Icy Fingers / Too Old To Cry

This 45 record features songs by two different artists. Side A is “Icy Fingers” by The Playboys, a local Seattle, Washington, band formed by a group of schoolmates. Side B is “Too Old to Cry” by Gary Hodge from Spokane, Washington.

Both The Playboys and Gary Hodge (b. unknown) officially released their songs with Dolton Records in 1959. At the time, Dolton had recently switched to Kearney Barton’s (1931-2012) Northwest Recorders for recording their albums and singles. Barton was also relatively new to the business, having just purchased Northwest Recorders (formerly Electricraft) in 1958, and as can be seen on this 45, was still using Electricraft’s in-house Listen labels with Northwest Recorders printed on later.

Based on the album sleeve, the disc itself is an Audiodisc from Audio Devices, Inc. Audiodiscs were blank, recordable discs to which music could be recorded directly, rather than the much longer process of mixing and then cutting a record. Recording studios would use this type of direct-to-disc recording to quickly create reference discs for their clients.

It’s likely that this 45 was created as a reference disc for Dolton Records, and not intended for distribution.