Pat Benatar Coxon's Army Sam Miller Exchange LP 1974

$

265

Rare original Sam Miller Exchange purple label pressing of Pat Benatar's debut!!!

LP: VG (clean & glossy with a few light scuffs & a approximately 1/8" knick at the end of the track "If He Walked Into My Life" that is slightly audible but really doesn't affect the overall sound)

Sleeve: VG+ (near perfect, aside from fuzzy corners, with original outer shrink wrap still intact!)

Taken from ebabemindcandy's informative listing:

This album was originally sold in the Shockoe Slip restaurant SAM MILLER'S EXCHANGE CAFE, where Coxon's Army played. All pressings with the purple SAM MILLER'S... label are from the live gigs. The album was repressed the same year on the TRACE label, using the same cover. (Phil used leftover covers from the initial SAM MILLER pressing) In all, just a few hundred copies were reportedly pressed. Of those, only a part of them actually SOLD! Pat and Bobby, and Phil drove copies around to local stores hoping they'd sell on consignment. Very few did. The stores I knew that were "selling" them told me that they ended up under the counter collecting dust until the late 70's when Pat came in and re-claimed them. The rumour was she destroyed those remaining in stores to keep them from turning up and embarrassing her or her record company. She'd just signed to Chrysalis! She was about to break out on the radio!!!! The COXON'S ARMY album wasn't well received locally, and for the most part, only friends and people who hung out at Sam Miller's bought copies. By 1980, people in Richmond told war stories about "seeing" the band... and that legendary Coxon's Army lp... but very few people actually knew where one was! Around here, it was sought after in vain. The copies that only 2 years earlier were sitting in the bins had all .... disappeared! Destroyed? Sold? The truth may never be known. But..... the fact is, FEW copies of this lp turn up, even in Richmond! I've been a local collector living here all my life. I've bought every copy I've ever seen, which is only a few!
This is Pat Andrzejewski's first album. Married to Dennis Benatar, who was stationed near Richmond, VA, Pat was reportedly a singing waitress, working days at a local bank, and nights in Phil Coxon's band, Coxon's Army. Phil did some local recording work and nightclub gigs, but his one claim to fame was the one he let "get away". Pat Benatar could sing... if Phil would have let her. But she was more "eye candy" to his nightclub act, singing with Phil, or backing him except on the numbers where HE felt she could handle lead. Among the songs Pat sings on this lp, including CAN'T HELP LOVIN' DAT MAN OF MINE, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and IF HE WALKED INTO MY LIFE, you can't help but hear the beginnings of what would later become dynamite on the radio. The entire album was recorded in 3 hours..... live