Popular Teen Styles on LECTRON

Let me be the first to wish all of my readers of Happy New Year!

I continue to rehab my site. Today, I have finished correcting posts from 2007, fixing five posts from July and August of that year. Again, this was a point at which I was simply sharing items from my collection that I particularly appreciated and seemed to be rare. Youtube has subsequently changed that last aspect, but still, I'd like the site to be playable from the earliest posts on. 

During that summer, I posted a goofy, yet endearing number by Don, Dick and Jimmy, I shared a song in Swedish that I wished to know more about (and subsequently did learn more about), I let everyone hear an odd easy listening version of a Beatles hit, and shared two of my "cut-ups", which were cassette-edited popular songs made into jokes. 

And although it's redundant at this point, I have also fixed a post, from that summer, in which I shared, for the first time, my all time favorite disc that has any connection to the song-poem world, although I'm now convinced that the record in question is not a song-poem. I later shared the record again, along with its b-side, when I got my own copy, but here is the first time that I featured "What's She Got (That I Ain't Got)". 

I have also put in addendums to a couple of those posts. 

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And now, Let's Go Lectron!

Today, I have a pair of genuinely sweet and effective tracks from the teeny-tiny Lectron label, whose label describes the product contained therein as "Popular Teen Style". And never has a slogan or motto been more accurate, as these two songs are composed in the most popular of teen styles for 1963, when this record was produced. 

Both sides are credited to Mary Kaye, who did some work for the Globe song-poem factory, but the A-side is actually a performance by Mary Kaye AND Sammy Marshall. And the lyrics to "Secret Thoughts" are among the best I've ever heard in a song-poem: they do an exceptional job of describing the silent longing between a teen boy and girl, who each have romantic feelings for the other, but feel unsure of expressing them. 

The words capture this dynamic perfectly - the verisimilitude is on a level I would generally associate with professional songwriting - and the arrangement captures the sort of thing that "Paul and Paula" briefly had massive success with, right around the time of this record's creation. A genuinely sweet and affecting song and performance. 

The only flaw here is that the record appears to have been pressed in asphalt. The sound quality is abysmal. 

Download: Mary Kaye (and Sammy Marshall) - Secret Thoughts

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The flip side, "Actions Speak Louder Than Words", does indeed feature a solo turn by Mary Kaye. And again, it's in "Popular Teen Style", in this case, something of a twist beat, and it moves and grooves throughout - all 100 seconds of it. 

Again, the words here are pretty good, and they've been set in a sort of percussive manner that bounces off the drumbeat in places, an effect which I find sort of intoxicating. Mary Kaye's warm vocal really sells it, even if there are a couple of bum notes (perhaps she was sight-reading, which was so often the case in the song-poem world). 

There are some nice backing vocals which in a style that reminds me more of the later Preview label than what Globe usually came up with. I have a hard time saying which of these two tracks I like better - both are several levels better than the average song-poem. 

Download: Mary Kaye - Actions Speak Louder Than Words

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And finally, those of you who have been reading my posts for the last few years know that my family uses the Christmas Card tradition to engage in a bit of performance art each year. Previous end-of-the-year posts have other examples, and now, here is the latest in the series: 

From the left, that's me, my wife with the marshmallow in her face, then our two adult kids, and on the right, the fellow who will soon be, variously, husband, son-in-law and brother-in-law to the rest of the individuals in the photo. 

Cara and Larry and Johnny, Oh My!

Hello, everyone, and Happy Whatever You're Having!!!!

First, before today's EP, I want to update you as to the mending of the oldest posts on this site. I only updated two posts this time around, but they are chock full of interesting sounds. In both cases, they were sequels to one of my favorite WFMU posts ever - the Merigail Moreland tapes. After I posted 15 songs to WFMU, I promised to fill in the blanks on my site, by posting the rest of the Moreland tapes to my site, and then, by posting some recordings Merigail made in 1979 or 1980, which were sent to me by a relative. 

I have now "fixed" the post containing the further1953 era recordings, and the post featuring the 1979/80 recordings. 

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And now, for my third post in a row, let's have an EP!!!

The Brosh label, like the Air label two weeks ago, was an amalgam of the works of various song-poem label, and the combinations differed from release to release. Some material on Brosh actually appears in the same exact form on other labels, while in other cases, some songs (including one from today) turn up on multiple Brosh releases. 

What's fascinating to me today is that, of the three performers listed on this EP, only one of them is documented anywhere on AS/PMA, and additionally, I don't recognize the two (male) singers previously undocumented there. Perhaps I'm just not that good with voices, or maybe the fake names are throwing me off, but I cannot immediately recall having heard the voice of either "Larry Dee" or "Johnny Dale" on a song poem record before. Perhaps some wise person out there will educate me.

But first, lets hear the always lovely, and very well known voice of Cara Stewart, sounding as wonderful as ever, on "Four Open Doors": 

Download: Cara Stewart - Four Open Doors

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Now, while "Four Open Doors" is probably the best song and recording on this EP, the most intriguing has to be the one credited to Larry Dee: "Ballad of Alan Rose". This song's lyrics have a verisimilitude that certainly makes me believe it's based on a true story, but if so, it's one I've been unable to track down, in what was admittedly a cursory search. My guess is that it was a local tragedy, from the late 1950's or early '60's, as this record likely dates from around 1962 or 1963. 

Not only do I not recognize Larry Dee, I also don't really recognize the arrangement as being the hallmark of any particular song-poem factory - my best guess is Globe, but I suspect that's wrong. Also note that the female duo perform nearly a third of the song, without the benefit of a credit. 

Download: Larry Dee - Ballad of Alan Rose

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The flip side of the disc features what can only be termed raw demos, and I really wonder whether a song-poem company was involved with them at all, or if the fabulously named "E. Quattrocelli" (who submitted songs to at least two other song-poem labels over the years) simply submitted a recording of a friend playing his or her songs. 

Regardless of the back story, they are credited - I think - to Johnny Dale. I say "I think" because unlike most records, and unlike the flip side of this disc, Johnny Dale's name is added in parenthesis under E. Quattrocelli's name, rather than in bold and/or capital letters. I'm pretty sure that's a typo, rather than a co-writer credit. 

Both songs are ballads of the pain of young love, with an emoting singer accompanied by a simple guitar backing and bathed in echo. They are simple, direct and.... amatueristic. First up is "Teen Age Tears.  

Download: Johnny Dale - Teen Age Tears

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And then there is "I Should Be Crying"

Download: Johnny Dale - I Should Be Crying

Play:

Any guesses as to the back story of these last two songs, and the identity/song-poem factory for "Ballad of Alan Rose" would be welcomed.  

Damita Goes Bang Bang

 Howdy, folks!

First, I'd like to say that I recently wrote the most personal post I've ever done, which is at my other site, and was written in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of my father. I'd be honored to have any of you who are interested read it. It can be found here. 

And second, I continue to rehabilitate the earliest years of this site, and I have now addressed posts made more than 14 years ago, in November of 2007. It strikes me as likely - perhaps even definite - that most of the things I posted in the first three years at this site have long since been on YouTube, although I haven't checked. But I'm going to fix the posts anyway. 

In November of 2007, I offered up a guessing game in the form of a resolutely awful version of "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport", a goofy rock and roll novelty record sung by a grade schooler, a very early jazz band performance of Ragtime music, and a teen girl record (a b-side) that I've loved ever since hearing it. In addition, I have added 2021 comments to three of those four posts. 

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The exceptionally tiny "Bang Bang" label, out of Washington D.C., seems to have been the vanity project of someone named David Fitzgerald. Only two records on the label are documented at AS/PMA - today's EP makes it three - and of the eight songs on those three discs, David Fitzgerald wrote six of them, and claimed to have produced both songs on one of the singles (despite them being performed by a stalwart of the Globe song-poem factory). Even more odd is that one of the eight songs on those three 45's is a cover of "Ode to Billy Joe". 

Anyway, my Bang Bang release is, as mentioned, an EP, with all four songs written by Mr. Fitzgerald - two songs published by "Fitzgerald's Music" and the others published by "Omniscient Music" All four songs feature the main female singer from the early days of Globe, JoAnn Auburn, here appearing, as she often did, as "Damita". I enjoy all four of these tracks, to varying degrees, with the standout leading off side two. But here on side one, we'll lead off with a song that starts with a surprisingly acceptable take on mid 1960's Blue-Eyed Soul. For me, at least, the feel isn't sustained - the band is way to low in the mix, and the backup singers don't fit the mood at all, but it's more than I would have expected from Globe. Here's "Your Soul Searching Kisses": 

Download: Damita - Your Soul Searching Kisses

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"Baby I'm Your Match" follows, and is my least favorite of the four-pack. The song sort of meanders, melodically,, and the band has reverted to the sort of hackwork that I tend to expect from the Globe band. Also, the phrase is sung far more often as "I Was Your Match" than "I'm Your Match". 

Download: Damita - Baby I'm Your Match

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More upbeat Soul-flavored Rock follows, with my favorite of the record, "Hey Boy, Stay in School". Musically, this is pretty much indistinguishable from some of the other material here, but I really enjoy the lyrics, which are so very far away from anything you'd have likely found on an actual hit record - have the lyrics "The P.T.A. was right" ever been featured in another song? Also, I must say, also put me in the mind of one of my favorite figures from the song poem world, Norris Mayhams, would wrote repeatedly on this same subject, particularly this record. Additionally, I enjoy the fact that this song is 88 seconds long. 

Download: Damita - Hey Boy, Stay in School

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Damita closes out the record with "Just Yesterday's Dream". This is a very typical, 6/8 setting for Globe, but her warm, appealing voice adds enough appeal to make it listenable. But then, on the other hand, there is a tape splice at 1:43 which not only results in a glitch in the sound quality, but actually cuts out part of the song! Half of a measure is just gone! How on earth was that allowed to happen? And was Mr. Fitzgerald upset? I think I've run into the sounds of a splice a few times, but usually little or no material is actually missing. Sheesh. 

Download: Damita - Just Yesterday's Dreams

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Hi Old Mistletoe

 As the Christian Church begins Advent, in preparation for the Christmas season, and as the secular world dives headlong into what it calls the Christmas season, I thought it would be a perfect time to both share an EP featuring a couple of song-poems - one Christmassy, and one December-y - and finish off correcting my final posts (Christmassy, as well) from 2008. 

As it happens, I only made 13 posts in 2008 (just before I started this song-poem project), and more than a third of those - five of them - were in December, and all were Christmas related. Today, I have corrected all of those posts, and added a few additional thoughts to some of them. 

These posts featured: two wildly different takes on O Holy Night; another post featuring one song in a stellar arrangement and one song in a deliberately ridiculous setting; a party record about decorating from the 1930's; a children's record which has, in the years since, become my second favorite Christmas record of all; and a slice of life, Randy Newman-esque performance of a song which has, similarly, since become my favorite Christmas record ever. 

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Let me say in advance that I think three of the four tracks on this EP are pretty stodgy and uninteresting, but I do enjoy that fourth track enough to make it worth sharing. Plus, the Air label - which typically had the most mundane of logos - at one point used what I think is one of the best label designs ever, for any label, song poem or not. I've only featured that design once before, and it's worth sharing again: 

There's sure a lot going on there, all of it interesting!

A quick reminder before I get to the tracks, is that the Air label was some sort of Catch-All for other labels, frequently featuring the output of two or more song-poem factories on the same disc. I have no idea how this system came into being or why. 

Anyway, the first song is titled "Hollywood F-L-A", and is credited to Tony Markham. A quick listen indicates that this is a Film City production, complete with Chamberlin, and unless I very much miss my guess, that's the fairly awful singer usually credited as Jimmie James (or Jimmy James) singing. 

I spent multiple vacations in Hollywood Florida in the late 1970's, when a relative lived there, and the ponderous, energy deficient, and overall deadly dull presentation of this song matches what it's like to spend time there, pretty much perfectly. Presumably, the song-poet did not agree with my lack of appreciation of the town, and I have to wonder what he thought of this arrangement and performance. 

Download: Tony Markham - Hollywood F-L-A

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Next up, the song that is the reason I chose this particular EP. It's everyone's pal, Sammy Marshall, or, as he's listed here, Sonny Marshall, with a fun, bouncy, yet wistful song called "Hi Old Mistletoe". Sammy, er, Sonny is looking at the mistletoe and being reminded of his lost love. There's not much more to it than that, but the winsome chorus and the mixed group harmonizing with him make these 93 seconds quite enjoyable. 

By the way, the tape stretch (or whatever it is) at the 0:07 point is on the record, and is not a flaw in my digitizing of the track. Such were the high quality standards at the Globe song-poem factory. 

Download: Sonny Marshall - Hi Old Mistletoe

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The flip side of the EP features two songs by someone named Jan Snyder, a name that shows up only on a handful of known Air releases and on no other label (at least none documented at AS/PMA. I am admittedly not the best at discerning between certain of the female singers who pop up on song-poem labels, but I don't Jan Snyder's voice is one that I've heard much, if at all. If she sang under another name, I don't know what it is. 

And..... I can find little remotely good or interesting to say about these two bland and uninteresting songs/performances. These remind me of the ultra-vacuous sound of the Ronnie label, but in saying that, I recognize that I'm not actually sure if Ronnie wasn't just an offshoot of Globe. 

At least with the last month of the year starting in mere hours, the first of the two songs is topical. I actually think something decent could have been done with the story told here, although those who produced this disc did not succeed in that way. Here's "December Love"

Download: Jan Snyder - December Love

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The final song reminds me a bit of those early 1950's ballads that were done using a single singer overdubbing herself  (starting shortly after Les Paul had perfected this technique, but with none of his talent, imagination or cleverness) . And the song itself, "The Turning Point", is about as interesting as one of those typical early 1950's pop double-trackers. That is to say, not at all interesting. 

Download: Jan Snyder - The Turning Point

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Rusty Ray is a Dick

Hello, 

First, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who will be celebrating it this week!

Also, I am continuing to slowly rebuild the early days of this site. Having completed all of the "song poem of the week" posts, I am now addressing the first few years of posts. Today, I have "fixed" two posts which each had a half-dozen offerings in them. 

One was a follow-up to a WFMU post, in which I offered up several vintage children's records, and a few others that I have known since I was a child. The other, from February of 2008, was in tribute to my mother, who had died several weeks earlier, and I shared several tracks that she recorded during her long career as a coloratura soprano, tracks ranging from 1944 to 1990. 

Now, here's a singer who was not a coloratura anything: 

Six years ago, I shared the only record I owned at that time, credited to "Rusty Ray" I stated that I did not recognize the singer as anyone who I had previously heard on a song-poem release, and, for that previous offering, that statement still stands. 

I have since obtained another Rusty Ray record, also on the Action label, but in this case, the singer is quite clearly the man much better known as Dick Kent. This is weird, because Action already had a name for Dick Kent, specifically, "Dick Lee", so why did they change his name for this release. And why, having done so, did they offer up an entirely different singer, seven releases later, under the same name of Rusty Ray. 

These are the questions that no one today has answers to. 

Anyway, the winner here has to be "Happy Hippy", which bops along with a Chamberlin approximation of a swingin' Holiday Inn lounge sound. If you want one writer's stereotyped idea of what a hippy might have said, in the early 1970's, this "happy go lucky" portrait will be your cup of tea, complete with a moral/warning at the end

Download: Rusty Ray (Dick Kent) and the "Singing Strings" - Happy Hippy

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A heavy, almost thuddish beat greets us at the start of "Jigsaw Heart", on the flip side, and that drum beat, heard throughout, sounds more appropriate for a stripper than what the words portray here, which is a wish for the singer's loved one to come back home. 

Download: Rusty Ray (Dick Kent) and the "Singing Strings" - Jigsaw Heart

Play:

God Is My Co-Writer

 Howdy, 

And a hearty Happy Veterans Day and Thank You to all of my readers who have served this - or any - country. 

Although I have now updated ALL of the "Song Poem of the Week" posts, there are still about 50 posts from prior to that project's genesis, which I will be updating, rather haphazardly. I also suspect I will be deleting a few non-musical posts, those which served a minor purpose at the time, but are fairly pointless today. 

It also strikes me that, with the subsequent growth of YouTube, many of my early posts may feature records which were then truly obscure, but which now are readily available. I'm going to keep the posts up, anyway, and repopulate the tracks. 

So today, I have uploaded a handful of posts from 2008. These include a feature on one of my all time favorite singles, the criminally obscure "Jingle Down a Hill", by Gaitley and Fitzgerald. I also rewrote a post about the first track I heard from the indescribably lovely group known as The Sacred Heart Singers (I later posted an entire album by this group to WFMU). 

There's a post featuring both sides of a Calypso 45 (about Elvis) that I was enjoying at the time, and a track from the radio show "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again" featuring the unlikely sound of John Cleese singing. Finally, at one point that year, I shared a song which made the lower reaches of the Billboard Top 100 in 1957, one which has haunted, amused and fascinated me ever since, The Silva-Tones rendition of "That's All I Want From You". 

Except for the calypso and Cleese recordings, it's a collection of some of my all time favorite records. 

