Here's a previously unknown song-poem label, Missile Records, clearly a branch of Sandy Stanton's Film City family of labels, as evidenced by the presence of late-era Film City mainstay Jimmy James (best experienced on "Free Love for Sale" and "Mini Girl Song", both of which can be heard here), and the identification of the Chamberlin backing as "The Swinging Strings".
And it's that Chamberlin backing that drew me back into the A-side of this record, after the first listening. One of my all time top 25 song poems is a record called "My Point of View", but Guy Hewstan (see below), which I shared on this site ages ago, in a post which contains dead links, due to the divshare collapse.
One of the many things I LOVE about the Gus Hewstan record is the backing setting that whoever played the Chamberlin chose for the track. And I'd never heard that particular setting before or, until this record, since. And then, here it was, on Jimmy James' performance of "What a Fool I Am".
It's not used to as great effect, but it's still an interesting, busy and even convoluted beat, although slowed down here from the other record. Jimmy James offers up a soulful vocal, duetting with himself here and there, and there is the usual film city/Chamberlin weirdness of sound to draw me in.
Download: Jimmy James with the Swinging Strings - What a Fool I Am
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On the flip side, double-tracked (and sometimes harmonizing) Jimmy informs us of the song-poet's amazing insight, that "Today Was Tomorrow Yesterday". And I'm a sucker for these mechanical sounding Film City products, so this one appeals to me, as well.
Download: Jimmy James with the Swinging Strings - Today Was Tomorrow Yesterday
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Since the original posting no longer works, here is the Guy Hewstan record I referred to above, in all its glory.
Download: Guy Hewstan with the Film City Orchestra - My Point of View
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1 comment:
I am amazed that you can keep up with the rhythm of these Film city records. The weird beats, which seem to change every few seconds with odd little fills being thrown in with no apparent pattern, kind of make my head crazy!
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