THE M.S.R. SWINGERS!!!

Hello, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Before getting to today's offering, I want to make sure I send all y'all to Sammy Reed's site for something quite interesting and off kilter. 

Nearly 14 years ago, in this post, I offered up a Tin Pan Alley single with the singularly unwieldly title "What Do You Say Baby Beautiful Joyce". 

What Sammy has found is a 45 on a custom (vanity) label, wherein the same song writer (well, let's assume "Frank Wilson" and "Fu Wilson" are the same person), teamed up with Joi Dibrango (which I'm assuming is someone's name, although it sounds like something a call-girl has on her menu of pleasures) to create the J..D..i..F..U label, and released a Preview-sounding recording of the same song. 

Gene Marshall's rendition (in which he is joined by a catchily named fake backing band) proves that it was probably impossible to set these lyrics to a catchy tune, and the flip side is worth the price of admission. Sammy's post is here, and I encourage all of you to take a quick jog over there when you're done here. 

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For my own presentation this week, I thought I'd kill three birds with one stone, or perhaps "destroy three Smashing Pumpkins records with a 200 pound lead needle" would be a better way to phrase it. 

Anyway, I'm not much of a fan of MSR in general, or Dick Kent in particular, so I don't share their work (together or separately) here very much, and I know there are people out there who dig their stuff. So I'm going to share Dick Kent and MSR. The third side aspect that I'm taking care of today is that the record below involves a consortium of artistes who seem to have only been credited on an MSR label once - at least that is documented. To wit: 

Yes, M.S.R. Swingers. 

In actuality, as you'll hear, it's just the usual yokels that played on MSR records, with a vocal by Dick Kent. Which in itself is odd, since he is featured on the flip side, as well. Perhaps the song-poet requested that the song be performed by a group - that's quite possible. But then, why pair it with a record that so obviously has the same singer credited solo on the flip side. Were they assuming that the song-poet was dumb enough not to notice? 

Who am I kidding? Of course they were thinking that. 

Anyway, I fully expected M.S.R. Swingers to, you know, swing. And I was sort of excited to hear it - it's a low number MSR release, from some time before their releases truly began to suck, across the board (your mileage may vary...). But it's a dreamy slow number, even lush in places, with a "closing-time-at-the-supper-club" feel to it that I expect plenty of you will dig. Far more than I do, anyway. But "swing" it most certainly does not. 

It's also over four minutes long, and certainly feels it. 

Anyway, for the second post in a row, it pleases me greatly, Ladies and Gentlemen, to present a previously unheard song-poem artist (or, in this case, group). I give you.... M.S.R. SWINGERS!!!

Download: MSR Swingers - Wish I'd Never Known Your Love

Play: 

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As I said, the flip side is clearly the same band and the same singer, in this case, labeled as Dick Kent, and the song is "Song to September", which features what I think might be an early synthesizer bleating out a tinny, high pitched backing throughout, one which hurts my ears and threatens at times to overwhelm the rest of the backing. Blech.  

Download: Dick Kent - Song to September

Play: