Wednesday, June 27, 2018

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
Play:

And the flip side, "Without You".

Download: Ella Howard - Without You
Play:


2 comments:

Sammy Reed said...

No popup problems on Int. Explorer yet!
And speaking of problems - I'm happy to announce that some problems I had are over, and I'm back on BlogSpot / Blogger / whatever! (My address says Blogspot, so there, I guess)
I'll transition the material from my blog posts from Wordpress (a whole big 2 of 'em)to my new blog. My new address is:
https://strangemusicworld.blogspot.com/
... and as I found out - I can stream stuff again! So watch for that.

Stu Shea said...

Say, I dig both sides of this record. The a-side may be a bit better for me, but not by much. Ms. Howard appears, especially on the b-side, to have taken Patsy Cline's style of supper-club C&W to heart. Thanks for posting these! Do you have a guess on release date?