Friday, February 16, 2018

"Okay, That Was Good - Now, Once More, Just a Bit More Obnoxiously"


So I just heard this record for the first time this week, and even though it's a Christmas song-poem, I didn't want to wait ten months to share it with you. It's our old friend Cathy Mills, occasional star of the Tin Pan Alley label, doing (what was apparently) her best to sound cutesy. Perhaps the results are exactly what the song-poet was looking for. I certainly hope so, but what I hear is an entire performing ensemble being as cloying and obnoxious as I would think was possible. It's certainly not impossible that this was on purpose - I've heard enough song-poems to know that sometimes the musicians had a bit of mean-spirited fun with the material.

Whatever its backstory, I find "Just Like" to be sort of wonderfully awful. See what you think.

Download: Cathy Mills - Just Like
Play:

One listen to Cathy Mills' flip side, "Hey, Hey" makes clear that her real singing voice sounds nothing like the kiddie voice on "Just Like". Here we have a tribute to the various instruments that make up a combo who are playing a rockin' number. And all is fine with that - there's a trumpet, a sax, a mellow organ. Cool. But then, in a phrase I'm not sure has ever been uttered or written, outside of this song, "Don't forget the bass cello groan". Yep. That old groaning "bass cello".

(And yes, I understand that the writers were surely referring to a double bass, but still... "The bass cello groan"?)

Download: Cathy Mills - Hey, Hey
Play:


4 comments:

Timmy said...

Hey, HAY! I dig that side the mostest..............
Too cutsie on the xmas side........

Stu Shea said...

I echo Timmy's comments. The b-side is kinda nifty, even accounting for the well-out-of-time approach (I'm assuming this record was from 1967-68?).

Thanks for posting!

Sammy Reed said...

2/22/18:
Sammy Reed here. I'd like to mention that I no longer have my "Music from the World of the Strange and the Bizarre" blog where it was. I now have a Wordpress account that I hope to have songs on sometime. It's on the link with my name here. Again, Bob, keep up your great work!

Sammy Reed said...

2/27/18:
Thought I'd inform you-all that I saw the MSR 45 with Bobbi Blake's "Betsy and Her Goat" on side 1 and Dick Kent's original "doo-doo" version of "Gretchen's New Dish" on side 2 on E-Bay. $8 plus $4 shipping. Get this before I do.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/DICK-KENT-BOBBI-BLAKE-Gretchens-New-Dish-Betsy-And-Her-Goat-45-Oldies/352270687374?hash=item5204f81c8e:g:sw0AAOSwZ3Bac86B