And now, back to the countdown: 

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Last time, I posted a couple of tracks by Teacho Wiltshire, and a few days later, I got a great comment from frequent correspondent Sammy Reed, who commented that "Our Teacho, He Died in 1969". 

This was, in case you're unaware, a play on a very well known song-poem, "My Daddy He Died in 1969", which was available in trading circles for years before making its debut on one of the online song-poem albums. 

This in turn reminded me that I'd promised another frequent correspondent, Tyler, that I'd find my copy of that same 45, because it features perhaps that most outrageous act of plagiarism I've ever seen on a song-poem release. It wasn't in with all of the 45's I'd alphabatized some time ago, so I had to go looking. And I found it! We'll get to the lyrical rip-off after the first two songs. 

The first track is the aforementioned "My Daddy He Died in 1969". I have always found this to be a deeply ridiculous lyric, over-the-top by several steps, but many others have found it touching and even profound (the latter for at least one person I've spoken to about it).  For those who haven't heard it, I'll share it here, as it sounds on my copy: 

Download: Halmark Productions - My Daddy He Died in 1969

Play:

Incidentally, my pal Stu, some years ago, took it upon himself to see if he could find  out when the man whose daddy died in 1969, had, himself, died. And he found out. That page led him to find "his daddy", which he shared with me, too. 

Next up is "Tears of Yesterday", which is tedium defined, nearly four minutes of yammering on over a track that is wholly without beat or feeling. And it's just keeping us from getting to the good stuff, anyway,

Download: Halmark Productions - Tears of Yesterday

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Okay, here goes. 

My comments are not about whether you, the reader are - or I am - a believer in any subset of Christianity. But I think we could all agree that someone who wanted to hear The Lord's Prayer set to music would almost beyond a shadow of a doubt be a Christian. 

And, being a Christian, that person would presumably know that The Lord's Prayer is perhaps among the two or three most famous utterances ascribed directly to the voice of Jesus, and that it has been credited to Him, in writing, for roughly 2000 years. And being a Christian, that person would almost undoubtedly consider Jesus to be God. 

So, in sending in Jesus' words to Halmark, and taking credit for them himself, what in the Lord's name was the good Dr. Patton thinking? What would many, if not most Christian faiths consider the act of claiming to have written The Lord's Prayer? I'm sure there are several answers to that question, but none of them are good. 

And yes, I know that there have been musical settings of "The Lord's Prayer" before. And I looked some of them up. They always say "Adapted by", or "Setting By" - in other words, the listed writer took credit for the music. And that could have been the case here, if this production was by any other label than Halmark. 

Because while some other labels did release vanity performances, and also had their performers record entire songs with music and lyrics by the unknown writer, Halmark always attached their vocal performances to one of about 14-18 backing tracks. And the possibility that Dr. Patton wrote music and melody for The Lord's Prayer and that it matched Halmark's pre-existing backing track is approximately 0%. 

As I said, I've encountered plagiarism on song-poem 45s several times, and featured it here when I've found it, but this is at another level altogether - submitting as your own work something you believe to be the word of God. 

As a side comment, please note that they used the exact same backing track for two songs on this EP. That strikes me as contempt for the customer. But then again, contempt for the customer would have been a good slogan for the Halmark people. 

Download: Halmark Productions - Our Father Which Art in Heaven

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The record ends with a rather esoteric lyric, titled "Mary Ann". The coy, indirect nature of the lyric here leads me to believe it was meant as a song about a shy courtship, although I may be reading too much into it. If it's not that, I have no idea what the lyricist was on about. 

But if I am right, then Halmark made a tactical error in assigning it to a female singer, in that a same-sex relationship was not likely what the lyricist was after, given that it was the mid 1970's, and that that song-poet had engaged with Halmark, perhaps the most conservative leaning of all song-poem outfits. 

If you have a different or better suggestion as to what's going on here, I'd love to hear about it. 

Download: Halmark Productions - Mary Ann

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Hot For Teacho

 Happy Halloween!

And I have about the unscariest news possible: Today is the day I have completed the correction of the last of the as-of-today still broken "Song Poem of the Week" posts. 

There are a handful of posts between January of 2009 and today which have not been updated, but they are none-song-poem related, and of course there are the 40-odd posts I made between 2005 and 2008, before I focused heavily on song-poems (and those posts feature a few song-poems as well), but every post labeled "Song Poem of the Week", including those from the first month of that project, are now fully corrected, with all tracks playable and downloadable. 

Today, I corrected those earliest posts, from January of 2009. A reminder: at that point in the project, I was not sharing both sides of individual singles, nor was I always posting scans of the labels. I do intend to update at least the scan issue at some point in the future, but for now, I just focused on the tracks. 

First, I will mention that, in January of 2009, I wrote two posts that are not updated. One was simply a snarky celebration of the end of George W. Bush's tenure in the White House, and the other was a lengthy tribute to Toby Deane, a singer I was just discovering at that time. Mysteriously, all but two of my Toby Deane tracks (and their folder) have disappeared from my computer (nothing else is gone!), and I will have to find those records and make new files of them. 

On the song-poem beat that month, I offered up three posts with no central theme, one featuring Gene Marshall and Rodd Keith, one featuring Phil Celia and Little Donnie Lane, and one featuring Rodd Keith, The Real Pros and Mike Thomas. I also featured an astonishing case of Preview Records putting out two different songs with the same backing track on the same single. And I kicked off the entire project that month, with one of my all time favorite song-poems, an 88 second oddball patriotic number titled "In God We Trust". 

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A favorite of mine, from the earlier days of the song-poem business, and probably the coolest name in the game, ever, is Teacho Wiltshire. Mr. Wiltshire had a legit involvement with the music business, both before and after his brief tenure at Tin Pan Alley (I've found references to him in Billboard magazine as early as 1948, and he was actively involved in record production and arrangement at legit labels for many years thereafter. 

Teacho's work for Tin Pan Alley was largely behind the scenes, but he made a handful of records under his own name for the label in their earliest years. On the slower numbers, which tended to be what Billboard called (in those days) "rock-a-ballads", he sings with an overenunciated style, sounding like he's about to cry from time to time, and drawing the words out in a manner I find rather unctuous, yet still appealing in a ridiculous sort of way. 

Today's record is from 1955, and the two sides are fairly interchangeable - I wasn't sure which to lead off with, as they both draw me in for the same reasons - the cut-rate Platters-esque stylings of the band, the reverb, and those insanely over-the-top vocals. Here's the one I chose to lead with, "Are You Willing?"

Please note that this is "the one and only, original Rock and Roll Waltz". Based on the dates on other Tin Pan Alley releases in sequence, it really does appear that this record was released before Kay Starr's # 1 hit, "Rock and Roll Waltz"!

Download: Teacho Wiltshire, His Piano and Orchestra - Are You Willing?

Play: 

The flip side carries the tautologistic title of "Love Your Loved Ones", and it contains most of the same features I've ascribed to "Are You Willing?". 

Download: Teacho Wilshire, His Piano and Orchestra - Love Your Loved Ones

Play: 

You can see lists of some of the records Teacho was involved with, and find a picture of him, here. 

Once in a Blue Hill

I'm back after yet another too-long-of-a-break, but again this week, I have a bonus posting, with four song-poems instead of the usual two. 

 But first, it's time for more updates! I've traveled all the way back to February of 2009, just one month into the song-poem project that is continuing to this day. Keep in mind that, in those days, I was not always sharing label scans, and I was also regularly sharing things which were not song-poem related. 

In that month, I posted a Halmark release that someone actually took the time to label as "Horrible", a set of two full singles and a fifth track from Rodd Keith, one pair of oddly named tracks from two different labels, and another pair of favorite - and ridiculous - song poems about a.) squabbling spouses and b.) Nancy Reagan

Also that month, I shared both sides of a truly awful vanity single by one Cal Andrews - a magnificently terrible pair of sides, and a cover version of The Box Tops' classic, "The Letter", which I found on a three inch reel of tape. 

Today's double feature is not two separate singles, as it was a few weeks ago, but four tracks from an EP. And today's EP is from the teeny tiny Blue Hill Records label of Union City, New Jersey, which was likely under the ownership of people named Irving Decker and Mina Zeigler, perhaps among others, including someone with the last name Ambrose. Mr. Decker's name shows up as the song-poet for five of the six known songs on the label, and Ms. Zeigler and the person named Ambrose each co-wrote two of the same six songs.

The other documented Blue Hill release features songs from both the Globe song-poem factory and Lee Hudson's company, but for this EP, all four tracks come from Globe. I'm only really enamored of one of the foursome, but I liked it enough to share the EP, under the theory that I often share singles where there is only one good song, so why not do the same with an EP which has a single good track. 

The single kicks off with Globe's most frequent artist, Sammy Marshall. "New Baby", has some things going for it, mostly the goofy take on the old cliché of a father preventing a girl from dating because she's too young, what with the references to "her pappy", and, in the first line, "an apple green suit". On the other hand, the Globe band is on autopilot, and there's nothing remotely interesting about the melody or vocal performance. The dip in the speed and key in the last seconds of this track are on the record - perhaps a moment of tape stretch? 

Download: Sammy Marshall - New Baby 

Play:

The aforementioned really good track - to my ears, at least - comes next, and it's from the rarely heard from Globe singer who's work was released under the name "The Mystery Girl", or, as in this case, "Mystery Girl". "How I Wish You Knew" grabs me immediately, with a timeless chord progression, straight out of a vaudeville number, bouncy and ingratiating in the best ways possible. The singer offers an appealingly pleading vocal, in a manner I'd enjoy regardless of what she was singing. Then there's a ragtimey piano solo and that suitably vaudevillian ending... ah, what's not to love!

Download: Mystery Girl - How I Wish You Knew

Play:

~~

The flip side of this record is beat to hell, as you'll hear. And I'd prefer to think that maybe it was stored somewhere where that side got damaged, because the concept that the flip side got more play than the Mystery Girl song - indeed, that the flip side got much play at all, given it's fairly wretched contents - is hard to fathom. 

Both tunes on this side are sung by Kris Arden, a fine singer on many Globe releases, who can't help but sputter, given the material she was given to work with. The worst of the two is surely the first one, "It's My Turn". It would seem to me a challenge to create a song with that title worse than the Diana Ross track that carries the same title, but the folks at Globe succeeded. I defy anyone to follow these chords or this melody from start to finish - different members of the band appear to be on different chords at the same moment at least a couple of times. 

I'll guess that Kris Arden was sight reading, and hats off to her for staying on pitch, as there are moments when the notes seem to be thrown her way at random, and with little relation to the chords being played. 

Download: Kris Arden - It's My Turn

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In comparison, the final track, "I'm Always Yearning For You" is just deadly dull, in a stultifying arrangement, and the surface noise here really becomes distracting, too. 

Download: Kris Arden - I'm Always Yearning For You

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Introducing Jerry Martin!!!

Guten Tag!!

I know I've gone ages between postings, and as I said in my other blog, work has been overloading my life in recent weeks. I hope to get at least three postings done this month, and look forward to the day when four is the standard again. 

I am inching ever closer, though, to completing the project of correcting every single post of this blog, going back to the point where I re-dedicated it to song-poems, in January of 2009. And we're almost there, as this month, I have fixed those posts from March of that same year, 2009. 

At that point, in my third month of the project, I wasn't always sharing both sides of the same 45, and also did not always provide scans of the labels of the records I shared. I will go back and fix the lack of labels at some later point, and maybe share some of the flip sides that I skipped in a later post, but for the time being, I just going to fix the file links themselves. 

