Curvy Jayne Mansfield stars on these LP covers from the 1960s that caught our eye because of the clock striking midnight on all of them. You would think these are all from the same company, but no—Smashing Hit Parade, for example, is an album that despite its English name actually came from Japan's Union Records. The platters contain songs such as “Hello Mary Lou” by the Brooklyn Bluegrass Collective, and “Tonight, My Love, Tonight” by Dany Locker. Regardless of the musical content, the real attraction here is Mansfield. We'd love to see what she looks like around 3 a.m. 

Dorothy Baker's hit 1938 novel Young Man with a Horn tells a story inspired by jazz cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, who, along with Louis Armstrong, was one of the most important early jazz soloists, but who drank himself to death in 1931, when he was only twenty-eight. Baker's protagonist is Rick Martin, who gets to live a couple of years longer than Beiderbecke before she knocks him off. Hope that didn't give too much away. The book was optioned by Hollywood and became a 1950 movie starring Kirk Douglas, which we talked about last year. The great cover, our primary interest today, was painted by British artist Josh Kirby, a legendary illustrator who during his long career did fronts for westerns, crime thrillers, James Bond novels, and non-fiction books, as well as creating many fronts and interior illustrations for sci-fi magazines. As you can see, he had a bold vision and a very confident hand. We'll keep an eye out for more of his work. This one is from 1962, for Corgi Books.

French illustrator Raymond Brenot, aka Pierre-Laurent Brenot painted many magazine covers and pin-ups, and a few paperback fronts, as well. He also painted sleeves for numerous records. You see a beautiful example above for French trumpeter Fred Gérard's Si nous dansions... en 16 tours. The close-up image shows the unique aspect of the art—its mise en abîme element, or what the Dutch call a Droste effect, an identical image within the image, with infinite repetitions implied.

The title of the record translates to “If we danced... 16 turns,” which is weird because there are actually twenty songs. The tunes cover various dance styles, such as mambo, Charleston, foxtot, etc., and we know what you're thinking. You're thinking sixteen dance styles must be covered. No—only nine styles are played, so the 16 tours part of the title is a mystery to us. If you know the answer to the riddle, you know how to reach us. But don't expect an immediate response—we'll be busy foxtrotting.

Update: It is incredibly informative having readers from all over the world. The answer came from Jo B. in France, who informed us: "16 tours is the rotation speed of the record in 1 minute."

Joyce Bryant is a former jazz singer who was very famous back in the day. When we came across two photos of her and couldn't choose between them, we decided to use both. In the first she's done up in a frosty silver motif, and the second one, below, shows her in normal mode. But maybe it would be more accurate to call her silver persona the normal one—she performed in a silvery hairdo and shiny dresses, and the look earned her the nickname “The Bronze Blond Bombshell,” among others. Her singing career ran from the late-1940s until 1955, when she stopped performing to focus on church activities. That's the condensed version. The long version is she managed to keep the music industry's hustlers, gangsters, and drug dealers at arm's length for years, but the mighty stress of doing that, plus performing nightly, was eventually too much, and she just had to leave. She made a comeback ten years later as a classical vocalist. She's still around at the age of eighty-eight. The year on the top photo is 1953, and on the bottom it's unknown.

On the cover of Looks Like Fun!, a Café Society Series album by comedian Cliff Ferré, both models have decided to test the far limits of 1956 fashion with their dresses. Diane Webber, on the right, gets all Vikki Dougan with her asscrack, while her unidentified friend goes the more conventional route with a neckline that plunges so far it becomes a navel line. Not that we're complaining. The only thing we're unhappy about is not being able to name the model on the left. She's the same person as in this Technicolor lithograph, and we know that the photo was made by Tom Kelley. Beyond that we got nada. We would love to know who she is because we have her on three more lithographs we're reluctant to share without info.

As far as the content of the record goes, what you get is a collection of comical musical pieces. Sample titles: “A Cocky Cowboy” and “Fifi's Got the Biggest One in France.” Yeah. It's really bad. But you don't have to take our word for it—if you're the courageous type you can have a listen here. At least the platter is made from red vinyl, as you see at right. That's almost worth the purchase price. Almost. If you have any ideas on the unidentified model please drop us a line at the usual place: editor@pulpinternational.com.

Here's little curio from the former Yugoslavia—a record sleeve from Serb pop-rock artist Boris Bizetić with a Marilyn Monroe cover motif. We've seen her image rather poorly used on album covers, but this one is nice, we think, if almost certainly unlicensed. And the music? Hah hah. We dare you.  

Think accidental upskirts are a modern day phenomenon? Seemingly not, as Vikki Dougan shows by getting a little too frisky in a mid-1950s promo shoot, leading her to accidentally reveal just a bit more than she intended. Or we assume so. Considering the shoot showcased both her rear and breasts (below), maybe the trifecta was intentional. She was the queen of wardrobe publicity stunts, after all, and proof that skin always generates ink. Her antics even inspired a song from cheeseball rockers the Limeliters. It went a little somethin’ like this:

We got curious about Nai Bonet, who we’d never heard of until last week, and after taking a stroll around the internet discovered she was pretty famous in her day and even released a 1966 single for which you see the sleeve above. The song is called “Jelly Belly,” with “The Seventh Veil” on the flipside. Bonet teaches fans to do her trademark Jelly Belly dance, which we can only imagine led to many sprained backs in mid-century America. But maybe you want to try. The instructions are in like Danish, but here’s the gist: