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

Play:   

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

Play: