Define "Real". Define "Pros"

 Before getting to this week's offering, I wanted to ask if anyone is having trouble downloading files. Two people that read my other blog have reported that when they try to download the files they get an error message saying "od.lk". I am unable to reproduce this downloading from any of my pages, and I am about as far from a computer expert as one can get, so I don't know the solution. This is apparently a problem with the site I use (Opendrive), but I can't find a solution, or even reproduce the issue. Is anyone having this issue, and does anyone know how to fix it? 

NOTE: This is NOT the problem which is occurring at this moment - Opendrive appears to be down for everyone at this moment. The links below will not be working for anyone until this is solved at their end.

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Next, here is another vintage song-poem ad - for this one, the address to write to appears to have been cut off, so I have no idea what the company might have been. There is a claim that the song-writer of the hit "Boots and Saddles" will compose your music - there seem to have been a few hits with that phrase in the title, but I'm not sure which one it refers to. 

And now: 

As I've written - probably far too many times - in the early days of the Cinema label, the owners chose to use some guy (no one seems to know who he was) with his console organ, and occasionally an equally mysterious female vocalist over the same type of music. By 1973, they had segueing into the use of the gang who who also worked for Preview, MSR and, later, Columbine, with some '72 and '73 releases featuring Mr. No-Name and his organ on one side and Dick Kent and the gang on the other. 

I like to imagine what the conversation was around the Cinema offices when that decision was being made, and also what Mr. No-Name said when he learned he'd been replaced. They could have stayed with the one-man band - who made a few of my very favorite song-poems, but also made some hilariously incompetent tracks and several plain old dull ones - and saved a lot of money. But they chose to shell out more money for a full band sound and a whole stable of singers. 

Apparently quality won out over cost efficiency, and again, I wonder what this guy thought - "You're firing me and hiring SIX people?". 

I said this guy made a few great records. "Send Me Your Heart" is not one of them. First of all, there are enough lyrics here for a standard 150 second song-poem record, but for some reason, he dragged it out with repeated sections and a lengthy (SEVENTY SECOND!) solo section. What's more the setting is dull, even lifeless. And finally, what is one supposed to do with lyrics such as "You have the answer to my life" - I don't even know what those words mean. And the big finish ending is just mangled. 

Download: The Real Pros - Send Me Your Heart

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The flip side is called "Lonely People", and it's even worse than the song of that title by America, if that's possible. Here's the deal: two people love each other but can't be together and who are always lonely, for reasons known to them. They had one night together, and the singer lives for that day, which will never be repeated. It's stultifying.  

Download: The Real Pros - Lonely People

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Sterling Tries Something New!

Good Day!

First, I'd like to offer up yet another vintage song-poem ad (two of them, in fact) as supplied by Vinnie. The top one is for Columbine, one of the kings of the 1980's song-poem world, and a label I've barely featured here due to my not being able to stand well over 95% of their output. The other ad... Well, I have no idea. 

I love the early Sterling label records. They have a sound and a style unlike any other song-poem label. And even when they got to be more bland in the late 1960's and early 1970's, the singing was still stellar, as it was usually coming from the magnificent Norm Burns. After Norm's VERY sudden death, they turned largely to Gary Roberts, who was the anti-Norm - a man who could barely carry a tune at times, and had a guileless, yet at the same time virtually charmless way of performing. Throughout what was at least a 10-15 year period under both these singers, the label presented a very pop oriented feel. Norm occasionally was asked to sing songs which had titles that implied a certain level of soul, or at least earthiness, and he once had to take on a lyrical role suggesting that he was something that he most certainly was not. But even on those records, the MOR feel and a definite "Whiteness" prevailed. 

