Tuesday, August 10, 2010

She's the Wife

Here's one which is a favorite of my long-time friend Stu, one which I just obtained my own copy of, this week. It's a Rodd Keith production, although he takes a back seat on the lead vocal, turning that duty over to Suzie Smith, and providing not only the arrangement, but a nice harmony vocal. The record is credited to Suzie and Rodd, and is titled "I'm the Wife". This is a really nice set of lyrics, and I was a bit surprised to find that they were from the pen of one of the weirder song-poets, Dolly O. Curran, who, along with her Dolly-O label, I've written about before. Paired with an excellent arrangement, the result is a first class record which, with perhaps a little tightening up of some clunky lyrics, and a few other changes, could have been something, or at least maybe in an alternate universe where song-poems competed with the "real labels" for airplay. Please enjoy this delightfully peppy song about having a cheating spouse: 

Download: Suzie and Rodd - I'm the Wife

Play:   

And speaking of peppy settings going with downcast lyrics, here's a happy sounding country setting about having a son die in a war. I'm certain that no non-English speaker, hearing this record, would be able to guess the subject matter. 

8 comments:

KL from NYC said...

Mr Ed has an Action Records LP track here: http://mredmusicroundup.blogspot.com/2010/07/july-29-2010-part-2.html
by Ad Zielsdorf with The Big Sound.

(I can't download anything right now because my computer's full and I'm always on-line looking for work -- but I will eventually, so I'll be back later.)

Stuart Shea said...

Thanks for posting this, Bob. And for the shout-out. Whoever Suzie Smith was, she never left anything in the tank.

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Bob Purse said...

Thanks - I have fixed it.

Bryan Harwell said...

Wow. A couple of downers. One song about cheating and another about dying in war. The only hope is to be as happy as possible while you sing. I guess they nailed that. Sometimes, that's where the humor is, when it comes to such records. Highly enjoyable!

Michael Goldsman said...

There's an article from 1967 about this track in a Kingston, NY newspaper!

https://fultonhistory.com/highlighter/highlight-for-xml?altUrl=https%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FNewspaper%252010%2FKingston%2520NY%2520Daily%2520Freeman%2FKingston%2520NY%2520Daily%2520Freeman%25201967%2520Grayscale%2FKingston%2520NY%2520Daily%2520Freeman%25201967%2520Grayscale%2520-%25204845.pdf%23xml%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FdtSearch%2Fdtisapi6.dll%3Fcmd%3Dgetpdfhits%26u%3D21ad0de7%26DocId%3D777404%26Index%3DZ%253a%255cDISK%2520E%26HitCount%3D2%26hits%3D12dd%2B12de%2B%26SearchForm%3D%252fFulton%255fform%252ehtml%26.pdf&uri=https%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FNewspaper%252010%2FKingston%2520NY%2520Daily%2520Freeman%2FKingston%2520NY%2520Daily%2520Freeman%25201967%2520Grayscale%2FKingston%2520NY%2520Daily%2520Freeman%25201967%2520Grayscale%2520-%25204845.pdf&xml=https%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FdtSearch%2Fdtisapi6.dll%3Fcmd%3Dgetpdfhits%26u%3D21ad0de7%26DocId%3D777404%26Index%3DZ%253a%255cDISK%2520E%26HitCount%3D2%26hits%3D12dd%2B12de%2B%26SearchForm%3D%252fFulton%255fform%252ehtml%26.pdf&openFirstHlPage=false

Michael Goldsman said...

(sorry for that LONG link - but it works!)