Two Heaping Mouthfuls from Rodd Keith

HOWDY!!!

First off, HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone. It is my hope, in the new year, to re-connect the songs lost in the divshare meltdown of early 2015, AND to return to posting more than three times a month. There's no telling what the new year will bring in terms of busy times and other complications, but it is my plan to do both of those things. 

It has been a surprising three months since I last featured any Rodd Keith material, surely the longest time between such posts in the history of this blog. And so I found a late-era (for him) Preview release featuring a fairly interesting song on the b-side (not so much the flip, I don't think), and also one which features not one but two ridiculously long titles. In fact, in the "Rodd Keith" folder of my computer - which you might imagine is chock full and several screens long - these are the two longest song titles of the entire collection.

Of the two, I much prefer "Now I Can See Where I Made My Mistake", a tune with a driving sound, pushed along by pulsating keyboards and steady drumming. To my ears, Rodd sounds like he's shooting for the sound of some of the blue-eyed soul belters who came to prominence in the late '60's and early '70's. I'm actually reminded, a little bit, of the beat and feel of "Suspicious Minds" (a record I really can't stand, by the way - I like this a lot more). While not an out-and-out winner, it's an interesting entry, and I like a lot of what's going on among the many elements of the track.

Download: Rodd Keith - Now I Can See Where I Made My Mistake
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On the flip side is "Take Your Time Before You Fall in Love", by the same song-poet, who clearly liked to make his entire point via his song titles. This one is a slow drag - a bit too upbeat to be a ballad, but not nearly peppy enough to be a mover of any sort. For a too-long three and a quarter minutes, Rodd sings the writers story, which isn't a bad one, but which isn't told very well, musically or lyrically. Like so many other song-poems of this ilk, I lost interest halfway through, and had to go back to listen again to actually hear how we got to the point mentioned in the song title.

Download: Rodd Keith - Take Your Time Before You Fall in Love
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SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!!!

When a Baby is Born

First of all, let me wish all of you a happy Christmas, and/or joyful whatever else you're having. I appreciate every visitor and every visit to this site, and I hope you find it worth your while every time you stop by.

When I found I had a recent acquisition containing the song title "When a Baby is Born", I felt that was a natural for a Christmas Day post. However, the song, named in this week's post title, is by far the lesser of the two songs on this 45, so I'll share it in the runner-up position.

And it's no surprise that the flip side is better, as it is yet another winner from Cara Stewart, in this case titled "Each Passing Day". I suppose nothing really sets this one aside from other Cara efforts, just another wonderfully winning vocal and more arrangement magic from Lee Hudson.

Download: Cara Stewart and Orchestra - Each Passing Day
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Actually the most interesting aspects of this record are probably the ones found on the label. When I shared the only other "Princess" label 45, in a post here (the links in that post no longer work), I speculated that the record in question was one of very few on the Princess label, a label not documented anywhere else at that time. Clearly, there were more, as this record, from three years later (1969), is number 19, a whole six records after the 1966 issue linked above. Clearly these are rarities - it took me eight years to acquire a second Princess release.

I didn't mention it in that previous post, but what is the deal with the copyright of "Dorothy Mann, Queen of the West"? That's got me thinking. And then of course, there is the matter of how and why did this come into the position of a Sergeant in the Women's Army Corps, as seen on the sticker. These are the things that would keep me up at night, if I was the sort to be kept up at night, which I'm not.

Anyway, the flip side, "When a Baby is Born", may make for a good title to use on a post for Christmas Day, but as a song - even a song-poem, it's fairly awful. This slow, dull record doesn't even give me much of a clue as to what song-poem factory it may have come from. Thoughts on that? The record claims the singer is someone named "Frank Cherry", but a quick listen shows that this is very unlikely to be the case. At least, I'm not familiar with "Frank" being a unisex name, but maybe I'm just out of the loop.

Download: (Labeled As) Frank Cherry and Orchestra - When a Baby is Born
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And finally, here is the Christmas card my family and I sent out to family and friends this year. We have a history of offbeat Christmas cards, and my older daughter, who is an artist, had perhaps the best idea we've ever had for a card. My wife and I are in the front row (I'm actually bald - that's a wig), and our daughters are in the back, on either side of the boyfriend of my my younger daughter (who is on the left).

A Double Shot of Tin Pan Alley

I know it's been a nearly unprecedented 17 days since I last posted here, and to make up for it, I'm going to offer up a two-fer, TWO Tin Pan Alley records, from several years apart, each of which contains a remarkable, entertaining and unique song on one side of the record.

First up, a record by Mike Thomas with the minimalist house combo that accompanied so many of the tunes he warbled. As I so often do, I really must allow you to enjoy the bizarre charms of "We're Having a Baby", without giving away too much of what goes on in its 98 seconds of existence. Suffice it to say that the weird lines come nearly back to back to back, throughout the ultra-short song. And the bouncy musical bed is just icing on the cake. The fact that this record was pressed just a tiny bit off center just adds to the wooziness that the words create.

I really wonder if the people in the Tin Pan Alley studio just completely lost it, cracking up, after finishing some of these records.

Download: Mike Thomas - We're Having a Baby
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The flip side, written by the same song-poet, is pressed even more off center. In this case, the song is of little interest to me, and the off-center effect is nothing but further annoyance. The song, "Planets of Love", is a stultifying slow 6/8 thing, of a type that Tin Pan Alley specialized in. It's genuinely difficult for me to remain focused on the lyrics long enough to care what he's singing about. Something about a marriage proposal underneath the moonlight, I think, but what's with the lyrics about all the evil things we do?

Download: Mike Thomas - Planets of Love
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And now, let's jump ahead several years, and enjoy a few minutes with everyone's favorite genre, the TV-Character-Tribute-Song-Poem:

"Dallas" was certainly a smash hit, and a TV phenomenon. Lead character J. R. Ewing inspired a few novelty records, including one that made Billboard's Hot 100. So it's little surprise that at least one song-poet decided to pen a tribute to the dastardly man. And again, it ended up with our friends at Tin Pan Alley. At this point, the house band was called "The Melodiers", although they sound to me like the same band, with Mike Thomas still on lead vocal.

They put together a peppy, power pop like track, with a melody sung rapidly enough that I can't make out everything that's being sung, but it's catchy and fun (and would be even more so if not for the truly crappy condition of this record...).

Download: The Melodiers - J. R.
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The flip side is "Gold Plate", and one could be forgiven for thinking it's a remake of "Planets of Love" (above) at first. It has that same, thuddish 6/8 beat, and in this case, I really have no idea what the writer is on about. The singer (Mike Thomas or whoever), seems to have some insight, as he puts far more feeling into the last few lines than I could imagine someone directing at this song, after three minutes of boredom.

Download: The Melodiers - Gold Plate
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Gospel Norm

Time seems to be fleeting again, and I really want to get another set of song-poems out there before the month ends in three hours or so. I had one post ready to go, then found out that the song in question was readily available on youtube. So I've grabbed a record by one of my favorite singers, Norm Burns, and am offering it up instead. It's Sterling Records' attempt at a Gospel feel, not terribly successful, I'd say, but I almost always find Norm worth hearing. Here's "I Am Going Home With Him".

Download: Norm Burns and the Five Stars - I Am Going Home With Him
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I won't be surprised if the flip side is the preferred one for many listeners. "My Broken Heart Will Heal Someday", is a fairly bland, midtempo thing, but there's some stellar drumming going on, and the little fill in melodies (and the song melody itself) are not too shabby, at least in places. In other places, particularly at the section starting at 1:48, the construction is laughably bad. But honestly, mostly I just really dig the drumming.

Download: Norm Burns and the Five Stars - My Broken Heart Will Heal Someday. 
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Rollin' Down & Setting the Pace

Greeting and salutations, and for those who celebrated it, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday. I have a double play for you today, one song-poem offering and one which might be a song-poem, might be a vanity record and might be something else. 

Before getting to any music, I want to thank a couple of folks who let me know that one of the files was corrupted in last week's post. It has been corrected, thanks to "reservatory" and anonymous. 

I also had poster "KL" send a few links, including a youtube posting of a vanity pressing on Preview, a record which went for a whole lot of money last year ($1625!). You can see and hear it here. And for those on Facebook, you can see and hear a Rod Rogers/Frank Perry release here. 

And speaking of Film City: 

This is the only documented song-poem record to be released under the name "Jad Dees". Mr. Dees - or at least someone with the same odd name - had a career, at least for a time, as a country and western singer, belonged to a group called, of all things "The Beverly Hill Billies", which you can read about here. He also appeared in at least one movie, and had a few records out on legit labels in the 1930's. I imagine there's at least an interesting, if not fascinating story about how he ended up cutting two songs by song-poet Fred Wolf for the Film City outfit.

This very early Film City effort is notable for the herding-related shouting and whistling heard three times during the record. The lyrics themselves are one cowboy cliche after another, and the Chamberlin - despite the appropriate shuffle beat - could hardly fit the genre more poorly. But all in all, it's a fun little record.

Download: Jad Dees with the Swinging Strings - Rollin' Down the Mountain
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The flip side "This Old World Just Keeps on Turning", plods along its way. It's barely 20 seconds longer than "Rollin' Down", yet it seems ages longer, due to the ponderous nature of the song, arrangement and vocal performance.

Download: Jad Dees with the Swinging Strings - This Old World Just Keeps on Turning
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~~~~~

Now to the more confounding of the two records. We have here a record by Jim Wayne on the Pacer label, written by Opal Scaggs. Opal Scaggs seems to have been the owner of the label, as every record released on Pacer seems to list her as the songwriter. 

On the side of considering this to be a song-poem is the fact that Opal Scaggs wrote lyrics for at least one song-poem on another label, along with Pacer appearing to have been a vanity label. On the other side are multiple sites indicating that Jim Wayne worked, under that name, for multiple labels, some not likely song-poem related all around the same time as this record's release (reportedly, 1968), and one person who stated, without evidence, that the sax player on this record is Boots Randolph. 

It's certainly possible that this was a vanity release, perhaps one even target at actual hit status by Ms. Scaggs, and perhaps she wrote the words and music to the songs. I'm interested to hear what any of you think. 

But I wouldn't be sharing it at all if it wasn't for the fact that one of the sides - with the ultra catchy title "You'll Find Another Sucker If You Try" - makes me smile, due to the peppy arrangement, in combination with (and this is the key factor) Jim Wayne's endearingly ridiculous vocal delivery. 

Download: Jim Wayne - You'll Find Another Sucker If You Try

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Flipping the record over, we find another case where a record of the same length - in this case, barely a second of difference - seems to stretch out for way too long. Your mileage, of course, may vary. But on "I Pretended She Was You", aside from Jim Wayne's continued over-the-top, over-enunciating vocal stylings, very little hear stays with me.

Download: Jim Wayne - I Pretended She Was You

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Pretension Overload!

It comes as no surprise that the basic scam of the song-poem company would draw into it's net some people whose writing was a bit, say, prone towards pretentiousness. And there are more than enough examples to fill three months of posts here - "The Human Breakdown of Absurdity", "Life and Myself" and "Virgin Child of the Universe" come to mind. 

I have no doubt my mouth dropped open in wonder upon hearing each of those three - particularly "Life and Myself", which cracks me up to this day. And like that song, today I have another Gene Marshall masterpiece, which also caused me to nearly burst into laughter, all by myself. It's called "Loneliness", and while the opening lines are more than a bit ponderous, the real sign of trouble is when, barely a third of the way through the record, Gene has to speak the writer's words, for nearly a minute. 

That's no surprise, given the presence of several words which would terrifically difficult to set to music, such as "presently", "correlation" and "wherein". And is it just me, or, in this section does Gene Marshall sound like Rod Serling introducing a Twilight Zone episode? 

Download: Gene Marshall - Loneliness

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The song on the flip side is called "When Young Eyes Meet". The same song-poet as on "Loneliness" provided this lyric, and he does considerably better with a more direct, at times genuinely affecting set of words. The music is too bland, and the quality of those words too uneven to make this anything special, but the lyrics do give more than a bit of insight into a part of the writer's life, things that may have inspired not only this song, but also "Loneliness". 

Download: Gene Marshall - When Young Eyes Meet

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SCARY BAD!!!

What better day than a day dedicated to all things scary to offer up a new find on one of the most consistently, frighteningly awful labels out there, the tiny and mysterious Noval Records label. 

First up is a song with an absolutely quintessential song-poem title, "Thoughts", sung by Noval's resident female - as always, not credited on the label (that's the songwriters' names you see in the scans). There are at least a few other obvious titles that could have been given to this lyric, but no, the song-poet with "Thoughts". 

A lugubrious pace and somnambulistic setting by the combo drag this one down, as they do on about 80% of Noval's releases. The singer - as this singer always does - sounds like a hometown girl performing in an amateur hour at the local church, although I am head over heels for the spectacularly incompetent swooping in her voice at 1:26 - It borders on self-parody, and it's worth the price of admission. 

Download: No Artist Named (Noval Productions) - Thoughts

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The flip side, "Following Around With You", features the same vocalist, but the band, as heard here, is about the peppiest that I've ever heard on a Noval release, and it's sort of led by a plucked guitar, another rarity on this label. The whole thing (except the typically awful vocal) sounds more like a Globe production than the typical Noval output. 

That doesn't make any of it very good at all. Lyrically, it's actually a close relative to "Thoughts" - a woman pining for someone who has likely been untrue - although the specifics are different (the reference to the Army seems to fly in from another song entirely). Musically, despite the peppier beat (it's not actually peppy, but it's a rock and roll stomper compared to most Noval records), nothing of interest happens, aside from a few badly played moments. And is it just me, or does this seem to go on forever.

Download: No Artist Named (Noval Productions) - Fooling Around With You

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Peppy, Short and Sweet



Man, I have genuinely lost track of time. I had no idea I hadn't posted in over two weeks. I need to get back into a rhythm.

 

Before I get to today's feature, I want to share that the date for the obnoxiously racist Halmark release featured two weeks ago has been identified as 1969. Please see the comments to my previous post for details; I have updated the post.

 



I have often found the late-era Tin Pan Alley efforts by the band called "New Image" to be half-assed in a usually uninteresting, occasionally entertaining way. But here's one I actually like as a record. It still has that oompah feeling heard on so many TPA records of the '70's and later, but in this case, the loping beat, the stripped down backing and the pleading vocalist fit the lyrics nicely, and.... I dunno, the whole thing "works" for me, even while I recognize that it's got bargain basement lyrics and a garage demo level backing. It's also over in just 106 seconds, so there's barely a welcome to be worn out. It's called "Here I Am Without You", and here it is:

Download: New Image - Here I Am Without You
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But, as I find myself saying quite often, the flip side - I Want to Be the One - does not do it for me, despite being in the sort of '50's setting that would often appeal to me. I find myself tuning out, not caring much about the lyrics or the performance.

Download: New Image - I Want to Be the One
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Really? REALLY?????

Today's post is really about one song on a four song EP, one awful song that is aggressively ugly in concept and execution. So I'll briefly mention the first, third and fourth tracks on this Halmark masterpiece, and focus on that one song. And then I'll offer up a palate cleanser, a record so ridiculous that it must be heard.

The entire EP is credited to Bob Storm, and that sounds about right based on the vocals here. The first song is "The Higher You Are", set to one of the typically moldy old-style music beds that Halmark recycled with astounding regularly (as well as contempt for their customers).

Download: Bob Storm - The Higher You Are
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Now about that atrocity. It comes up next, and it's called "Old Sambo". I'm mostly going to let you discover the astonishing nature of this lyric for yourself as it plays on your computer, but first, I'm going to wonder - did the folks at Halmark literally have no shame? Was there no lyric that they would reject? When they read the first line of the recitation (yes, it's one of those), didn't anyone suggest that this was beyond the pale? What on earth did the folks who submitted the other three sets of lyrics think, when they played their song, then listened to the rest of the record?

Please remember (or be advised) that the heyday of this label was the early '70's through the late '70's; even though the music here sounds like the record is from the early to mid '50's, it is actually more likely this record came out during Richard Nixon's second administration, or during Gerald Ford's presidency, and it could not have come out before 1967, in any case.

(Addendum: readers far more clever than I am have determined that this record is from 1969. Please see the comments!)

Again, was nothing off limits? Did every single person - even this lyricist, get the come-on responses from Halmark, telling them how wonderful their writing was? Why didn't "Bob Storm" (whoever he really was, not (Bob) storm his way out of the recording studio?

