A Tale of Two Demos

 Greetings, song-poem fans!

First up, I would like to acknowledge by best friend Stu, who is the most frequent poster here, I do believe, and who, earlier this week, had one of those big round birthday numbers. Happy Birthday, Stu!!!

And then, I want to mention Sammy Reed, perhaps the second (if not the first) most frequent poster here. Sammy recently discontinued his blogspot site, meaning that a whole lot of comments on my posts had links which went nowhere. I have changed several of those today, to go to his new site. Most of those links now go to a massive post where he has included virtually everything that he previously uploaded in response to, or in anyway related to, this site. I could direct you to all those individual posts, but most of them link to this page. 

But in addition to that, Sammy remembered a post I wrote nearly a year ago, in which I commented that I'd found a copyright entry for a song called "HOOPA LOOPA HOOPA LOOPA DOOPA", and I commented that I'd pay to hear that song.

Well, sure enough, Sammy has found that song on YouTube, with a somewhat simplified title. I can't say it lived up to my hopes, but should also note that the chorus did repeat in my head for hours afterward. On a side note, if that's Ruth Brown I'll eat my hat. "Venus" can't even stay on pitch.  Thanks, Sammy - where do I send the check?   

And now: 

Over two months ago, I wrote, rather excitedly, about having found two Cara Stewart acetates that I'd bought somewhere along the line and had completely forgotten about. I shared a two sided acetate at that time, including a wonderful tune called "I Just Dropped In to Say 'Hello'"

Today, I have the other acetate. This one is one-sided, and it is written by the same team that wrote both of the songs on the other acetate. Like the other disk, this one came with sheet music, seen here: 

The song, "Don't You Think We Better Dance", isn't much musically, but the lyrics hint at something considerably more steamy than the typical song of the era, without getting into details. And of course, Lee Hudson's arrangement and Cara's warm, inviting singing make it something well worth hearing. 

Download: Cara Stewart - Don't You Think We Better Dance

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The label on that record makes it clear that the recording is a demo, rather than a completed product sent to the song-poets (or in this case, songwriting team). But the care and effort evident in the performance take it well beyond the average demo. 

I didn't want to just share one track, so I pulled out another one sided song-poem demo 78, not only to give you a good deal in reward for stopping by, but also to contrast what a demo from most song-poem outfits sounded like: Dull as dishwater. 

Here's a record on the previously unrepresented (here) Hollywood Tunesmiths label. The song is "Laura Lee", and it features a nondescript male singer accompanied, boringly so, by piano backing. I find everything about this record bland, and it makes it just that much more impressive to hear what Lee Hudson was doing for his customers, most likely just a few years after this record was made. 

Download: No Artist Named (Hollywood Tunesmiths) - Laura Lee

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It's So Easy To Be Breezy!

 

It's been way too long since I posted here- I've been sick the last several days. And there are updates I need to do to some previous posts, as well, but they will wait until next time, as I'm still not doing great. In fact, I'm going to quote from myself in presenting this duo of Fable sides. But first, it's worth noting that the AS/PMA page shows that Fable records numbering started with the 500's, and one other online repository shows a single additional record from the 200 series. So I'm not sure when this is from - it's either just about the first Fable release or some sort of outlier. 

Anyway, here's what I wrote about the label, and this particular lyricist and perhaps songwriter, just about five years ago: 

As I've written before, posting songs from the Fable Label poses an interesting dilemma. Most of the songs on the label were probably not song-poems, but a good percentage of them seem to have been vanity releases. And when a likely vanity release is sung by someone other than the song-writer, that seems like at the very least a hybrid vanity/song-poem release.

Such is the case - and I'm guessing here - with today's feature. Lysle Tomerlin had several songs released on Fable, and wrote at least one South-Pacific-Themed song which was recorded and released by an established artist. Aside from that song, though, everything seems to have been on Fable, making me suspect these as vanity records.

I wrote those words about a record of two Western Swing numbers, by Little Jeannie Greer, and this record, featuring two different female singers, also falls under that genre. The better of the two, and quite catchy, to my ears, is "It's Easy to Be Breezy", sung by Joan Allen (presumably not the Oscar nominated actress of the same name, who was not yet born when this record is likely to have come out), accompanied by a real mouthful of a band, Sandy Stanton and his Rhythm Ranchhands. 

Download: Joan Allen, Music by Sandy Stanton and his Rhythm Ranchhands - It's Easy to Be Breezy

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The flip side is by Lee Esmont (presumably not the Oscar nominated actress of the same name, because there isn't one),with a slower, and less interesting number, titled Stepping Stones. Here and there, the guitarist (at least when he's playing while Lee sings), seems to have thought he had the chops and style of Les Paul. He didn't. No one did except Les. 

Download: Lee Esmont, Music By Sandy Stanton and his Rhythm Ranchhands - Stepping Stones 

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So are these song-poems? Vanity recordings? Something else? I'm really not sure, but in the case of Fable, my goal is simply to share whatever previously unavailable finds I make. And this one seems to have been unknown, before this point. 

Dora Foley Has Something to Say

Today, I have one of Rodd Keith's earliest song-poem releases, just the 41st (or so) entry on his first label, Film City (and, of course, not all of those 41 (or so) were even Rodd Keith records. That was what I initial found to be most interesting about this record. But once I listened closer to it, I found something else of even more interest. 

For this record's lyricist, Dora Foley, clearly knew hew way around writing. The lyrics to "Don't Cry Too Loud" are an extremely effective character study AND a put down of a former lover. Now, I will add that I don't necessarily think that the words to "Don't Cry Too Loud" were all that great of a match for a musical backing. Consider this couplet, probably the one really ill conceived line in the piece: 

You're so blasé now 

with all your drinking

There's only so much that even Rodd Keith could do with that. And he did attach it to a pretty durn turgid setting (one thing the "strings" on this track are not doing is "swinging"). But as a piece of poetry and a put down, I quite enjoyed Ms. Foley's composition. 

Download: Rod Rogers with the Swinging Strings - Don't Cry Too Loud

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The flip side, also written by Ms. Foley, contains a lyric which is much more suited to a musical backing, at lteast to these ears. And again, I think this is a fairly good little set of lyrics. Fleshed out with a few more verses, I think one would be hard pressed to discern these words as being those of a song-poem submission, as opposed to those from a record meant to be plugged as a potential hit. Note that I'm speaking of the lyrics here, and not the fairly cookie-cutter (and mechanized) supper club backing that Rodd provided for it. 

And hey, here's another one of those records which fades out, but then ends before the fade out is complete!

Download: Rod Rogers with the Swinging Strings - Mine to Forget

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