Blasts From the Past, Vietnam-Style

“It’s one-o-eight (in the morning),” the voice says at the beginning of K-tel’s new “Rock Radio Vietnam” album. “Welcome into a Wednesday from Saigon. Army specialist Jim Amross . . . going to shake up your soul with Delaney, Bonnie and Friends.”

After playing the record “Shake Your Soul,” Amross returns with an announcement: “It’s more than just a piece of paper. . . . It’s more than ink and a few pictures. It’s a newspaper. . . . It’s word from the States. Share the Stars and Stripes with your buddies. . . . Pass it on if you get a copy.”

Is the album another nostalgia re-creation?

Not this time.

“Rock Radio Vietnam” is taken from the tape of an actual 1970 Armed Forces Radio broadcast by Amross, one of the network’s disc jockeys in Vietnam at the time.

The broadcast includes 10 songs--from Aretha Franklin’s “Don’t Play That Song” and Free’s “All Right Now” to Hotlegs’ “Neanderthal Man”--and various public-service announcements. Among the latter: an anti-drug message, a reminder of the deadline for sending Christmas gifts back to the States and information about absentee ballots.

“There were several nostalgia collections geared to the Vietnam era when the film ‘Good Morning Vietnam’ came out a few years ago, but they were basically just songs from the era,” said Steve Wilson, manager of product development for K-tel.

“So, we were intrigued when a Vietnam veteran, Rick Thompson, came to us with a reel-to-reel tape of an actual broadcast. It seemed to work on several levels--the music was interesting and it also captured a moment in history.”

K-tel then obtained clearances from Amross, who now does radio and television commercials in the Midwest, and the record companies whose songs were featured during the broadcast.

Because the sound quality of the music on the tape was uneven, K-tel went back to the original recording company masters of the songs to give the compact disc a cleaner sound. Two of the tracks--Freda Payne’s “Deeper and Deeper” and Chairman of the Board’s “Everything’s Tuesday”--are reportedly appearing on CD for the first time in the United States.

Wilson said that the K-tel marketing campaign will concentrate heavily on magazines directed at Vietnam veterans.

“There was some concern at first about whether Vietnam veterans would want to be reminded of those days--whether the music would bring back bad memories,” he said. “But we spoke with some veterans and they said they remember the music and broadcasts fondly because the music always represented a touch of home.”

IN THE STORES: Albums recently released on CD for the first time or recently added to a label’s budget series include the Cowboy Junkies’ “Whites Off Earth Now!!” (the group’s first Canadian album), “The Best of the Bonzo Dog Band” (the satirical outfit’s first CD collection), David Bowie’s “David Bowie at the Tower Philadelphia” (one bonus track) and Bowie’s “Diamond Dogs” (two bonus tracks), the Grateful Dead’s “Reckoning,” and Tom Waits’ “Closing Time” and “Heart Attack and Vine.”