Scientists? WHAT Scientists?

Howdy, 

Before getting to today's offering, here is yet another vintage song-poem ad from Vinnie. I suspect this one may have been more for a book than for records. The limit on length and the suggestion that poets send in haikus suggests to me that no songs were being created. I have such a book, made up of somewhat fair to absolutely wretched poetry, produced by a company that was doing even less for the customer than the song-poem factories were, literally just compiling well over 1000 poems into one volume (this book is from the 1940's). There is hardly anything that could be more anonymous and would have taken less effort. 

And now, on with the Countdown: 

I'm always up for an astronaut related song-poem - as the compilers of the early song-poem album and CDs said somewhere, that's a subject that really seemed to fascinate a significant percentage of song-poets, being the subject of song-poems seemingly about as often as was John F. Kennedy. 

So I eagerly snapped this one - "The Ballad of Apollo 8" - on eBay not long ago, with the fond wish of sharing it with y'all. And it's a nice enough country groove with an effective musical and backing vocal arrangement, and a genuinely excellent vocal from Sammy Marshall. 

But ooof, those lyrics. Apparently the ENTIRE project was managed by God. The entire song is about what God did for us, including a reference to the Genesis description of the moon as "the lesser light". There is nary a mention of scientists or others who might have had just a tiny role in the project. 

The song-poet was thoughtful enough to make mention of the first manned attempt in the series - Apollo 1, which caught fire and killed three astronauts without ever taking off - but somehow.... SOMEHOW.... doesn't get around to indicating what role God's played in that disaster. After all, if he made the tin can go around the moon, then he must have made the other tin can go boom. Hmmm. Maybe it was his day off.

I suspect I can't say the following without offending at least a few readers, but this sort of thing just grates on me. As a cradle-to-grave Christian, I have yet to be able to understand the version of religion, ANY religion, that thinks God cares who wins ballgames, who wins awards, who wins wars, or who successfully circles the moon first. Maybe it's not quite as bad when someone does something singular, alone, like win a tennis championship (although I still can't stand it), but when you are literally ignoring a decade of work by thousands of people. No. Just no. As you can tell, I actually find it pretty obnoxious. Your mileage may vary. 

Science did it, Ms. song-poemist. Engineers. Science. Federal Funding (remember when that was a  thing most people supported?). Write a song about the scientists. Or the astronauts.  

Download: Sammy Marshall - The Ballad of Apollo 8

Play: 

~~

The same song-poet submitted the flip side, "Memories of Schooldays". And while this doesn't rile up any emotions close to the other side, it does strike me that the other problem exists here. This is a sort of sweet lyric about the writer visiting her elementary school, no closed and in poor repair, and reveling in her memories, hearing the voices of those she knew in her head, and imagining children on the playground. 

It's sweet. Clunky in spots but sweet. And in this case, the music doesn't do the lyrics justice, at least not for me. 

Download: Sammy Marshall - Memories of Schooldays

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Minor Lance

Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um.....

With any luck, I think my hacking experience has been successfully addressed, but up until last night I still had to jump through hoops to put this together, so I have very little to say about today's offering, in order to get it out today and not have a one-post month. 

For a brief period in the mid 1960's, Tin Pan Alley utilized the dubious talents of a singer they only identified as "Lance", usually just like that, in quotes. If you click on the Lance label below you can hear all of the "Lance" songs I've shared (along with the songs by Lance Hill - a different singer - that I've shared).  

"Lance"'s extremely limited vocal talents are on full display on both of today's songs - his inability to accurately hit the correct pitch on more than a quarter of the notes sung is a wonder to behold. A random person off the street might well have done better. 

Each of these songs feature the sort of cookie cutter lyrics that make so many song-poems sound like so many other song-poems. But "Let Me Hold You To My Heart", at the very least, features the drummer's interesting choice of imitating a freight train in the last few seconds. 

Download: "Lance" - Let Me Hold You To My Heart

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The flip side, "Lullaby of Love", starts with what sounds like a misreading: 

"I used to often wonder why.... how strange.... things were to me"

That just incompetent on every level. From there on, the song actually has very sweet, , if deeply formulaic, lyrics. There's only so much to do with such a poem, but TPA did it no favors with the barely present musical backing and a singer who shouldn't be in the same zip code as this style. 

Download: "Lance" - Lullaby of Love

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Sugah Sugah

Greetings, 

Sorry for the half-month without posts. My desktop was hacked early this month and I'm still working on getting it fully clean. I cannot access some of the sites I use for writing this site and saving the files, so I had to wait to get everything together on another machine. 

Anyway, first, here is yet another vintage song-poem ad, with all thanks to Vinnie. I have no idea what company this may have been, or which of the two composers of "Dream a Little Dream of Me" chose to go the non-legit route. Probably the one that died from alcoholism (and not actually from falling down an elevator shaft). 

As I've probably said before, too many times, Edith Hopkins is my favorite writer from the song-poem world. The records she wrote are technically not wholly song-poems, as she clearly wrote both the words AND the music for her songs. But she utilized the song-poem companies.She initially worked with the existing companies, most notably Carellen, where she also appears to have aimed some of her songs for the legit market, including one of the best records ever made.

Then she decided to form her own label, "Inner-Glo", but continued to use the various song-poem factories to record her songs, primarily the Globe factory (although a few Inner-Glo releases do not involve song-poem outfits, and appear to have been aimed at the legit market). You can hear all of the Inner-Glo postings I have shared (including this one), here. 

Today's offering, 1962's "Sugah Tongue", from Sammy Marshall (identified here as Sonny Marcell), is not one of her best, perhaps, but it is catchy and bouncy and Sammy/Sonny gives it his all. This was also recorded some time before Globe fell into the soulless, repetitive that is heard on most of their releases.  

Download: Sonny Marcell - Sugah Tongue

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As an aside, I have seen multiple copies of this record show up on eBay (none of which sold, I don't think), and every last one of them listed the name of the song incorrectly as "Sugar Tongue". 

~~

The flip side is "Was Young Love Born to Die", which is rendered without a question mark. And that might be the most interesting thing about it. The lyrics are not up to Edith Hopkins' standards, and while the echoey production and Sammy's effectively emotive pleading are appealing, there's not much else here to like. 

Download: Sonny Marcell - Was Young Love Born to Die

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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? 

~~

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 (although I'm not much of a fan of the MSR gang at all), 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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