Frank Manell's Greatest Hit

Before I get to this week's record, I want to share that I have updated a posting from two weeks ago, in which I had somehow forgotten to add the label scans. That was especially important, as this was the first time I had shared a record on that label. They are there now. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, Frank Manell: 

When I first played this record, I knew I wanted to feature it very soon in a post, but I also thought it was one of the many cases where a song-poem company mislabeled the artist on a 45. Because the record shows the performer to be Frank Manell, and I was sure the singer of this song was a woman. 

It wasn't until I listened to the flip side that I realized that Frank Manell was a male singer who possessed a very high tenor, sort of a song-poem Clyde McPhatter. 

Not only that, but the song ("Diamonds and Rubies") is bouncy, energetic and winning all the way around, as is Mr. Manell's vocal. I find this record pretty irresistible. The TPA folks again demonstrate that, unlike many of the other companies, they were well aware of the styles and trends in music, and made their records sound like the hits of the day, the day in this case being 1957. The guitar during the bridge, in particular, sounds like it was lifted from any number of early Elvis records. The weird drop out just before the sax solo (which is part of the record, and not a error made in digitizing) is the only flaw here.

So who was Frank Manell? Danged if I know. He is only listed on the AS/PMA website on one record - this one - and Discogs has one more listing, for the release immediately before this one ("Having a Gay Time"). Then he disappears into whatever ether he arrived from. But he surely left us better than we were before he arrived, because this is a wonderful record. 

Download: Frank Manell - Diamonds and Rubies

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Sadly, I cannot work up any enthusiasm whatsoever for the flip side, "My Treasures", a dirge of an arrangement which buries any charms that might have been from the words or the vocal. The song is 30 seconds longer than "Diamonds and Rubies", and seems five times as long. 

But I will say that Mr. Manell continues to impress with his vocal prowess, with the exception of a tendency to over-enunciate some words to the point of mispronunciation, much in the way Nat (King) Cole tended to do. 

Download: Frank Manell - My Treasures

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HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYBODY!!!!
 

Christmas Eve Dream

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

We're going to have a Bob Storm Christmas this year. And what's more, we have DUELING BOB STORMS. 

As discussed in this post from about 16 months ago, intrepid Song-Poem detective Bruce Baryla got to the bottom of the two different sounding voices all attributed to one Bob Storm, on a number of Halmark (and related label) releases. There was a man with a typical baritone voice, perhaps truly named Bob Storm, and there was another man, who tended to go comically over-the-top in his delivery, named Marshall Young, who was also billed as Bob Storm, for unknown reasons. Read the post linked above if you'd like more information. 

Anyway, BOTH of them show up on this record, which came out not on the Halmark label, but on the related Grand Recording Co. label, which tended to use the same singers and use and reuse the same backing tracks that Halmark employed. 

That said, the first track, and the feature track for this post, actually seems to have a music bed specifically created for its lyric. Either that, or the folks at Grand chose, from their library, an unusually appropriate backing track. I've don't think I've heard this track before, although I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. Given that it's a Christmas lyric, the opening musical quote from Silent Night fits it nicely (although I suppose that could have been spliced onto an existing track). I also think the words are sort of sweet, about children dreaming of Christmas morning and presents, and quite without some of the pretentiousness and over-seriousness that tend to weigh down so many Halmark compositions (ahem, the other three songs on the EP...).

The real Bob Storm sings here, and another sign that the backing track for "Christmas Eve Dream" might have been unfamiliar to him is that it sounds to me like Ol' Bob trips over the rhythm and melody a few times. That wouldn't have been the case with the dozen or more backing tracks he knew inside out, but maybe it would have happened in a one-and-done take over an unfamiliar track. Just speculatin'. 

Also speculatin' that perhaps the lyricists name was Dick Tracy. 

Download: No Artist Named - Christmas Eve Dream

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That first song was Christian related only in that it mentions Christmas, although it does so without touching on any of the religious aspects thereof. The remaining songs are unabashedly Christian in nature, although none are Christmas-related. The real Bob Storm returns for "The Power of Prayer".  

Download: No Artist Named - The Power of Prayer

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The same singer - and an EXTREMELY familiar backing track, return for a song about "A Dream" about visiting heaven. 

Download: No Artist Named - A Dream

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And now, the moment that you fans of the Ridiculous Bob Storm have been waiting for. Your man shows up to sing the all-too-brief, uncatchily titled "Evening Visit to the Sacred Shrine", complete with everyone's favorite feature, the short spoken word portion. And like the previous song, it's paired with one of those moldy, deeply familiar Halmark backing tracks. 

Download: No Artist Named - Evening Visit to the Sacred Shrine

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Re-Writing a Christmas Hit Song

Howdy, folks,

I haven't posted in almost two weeks, and there's a reason for that. In fact, for those of you who don't read my other blog, I will explain here that I need to acknowledge my most important news of the year. This past Saturday, my wonderful daughter Molly got married to the equally wonderful Sean. Here they are, stepping out into a swarm of bubbles, just after the ceremony: 

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I also have a little bit of housekeeping to do. Last time around, I shared a record on Preview by a singer whose name I couldn't find anywhere else in the song-poem world. Sammy Reed has posited, and quite rightly, I would say, that the singer identified as Terry Stillwell on "Santa's Visit" is the same person as the "Terri Wells" who sang the all time bizarro song-poem champ "My Doll Jane", another name that seemingly only appears once on the Preview label. Good ears, Sammy! You win a genuine imitation invisible facsimile! 

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For today's feature, "I Won't Tell On Santa", by Mickey Shore, I will basically say two things.

The first is that this is a new label for the blog, Star-Light. I believe this is the second record I've ever owned on this label. 

The other is that this is another example of the sort of song-poet behavior I simply don't understand. Close relatives of this type of record are the ones where someone simply submitted the lyrics to an existing song, claiming authorship. In this variation, Fred H. Smith took the subject matter of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and simply retold the story, using his own words but barely anything in the way of a new angle or other originality. Did he present this near-theft as his own work? Did no one say "hey, that same story was a hit song seven years ago"? I honestly don't get it. 

Download: Mickey Shore - I Won't Tell On Santa

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For the flip side, "The Little Pet Shop", someone at Star-Light took the time to go out and get some sound effect records of animals, and layered them over the track, which is more work and creativity than one finds on a lot of song-poem material, even if they did place them too high in the mix at times. 

Download: Mickey Shore - The Little Pet Shop

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HE'S GOING TO BUILD A MAN!!!

Yo, 

Before I get to today's seasonally appropriate offering, I wanted to offer a bit of housekeeping. First, I got a couple of responses to my "possibly missing link" post from last time around. Sammy Reed has identified that the pressing is from 1961, and Snoopy offered up a legitimate release from, perhaps, the same singer (see the comments of that post). I'm not sure that calls into question the provenance of the 45 as a song-poem or song-poem adjacent record or not, but I remain interested in what people think about my conjecture, and I welcome those two pieces of information. 

I also want to thank both Timmy and Stu for their frequent, and typically very entertaining comments. Please know that I read and appreciate every single comment I receive, and please keep them coming. Apologies to anyone who commented recently who I may have missed, in offering these thanks. 

Okay, so today, I thought I'd kick off the winter/Christmas festivities with a song about winter and a song about Christmas, the latter featuring an artist billing found nowhere else in song poem land (although I'm guessing I'll hear from someone - maybe several someones - that she is clearly <this or that> west coast song-poem stalwart).

We'll start with the better of the two, a little Gene Marshall special called "Mister Snowman". This one appears to date from 1967, based on the known dates related to similarly numbered Preview releases, but the production, instrumentation and poor production certainly sounds to me like the product that Preview put out in the early '70's. Just one of those song-poem mysteries. 

The words are cutesy, but surprisingly effective, at least to me. And I genuinely find some of the melodic turns here to be extremely appealing, particularly what I would call the chorus - the section about him being "a temporary pal". That ran through my head for a few hours after I listened to this song for the first time. A silly little record, but enjoyable. I hope you agree. 

Download: Gene Marshall - Mister Snowman

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I cannot summon up any enthusiasm for the flip side, a bit of treacle called "Santa's Visit", except for the billing. The song is credited to a female singer billed as Terry Stilwell, who shows up nowhere else in the Preview (or in the AS/PMA) discography. I will (as I have before) readily admit that I am not a connoisseur of the women of either Preview or MSR, so maybe this is a commonly recognizable member of that cohort - Bobbi Blake, maybe? (I'm not aware of her working on Preview, or as early as 1967) - anyway, if so, I'm sure there will be several chime-ins. But even so, why the one-time moniker? 

Download: Terry Stilwell - Santa's Visit

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Finally, and most importantly, Cheers, Best Wishes and All My Love to my daughter Molly and her fiancé Sean, who will be getting married on December 10th.