Okay, I've written far too much, again. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you... "Old Sambo":

Download: Bob Storm - Old Sambo
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Okay, that's over with. The best thing I can say about "I Can't Think" is that it uses, as it's music bed, my favorite Halmark backing track, the one most memorably used behind "My Hamburger Baby". Not that anything interesting is done with it:

Download: Bob Storm - I Can't Think
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We finish off with another track that features a spoken introduction. The most interesting thing, to me, about "Lisa Maria", is that the title of the song is not featured in the lyrics, as sung - Bob Storm consistently sings about "Lisa Marie", not "Maria":

Download: Bob Storm - Lisa Maria
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Don't miss the bonus track, below the label scan!

As promised, here is a palate cleanser.

I suspect this is actually a vanity recording, but it could be a song-poem, and regardless, there is a lot of overlap here between the two, whichever it is.

It's called "For You". And this is a SPECTACULARLY bad song, with ridiculously simple lyrics, which move quickly into something at least somewhat stalker-esque. I'll assume for the moment that the man credited, Jesse James Hall, is both the writer and the singer here. If not, he's probably the writer, rather than the singer. The label is "Song-makers, Inc. of New York City, and the whole thing smells like a bottom of the barrel production.

Consider these inspired opening lines, the ones that, of course, are meant to catch the listener's ear:

I live for only you, 

Without you I can't live

Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoo

I live for only you. 

A short time later, after expressing that he hopes she loves him too, he becomes more insistent:

I'll go on living

As long as you live for me. 

That's a lot to expect from someone, especially if you're currently only hoping she loves you.

As a piece of songwriting, this is a masterpiece of incompetence. And it gets it all done in just 97 seconds.

Download: Jesse James Hall  - For You
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You Want Cloying? I'll Give You Cloying!

So the big news here is that we have a brand new, previously un-catalogued song-poem label, which appears to possibly be a vanity pressing used (created?) by one Margaret A. Rosenberger, and featuring the efforts of both the Film City and Globe song-poem factories, in each case represented on this EP by their respective lead artistes, Rodd Keith (as Rod Rogers, of course) and Sammy Marshall (identified here as two different singers, Sonny Marcell and Sammy Marshall - I have to wonder if even a single person was fooled).

And not to take away from the niftiness of all that, but Rod Rogers' features are among the most cloying, infantile songs and performances that I've ever heard on a song-poem, reaching the level of some of Dora Hall's worst kiddie offerings. That the quality of the songs and lyrics take the focus away from some pretty creative Chamberlin arrangements is even more frustrating; there's some nice stuff going on instrumentally here, but in combination with these lyrics, they just strike me as over-the-top cutesy-ness to go with the lyrics.

First up is "Kitty Cat"

Download: Rod Rogers - Kitty Cat
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And Ms. Rosenberger couldn't give all of her attention to her dear, beloved kitty, so she also provided us with a song about her two dogs, "Skip and Mitzi".

Download: Rod Rogers - Skip and Mitzi
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~~

Turning the record over, we find "Sonny Marcell" with the only non-animal-related track on the EP, and the dullest of the four (to these ears, anyway), to boot, "A Spanish Town". At least the music sort of matches the feel of the lyrics, in a stereotypical way. The sudden double tracking, on the other hand, doesn't work at all:

Download: Sonny Marcell - A Spanish Town
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As mentioned above, Sonny changes his last name to "Marshall" in time to present one of his patented early '60's-styled rockers. Despite the presence of Rodd Keith on the flip side, this is easily my favorite of the four songs, but I am a sucker for that twist beat, and Sonny/Sammy's way with this sort of material.

Download: Sonny Marshall - A Little Bird
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Come Back to Norm

It's Norm Time here at Song-Poem central. I wish it was Norm Time almost as often as it was Rodd Time, but I just don't have as many Norm Burns records. Today's feature is not one of Norm's (or Sterling's) outstanding efforts, but I think it's solid in all areas but one. The band plays a nice pop-rock backing, with what I consider some particularly stellar drumming. Norm projects real feeling and sells the song well. The only thing that keeps this from being an all around winner are some truly cookie-cutter, seventh grade romance level lyrics. There is not a single original or interesting thing said in this words, is there?

Ah, well, you can't have it all. At least not always.

