Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Perkins. Milford Perkins

First, courtesy of the prolific song-poem-ad-searcher Pete, here are two more fascinating ads related to the song-poem game.

The first is a direct, no frills suggestion from a company in New York. It comes from a 1921 edition of Film Fun Magazine:

Then there is this intriguing ad from a 1960 edition of Modern Screen, which, as Pete says, seems to suggest cutting out the middle man entirely - it's a product of some sort which will help you write the music for your poems, too, from a company in Boston:


Moving on to today's record feature....


Today, we're going to hear from the great Milford Perkins. I'm not sure I've ever featured a record released under the name of Milford Perkins before, but if I did, I didn't put his name in the labels for the post. And I'm not doing so here, either, because Milford Perkins was one of the more common pseudonyms for Rodd Keith. In my experience, many of the records released under this name have a country tinge, which probably explains the country-singer-style name he chose for those releases, but that's not what this record is.

Instead, what we have here is a top-notch pop-rock side, titled "Love Is Like a Diamond", which features an indelible melody, a warm, inviting vocal from Rodd, and, best of all to my ears, some fantastic drumming - seriously, the fills on this record are otherworldly, as they are on many Preview records - I'd love to know who this drummer was. All around, an excellent record.

Download: Milford Perkins (Rodd Keith) - Love is Like a Diamond
Play:

I have far less to say about the flip side, "Come Back Into My Arms Again". Everyone's doing their job, but nothing about this side is particularly inspired, or even interesting. I do like the fact that the good folks at Preview claimed the song was a full minute longer than it actually is, on the label.

Download: Milford Perkins (Rodd Keith) - Come Back Into My Arms
Play:



4 comments:

Stu Shea said...

Agreed on all counts! The a-side is just wonderful, the b-side just there. And the mystery about why this was issued as "Milford Perkins" rather than as "The Downtowners" or just "Rodd Keith" baffles.

Thanks, Bob.

rock smith said...

Great.Thanks Man

Anonymous said...

Wow, this A side is fantastic. Thank you!
"The Vacant House" has always been one of my favorite song poems. I can now hear it's Rodd's voice.
I have "The Duck Egg Walk", "Amtrack Eagle", and "Jerry the Butcher Man" labeled as Milford Perkins tracks (from the Song Poem Archived Music files) and they are clearly not Rodd. Who is this other mystery artist?

JW said...

Very funny about the Preview label having the wrong timing of the song; I find that is very common! But not 100% of the time! I wonder why that is! It's very funny how often you see that.....and then there will be a record where it's right on the money, often the flip side (like this one).
Just another enigma from the song-poem universe!