George S. Irving "Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark by Alvin Schwartz" (Caedmon, TC1794, 1986)

I could probably do with a cleaner copy of this record, but since it contains some great stories I decided to post it in time for Halloween rather than seek out an upgrade (and if one comes along I'll just swap out the zip file).

UPDATE: The ass-kickingly generous Dr. Terror was gracious enough to upload a totally great sounding rip in the comments section here, so I've separated out the tracks, re-tagged it & uploaded it w/ album art over the original zip. If you downloaded the earlier version (sourced from my static-laden LP) I think you'll find this new version to be a drastic improvement. Thanks again Dr. Terror!

UPDATE II: Some folks were having trouble extracting a few of the files, so hopefully the third time's the charm here

Sourced from folklore scholar Alvin Schwartz's 1981 collection of the same name, "Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark" features a familiar batch of concepts at work (opener "The Big Toe" is even mentioned in the liner notes as "having almost as many variants as storytellers"), but Irving is clearly having fun with the material and the addition of background music makes the LP almost seem more like an early '70's Troll record (click here and here for examples) than many of Caedmon's other offerings. Still it IS clearly Caedmon -- the literary angle is high, and the mix of jokey quick sketches and creepier bits work well together in conjuring up the intended sleep over/ campfire/ dark room vibe, making the album well suited for kids who like a few hackles.

"So put on the recording, sit back with a friend (or alone, if you dare), and let your flesh crawl. AND TURN OUT THOSE LIGHTS!"


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