the phonography
needle past these songs, just like I usually skipped "Red Red Wine" on
my "Just for You" album.  Today, though, I can appreciate "Knackelflerg"
and "Honey Drippin' Times" (and "Red Red Wine", too).  It's much easier
to skip a song on a CD, and I still skip "The Pot Smoker's Song".  I
still love the other seven songs, too.

I would much rather listen to this album than almost any non-compilation
album of his that came out after "Beautiful Noise".  The only
post-"Beautiful Noise" albums I would choose over this one are "The Jazz
Singer", "Tennessee Moon", and maybe "Lovescape".  But I would choose
some of his other Uni/MCA albums over "Velvet Gloves and Spit".

The version of "Holiday Inn Blues" that appears on this album is a
slowed-down version from the one that appears on the B-side of his first
Uni single, "Brooklyn Roads".  I like the single version better.  Both
of Uni's top superstars of the 1970s, Neil and Elton John, did a
somewhat-of-a-putdown song about Holiday Inns.

Someone else said if Neil sang "Mary Had a Little Lamb", she would love
it.  Well, I don't know if I would go that far, but I think Paul
McCartney did a version of that song.