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

Play:

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 

Play:

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.