Download: Norm Burns: Come Back, My Darling
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The dichotomy between that side and its flip side "Out in the World" is pretty stark, to these ears. Maybe it's just me, but here I find a band which sounds like its going through the motions, and a singer who doesn't sound engaged with the lyrics or the song. The stodgy beat, meandering melody and mediocre, often non-musical lyrics don't help, but as the flip demonstrated, at least poor lyrics can be overcome somewhat if the rest of the record is decent. Then again, the flip didn't go on for almost three and a half dull minutes.

Download: Norm Burns: Out in the World
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His Mammy and His Mammy-In-Law

Today, I have a downright peculiar sets of lyrics from the pen of one Jay Andrews, set to music by the Globe song-poem factory, assigned to Sammy Marshall (identified here as "Sonny Marshall"), and licensed out (or however that worked) to the Air label.

On the better of the two sides we have "In-Law Blues", which contains the phrase I've alluded to above, "My mammy and my mammy-in-law", or parts thereof, several times. Really. Has anyone else ever expressed that relationship in that way...ever? "My mammy-in-law." Plus, it just rolls off the tongue, particularly when set to music.

The story the song tells is prosaic, but the way it's expressed, lyrically and musically (this band should not be in the same state as a record identified as a "blues") make it stand out for me. I think my mouth dropped open while listening to this record for the first time.

And is it just me, or does this 165 second number seem to go on forever.

Download: Sonny Marshall - In-Law Blues
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On the flip side is the primarily stultifying "Naughty Lady". Mr. Andrews lyrics suggest that he was going for suave sophistication, and Sammy (er, Sonny) and the band certainly treat it like that was the intent, although they are not remotely successful in doing so.

Lyrics like "can one so blasé feel such a thrill" and "Lady.... please", certainly don't help. I will admit that when he sang "Naughty lady, I'm on to you", I was hoping for the next line to be "Lady.... let's screw". That would have pepped things up. Alas, no.


Download: Sonny Marshall - Naughty Lady
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In Memory of Elvis on 8/16/18

It's been 41 years since the King of Rock and Roll last saw the inside of an earthly bathroom, and in honor of this death anniversary, I want to offer up a full song-poem album, one on the Royal Master label, featuring three singers - Matt Vincent, Jaye Pauley and Jim Ward - not heard on this site before. In all, nearly 45 minutes of song-poems.

 

(I hoped to have more to say about the album, the anniversary and the individual tracks, and set aside a couple of hours to do so, but car problems last night (now resolved) ate up that time, and a third hour as well, and in order to get this up today, I'm just going to share the tracks. I haven't even had a chance to make sure there are no glitches in the MP3's. Please let me know if there are any issues.)

So herewith, the front cover of this masterpiece:

And the record label for side one, containing all the song titles and lyricists:

And here are the two sides of the album:

Download: Various Artists - A Tribute to the King, Side One
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Download: Various Artists - A Tribute to the King, Side Two
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Here is the back cover: 

 

Here is the label for side two:

 

 

And a close-up of the back cover, showing the performers of each song:

 

The King is Gone, and So Are Some Squirrels

It's been ages - oddly enough, exactly a year, actually - since I featured a Halmark single here. There's a good reason for that. While there are some fabulous releases on Halmark - virtually all of those being fabulous because of their entertaining level of awfulness - there are many more releases on Halmark which are simply awful, without the benefit of being funny, endearing or otherworldly.

I seem to have nearly exhausted my pre-arranged stack of worthy Halmark releases, so I am only now sharing them when I newly come across which is worth hearing. And I hadn't had that experience in many a month. Until last week.

And actually, I find the first three tracks here to be also unsuitably stultifying. But that last one makes it all worth while. But there may be some of you, who perhaps are particularly fond of that all-too-common item, the dead Elvis song-poem, who may enjoy the first of our four part saga here. It's called "An August Day", it's set to a track we now know to have been originally created to back up the song "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", and is true more often than not on Halmark, the singer is not named.

Download: Halmark Productions - An August Day
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The less said about the next two, ponderous, Christian numbers, the better. The first is "In Gratitude", and what appears to be a slightly off center pressing makes me even more woozy than the performance itself. 

Download: Halmark Productions - In Gratitude
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A favorite, dramatically awful Halmark backing track is the only thing which holds appeal to me in "He's Coming Back to Stay", and it's been used to much greater effect elsewhere. I wonder if the writer minded that the singer speaks, rather than sings, the majority of her lyrics. Then again, with non-musical phrases like "available time" and "people who haven't accepted the Lord", what other choice did they have?

