Today, a patriotic number for you, from Norm Burns and the Five Stars, "The Good Old U.S.A., featuring the spare, peppy sound that we all love from the Sterling Label:
Download: Norm Burns and the Five Stars - The Good Old U.S.A.
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And what's more, this is one of only two song-poems I've ever seen that comes with a picture sleeve (the other is for a Film City record). Given that this is a printed piece of paper glued over a standard white 45 sleeve, I'm tempted to say that this is something that song-poet Rolland M. Pointer put together himself. But then, why would it have all of the Sterling Records details? Perhaps this was a feature that Sterling offered, but which was rarely purchased? Whatever the story, it is nice that either Mr. Pointer or Sterling wanted to stress that his song was meant as "Praise For Young People"!
For the flip side ("Ring Out the Bells"), the Five Stars took a break, and "Singers" came in to replace them. This is, admittedly, a Christmas song, and a fairly dull one at that. But hey, it's Easter Week, so at least there is a Christian tie-in.
Download: Norm Burns and Singers - Ring Out the Bells
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3 comments:
Curiously enough, the two sides seems to be the B-side of two different releases Sterling releases (# 509 and 513) ??
Praise for young people losing their lives in meaningless wars to defend our right to write stupid songs praising young people losing their lives in wars.
Fascinating; especially, as Bob points out, the track on the B-side had already appeared on Sterling 509 (with Forget Me Not on the A-side). I'd love to see the other side of the cover.
There are very few song poem picture sleeves out there but they do exist and include a couple of Rod Rogers 7"s on Shevers. I recently picked up a Columbine stock sleeve, which is rather nice, and I have a Sterling/Five Star acetate in its stock sleeve too, complete with an ad for 'duplicate records' which 'may be ordered any time within 2 years after this song was recorded' for the princely sum of '$6.50 per side'. Lovely!
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