Sunday, January 08, 2012

His Conscience Lets Him Borrow Melodies...

...As long as they're in the public domain! I realized with shock, this weekend, that I hadn't featured a Rodd Keith Preview label record in six months. I've been fairly focused on his Film City stuff (a personal favorite), but I know that plenty of his fans (probably a majority) prefer the Preview material. So to make up for that, here are two early records from that most popular of song-poem labels. First up, and leading to my joke in the title, is a little something called "My Heart and My Conscience". It doesn't take a doctorate in musicology to notice that Rodd basically lifted the melody from the verse of "Jingle Bells" for this song. In case one did miss it during the vocal, Rodd helpful plays that "Dashing Through the Snow" (etc.) melody, virtually note for note, during the organ solo! Overall, though, this is a peppy, fun and well played and sung record: 

Play:  

"Fun" is not a word I would associate with the flip side of this record, a song titled "Would You Look For Me?", song being a questionable term, given that Rodd speaks the entire text over a middle of the road backing track. And that text is really something, isn't it? "Everyone says 'Hello!'":


  For today's bonus record, here's Rodd in light middle of the road (almost Country) mode, with "I Wish It Could Be Me": 

Play:  

And a near sound-alike on the flip-side, "Poor Old Heart":

Play:  

 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Poor Old Heart" has always been a favorite of mine, that could have been a real country hit! Beautiful song, beautiful arrangement, great recording and performance....the best song of this batch!

KL from NYC said...

I agree with Anonymous.

Thanks for the Rodd double header.

reservatory said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
reservatory said...

Poor. Old. Heart. A lovely thing that appears, as KL NYC said in a previous age, disarmingly normal. Thanks!