It's always a good day when I get to share the sounds of the perpetually ridiculous Billy Grey. I don't have nearly enough of his records, or else I'd feature him more often. His borderline incompetence, paired with the material his bosses at Tin Pan Alley gave him to sing, topped by the genuine incompetence of the band TPA used at that moment all result in records that are stunning in their entertaining awfulness.
First up, let's hear Billy sing the plaintive cry of a normal, idiot American (and proud of it), in the song "I Am Just What I Am". Here's a fun game - count the number of times that the bass player doesn't follow the chord structure, and then add in the time (near the end, in the last bridge) that the rest of the band seems unable to agree on what the chords are supposed to be:
Download: Billy Grey - I Am Just What I Am
Play:
The flip side, "Tongue Tied" may well circulate among song-poem collectors. It was part of the original set of downloadable songs on the AS/PMA site, but somehow never migrated over to the otherwise "complete" set of those downloads that cropped up years later at the WFMU blog.
This one is also worth hearing, for it's general half-assed-ness, but also for a fairly weird turn taken by the lyrics.
Download: Billy Grey - Tongue Tied
Play:
2 comments:
Unfortunately, BOTH sides of this little ditty are performed way too hokey & Al-Jolsonish. If he woulda, coulda just gone ahead with a sincere effort, they surely would have turned out more to your description, Bob. But, that being said, I can tolerate them, and almost really like "Tongue Tied".
EEEyugh.
Thanks for posting, though!
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