That makes today's record more than a bit startling. Because after the departure of Gary Roberts, Sterling's next (and final) male singer was Mel Moore. And by a few years after Mel took over, roughly 1978 it would appear, Sterling released this record: 

If you simply played this song for me and told me it was a song-poem and asked me to guess the label, I doubt I would ever get around to guessing Sterling. This record is heavily influenced by Soul and Jazz trends from the late '70's, particularly the records of George Benson, and it bears no resemblance to the God-Awful Gary Roberts records, or the often wonderful Norm Burns records. This is as complete a makeover as I can remember hearing from a song-poem label, and in pretty quick order, too. I'm not saying this is good - it's not, at least to my ears - but it's certainly a surprise. 

The song was written by someone named Gutmundur Reynisson - whose first and last names each sound like a nonsense word you'd use when you can't remember the name of some little thing you're looking for. However, someone with a nearly identical name has credits on at least three albums released during the 1970's. I'm guessing none of those songs sound like Mel Moore and Image performing "Take it All Easy", though. Have a listen: 

Download: Mel Moore and Image - Take It All Easy

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For the flip side, "My Woman", Mel Moore seemingly left his band ("Image") at the bar they were playing at and took the band van back to the studio by himself, because they're not credited on this one. Yet there's a band, such as it is. On this one, the closest hit records that are perhaps being emulated are no longer the ones by George Benson, but something closer to... Barry Manilow? 

God knows what the song-poet did, but he apparently thinks his woman is a saint for putting up with what seems to have been a whole bunch of crappy behavior. And he's gonna tell us how much he appreciates it. And then tell us again. And again. Or maybe he's only telling one person. Let's hope she decided to stay. 

Download: Mel Moore - My Woman

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A Rival For Paul McCartney?

Right off the bat, here is yet another ad - or in this case a series of ads - that my pal Vinnie shared with me, for me to share with you. A couple of these seven ads are not for song-poems, but presumably they all came from the same page (and strip) from a magazine or paper. There's a lot to investigate here, and i wonder how the budding song-poet decided which company to choose. 

And now! It was just a short three and a half months ago that I wrote these excited words about a record I had obtained: 

If I have a chance to pick up a Tin Pan Alley single from the late 1950's through the 1960's, I'm going to go for it, if the price is right. It's one of my favorite labels. But if that record shows a label number in the 390s threw the 400s, I'm downright giddy at the chance, and may spend a bit more than I would have otherwise. 

Because for that short period - however long it took to get through those 20 or so releases - the label sometimes (but not always) used a bass player who seemingly had no knowledge of the instrument and barely a sense of rhythm. I've shared several of these records before, most notably, but not limited to, "The Proon Doon Walk" and "Snow Man"

 Well, amazingly, and very happily, I have found YET ANOTHER ONE: 

There simply cannot be an endless supply of these records. They all occur between about number 390 and number 410, and not every record in that sequence has this bad bass player present. So every one found is a treasure, even one, such as this one, where are man on double bass plays less of a role, and is less obnoxiously incompetent, as son some of the others. 

The singer, as is the case on most of those non-ace-of-bass" singles, is Bob Gerard, singing the song "Sparkle With Dew" for us. The fact that a guitarist is playing big fat rhythm chords buries the many, many missed bass notes on this record, more so than other tracks in this series. Additionally, the rhythm of the song doesn't really lend itself to the Boommmm-ba-Boommm rhythm that not-the-second-coming -of-Charles-Mingus preferred. But it's still a worthy listen for its amusing half-assed-ness 

Download: Bob Gerard - Sparkle With Dew

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The bass player has even less to do on the martial number on the flip side, "For Our Country", but he still manages to land on the wrong note on virtually every downbeat. This is one of those records thanking the Lord for the land he granted "us", with nary a mention of the millions of people who were already, you know, using it. 

Download: Bob Gerard - For Our Country

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Guest Post: A DOLLY-O of a Record

 I have something very special for you all today, but before I get to that, I want to return to the series that I started two posts ago, and then forgot about last time - the song-poem ads that were sent to me by a fellow named Vinnie. Here is one for the an agency called Songcrafters. The ASPMA page for this organization indicates that very little had been found out about them by the time the ASPMA website was mothballed. 

And now, I am supremely pleased to turn my site over, for the week, to my very best pal of more than 45 years - and a very frequent commenter to this site - Stu Shea. Thanks, Stu, and.... Take it away!

I happened upon this record recently in a store, and my eyes sort of popped out when I realized it was a Dolly O. Curran disc. Bob asked me to describe this record to you.

This record came out in 1973 on Mrs. Curran’s Dolly-O label, headquartered in a modest house in South Bend, Indiana. These songs were recorded by song-poem professionals in Los Angeles.

Both songs certainly have  “plain speech” lyrics. Mrs. Curran went a good distance for a rhyme, and had a habit of fitting far more words into a sentence than a professional songwriter would—but in these things rest much of her songs' charm. And in these things rest challenges to a singer.

“Write Your Congressman” is an earnest plea for citizens to get involved in their government. Dick Kent sings it, with hearty enthusiasm, as “Dick Lee,” with backing vocals that I’m sure are Bobbi Blake. The backing seems a little like a march, but then again it’s hard to know.

According to the lyrics, your congressman will be not just duty-bound, but happy to read everything you have to say, study all your plans for government, and even share his power. Because, of course, “the little guys got a right to have our say.”

The lyrics say, “Don’t tell Sweeney,” (invoking “Tell it to Sweeney,” an early 1900s version of “You’re tripping”), just get in touch with your good ol’ congressman. There’s even a talking outro.

Download: Dick Lee & the Busy Bees Orchestra - Write Your Congressman

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The flip side, “What You Wish – I’ll Try to Be” seems to concern a man hoping and striving to change himself to fit in better with the lifestyle of his extraordinarily wealthy socialite partner. (There's a situation we can certainly all relate to.)

Dick Kent duets with himself, with Bobbie in support. The strolling backing is fairly well suited to the song.

Both sides feature the wobbly, wonderful Chamberlin fun-house sounds associated with Sandy Stanton’s productions, even though Dolly O. Curran and her husband Jack are credited as producers.

Technical notes: side A’s left channel had to be boosted dramatically, as it was pressed at a far lower volume than the right. While both sides of this record appear mint, there are still a lot of pops and clicks, some of which I digitally removed.

Hope you enjoy!

—Stu Shea

Download: Dick Lee & the Busy Bees Orchestra - What You Wish -- I'll Try to Be

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A Song Poem/Vanity Record Hybrid

I've been having a hard time getting to my sites this month - it could be that there will only be two offerings this month. Just a lot going on. 

But I have a sort of weird one today, weird for a couple of different reasons, more so the second side than the first.

At first glance, the A-side of today's Preview offering looks and sounds like a typical label release of its day, Gene Marshall singing something called "Della Primavera" which my computer tells me means "Of Spring".

Like I always do, I checked first to see if either side of this record was commonly available, on YouTube or anywhere else. It is not, But upon doing that search, the annoying AI answer - which is everywhere now (and YUCK) told me about the Gene Marshall doll collection. I knew from previous searches that there is such a collection - a somewhat high end set of dolls for the collectors market. AI then told me that "Della Primavera" was a rare and very collectable Gene Marshall doll. That'd be a weird coincidence. If it was true. So far as I've been able to find, via further searches, is that AI completely made that link up. There is no Gene Marshall Della Primavera doll. 

So, as it turns out, this really IS a typical Preview label release of its day. But for a moment, I thought I had a REALLY weird coincidence to share with you. 

What was I saying.... oh, the song. Sorry about the terrible sound - I don't think the record was played to death, I just think the pressing sucks. But then, so does the song. At least it's over quickly. 

Download: Gene Marshall - Della Primavera

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The real oddity is on the flip side. It's titled "Aloha But Not Goodbye", although the torn label obscures the title a bit, and it's by The Paramours. This group does not show up on any other Preview 45's, nor does this record sound like anything produced by the label. It actually sounds more like the ridiculous, poorly arranged close harmony sing-songy tunes that showed up on William Howard Arpaia's song-poem albums and singles, for all of you who have heard those. 

