Rockin' With Sammy

Greetings, 

Today, I have yet another update of a month's worth of posts to share with you. I've gotten all the way back to November of 2009, a month when a shared a whopping 16 tracks across five posts. 

These include a simply fantastic rocker on the Vellez label, a set of six fairly eccentric songs from Tin Pan Alley, the amazing "Let's Lay It On the Line" and three other tracks from a Halmark EP, an early - and wonderful - Norridge Mayhams release, and a very late Rodd Keith item. Enjoy!

And now!: 

My hope, when obtaining a previously unknown Sammy Marshall (or, in this case, Sonny Marshall) record, is that at least one of the songs will be one of of Sammy's patented rock and roll numbers. Happily, in today's case, we have an EP on Air featuring three upbeat numbers of such a distinction, two of them very likely unheard until today, at least by anyone reading these words. 

All four of these tracks were written by the same gentleman (wonder how much that cost him), who seems to have been prone to a certain repetitiveness in his lyrics. The record starts with the only ballad contained therein, "Bridge of Make Believe". The narrator of the song is quite unhappy, it would seem, as he is not crossing the bridge into "Make Believe", but rather, has left it, via the bridge, into the harsh world of reality. 

Download: Sonny Marshall - Bridge of Make Believe

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Now we cross the bridge of early '60's rock and roll, and encounter "My Little Dove". This is, to my ears, quite a bit less convincing than most of Sammy's efforts in the genre. Everyone seems stiff, like they are holding back a bit, and the drumming is poor enough that I could imagine it being the drummer's first day behind the kit. 

Download: Sonny Marshall - My Little Dove

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Side two features to sound-alike tracks, pressed in far lower quality, but performed in much more authentic style. A Duane Eddy style guitarist leads us into a chugging rhythm for "My Second Home", and if one didn't know better, one could easily mistake this for a 1962 attempt at pop radio airplay. 

Download: Sonny Marshall - My Second Home

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Finally, we have a song that readers of this site have heard before (which explains a comment I made, above). This exact same rendition of "A Little Bird" - sounding exactly like "My Second Home" - appeared on an EP from the Cardinal label, which I featured in a post nearly three years ago. On that disc, "A Little Bird" was the clear winner; here, I'd award that prize to both the songs on this second side. 

But the real question is: why is the song credited to a different song-poet on the Cardinal release and on this Air release? Weird. 

Download: Sonny Marshall - A Little Bird (Air Records)

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