That month, I shared two unrelated records, tying them together with the vaguest of links possible, featured three Real Pros songs from three different 45s, an absolutely wonderful record by "The Enchantments" which may or may not be a song-poem, and a really good record by Bob Newkirk, which, as it turned out, is NOT a song-poem (see the comments to that post). 

Now let's hear something I didn't share twelve and a half years ago: 

Today's featured song is by everyone's favorite, Jerry Martin. "Um, Who?" I hear you cry!

Actually, as far as is documented as AS/PMA, only one song-poem 45 was ever credited to Jerry Martin, although of course there may have been others that were never captured in the discography. And a quick perusal of the contents of that 45, which is happily in my possession, reveals Jerry Martin to have been none other than..... Rodd Keith. 

And Rodd's performance as Jerry Martin, on a song titled "Love At First Sight", turns out to be a countrified offering, a minor pleasure to these ears, aided by some steel guitar, subtle but effective piano, and a vocal which is absent of the condescension one sometimes hears in Rodd's country offerings. 

Download: Jerry Martin (Rodd Keith) - Love At First Sight

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The flip side is "The Dream", and it is credited to Dick Mason. I had little doubt that "Dick Mason" would turn out to be the singer best known as Dick Kent, and I was not mistaken. However, I should point out that an unrelated song-poem label, working in 1958, also released a single by Dick Kent, which I shared here, and that 1958 singer was clearly not Dick Kent. 

What are the chances of two different labels independently choosing the same pseudonym for two different singers? I don't know, but maybe someone could ask Bobby Boyle or Bobbi Boyle. 

Anyway, the song is barely worth writing about - a far below average Preview release with vapid lyrics and cookie cutter arrangement. 

Download: Dick Mason (Dick Kent) - The Dream

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Sammy Marshall Fans Rejoice! It's a Full Sammy Album!

 Greetings, 

I'm still having trouble finding time to post, and it's likely September will be one of the dreaded "only two posts" months. But I gave you four tracks last time around, and to make up for the scarcity of posts again this time, I'm giving you TEN BIG TRACKS - and they're all on one album!

More about that in a moment. But first, the usual business about updating broken posts from what is now getting to be the distant past. 

We're all the way back to April of 2009! That month, I wrote a whopping seven posts, five of them song-poem related. These included a particularly ridiculous Mike Thomas entry, a Preview single featuring two different singers under the same name, the fabulously named Teacho Wiltshire on an early Tin Pan Alley release, an excellent early Rodd Keith record from Film City, and the story of - and contents of - the very first song-poem record I owned, which I acquired in 1976, with no idea what it was. 

At that time, I was also regularly sharing recent finds that were of the non-song-poem variety, and for that month, I shared a wonderful Louie Prima record (now readily available on Youtube, but I thought I'd be a completist), and a record I'd discovered by an obscure singer I love (and who I'd been featuring for some time at that point), Toby Deane - song record which is not yet on Youtube (that post's track is of extremely low sound quality, and I'm looking for the record in order to update the link with a better sounding file). 

Okay, that's outta the way....

~~

The AS/PMA site documents one album on the fairly horrible "Ronnie" label, and while this is not that album, it does carry the same title, "Ronnie Presents New Songs of Today", which seems rather redundant to me. I mean, "New Songs of 1913" wouldn't make much sense, would it? 

Anyway, this is a 10 inch LP, with five songs on each side, ALL sung by "Ben Tate", which is a pseudonym for Sammy Marshall (and yes, I know, "Sammy Marshall" was also a pseudonym - his real name is Marc Simpson). The album label looks like this for side one: 

I have to admit, were it not for the oddity and rarity of this being a song-poem album, and all by someone not known for albums, I wouldn't necessarily have chosen any of these for individual feature. They are, for the most part (some may say entirely) lifeless, dull, soulless, musically vapid and generally have lyrics which are about as uninspired as can be. In other words, typical Ronnie song-poem tracks. 

But sharing it is what I'm doing today, and here is side one of the album: 

Download: Ben Tate - New Songs of Today, Side One

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And here is the other side, featuring the two songs which I think at least have some oddness to the lyrics, track two, "Farewell, My Beloved", and the closing tune, "Do It Right"

Download: Ben Tate - New Songs of Today, Side Two

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By the way, if anyone is interested, the same eBay seller from whom I bought this album has another copy listed on eBay right now. 

And here's the side two label: 

Tin Pan Alley Quadruple Play

Wow - it's been over two weeks since I posted. Things have been busy. Because of this absence, I'm going to share two 45's today, both on Tin Pan Alley. I think I'm actually going to try to post two TPA singles at least sometimes, when I feature TPA, because I have so many more singles on that label than any other, and because so many of them are good, weird, awful or interesting in some way. In an unusual side note, today's two singles contain performance from four different artists, including one of the rarest of things on a song-poem record, an instrumental. 