What accounts for that? Well, this record wasn't made by Preview records. It was recorded for a tiny label in California called Orange Cross Records. At some point, these wily Paramours seem to have gotten the idea that maybe a label that wasn't really tiny but was completely a scam might be able to make hay with their record. THE B-SIDE of their record, to boot. And so they presumably paid Preview to put out their song again. 

I would love to hear the backstory on this one. And once again, DO NOT trust AI, which will tell you that Bobby Hatfield and Bill Medley were in this band, prior to forming the Righteous Brothers. They were not. That was a different band with the same name. 

Keep in mind - while listening to this song and imagining that The Paramours thought they might have a hit, either on a tiny label out of a suburb of Anaheim or on a label that did no promotion of its releases at any time - that this record came out around.... 1970. 

Good luck with that, men. 

Download: The Paramours - Aloha But Not Goodbye

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"Hi-Fi Baby" and Three Other Non-Hits

Howdy, folks!

Right here at the start I want to share that a new online friend of mine named Vinnie has gifted me with nearly four dozen vintage song-poems ads. I got a bunch from another person several years ago and shared them on this site, one per post, and it's possible that there is some duplication here, but that's far more work of comparison than I am up for at the moment, so I'm just going to share them over the next few months in the order they were in the file he sent to me. 

Here is the first one: 

Thanks, Vinnie. Here is some information about what else went on at that address in the top ad. Oh, and if anyone wants to try calling that number and letting us know what happens, GO FOR IT!

And now, let's walk on Air. 

Today, it's another Air compilation 45 - an EP in fact, featuring three disparate song-poem stalwarts and one complete mystery (at least to me). 

The EP opens up with what is by far the best song on the record - no surprise there, as it comes from the often-above-average song poem mill run by Lee Hudson, and featuring his frequent male go-to, Jeff Reynolds on "Hi-Fi Baby"

I bought this EP (on eBay) solely because I was almost sure that Jeff Reynolds singing for Lee Hudson on a song called "Hi-Fi Baby" would be worth hearing. I was not disappointed. While the lyrics want to be about dancing to rock and roll, it's more of a swing record, with Hudson's typical small band arrangement, fantastic and thick backing harmonies - of the sort I swoon for - and a verse sung in what seems to be triple-tracked unison. I wouldn't be surprised if that section was inspired by Jim Lowe's "The Green Door", which in my book is one of the 100 greatest tracks ever recorded. Come to think of it, perhaps the whole record owes something to "The Green Door". This one's a keeper. 

Download: Jeff Reynolds With Orch - Hi-Fi Baby

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Are you ready now to go about as far in the other direction as possible, with a bit of mystery thrown in, too? Well, let me introduce you to "My Valentine" by Leo Lebow. The mystery here is that I have absolutely NO idea what song-poem outfit put this monstrosity together, or who "Leo Lebow" might be. I guess it sounds a little like Halmark, if their backing tracks had high fidelity sound. But they didn't, and this sounds like a live track, although Leo's vocal sounds grafted on to me. The whole construction reminds me of something that Star-Crest or Noval would have done if they actually had had money. 

I suppose that there are people who like this sort of musical setting and this type of singing, and for them, I would guess they'd say Leo Lebow does an adequate job (unlike the singers on Star-Crest and Noval). But good God, I hate this sort of music. 

But anyway, if anyone reading this has an insight into what company produced this track, please offer up thoughts. 

Download: Leo Lebow With Orch - My Valentine

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The flip side is all Globe all the time. Kris Arden is up first with "Suddenly I Knew". It's got an appealing, loping beat, and a sweet, engaging vocal. But oh, those lyrics. Not only is the title phrase uttered more times than ALL of the other lines of lyric combined, those other lines hit their peak with the writer's admission.... not that she'd pledge her life to the person she just met, but that she'd GIVE HER LIFE for this person. 

I actually get much of the lyric here. As a young, young man, I once spent two hours with someone and found my world turned upside down. I'll give the lyricist that. But has any person ever had the experience of meeting another person for the first time and immediately being ready to die for him or her? I'm guessing not. 

Download: Kris Arden with Orch - Suddenly I Knew

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And that leaves us with the King of the World.... er, the king of Globe, Sammy Marshall, technically  billed Sonny Marshall for this rendition of "Just Before Day. 

As far as the musical setting, this is one of Globe's early Twist-like records, at which Sammy/Sonny excelled, and enjoyable from that perspective, but again, the lyrics let us all down. Essentially, the lyrics describe, blow-by-blow, a lovingly teasing bit of conversation that the song-poet had with his lady. Not only is the story not very long (even at 104 seconds, half the story is repeated twice), but it seems to be meant as humorous. And the biggest problem for me is, it's just not humorous. Plus, the lyricist rhymed "five" with "five". Penalize, penalize - that rhyme is null and void. 

But the sound of the track is nice. If it in a language I didn't understand, I'd probably like it quite a bit more. 

Download: Sonny Marshall With Orch - Just Before Day

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Norman Loves the Mississippi

Howdy, 

I won't have a lot to say today. I found a Norm Burns record that hasn't yet been shared anywhere, and I thought I would offer it up. The first song is called "Mississippi" and it's a straightforward paean to America's greatest river, one I have crossed and marveled at least a few dozen times. It can't hold a candle to any number of tunes that John Hartford wrote about the river and its environs, but it's sweet, and I almost always enjoy hearing Norm (or, in this case, Norman). 

Download: Norman Burns, Lew Tobin's Orchestra - Mississippi

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There's something more than a little bit sly about the lyrics to "That Hurt Inside". The song-poets (two of them, in this case) want to sound as if their protagonist is simply trying to cheer up a person with a broken heart (although I'm not sure "you meant nothing to him" is helpful). By the second half of the song, though, it's clear that the singer is promoting someone else (himself, most likely) who would be much better for her. It's not a cheer up song at all, it's more of a seduction. 

Download: Norman Burns, Lew Tobin's Orchestra - That Hurt Inside

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A Quartet of Globe Acetate Demos

I thought I'd do something I haven't done in a while and offer up a few examples of one early stage of the song-poem process. Now, what I'm sharing here is not how things always worked, and it certainly didn't work like this at all at some of the labels. But, this was at least the way it sometimes worked at the massive Globe song-poem factory. Globe seems to have been about the biggest of the song-poem companies, although they never released anything but acetates under their own name. All of those Sammy Marshall (et al) releases were Globe products, as were those by several other singers. 

Anyway, one choice the Globe company customer had was to pay for a simple demo - a few instruments and a singer doing the song the Globalists had created from the submitted lyrics. Sometimes, I'm sure, this was to demonstrate what Globe had done with the material and was the first step towards a full band performance with one of the company's regular singers. But even more often, I would bet, the process ended with the acetate - the customer got to enjoy his or her song on a real record to share with friends. 

Here are four examples which come from a larger collection I acquired somehow, all of which bear the lyrical credit to the team of James Fout and Dottie Orr. In all four cases, the accompaniment is just an acoustic guitar. The first two shared here are song by a woman, the last two by a man. A sense of loss, of nostalgia and memories of times past pervade most of the lyrics here. 

The only other comment I'll make is that "The Little Things" probably was not meant by its authors to be sung by a woman, given that it is about missing a female sweetheart. Today, such a combination would likely not even cause a raised eyebrow (and we're a much better society for that), but in those days, I doubt it's the lyricists had in mind. 

Here, without further comment, four songs from Globe acetates:  

Download: No Artist Named (Globe Acetate) - The Little Things

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Download: No Artist Named (Globe Acetate) - The Little Rascal Next Door

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Download: No Artist Named (Globe Acetate) - A Beautiful Rose

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Download: No Artist Named (Globe Acetate) - I'll Be There

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Uggy Pugs I Have Done

I wonder if Phil Celia came to Tin Pan Alley thinking of himself as a serious vocalist, capable of great singing and hoping to be given wonderful things to perform. If that was the case, he must have been sorely disappointed, given that he ended up singing such classics as "Moaning and Groaning Twist", "I'm Sorry I Put On Charlie's Shoes", "It Butch the Rough Barber Man Shaves Castro", "A Fat Man in a Compact Car", "Tin Cans, Tin Cans, Tin Cans", "You Made a Boo Boo, Lula", and of course, "Keep On Smiling! Pay Your Taxes!", nearly all of which can be found on this site by plugging them into the box at above left (or just clicking on the Phil Celia tag below this post). I think only one or two of them got posted to the now defunct WFMU blog, rather than this site. 

Poor Phil. He landed at Tin Pan Alley during one of those periods when they seemed to have been attracting lunkheads who thought they were funny, or at best, people who wanted to have something goofy recorded for them. Today, Phil is "Doin' the Uggy Pug"

Like a lot of Phil's records from this era, this song is set to the backing of a three piece jazz combo. The lyrics describe a dance style unlike any you've ever heard, with mixture of things people don't generally (or ever) do while dancing ("He hunches over with a razzle bristle back" "he slithers like a python") and phrases that are not explained, but seem to be dance moves ("She gives the cat's meow" "<she acts> like a cat upon a track" - huh?). I'm also not aware of eagles listening to music as the fly away. 

Looking over that list, one thing that pops out at me is that the brain-trust at Tin Pan Alley usually actually did a good job, and sometimes an excellent job, of tying music styles and arrangements to the goofy words they had received. That wasn't so often true of other labels. 

Download: Phil Celia - Doin' the Uggy Pug

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The flip side is named "Orbit Rhythm", and this is apparently another dance move song, although there are far fewer directions at how to do the "Orbit" than there were for doing the "Uggy Pug". The drummer is doing some fun stuff with his sticks and the pianist on these records is never less than steady and professional, but I don't get much from this one. 

Download: Phil Celia - Orbit Rhythm

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My First Rodd

Just under 30 years ago, in the fall of 1996, I got my first taste of song-poems when I bought the MSR Madness Volume 2 CD, "The Makers of Smooth Music". Once I had a better handle on the ins and outs of this genre, I went to the biggest used record store that was anywhere near my home, probably in November of the same year, and looked for song-poems. I found about ten, as I recall, including two early Real Pros records which are still among my favorites. The other records that I found, as I recall, were by Gene Marshall and Rodd Keith. 

By this time, I was already in email contact with song-poem maven extraordinaire Phil Milstein, and we started a nice tape exchange - me sending him cassettes of everything I found, as I found it, and him sending me his cassette compilations of tracks he considered just below good enough for his upcoming releases. 

I came across an auction on eBay recently, for a copy of one of those first ten 45s that I found, and discovered, to my astonishment, that it was not available anywhere online. I truly thought that, for all of my early Preview Rodd 45s, I had already determined that they were already available online or that I had already shared them. This one fits neither of those parameters. So.... here it is: 

Yes, indeed, this song - "Into My Dreams" - is quite likely the first Rodd Keith record that I owned. It's more than a bit beat up, but definitely worth sharing. It's worth sharing for the first couplet alone, which contains one of the dumbest lines I've ever heard in any song, song-poem or not. 

I guess it's possible that the song-poeta (there are three listed) were trying to be funny, but nothing else in the lyric suggests a sense of humor about the words or their creators. And the next following rhyme also sounds to me like the team simply grabbed a word that rhymed and contrived a line that fit, but that made little sense, too. The other two rhymes (it's a VERY short lyric) make more sense in context, so maybe I'm wrong and they were just an the hairy edge of competent writers. 

Still, it's always nice to hear Rodd at the start of his Preview career, freed up from the Film City chamberlin and working with a full group, including, herein, a violinist. 

Download: Rodd Keith - Into My Dreams

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The flip side features Judy Layne, who appeared very regularly on the Preview label around 1966 before disappearing completely from the label by 1968. The song is "Days Gone By" and it's a snooze. It's got quite the supper club style, with the trumpet obbligato and it's recitative sections interspersed with waltz sections, all in the service of a bit of very hackneyed words about a reminiscence . Eh.

