Les Longman, Song-Poet Extrodinaire!

Greetings, and welcome to "Only 43 More Hours With This Idiot In Charge".

First, I want to thank Rock Smith for submitting a great question with regard to Rodd Keith. It has been answered by people who gave more complete answers than I would have, so I'll just direct you to that discussion, which can be found at the bottom of this post.   

And second, I have returned to correcting the old posts, in this case those from June of 2011. In that month, I supplied a song for flag day, sung by Gary Roberts (so you know there's no breeze in that flag), a fantastic Rodd Keith production just in time for Father's Day, a very early and very non-formulaic Sammy Marshall offering, and a creepy number from The Real Pros. 

Give that my younger daughter graduated from high school that month, I also shared a post in honor of her that month, and included a very funny story-with-harp-backing that she had "performed" at a party at our house a few years earlier, and I have fixed that link, too. 

And now!!!!

I had a hard time deciding which side of this EP to start with, as I find there to be interesting material on both sides. It's on the Air label, a label which specialized in releasing (or perhaps much of the time, re-releasing) the work of other song-poem factories, particularly (but probably not limited to) Globe, Film City and Lee Hudson. 

The "Air" logo and design on this release is quite different from those on most of their 45's, but the address gives it away as the same label. I think I've only seen this design once before. Oddly, within a few label numbers on either side of this release, they used a radically different - and much more familiar - design. 

Back to the songs - I believe I sense the presence of two different song-poem companies here, as the songs on one side of the record sound nothing like those on the other. What's more, it features two singers who only ever show up on the Air label, including one, Jimmy Thompson, who only shows up on this EP. In the case of both singers, they only ever appeared on air singing the songs of today's song-poet. 

And I'd like to hear more from that song-poet, Les Longman, based on the material here. And luckily enough, it turns out he wrote at least 30-40 song-poems that are documented at AS/PMA, including several more Air EP's and singles, none of which I've ever heard, outside of this EP. He also wrote the only known songs to be released on two tiny labels, "Shatter" and "Zap". There's a great picture of him, looking to me like a cross between Frank Zappa and Adolf Hitler, on the AS/PMA "Air Records" page. 

Anyway, let's start with the side I pictured above, the side featuring frequent Longman-tune-crooner Roy Brown (and for those of you of a certain age, from Chicagoland, no, I'm sure it's not that Roy Brown).

Both of the songs on this side are quite short. The first one is "Just a Break", which to me sounds vaguely like any number of dance records from about 1965. The best part of it, I think, is the instrumental intro, but the who thing has got a solid, driving sound, and a simple, effective lyric, as far as it goes, although it stumbles to a start just as it seems to be building up to something, with far too many "Hey's" from Mr. Brown. 

Download: Roy Brown - Just a Break

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You'll be forgiven upon hearing the start of "Late in May", if you think Sonny James is about to start singing "Young Love", and the whole song has more than a passing resemblance to any number of late '50's country-pop records, but the theft works for me - I particularly like this song's backing track (minus the girls), but Roy Brown's vocal fits it well, too, and the lyrics, while simple, show more talent than those of your average song-poet. 

Download: Roy Brown - Late in May

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Now let's get to the Jimmy Thompson tracks. As I said, these seem to come from a very different production house. In fact, these come the closest - of anything I've ever heard - of sounding like something that would have come out the deeply weird production stable of another person whose rare recordings I collect, a man named Larry Taylor. You can hear his unique stylings here and here, and see if you agree.

But I should share the songs in order for you to do that. My favorite song on the EP, and by far the most creative one, lyrically, leads of the Jimmy Thompson side, and it's called "Channel, Channel". This is marred by some terrible sound transfer issues - the beginning sounds like the tape was damaged - although it gets better. I enjoy the tinny piano, the shuffling drums, the indelible melody, and as mentioned, the clever, unusual lyrics. 

Download: Jimmy Thompson - Channel, Channel

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Finally, the only song on the EP to bust the two minute mark, and the one that really sounds like Larry Taylor, "We've Got Problems". In this number, the protagonist thinks his relationship is great, but quickly finds out that's not the case. This is the draggiest of the four numbers, and is probably the weakest one, as a song, I suppose, but the tic-tac piano sound really makes it sound different, in a way that appeals to me. 

Download: Jimmy Thompson - We've Got Problems 

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