The Mystery of the Firestone Record

Some years ago I had a record shop and there were moments that made all the struggles and heartaches of having a small business worth it; this story is one such example.

My store dealt mostly in dance and hip-hop vinyl with a little of all the other genres thrown in and somehow I ended up with a small box of 78s. (Now if you don’t know what 78’s were, they were the recording format before vinyl; and as their name indicates, the shellac disks revolved 78 times in a minute.) Not having a Victrola, I just laid the heavy box next to a couple of crates of discount vinyl, pretty much ready to give them away.

Now for the first few years of the store’s existence, customers could preview potential purchases on an ancient turntable I had there. It might be considered retro-cool nowadays but probably wasn’t the best thing for listening to modern electronic music. So a local DJ who felt sorry for me bought a brand new one for the shop. I was stunned, honored and humbled, to say the least. And not only did all our records start sounding better but I noticed the machine had a 78-speed setting.

Well, one night I got bored and decided to listen to some of these forgotten jams of early 20th century. Most of the records were the standard fox trot yawn fests but there was one 78 that was thinner than the rest and was by far the most exciting, sonically speaking. It was a swinging song featuring a nice lap steel solo for what sounded like a promotional record for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company. From the lyrics I guessed the song was either encouraging employees to sell more tires or customers to enter a contest, either of which resulted in a prize trip to Honolulu. No names were listed as to who the musicians were and I began to emphasize with the nameless minstrels. It was a great performance and they didn’t even get a credit!

I did the obvious internet searches and there were no listings of any other such records for sale on Ebay or the serious music collecting sites. That’s when the delusional sense of having something no one else had set in. Was my copy the only copy in existence? Was one of the musicians an early unknown Bob Wills or Robert Johnson? Was some wealthy collector out there just sitting out there waiting for me to list it so as to complete his collection?

So I tried to dig a little deeper. I first ran it by some of the old timey music DJs on the local university radio station. One DJ really dug it but had no idea what or who it could be. He even played it on the air and asked his listeners if they remembered it or had any inkling as to why it existed. Nothing.

Harvey Firestone at one of his tire plants

I next tried to contact Firestone, whom was sold to Bridgestone in 1988. Sent some emails but got little to no response. I even walked in the front door of the Bridgestone headquarters conveniently located in my home of Nashville, Tennessee. The lobby secretary found the oldest guy in the building for me and other than a series of Christmas records put out in the 60’s, he had no recollection of any of other recording Firestone ventures.

There were a few other attempted inquiries but nothing ever shook out. Eventually though I did figure out the melody was based on “Kaua I Ka Huahua” which is said to originate from the pen of a Hawaiian prince in the late 1800s. In the 1930s a version- retitled “Hawaiian War Chant” and with English lyrics having nothing to do with the original subject matter- appeared and eventually was recorded by such giants as Tommy Dorsey, Spike Jones, Bill Haley, Les Paul, The Muppets and Weird Al.

Resigned that the specific recording I had’s history was to remain a mystery, I settled on remixing the track for my own entertainment and then forgot about it (although my passion for finding strangely titled 78s continues to this day).

That is until recently when I had yet another irritating experience at a Bridgestone Firestone service center. I remember thinking these employees trying to trick me into an unnecessary up sale (I knew more about car repair than I let on) was an insult to the company’s founder, innovator and businessman Harvey Firestone. My first instinct was to make a short video for the song featuring quotes of all the people that have had had bad experiences at the present day shops alongside newspaper headlines highlighting the companies modern woes. Then I thought it better to just highlight the positive to shame the shameless, so to speak. Sure I realize the chances of the shady shifty mechanics seeing my little video are pretty slim but if they ever do, it’ll surely make ’em weep like children who’ve gotten their arms stuck in candy bar vending machines, vowing to repent of their low down ways (there go my delusional senses again).

And thus here’s the remixed version of the song married along with a barrage of sweet vintage photographs and swinging advertising art. Hope you have a happy happy time listening to it. AND if you should happen to know something about the record, for sure let us know! spuncounterguy[at]hotmail.com