See the U.S.A., In Your... Airstream

Howdy,

Before getting to this week's corrected posts from the past, OR this week's feature, I wanted to share something I came across while engaging in another of my hobbies. I have been and continue to be fascinated by music charts of all eras, and it was while doing some research in issues of Billboard from 1946 at I came across a remarkable review.

To start, I'll say that versions of the phrase "rock and roll", specifically those alluding to sex, have been heard in blues records as early as the 1930's. But the use of the specific term in any popular written or spoken media is generally believed to have come about in the early 1950's. So I was startled to see this review in that 1946 edition of Billboard.

I've consulted with a friend who is a well known expert and published author on the subject of Blues and Rhythm and Blues and he agrees this is historic, and encouraged me to post it.

I would ask that any readers, if you're of a mind to, share this post with others who might be in the know and see if this is some sort of first, or nearly first from mainstream media. I'm really interested to hear what people have to say, and if this is as historic as I suspect it is, I would like it to be shared more widely than I'm capable of doing. I will also post this to my other blog the next time I post there.

UPDATE 10/3/20: Please see the comments section for this post = a knowledgeable reader with a most excellent name has offered up evidence of even (considerably) earlier use of the same phrase in Billboard. Details are in the comments. 

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Getting back to song-poems.... I have now repaired the posts for the month of May, 2012. Included in this batch are two, back to back features in which I shared multiple tracks that had been sent to me by others, over the years, a pair of special posts meant to celebrate some exciting events in my life and that of my family, featuring some of my favorite song poems ever. Those repaired posts can be found here and here.

The other posts that month featured a comedic turn by Gene Marshall and a most excellent Rod Rogers on a Film City pairing. It was also at that time that my mid 1990's private album release of a set of comic songs was published by Happy Puppy records, and I announced that album in yet another post that month.

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Finally, here's today's stellar production. It features the always inept Bob Gerard, who seemed to usually be accompanied by perhaps the most hapless of all the bands Tin Pan Alley put forth over the years. Perhaps you remember Mr. Gerard from the stunningly awful song "Snow Man", a post of which I will be fixing in a matter of weeks, or perhaps the highly entertaining, and totally incomprehensible "The Proon Doon Walk".

Today's first side doesn't quite give those ridiculous records a run for their money, but it's still enjoyably off-kilter and stunning in its poor quality. I was going to write that it's all about traveling the USA in a camper, but "all about" is stretching it, as the lyric here is two four line verses and a chorus, followed by a repeat of two of them, and "Let's Get a Camper" is over in just about 90 incompetent seconds.

And those lyrics - grade school level, to be sure, obvious rhymes abounding and tortured turns of phrase throughout. Using the words "Trilled" and "Scamper" indicate how far the song poet had to reach to create something approaching rhyming poetry.

Musically, it's not quite as awful as the records I mentioned above, no one performing on this record could have conceivably used it to present themselves as worthy of a job in the music field. And Bob Gerard is his typical, aggressively amateur sounding self.

Please enjoy - to a ridiculous degree if you like - Bob Gerard's Tin Pan Alley release, "Let's Get a Camper":

Download: Bob Gerard - Let's Get a Camper
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The flip side, "My Blessings", doesn't have anything ridiculous on the scale of "Camper" to recommend it - it's largely just a boring dirge of a piece, badly played and annoyingly warbled without any of the fun of this ensemble's typical car-crash stylings. I'm sure the lyrics were heart felt and meaningful to the song-poet, but they're about as cookie cutter as these things ever get.

Download: Bob Gerard - My Blessings
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A Civil Rights Fable

Today, I have an extremely interesting record, one that is perfect as well for this particularly moment in history.

But first, I want to say that I have again updated another quartet of posts, this time from June of 2012. These posts include: a fun Gene Marshall record about an honest-to-goodness real sea-bound college, an interesting record from Norm Burns combining social relevance with supper club stylings, a Sammy Marshall special featuring some truly odd and interesting lyrical turns of phrase, and some less than competent garage band material from Mike Thomas and Tin Pan Alley. I must say, that was a particularly strong month of offerings.

And now:

I don't quite know what to make of this record, which I just acquired a few days ago.

I thought I knew that Sandy Stanton largely shut down his Fable outfit in the late '50's, with few documented releases after that point, and with Film City apparently coming to life by 1963 or so. A few much higher-numbered Fable releases exist, including one from the early '70's that I've posted, but nothing has been documented between release record # 714, circa 1958 or 1959, and record # 1060, which is undated.

Yet here's a record that has to be from at least the fall of 1963, based on one of the references (multiple sites indicate that year, but it could be guesswork), it features the Chamberlin, which was the hallmark of Stanton's releases on Film City and its offshoots (and never during the heyday of Fable), and it could be a vanity release or a hybrid or even some other category entirely, rather than a song poem.

Both sides of this record have been available online before, and one still is, but neither has been identified as a Fable release, or listed with the credit seen here, to Sandy Stanton's Orch and Chorus. The artist in question, Bob Starr, seems to have reissued the record, along with other recordings, naming his band "The All Star Band", at some point in the late '60's, entirely removing its link to the song-poem world.

None of that would be terribly interesting to much more than a few people, were in not for the fairly fascinating content of the record. For both songs on this record are about aspects of the civil rights movement in the early and mid 1960's. What's more, both are catchy and well made. They sound nothing like anything else I've ever heard on Fable, and I'm fairly certain that the drummer here is NOT the Chamberlin, but rather an actual drummer playing along with the Chamberlin player. which I'm not aware of ever being done on a Film City production.

The listed A-side, and the better of the two, to my ears, is the swinging, R and B flavored "The Freedom March". After the martial opening, the movin' and groovin' begins. The opening lines remind me of "Rockin' Robin" of all things, and I'm fairly certain that "Old Abe Lincoln" did NOT sign the Bill of Rights, but putting that aside, I find this record fairly addictive and even intoxicating in spots.

Download: Bob Starr with Sandy Stanton Orch and Chorus - The Freedom March
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The Flip Side, "The Jail House King" is no slouch either. It features a righteously proud lyric about Martin Luther King, Jr., referred to here are "Luther King", no doubt because it fit the pattern of the lyrics better.

This is a decent ballad-style record, especially for a song-poem record, and I really enjoy Bob Starr's Folk-Blues style of singing.

Download: Bob Starr with Sandy Stanton Orch and Chorus - The Jail House King
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I would be very interested in hearing anyone else's thoughts, information, insights or other input about this unique record.