Today, I have a find which will no doubt be considered a very important find by a handful of collectors. And it will no doubt be considered extremely esoteric by everyone else.
For those not in the know, I wish to introduce you to W. L. Horning, maker of some of the most astonishingly bad records in the history of bad records.
If, indeed, you are not familiar with Mr. Horning, please know that he made two confirmed records under his own name, an EP of four songs, and an EP of six songs. One of the songs, Kiss Me, Kiss Me Baby, can be heard here, and has to be heard to be believed.
But then, Mr. Horning took the backing track for "Kiss Me, Kiss Me Baby", sped it up, and made up a new song by expressing himself ("singing" seems like the wrong word") over the sped up track. Unfortunately, "Kiss Me Kiss Me Baby" is only 63 seconds long, and the new song, "Rockin' and Rollin'", is almost three minutes long, so he kept moving the needle back in order to emote over it so more. The results are truly one of the oddest things ever pressed into plastic - and off center, to boot.
The great Darryl Bullock, in his book on the World's Worst Records, has written about Mr. Horning, and while this segment can be found online, I encourage you to buy his books, which are wonderful.
In the late 1970's, probably after those records were made, W. L. Horning began utilizing the facilities of Sandy Stanton's song-poem factory, and sent his "songs" to Stanton for a more professional result, pressed up on the custom (vanity) Wesley Records label (Wesley being the W in W. L. Horning's name). When the song-poem website was mothballed, only three singles (and six songs) from Mr. Horning's pen were known to have been recorded, and a fourth record turned up as an entry on the 45Cat website some time later.
Well now, all of you get to hear that record, as recorded by Stanton favorite Frank Perry, and the ever-present "Swinging Strings":
2 comments:
If only Frank Perry were as arresting a vocalist as W.L. Horning himself. Thank you for posting these!
This guy KNOWS how to project feeling into a song. I like both sides here and I firmly believe that if Bob Dylan was to inject "Summer Is Gone" into one of his current concert shows, he would make headlines. But, somehow for me, the REAL, true hit side here is, of course, "Sweet Wine & Women". WOWSERS, man! I now have a new ritual for each morning I still wake up upon this Earth, I will give a full listen to this song. Thank you, Mr. Frank Perry, and all your swingin' strings, and also, Bob, thanx to you for brightening up an otherwise gloomy existence.
I"M NOT A ROBOT.
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