I'll get to the Tin Pan Alley festival in a moment, but as usual, I want to update you as to the old posts that I corrected today. The latest upgrades went to four posts from May of 2009, and included a song of Black pride, inexplicably given to Norm Burns to sing, some happy words from Rodd Keith, Cara Stewart and Sammy Marshall on a custom label out of Minnesota, and a typically awful offering from the mysterious folks at Noval. 

~~~

And now....

I am still at quite a loss for time as I type this, so I will be quite a bit less verbose and pithy as usual. You will need to get your fill of pith elsewhere. 

Today's first offering is from Lance, or rather "Lance" as he was always billed. He was not much of a singer, and this is not much of a song. It does tell a story, however, the charms of which (or lack thereof) I will let you discover, in this tale of a bad man in "Tucson". 

Download: "Lance" - Tucson

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While there was a lot I could have said about "Lance"'s record, if I had more time to type, I don't think, given the opportunity, I would have much to offer about the flip side, which is a rare offering by Nick Fontaine, titled "I Don't Care". 

I do enjoy the utterly incompetent edit at 1:23. 

Oh, and I once wrote a song called "I Don't Care". It was quite a bit better than this song, and even with that, it was still a fairly lousy. This song wishes it was as good as lousy. 

Download: Nick Fontaine - I Don't Care

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~~~

Hey, Ernie, LET'S PLAY TWO!!!!

So who do you say is the worse singer, "Lance" or Billy Grey? That's a toughie. But Billy makes a good argument for winning that contest with his performance of "She's My Honolulu Baby". My favorite thing about this record is that someone, mostly likely at a radio station, wrote "NO" and underlined it, right on the record label. 

Download: Billy Grey - She's My Honolulu Baby

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It's harder to fathom quite what was meant by the zero with an off center plus sign through it, which is written on this side of the label. 

As mentioned above, this is that rare bird, an instrumental song-poem, titled "I Cry Over You". There's not much of a melody here, 8 bars long, run through quickly and then taken through variations, with a virtually tuneless bridge thrown in the middle. 

As I always do with song-poem instrumentals, I wonder what the performers - in this case "The Candlesticks" - received in terms of sheet music or other instructions, in order to make this into a record. 

Download: The Candlesticks - I Cry Over You

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BREAKING NEWS: BOB STORM REVEALED!!!!! (And Some Cara Stewart Music, Too)

HI!!!!

THERE'S BIG NEWS!!!!

At least it's big news if you've been at all interested in the slippery and mysterious Halmark label, and it's seemingly double-voiced main man, identified on countless records as Bob Storm. 

Following my post of an entire Halmark album, last month, I have heard from a guy named Bruce Baryla, who also owns a copy of that same album. My post inspired him to finish some research he'd been doing, and post it. You can find that post here. His research and proofs offered are quite compelling. 

First of all, he offers up the idea - and not all of this is on the site just linked, but rather, in follow-up e-mails - that the song-writer compiled this album himself, from individual 45's purchased the normal way from Halmark, then had the album put together himself, stole the actual "Hallmark" company logo, with an adjustment, and added his own address, and that Ted Rosen never knew any of this happened. 

What's more, he's found that this album was genuinely a local success (that is in the article). Read all about it. 

But the bigger news: There really were two singers who were identified as Bob Storm. The more midrange, typical baritone singer really is named Bob Storm, or at least has been billed elsewhere under that same name. 

The other singer typically labeled as Bob Storm, with the ridiculous, pompous and frequently off-the-charts unctuous vocal delivery, is, in fact, the other singer credited on that album, Marshall Young. Mr. Baryla has even included links to other tracks recorded by Marshall Young which demonstrate that he is the name behind that storied (and ridiculous) voice. 

Well, anyway, I'm certainly convinced. The amusingly entertaining Bob Storm, the one I've made fun of here for years, is really Marshall Young. 

There is no indication as to why Mr. Young's name disappeared from the Halmark label, or why Bob Storm became the person credited with both his own work and that of Mr. Young, but even without that information, I am impressed by the research, and overwhelmingly thankful to Mr. Baryla for sharing it with me. 

~~

I have also updated yet another month's worth of very old and broken down posts. Today, it's June of 2009. During that month, I featured a lovely set of tunes from Norridge Mayhams (updating that post with scans of the label this time), a Norm Burns song with an out of the blue ending, an Air label EP which was one of my first song-poem finds, and a post full of requests from readers/listeners, at what was then nearly six months into this project. 

That was also the month that my older child graduated from High School, and I wrote a post about her, featuring some of her photographs and one performance of a song she sang with me and two of my friends.

~~

Today's offering is the only record I own on the Sylvan label, which was the vanity pressing created by song-poet Sylvan Forrest, utilizing (here) the Lee Hudson song-poem factory. There are only three listed records on Sylvan, and this is # 2. 

Sylvan Forrest seems to have had a fixation with powerful, reputedly beautiful women (real and legendary) of the distant past. That this is the point of the flip side is obvious. And I think I've muddled through the complicated twists and turns of the (very non-musical) lyrics of "The World's Fairest Look" to say that they're at least in part about Helen of Troy, although I'm still a bit mystified as to what the lyricist thinks Helen was doing at the World's Fair. Maybe someone out there can decipher it better than me. 

Download: Cara Stewart and Lee Hudson Orch - The World's Fairest Look

Play:  

~~

On the flip side, a more obvious tribute to another fine lady of (actual) history, although one who, many say, was not really much of a looker. Here's "Cleopatra Waltz". 

Download: Cara Stewart and Lee Hudson Orch - Cleopatra Waltz

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Rod and Bobbie Take Arco for a Spin

Good evening!

I have updated yet another month's worth of old, broken-down posts, in this case, July of 2009. 

That month, I shared the following: a perfectly dreadful - and highly entertaining - release on the Noval label, a confusingly titled Tin Pan Alley release, which is also missing an artist credit, an early MSR release featuring Dick Kent and Bobbie Boyle (aka Bobbi Blake), and, best of all, a fantastic and ridiculous record called "Goodness Gracious, It's Contagious" (the comments of which contain a response from a member of the songwriter's family!). 

I also posted a link to a then-upcoming song-poem event. It was a long time ago, but the link to the site and its information still works!

~~

Okay, here's a fairly odd duck of a song-poem release. If you'll click on this link to my previous posts of Arco releases here... well, at the top (for now), you'll see this post, but beneath it, you'll see the other posts from that label. And you'll hear that they feature early 1960's sounds, including some tracks which are closer to swing than to anything popular after 1955. Those found at the AS/PMA website seem to feature either acts which do not show up anywhere else, or which came from the Globe song-poem factory. 

Today's record, though, comes from much later - late 1960's, at least, features one track from Film City and one apparently from MSR (or perhaps Preview), has a quite separate numbering system from the other releases, and sports an entirely different label (although still with the same address indicated on the AS/PMA page, indicating that it is the same Arco label). 

What's more, the sound quality is dreadful, sounding to me as if the records were mastered directly off of another 45. It's a pretty standard Rodd Keith Chamberlin opus, with Rodd showing up here as Rod Rivers (with Orchestra). This record, "Don't Come Crying Back to Me", is a cute little number, and I wish I had a better pressing of it. 

Download: Rod Rivers with Orchestra - Don't Come Crying Back to Me

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~~

On the flip side, we have Bobbi Blake, under the name of Bobbie Boyle (just as indicated above), with the song "I'm Just a Simple Living Girl". Here we have a fairly interesting tale, if I'm making out the words right, of a young woman who identifies as a hippy, but is strongly not interested in some of the free living, free love aspects that people assume someone who looks like her would partake in. 

Again, the crappy pressing takes away much of the charm that might have been...

Download: Bobbie Boyle with Orchestra - I'm Just a Simple Living Girl

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Hewstan. Guy Hewstan

Hello, and Happy August 8th - Happy Birthday, Paul! Thanks for sharing my song-poem obsession - and so very very much more, more than I could possibly capture - across the years of our friendship. 

~~

Before getting to anything else, I want to thank a few people. First, there is frequent correspondent Tyler, who takes particular joy in Halmark releases, and who was the main driver behind my posting of the full Halmark album from a few weeks ago.  First, Tyler makes the argument that ALL of the tracks on the album are the work of the vocalist usually credited as Bob Storm. I'd be interested to hear what others think of this, but I'm going to trust his ears over my own, due to his adoration of this stuff, unless someone has a competing argument. 

But more importantly, and interestingly to me, Tyler has located a newspaper page which contains an advertisement for this album. The page can be found here. You have to buy an account with that site to see the actual page, but if you click the button reading "Show page 22 article text", it will show you the entire page's text, unformatted. And there you will find: 

THE MERCY DROPS ALBUM WRITTEN BY JOE CARMEN OF LAPEL, IND.

All new songs with fabulous and different assortment of music and arrangements.

We guarantee you will be wel! pleased.

If after hearing this album you are not entirely satisfied we wilt promptly return your money.

PROMPT MAILING, POSTAGE PAID BY US.

SEND CASH, CHECK M.O., OR C.O.D. FINEST IN QUALITY. 

SEND ONLY $ 2.00 Manufacturer's Suggested Price $4.98 and up.

send TO: HALMARK RECORDS 1127 Fore! Street Lapel, Indiana

It's pretty clear to me that Mr. Carmen used the Halmark people for his vanity project, bought a bunch of copies, and then tried to sell them himself, as the address above is nowhere near Halmark's actual home base in Massachusetts. A fascinating little find - Thank you Tyler!