Download: Judy Layne - Days Gone By

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He Does it ALL For You, But Apparently Only Once

 

Nearly three years ago, I shared my choice for Sammy Marshall's Greatest Hits, each of which are is one one side of the same 45. That post is here, and one of the songs is called "I'd Do It For You", and it lists all of the wonderful things that Sammy would do for his beloved, including obtaining "the B'loon, with a gold star in it". 

Today, we have the very similarly named "I'd Do It All For You", but in this case, Sammy is, for some reason, under the impression that his beloved wants him to do such things as jumping into mud, being swallowed by a whale, and even drowning and being blown up in a exploding rocket. And these are, literally, the only things he is choosing from. What the hell? 

The song is bouncy enough to be one of of Sammy's better releases - I love his rocking (and near rocking) numbers. But who wants to have their lover kill himself? And who wants to be the lover who kills himself? 

Incidentally, this label - Land Mark (not Landmark) seems to have been one of the most vanity-esque of vanity labels created by the Globe song-poem factory. I can find no trace of this label, and given that this is release 1001, it's possible that it's the only release on this particular Land Mark label. The fact that the same person wrote both songs also suggests this label having been a personal creation.

Download: Sammy Marshall - I'd Do It All For You

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On the flip side is "Your World of Pictures". Musically, this is pretty much a meh, but lyrically, it seems like it's meant to be an epic putdown of a well regarded stage and film actor, who the writer/singer apparently has nothing but contempt for. At least, that's what I get from it - the wording of the lyrics, particularly the use of the title phrase, comes across to me as downright weird. Maybe someone out there has a better take on this. 

Download: Sammy Marshall - Your World of Pictures

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Disco Norris

I'm here today to continue the unique saga of Norridge Mayhams, better known (when known at all) as Norris the Troubadour. If you follow this link, you will find all of my previous Norris postings (including this one) and hopefully some text to explain who he was and my fascination with him. 

Norris was only on the fringes of the song-poem world, but I include him here because, although he wrote all the lyrics and music to his songs (including an actual bona fide hit song), once he discovered song-poem companies, he gave up singing his own songs and let the professionals (or near professionals) do it. Despite the fact that at least a half-dozen performers sang his songs from then on (if not far more), the records usually came out baring the artist name "Norris the Troubadour", adding, in later years, "The Seaboard Coastliners", as it does in this offering. 

And he never stopped hawking that one hit song he wrote. It was called "We'll Build a Bungalow" and it was a hit in 1950. A protracted legal battle over its copyright followed, and Norris never stopped trying to parlay it into another hit record. 

So it was that Norris engaged yet another company to re-record his song in 1978 or so, in a thoroughly disco-fied setting. I don't know which company he contracted with (perhaps others can make a suggestion of this), but he most clearly told them to "Make it Sound like that "Yowsa Yowsa" record that's so big right now ("Dance Dance Dance" by Chic), which the producers did, right down to the old-timey megaphone announcer heard now and then on the track.  

 

To my ears, the result is resolutely awful, amateurish in the extreme and almost comically overlong (all of them common faults of disco records of the time). But I am dedicated to getting as much of Norris' story out there, and as this one does not seem to have been shared on the internet before, I'm presenting it here.  

Download: Norris The Troubadour, The Seaboard Coastliners - We'll Build a Bungalow (You Spell It For Two)

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On the flip side is "I've Got Soul Love Burning In My Heart". It's a wisp of a song and of a performance - didn't anyone tell this band that disco records aren't meant to be 123 seconds long? - sung in the falsetto style and instrumental backing favored that decade by the makers of Philly Soul (quite possibly my least favorite genre of popular music ever, or at least in the running). As a result, I can't stand this record. The fact that it's pressed a tiny bit off-center adds an appealing level of wooziness, but still, this side is a no-go for me. At least it's short. 

Download: Norris The Troubadour, The Seaboard Coastliners - I've Got Soul Love Burning In My Heart

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