Here's a neat record from our friends at the Preview label, featuring a singer who is not documented to have been credited on any other song-poem record, on Preview or any other label. She is listed as Mary Maddox. I am absolutely not the expert in the voices of the female singers from the Preview/MSR/Cinema world, so perhaps this voice is quite recognizable to some of you, but I certainly don't recognize her.
The song is called "So I Can Hold You", and the Preview band do a nice job, turning in a jangly, atmospheric mid-'60's pop hit sound. Ms. Maddox has the most vibrato this side of Ronnie Spector, and there is a nice pleading quality to her voice. All in all, it's a winner in my book.
Download: Mary Maddox - So I Can Hold You
Play:
On the flip side is, unless I'm very much mistaken, the singer most commonly billed as Dick Kent (although, like Gene Marshall, he showed up under many other names). There are little more than a dozen records on Preview by "Freddie Flagg", and as this is the only one of them I own, I don't know if that name always meant Dick Kent was the singer. Before I got this record, I didn't realize he'd recorded for Preview at all.
The song is "The Church Bells Ring", and no one involved appears to have been very inspired by the prosaic lyrics, to turn in anything but an equally workmanlike performance.
Download: Freddie Flagg (Dick Kent) - The Church Bells Ring
Play:
1 comment:
Oh, lord, that Dick Kent side is awful. I think Wm. Arpaia might have played the trumpet.
I think that "Mary Maddox" is Bonnie Graham. My hunch is that the entire recording was sped up, making it all sound higher-pitched than it was recorded.
Thanks for posting!!
Post a Comment