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?

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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

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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 

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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

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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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