~~~

I also want to give a much overdue thank you to a long time song-poem friend, one who has been known to comment frequently. 

I missed the chance to link to his own song-poem 45 site, when he was posting to it briefly, but I didn't want to wait another moment to link to another neat site that he has, one at which he has posted the lyrics to some of the more particularly lyrically appealing and/or weird song-poem songs. There are nearly 50 lyrics captured at his site, which is here. Thank you, sir!

~~

My correcting of formerly broken posts has taken me all the way back to August of 2009, just a dozen short years ago this month! And as it happens, August of 2009 was the month in which I shared the highest number of posts I've ever done in one month - a total of eight posts. 

At that point, my involvement with WFMU was still new, and I was periodically sharing things that interested me, apart from song-poems, from time to time. Soon after, all of those subjects would migrate to the WFMU blog, including reposts of some of the things I posted in the first eight months of 2009. 

Anyway, during that month, I posted a particularly horrendous Halmark release, a fun Norm Burns record, an example of rank plagiarism on a Gene Marshall number, another Gene Marshall release featuring two tunes with ridiculously contrived titles, and a particularly rare EP on the tiny Princess label, featuring Rodd Keith, Frank Perry and Singing Jimmy Drake (better known as Nervous Norvis). 

But in addition to those five posts, that August also saw two posts featuring favorite 45's of mine, an old favorite called "Dancing Tambourine", and a then-new favorite from The Allison Sisters. Finally, that month also saw the death of one of my few musical heroes, Les Paul, and I offered up a post in his honor, here. 

~~

And now: 

Up until this month, I'd only ever heard one record by Guy Hewstan, whose name I had either mistakenly read as (or mistakenly was told to be) Gus Hewstan. That record was "My Point of View", and it is among my top 25 song poems of all time. And, as luck would have it, it was provided to me by the aforementioned song-poem pal, many many years ago. You can hear that track here. 

Guy Hewstan apparently made very few records for Film City, as his name was never recorded at the now mothballed AS/PMA website. I have gone back to the other posts where I shared "My Point of View" and changed the name, although the links will still read "Gus". 

Anyway, when I found there was another record by Mr. Hewstan for sale, I made an effort to obtain it, sound unheard. I received it this week, and while it's no match for "My Point of View", I still want to share it, in order to get another singer, and another sound, documented on this site. 

The better of the two sides is "A Little Confused". Musically, this is actually a cousin of "Point of View", with a similar chord structure, and the same rhythmic feel, if not the in-your-face over the top-ness of the previously shared number. No great shakes, but a pleasant listen. 

Download: Gus Hewstan with "New Sounds from Hollywood" - A Little Confused

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The flip side, "Time" is sort of a dirge, a slow waltz with lyrics which are at times ponderous and at others quite prosaic. And it's all tied together with a far less creative Chamberlin backing. 

Download: Guy Hewstan with "New Sounds from Hollywood" - Time

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