It's been too long since I've featured the great Teacho Wiltshire. An early stalwart at Tin Pan Alley, Teacho is one of the relatively few people named on Song-Poem release labels who went on to have a significant career in the legitimate music business. His name can be found in the production and arrangement credits of dozens, or more likely, hundreds of hits and near hits from the 1960's.
This, however, is from long before all that, late 1955, to be precise. It's a charming ditty titled "Working Overtime". This one was actually released twice by TPA, with two different flip sides. Sadly, I do not own the release with "Are You Willing" on the flip side, since it was indicated to be " The One and Only Rock 'n' Roll Waltz!", right on the label. But still, I doubt it would have lived up to the entertainment value of "Working Overtime".
Darryl Bullock, in a post featuring several TPA releases (although not this one), has a nice quote from an interview with a relative of label honcho Jack Covais, which includes some comments about this record. You can read that here. And glory be, Billboard even reviewed the thing! They got the copy with "Are You Willing" on the flip, but they still offered up thoughts on this one, opining dryly that "The singer's R & B efforts seem misplaced", and giving it the equivalent of a "D".
Well, I like it just fine. Judge for yourself! Without further ado, here is Teacho Wiltshire, His Piano and Orchestra, with "Working Overtime"
Download: Teacho Wiltshire, His Piano and Orchestra - Working Overtime
Play:
On the flip side, the same combo performs a truly overwrought rendition of something called "Waters of Telufa". A quick web search does not immediately indicate exactly where this concentrated dampness can be encountered, but Teacho's mannered performance doesn't lead me to want to go there, anyway.
Download: Teacho Wiltshire, His Piano and Orchestra - Waters of Telufa
Play:
3 comments:
Thanks for making those available. I just stumbled across an interesting story with a Tin Pan Alley connection, TPA 283 featured a cabaret singer called Lloyd Bene and seems from the context to have been a vanity record rather than a song-poem album, however later on in his career someone persuaded him to try his hand at rock & roll, the resulting demos went straight into the release schedule of a tax-scam label called Tribute and became an album called "Only Time Will Tell", truly bizarre...
BOTH are gonersville! I mean I dig 'em, man...
'Specailly "Talufa".
Is this the same Teacho Wiltshire that worked with Louis Jordan?
Post a Comment