Rosalee Baker's Greatest Hit

 Happy Almost New Year, everyone!!

Time is quite short round about our house during the last few weeks of the year, but I really wanted to actually get in one post for every week of the month at least ONCE this year, so here it is. As such, I have not had time to correct any old posts, but will get back to work on those next time. 

And today we have something possibly unique. This Tin Pan Alley release is the only documented appearance, on TPA or any other song-poem label, of a singer identified as Rosalee Baker. And I must say that her absence on other releases (unless that's a pseudonym for another TPA songstress) is our loss, as her deep, throaty style is quite appealing to me. 

This record appears to be from 1959 - or at least that's when one of the songs was copyrighted - and it fits right in, stylistically, with plenty of the records of that era: what Billboard Magazine of the day would have called "Rock-a-Ballads". 

The songs are almost interchangeable in sound, but I think I slightly prefer the side titled "I Want You, I Need You" (apparently she doesn't love him). It reminds me more than a bit of the few Connie Francis records that I really love - the section from 0:19 to 0:25 seems almost lifted out of "You Were Only Fooling", which is among my choices for the best records ever made. 

Admittedly, there is a considerably lower quality in the performers backing up the singer, and a much deeper voiced singer than Connie Francis. I really enjoy Ms. Baker's performance, and suspect that I'd have enjoyed her on records made by legit, big name labels, if that could have happened. 

Download: Rosalee Baker - I Want You, I Need You

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The flip side, "Under the Red Powder Puff Tree", is no slouch, either, but then, I'm a fool for this sound. In fact, I heard this one first, and thought it unlikely that the flip would be better. But that was mainly based on the sound of the thing - upon further listening, I find that the title and lyrics for this one are quite clunky, and would be unlikely to convince anyone that it was a legit attempt at a hit (which I think might be true for "I Want You"). Plus, Ms. Baker misses the mark in a couple of places, too, in particular right near the end, at 2:23. 

That said, most of the vocal is assured, and to these ears, anyway, quite sexy, if not as much as the flip, and the band does what the style requires. I dig it. 

Download: Rosalee Baker - Under the Red Powder Puff Tree

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Certainly Mellow, But Not Very Classy

Merry Christmas, Everyone!! Stay tuned all the way to the bottom for this year's offering in my family's series of Performance Art flavored Christmas Cards. 

I want to make sure I make sure that I offer up a last minute link to a site that long time reader and commentor JW put up last week, filled with Christmastime song-poems! It looks like he set up this blog specifically to share these Christmas treasures, so go and have a look. The first post, at the bottom, has nine song-poems available for download, while the second, more recent post, has a couple more songs you can download, AND a link to his "song poem yule log", with a veritable cornucopia of Christmas song-poems. 

You can find all of the above here!

I have also, as per usual, updated another month's worth of old, broken posts, in this case, August of 2011. These include a typically badly pressed MSR offering from Bobbi Blake, a typically inept performance by Gary Roberts, a fantastic early Tin Pan Alley number from Ellen Wayne, and a downright weird tribute to Elvis by The Real Pros. There is one more repaired page, as well, as I'll explain below. 

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The Meloclass label both fascinates and sort of confounds me. It seems to have been more of a vanity label than a true song-poem label, in that the songs sound like semi-professional work in a lot of cases, or at least as if they were written by people who had some idea of how music works, and with a definite sense of humor. And most of the releases boast credits showing a team of songwriters, often some combination of "J. DeFranco", "G. Vanderburg" and the fantastically named "Tumbleweed Thompson". 

That all spells out a vanity label, and yet... they returned to the song-poem market again and again for their singers. They utilized the Globe factory on a Sammy Marshall release on a small label, and Vandenburg was the co-writer of multiple songs on a Rodd Keith album generated by Film City. And after I posted another song sung by "Richard House" (who is credited on today's feature), at WFMU - labeling it as a vanity release - Sammy Reed was good enough to point out what I'd overlooked: that "Richard House" is an early nom-de-song-poem of the man later and better known as Dick Kent. 

On the other hand, my favorite release on the label seems to have been a straight vanity release on one side and what sounds like a song-poem on the other, although the two sides, which are extremely disparate, were credited to the same group. And I went out of my way to "fix" the posting of that song, more than three months ahead of schedule, as it is from 2010. It can be found here, and is absolutely worth hearing, again and again. . 

That brings us to today's feature. It is, as mentioned, sung by Dick Kent, under the guise of "Richard House", at least on the first side I'm offering up, and he is joined by what seems to have been Meloclass' house vocal group, "The Five Fellows". 

"Who No Pay José" is, from today's perspective, full of fairly obnoxious stereotypes and hackneyed soft racism towards Mexicans - although oddly, near the end, "Richard House" seems to sound more like the Italian stereotypes of the day than the Mexican ones. 

If you can overlook all that - and I'm sure there are those who can and will - this is an enjoyable-sounding record, with a bouncy track, a moment in the middle with some momentary, odd key modulations, and an honest-to-goodness jazzy solo by a muted trumpet, something I don't recall hearing on a song-poem record. 

And as was the case with the single that I shared in 2010, this record was released at least twice, with two different songs on the flip side. 

Download: Richard House and the Five Fellows - Who No Pay José

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On the flip side, is another song which is more clever and well put together, by at least half, than all but the best song poems. That's not to say that I enjoy this one. "Cinder Fella" is performed in the sort of pre-rock style, akin to the Four Aces or The Four Freshmen, that I simply cannot abide, at all. Ack. Your mileage may vary, of course. 

It's too bad, because the lyrics are clever, and I'd like to hear what someone else would have done with them. 

Download: The Five Fellows - Cinder Fella

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Finally, as promised, my family's Christmas card. For most of the past decade - with a few exceptions - we have tried to create something interesting and different each year, and most of my late-December posts in recent years have featured a sharing of the latest card - you can click around in those old posts if you're interested. 

Anyway, here is this year's card. The concept was mine, but my older child Sage had the wherewithal to make it work via computer wizardry and such. For those who might ask (if any), the fifth person, a young man seen in our previous few pictures, is my younger child's boyfriend, and they are still together, but he couldn't be present for this photo. 

I'm Ashamed... But Just to Be Clear... It's NOT MY FAULT

Happy December 17th!!!! Only Four Shopping Days Before December 21st!!!!

First, I want to again thank JW for what has been a slew of comments on older and recent posts. I believe you have entered the top three or four commenters with your recent dozen or so comments. Thanks particularly for your comments on the quality of my own comments - I appreciate it. I did see your question about Rod Barton, and will try to answer that in my next post, although there's not all that much to tell, unfortunately.  

And thanks to everyone who comments. Please know that if you ask a question, or simply say something that I'd like to answer, I will answer in e-mail, but can only do so if you connect your commenting persona on blogger to your e-mail address - almost no one does this, though. 

Also, I have repaired yet another month's worth of posts, this time those originally posted in September of 2011, including a Labor Day related record, a rather ridiculous title from Cara Stewart, a very sweet entry from Gene Marshall, and a wispy set of tunes from Sammy .Marshall.

And now, it's time to board the S.S. Halmark!

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For the last several months, I have been engaged in a nice series of e-mail conversations with a song-poem fan named Tyler. I think each of us have learned a few things (or more!), and it's been quite an enjoyable interchange of thoughts, information and ideas about song-poems. 

Tyler is passionate about Halmark Records releases, and writes at length about various aspect of this most esoteric of song-poem labels. And I realized recently that it had been quite a while since I featured the label. So today, for Tyler, and anyone else who loves Halmark - or who just finds the label endlessly fascinating, I have one of their signature EP's today, featuring their greatest/most awful singer, Bob Storm. 

The EP starts a bit slowly, with Bob Storm in his less outlandish vocal mode, singing over a late '40's/early '50's style backing track, complete with big band and choir, and typically sad, regretful song-poem lyrics, in the song "You'll Never Realize". There is a moment at the end when it seems that Bob has more lyrics left than the backing track is going to make room for, and he squeezes a bunch in, in order to hit the last words on top of the last chord. 

Download: Bob Storm - You'll Never Realize

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The highlight/lowlight here for me - both for the lyrics and the performance - is the second track, "I'm So Ashamed". This track is extremely peculiar. The lyrical conceit is that the protagonist is that the singer is apologizing and expressing his shame - except that he also keeps saying that "I'm not to blame". That's quite an apology. Essentially, he's saying he was entrapped by someone who he could not resist - all her fault, I guess. There is a stunning lack of recognition of culpability on the part of the person being portrayed, and I doubt this is an apology most people would accept

That's a good enough start. But it certainly sounds like a deeply felt lyric, perhaps one written by a regretful man as a sort of (poor) apology to his lady. But a close look at the label shows it seems to have been written by a woman, so perhaps it's just a fictional lyric, unless it was about a same sex relationship. That seems unlikely, though, especially in that a man is singing it. 

And that man. That manly man. Bob really Storms it up here, switching from that mild mannered vocal on track one to the voice he wants to use when he's really putting on the... smarm. This is as Bob Stormy a vocal as Bob Storm has ever offered, ridiculous, over the top and grandiose

Download: Bob Storm - I'm So Ashamed

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The third song has perhaps the song-poemiest title I've ever seen, "Leave Me Alone With My Beautiful Dream". It's such an all encompassing title that Halmark couldn't quite make it fit on the label. Bob's still in smarm-unctuous mode here, toned down perhaps a notch from the previous track, while the lyrics are pretty much what you'd expect from that title. 

I did want to point out the horrid mastering that was done on this side of the record: the dip in volume at about 0:48 of this song is on the record. The remainder of the side continues at this lower volume. I thought about correcting it, but decided to leave things the way they are, as this is just another Hallmark (no pun intended) of the shoddy nature of many song-poem products. 

Download: Bob Storm - Leave Me Alone With My Beautiful Dream

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Before the Storm-clouds leave our area until another special day, Bob treats us to "Drop Me Love". His wobbly warbling is the main attraction, although I find myself caught up in the lyrics - maybe it's just me, but I have no idea what has happened, or what is going to happen, in the life of the protagonist or his love. The lyrics seem pretty tortured and obtuse, but maybe that's just me - I'm a bit frazzled this week, so maybe they're clear as can be. 

I also enjoy the fact that this track seems to be pressed off center, even though its partner on the side ("Leave Me Alone") does not - I wonder how that was accomplished. 

Download: Bob Storm - Drop Me Love

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By Special Request

First, this week, I would like to acknowledge that today is the 40th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon. Amazingly, and sadly, John has now been gone nearly as long as the time that he was alive. 

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Secondly, and as (almost) always for the past many months, I have updated yet another month's worth of old posts, in this case, October of 2011. These include a very early, one man band performance on Cinema, Norm Burns failing to sound angry on a song about being angry, a great, really early Rod Rogers record on Film City, and another ridiculous Tin Pan Alley offering. 

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I received a request a few days ago from an old friend, asking if I owned a particular EP, and if so, if I could make MP3's and send them along. 

As it happened, not only due I own that very EP, it was right near the top of the pile of "these would be good to share", that sits a few feet from my record player and computer. 

So that came together nicely, and I now have two reasons to share this EP: it contains two tracks which are two good not to share, and it was specifically requested!

So here it goes!

As I've mentioned before, Air records seems to have been less than a producer of song-poem records themselves, then a clearinghouse for the works of a few disparate song-poem factories. Today's EP features three song-poems from the early days of the Globe factory, and one from Lee Hudson and his favorite singer. 

We start with my favorite of the four - "Daddy-O", by Kris Arden ("with Orch.", which all four songs tag onto the singing credit). To my ears, the folks at Globe very quickly settled into a midtempo, bland sound, but at the beginning (and occaisionally thereafter), they were capable of swinging and creating an effective rockin' beat, and that's the case here. The fact that this one features such boppin' sounds (and the "zone" number on the address) dates this one to the early 1960, probably 1962, based on the documented dates of other Air releases. 

Love that stinging guitar intro!!!

Download: Kris Arden With Orch. - Daddy-0

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Almost as good, even more rockin' but with elements of a true car crash, too, is the second track, "A Dog Gone Good Gal", sung by Sammy Marshall, under the cunningly devised aka of "Sonny Marshall". 

The backing tracks got it going on, and Sammy gives it his all, but these are among the least sing-able lyrics I've heard in some time (are there any other songs that try to fit "how we both love hot dogs with all the trimmings" into a twist-style rocker?), and I'm sure his beloved was thrilled to hear herself described as she herself having "all the trimmings". 

Download: Sonny Marshall With Orch - A Dog Gone Good Gal

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Side two starts with the only non-Globe entry of the EP, and it's a unusually weak Cara Stewart entry from Lee Hudson's production stable, featuring the song "Dakota Hills". Interestingly, as Paul McCartney would do more than half a decade later, she refers not to the Black Hills of South Dakota, but of "The Black Hills of Dakota". I've never heard anyone else, besides on those two songs, describe that location in that way, leaving out the "South". 

For me, that's about the only interesting thing here, as this seems to drag on forever. Her voice is wonderful, as always, and the echoey production is right up my alley, but even with all that, it's just dull, dull dull. 

Download: Cara Stewart With Orch. - Dakota Hills

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And finally, we're back to Globe and Sammy, er, Sonny Marshall, with the song "Walking and Crying". This is one of those mid-tempo tracks that would eventually become the hallmark of Globe, complete with the sort of "you done me wrong" lyrics that are a dime a dozen (and that's being generous) among song-poets. 

Download: Sonny Marshall With Orch. - Walking and Crying

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Thanks for the suggestion/request!