Trouble, Trouble Blues

Greetings - updates to the old posts will have to wait until next time. It's been a terrifically busy 10 days, and I wanted to at least get a post up...

I've rarely featured the Ronnie label here. I find most of their records very bland and samey. I don't know if they were part of the Globe empire - there is some overlap in the quality of that blandness, and Sammy Marshall was the star of both companies. But I discern an even blander sheen on most Ronnie releases than I do Globe. 

Which made this record a pleasant surprise. I make no argument for "Trouble, Trouble Blues" (by May Redding) being great, or outstanding in any significant way, but it does have a bit of energy, mostly in the rhythm section, and even sounds a bit like an early Sterling release in certain aspects. Plus, the guitarist tries to actually do something during the solo. Something. All that said, I think it should be at least 20 bpm faster and then there might have been more to work with. 

Download: May Redding - Trouble, Trouble Blues

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The aforementioned Sammy Marshall shows up on the flip side, in the guise of "Ben Tate", a name he was only billed under on this label, as far as I know (another reason I'm doubtful as to the Globe link). 

This one is an out and out car crash, mostly because the bass player seems to think he's playing in a different song entirely. Aside from a couple of hysterical Tin Pan Alley records from the mid '60's, I don't think I've ever heard this many flubs on a song-poem record. I mean, the whole thing blows, but at least waiting for the next flub from the bass is entertaining. 

Download: Ben Tate - The Night I Lost My Love

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Dreamy Music to Make Your Inners Glo

Happy Second Half of the Year. Let's hope it's better than the First Half. 

I have updated another month's worth of broken posts, October of 2012 in this case. We're getting there.....

This week's fixes include a special post of a Bob Storm record sent to me by Darryl Bullock, a set of two disparate offerings from Tin Pan Alley, a pairing of Cara Stewart and "The Mystery Girl" singing a song with a mangled title, and a fairly awful Dick Kent number on MSR. 

As I do whenever I feature either an Edith Hopkins composition and/or a record on her custom label (out of Emporia, Kansas), "Inner-Glo", I will again explain that Ms. Hopkins is my favorite song-poet, based on the high quality of her (large number of) best songs, and also that she was a bit of a curio in the song-poem world in that, although she used the song-poem factories, particularly Globe, it appears that she wrote all the words AND music to her songs, so she was not technically fully part of the song-poem world. Additionally, although it doesn't apply here, she also wrote and commissioned records of certain songs meant to be directed at the legitimate radio/record store/Billboard magazine world, most notably with (but not limited to), the incomparable "What's She Got (That I Ain't Got)", by Betty Jayne.

Anyway, what we have today is a Hopkins special from that Inner-Glo label, from about 1964, and sounding all the world like some sort of brilliant mixture of a Patsy Cline song with production one might have found coming out of certain early '60's Los Angeles studios.

Whatever you want to call it, I think "That's the Place I Should Be" is just lovely. The lilting melody, the appealing duet vocals, and the loping 6/8 beat played by creating a wonderfully dreamy sound. And... I may have mentioned this before, but I adore the sound of a vibraphone, and the presence of one on both sides of this record (including a solo in each track!) is the perfect addition.

Download: Kris Arden - That's the Place I Should Be
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The flip side, "Should I Forget", doesn't have as much going for it - its main attraction for me is some fabulous vibraphone flavoring and another solo. Otherwise, while it's structurally somewhat similar to the flip side, and the lyrics are considerably better than the vast majority of song-poems, there's not much to set it apart from 100 other slow 6/8 weepers.

Download: Kris Arden - Should I Forget
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