Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Little Jeannie Greer


As I've written before, posting songs from the Fable Label poses an interesting dilemma. Most of the songs on the label were probably not song-poems, but a good percentage of them seem to have been vanity releases. And when a likely vanity release is sung by someone other than the song-writer, that seems like at the very least a hybrid vanity/song-poem release.

Such is the case - and I'm guessing here - with today's feature. Lysle Tomerlin had several songs released on Fable, and wrote at least one South-Pacific-Themed song which was recorded and released by an established artist. Aside from that song, though, everything seems to have been on Fable, making me suspect these as vanity records.

Today's 45 - from 1955 - features two Western Swing flavored numbers, featuring a singer identified as "Little Jeannie Greer". She does sound young, although not necessarily like a child. Perhaps she was a teen, or perhaps she was short in stature. I find her singing a bit on the amateur side, but very engaging and sweet, and the backing is just lovely. Here's one side of the single, "Slyly":

Download: Little Jeannie Greer - Slyly
Play:

The flip side has the unwieldy title of "Who, What Where, When, How and Why". That title comes out sounding just as clunky and difficult to sing as you'd imagine, and the song is not as well put together as is "Slyly". But the performance is nearly as fun, cute and memorable as the one on the flip side:

Download: Little Jeannie Greer - Who, What Where, When, How and Why
Play:


1 comment:

Stu Shea said...

Hey, thanks for posting these two slabs. I like the A-side better, and in both cases I enjoy the vocalist more than the words she's singing. Interesting to hear a sort of honky-tonk song-poem and I love the red vinyl.