Clean Living, with Gary Roberts

You have my solid vow, oh song-poem fans, that any time I come to be in possession of a Gary Roberts record, I will share it with you. His vacuous, artless style remains a fascination to me, and I'll get to the newest acquisition in The Gary Roberts Story (as well as some more cut-up material) in just a moment. 

But first, I want to bring your attention to a previously unknown song-poem label and Rodd Keith release on that label, discovered by my pal Stu, who comments here often, and who frequents various websites dedicated to documenting the world of the 45 RPM record. He has found a posting for a song by one "Ward Lowe" on the Empala label. Both sides are on youtube, but the posting on 45cat.com helpfully has both of those postings embedded in with the rest of the 45's information, and the first one posted, at least, is quite nice. You can find that posting, and those songs, here. Thanks, Stu!

And now, without further ado: 

Both sides of today's Gary Roberts feature were written by the same song-poet, but "Because of You" is by far the stronger of the two. This is a paean to clean living, from someone who apparently partook in just about every drug-related vice, up until today. The best thing is that we get a rundown of all of the temptations he might face, and what he's going to do, instead, now. 

No, I take that back. The best thing might be the peppy, oompah based backing track, featuring the simplest of piano, bass and drums, accompanied by a guitarist who seems to think he's in a different song, one that perhaps is being played in double time. Then, of course, there is Gary's homely vocal, lacking in anything one might call "style" or "polish", as usual. 

Download: Gary Roberts - Because of You

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I cannot, alas, work up the same enthusiasm for the flip side, "Memory Lane". Given that the same song-poet wrote both of these songs, and that they both have the ring of first-person authenticity about them, there's at least a chance that the writer was expressing things from his own life. And if that's the case, it would appear that his newfound sobriety was not enough to keep his gal by his side, based on the lyrics of this song. 

All that said, this is a tedious song and performance. It goes on nearly four minutes, and seems even longer. Unlike Gary's late predecessor, Norm Burns, and others, such as Rodd Keith and Cara Stewart, I get no sense of any connection between Gary's vocals and the meaning of what he's singing. I sort of doubt that improvement in that area would help in a song as bland as this, but it couldn't hurt, and it just isn't there. 

Download: Gary Roberts - Memory Lane

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~~~

And now for my cut-up of the week. 

This time around, it's not exactly a cut-up, but rather a deliberate butchering and reworking. And therein lies a short story. 

When I was little, my parents were wise enough to buy me (and my brother - six years older), the complete set of Science related albums, titled "Ballads for the Age of Science", which had been released in 1959, and features such performers as Marais and Miranda and Tom Glazer, among others. 

These albums are pretty darn wonderful, but just about completely forgotten today. If you are familiar with this collection at all, it may be because of a thoroughly unnecessary cover version of "Why Does the Sun Shine" (originally done by Tom Glazer) by They Might Be Giants (my advice - go listen to the original). 

Anyway, there were two tracks I was particularly fond of, one from an album of Experiment Songs by Dorothy Collins, which was about rainbows, and one by Tom Glazer from an album of Weather Songs, titled "What is Climate". Like many, if not most of the tracks on these albums, there is both a spoken section and a song. I'm only concerned with the spoken section today. Here is a link to that track, which you'll want to hear before I share anything else. 

My brother and I discovered that, if we played with the needle while this track was playing, pulling it back across the grooves (and damaging the record in the process) we could make Tom Glazer say: 

"What causes a desert climate? Hot Dry Air! What causes the Hot Dry Air? Hot Dry Air! What causes the Hot Dry Air? Hot Dry Air! What causes the Hot Dry Air? Hot Dry Air!"

ad infinitum. Great fun. 

When I was frequently doing cut-ups, back in the '80's, I thought I'd recreate this moment, and play with the track some more. I made this little bit (using my beat up version of the album): 

Download: Hot Dry Air (cut-up)

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Then, over last Christmas break, I decided to spend some time doing something I'd had it in mind to do for at least ten years. That is, make a version of this material with a dance beat, again playing around with the spoken word section (this time taken from the pristine version of the track found online). The result, while not quite a "cut-up" as I've been defining them is, I hope quite enjoyable: 

Download: Tom Glazer - What is Climate? (rearranged by Bob)

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