Download: Halmark Productions - He's Coming Back to Stay
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But the reason for sharing this record is the track called "Hunting Country". The lyrics here are all over the map, and gloriously stupid. But I'll let you experience the joys of this ridiculous track without spoiling them.

Download: Halmark Productions - Hunting Country
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Cut-Rate, Dime-Store Zeppelin

 

I'll write it again: "Cut-Rate, Dime-Store Zeppelin". That's exactly what I thought upon listening to "Hard Times" on the Tin Pan Alley label, as sung by Mike Thomas with a trio of musicians behind him. If there's a third adjective to further modify the crumminess of this performance, it applies, too.

 

And I honestly do wonder if someone at TPA told the band and the singer, "Hey, go listen to this Led Zeppelin stuff - it's really popular - see if you can work up something like that".

 

Whether that happened or not, the results fit the description, at least to these ears, particularly after the 1:30 point. The slow, bluesy backing, the guitarist wailing his solo around those chords in a certain way, the drawling high pitched singer, the drum fills near the end. Not that I think any of this is done competently, of course. It's not. But I can't imagine that they stumbled onto this genre by accident. Even if the results are sort of a car crash.

 

Download: Mike Thomas - Hard Times

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On the flip side, we have an earnest performance - and a very typical one at that - of an equally earnest, religious lyric, in a song titled "Lord of the Sky", also by Mike Thomas. Nothing much stands out here - this could be the quintessential TPA release of this era.

 

Download: Mike Thomas - Lord of the Sky

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A Jaw-Dropping Rodd Keith Record

Relatively early in my days of song-poem collecting, I asked song-poem maven Phil Milstein for his insight into what was the most popular song-poem, among those he'd heard from and interacted with. His answer was that it was Gary Robert's magnificently weird and half-assed "Do You Know the Difference Between Big Wood and Brush". This made sense to me, because not only was it likely the first song-poem most fans heard (at that point, at least, as it was the lead track on both the first vinyl and the first CD song-poem compilations), but it has a lot of the hallmarks (sic) of the best/worst of song-poems - utterly personal lyrics, no sense (by the lyricist) of what will and won't work when set to music - in this case, spectacularly so - minimal effort by the backing band, and a singer who is no great shakes.

Today, I have an example of what happens when a musical genius, his better days behind him, is offered a chance to work with a similarly convoluted, personal set of lyrics, words which have no business being made into a song. And I find the results stunning, sad, astonishing at times. I would not rank the weirdness on a level with "Big Wood and Brush", but this record is deeply odd in its own ways, while sharing that glorious factor of incompetent storytelling in the lyrics.

The genius in question is Rodd Keith, performing on one of the first records released on Sandy Stanton's "Action Records" label, along with the "Big Action Sound", which is simply the Chamberlin. My guess - and it's just that - is that at this point (1972), Rodd was under contract with MSR, and could not appear as either Rod Rogers or Rodd Keith, so he shows up here as "Terry Thomas", perhaps in honor of the great British comic actor.

Anyway, this record is a mess. Rodd's Chamberlin choices, while they do contain some interesting parts, are often shrill and ugly. Vocally I hear a shell of the man who'd offered so many great performances in the 1960's. And the material he was given to work with is... something else - I'll let you discover its charms.

See what you think!

Download: Terry Thomas and the "Big Action Sound" - I'm a Lonely Man
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On the flip side is a song for which Rodd - as Terry Thomas - actually took co-writer credit. It's a better song (lyrics by the same person as on "Lonely Man"). Rodd sounds a bit more engaged, and the track is more cohesive, too, but there's nothing there that holds my attention. Your mileage may vary.

Download: Terry Thomas and the "Big Action Sound" - Make Up Your Mind
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MAMBO-ITIS!!!

Today, we're going to travel back in time, to the era when America was Mambo crazy, and join with one of my favorite early song-poem purveyors, Teacho Wiltshire (who, in a rare exception to the song-poem rule, went on to a significant "legit" career in music), on one of my favorite labels, Tin Pan Alley, for a little bit of MAMBO-ITIS! Take it, Teacho:

Download: Teacho Wiltshire, His Piano and Orchestra: Mambo-Itis
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Having just expressed my undying appreciation for Teacho, I must now backtrack and say that I find very little like about the song on the flip side, "Time is Precious (Don't Waste It)", or his ingratiating, smarmy vocal performance. Perhaps you'll find more to like.

Download: Teacho Wiltshire, His Piano and Orchestra - Time is Precious (Don't Waste It)
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Howden Records

First, thanks to the good folks at Blogger, the problem with pop-up ads has, I'm told, been addressed. Please let me know if that's the case, or, especially, if that's NOT the case. 

 

 

 

I was recently lucky enough to acquire four records on the previously unlisted, undocumented "Howden Records" label. They were advertised as song-poems, and I was skeptical at first, but then I noticed that almost half of the eight tracks were by Betty Bond, who was definitely part of the Bob Quimby's Tropical Records outfit, which dealt in song-poems, and which was specifically in the habit of setting up vanity labels for some of the song-poets who sent them material. Such would appear to be the case for "Howden", as all of the songs are written by one HOWard DENnington.

 

The sides which don't feature Betty Bond feature two singers not previously known to the song-poem world, and today's record - which contains what I find to be among the best of the eight tracks - features Ella Howard. She's not the greatest singer, and both songs sound fairly similar. But like some other Tropical records I've heard (admittedly, not a lot), they have a bit more quality and variety to the composition and arrangement than most song-poems (at least those not involving Rodd Keith). 

 

Here's the first of the songs, "It's the Natural Thing"

Download: Ella Howard - It's the Natural Thing
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And the flip side, "Without You".

Download: Ella Howard - Without You
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Roger and Ronnie, Margie and Hawaii

First and foremost, Happy Father's Day to all of you fathers out there, and to the fathers of everyone reading this!

Here's my solemn promise to everyone out there - when I obtain a Roger Smith 45, I will always post it here very quickly. Or maybe that doesn't mean much to anyone but me, but I sure do love the barely-in-control vocals on many of his records (at least the upbeat ones). 

Here we have a very early release on the Ronnie label (the first one documented at AS/PMA), dated to early 1961, via a mention in Billboard within a list of records believed to have "limited sales potential". That assessment was no doubt accurate, but I really enjoy one side of the record, "Margie Now", which features some lyrics about the nicknames of a certain young woman. The words seem to assume we will understand what the changes in names indicate about her, but I admit to being clueless about this. But Roger Smith sure sells it, and the pedal steel sounds nice, too. 

There is a some truly awful damage to the record, at the 2:32 point, which is really peculiar, lasting essentially two rotations of the disc, and barely visible at all on the record itself. It plays right through, though. 

Download: Roger Smith: Margie Now

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I cannot work up much (or any) enthusiasm for the flip side, "Aloha, Miss Hawaii", but it would have been quite topical at the time, given that this record was produced less than 18 months after our 50th state joined the union, and the lyrics are serviceable enough. Like the flip side, this record sounds, to me, very much as if it came from the early days of the Globe song-poem factory. 

Download: Roger Smith: Aloha, Miss Hawaii

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Rod Rogers on Lane Records!

Lane Records - apparently the property o f George E. Clements - appears to have been among the tiniest of tiny labels. The AS/PMA website only confirms two releases, numbers 101 and 102, and it seems unlikely that there were many more releases, if any. 

The other (known) release on the label appears to have featured the work of singers/song-poem factories associated with several labels, but # 102, which I was lucky enough to acquire a few weeks ago, features Rodd Keith, in his guise of Rod Rogers, and his Film City sound, thanks to the Chamberlin. 

On "Such a Love", my choice for the better of the two sides, Rodd chose a frequent favorite of his, a shuffling pop beat, along with some atmospheric flute accompaniments, and the whole concoction bounces along quite nicely - there's a nice, thickly chorded solo, and I'm particularly fond of the flute coda. 

Download: Rod Rogers - Such a Love

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The flip side, "Gone With Your Goodbye", is more in the ponderous MOR style that Rodd often favored for some of the more introspective or longing lyrics that he was given to work with. It's not a favorite style of mine, but it's nearly always impressive to hear what he was able to do with the Chamberlin, and beyond that, perhaps some of you out there find more to enjoy in it than I do. 

Download: Rod Rogers - Gone With Your Good-Bye

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