Bongos!

Bongos were the instrument in the post-war years, after the Age of Ukulele but before guitar took over. At least in California, if you were a hip teen you worked on cars and played bongos. Bongos had a big advocate in Les Baxter, one of many orchestra leaders who worked with prolific session-percussionist Larry Bunker. (Baxter even "fires" Bunker for winning a bongo showdown with the leader in the television special "Music of the Sixties.") Another intriguing bongophile is Don Ralke, who besides his own bongo-pop LPs provided the music behind two of the most incredible albums ever: those by William Shatner and Edd "Kookie" Byrnes.

Bongos are a naturally hip instrument, associated as they are with jazz and Latin. One memorable scene from "Bell, Book, and Candle" has Kim Novak complaining about the incessant bongos in her witches' and warlocks' beatnik nightclub. Bongos are used in movies to evoke the wild and the primitive. Drums convey both the controlled suspense of the chase and the fury of the attack or surprise encounter.

Mimicking the left and right channels of stereophonic sound, bongos are proudly featured in many stereo-demonstration LPs on the Command and Time labels. Also there are fine moments in bongo-instruction albums. The best bongo albums are not old pop, however. Jazz, latin, African, crime, and even the rare bongo-rock album or two have greater examples.

Buying: Not all strictly pop-bongo records are so great, but collect them just for the humor of it, the madness, the Beatitude.