Not.... Exactly....

So I try not to feature the same label for two weeks in a row, but last week's post, although it featured a record on Preview, that record wasn't actually a song-poem, being something nearly unique - a vanity release from that label. I decided another Preview record wasn't a bad idea, and here it is: 

It's always fun to see some poor grammar in a song-poem title. I mean, the labels could have corrected any of these, had they chosen to, but perhaps they feared (or actually ran into) song-poets who would complain that "you changed my song title". In this case, "You're Not Exactly What I Ask For" could have been saved with just a little "ed", and if the song-poet had "experience" just a little more ED in her life, mayhap she would have "know" that. 

Anyway, if this was a true "first person" song - that is, if the song-poet was writing about her own life - let's hope she did not play her song for the object of her apparently limited affection. Because the point of the song is that she's pretty sure there is a guy out there that she'd MUCH rather be with, but it's clear to her now that's probably never going to happen, so she's going to settle. And she's going to hope she comes to love the big lug who has given her his life, love and laundry. And his house! God help him if the other guy "comes along". The song of a deeply ethically challanged, er, challange woman. 

Barbara Foster is the performer, and I believe I understand correctly that this is the same singer who became better known as Bobbi Blake on MSR and who also pops up quite frequently a one of The Real Pros on Cinema. 

I'll also note that this song seems to go on forever. Surely, at three and three quarter minutes long, it's in the upper five percent of song-poems in length. 

Download: Barbara Foster - You're Not Exactly What I Ask For

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The flip side is called "But I Need You Most of All", and I'll admit I am not quite processing what this song-poet was on about. Barbara Foster sings again, and musically, this is a bit of a continuation of the flip side - although I really like some of what the guitarist and the pianist do on this track. 

Lyrically, though.... At first, I thought I'd caught on. She loves him just fine, but more than that, beyond her romantic connection with him, she needs him. Got it. But what to make of this?: 

"I really, really do love you, but the love is still there" 

Huh? That "but" doesn't seem like it fits with the rest of that lyric, and the remainder of that verse is about how she thought she'd fallen out of love, but hadn't. Maybe I'm just dense - well, I'm sure I'm dense, in plenty of ways, actually - but that verse seems to be grabbed at random from another song. Except that, as you'll hear, that section is the only part that has lyrics that might be considered a "verse". The rest of the song is essentially the same few words, rearranged a bit, repeated over and over. And over.  

Download: Barbara Foster - But I Need You Most of All

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 Incidentally, based on what's known about a few other songs from this period on Preview, it would appear this release is from 1976. 

A Vanity Record On Preview!

Before I get to today's rather remarkable find, I wanted to say a few other things. 

First, a reader wrote to me some time ago asking if I had a record on the Meloclass label, referring back to this wonderful post, from 13 years ago, and indicating that another release was by the same group. I did not have the record in question, but he has since found a copy, and has posted it to YouTube. You can find the two sides here and here. 

Second, an old friend dropped by to comment on my recent post on the Cape Cod label, to say that he also owns a song on this label, and as it turns out, both songs are about Cape Cod. That pairing is here. And, I will add, that site is also dedicated to song-poems, so click at the top of the page and have a look!

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And now for something a bit unusual. It is not unusual, per se, for a vanity recording to show up on a label otherwise dedicated to song-poems. There are several labels who routinely engaged in this practice, including all of Sandy Stanton's label, and others who did so occasionally, including Halmark. 

But in the listings found on the Preview page at the AS/PMA, I've only found two records which are clearly vanity records (discounting Rodd Keith's recording of his own song on Preview 2000, at least - not sure it counts as a vanity release of a member of the staff wrote and recorded it). 

That is, a record recorded and sung by the same person who wrote the song. That can't really be considered a song-poem, as the listed writer(s) presumably composed the words and music, if he or she is also performing the work. Both of the clear vanity listings I've found among the Preview database feature a band called Eddie Carter and the Sunset Ramblers, who, in the words of my best pal Stu, were "a well known L.A. country band in the 1960s", and what's more that "Carter also was later the touring and session lead guitarist for the Beach Boys"

One of those two Preview sides is by Eddie Carter and his band, and the other features the band backing someone named William "Chick" Sandone. I just obtained a copy of Chick Sandone's release, and am offering it up here for everyone's perusal. Again, as my friend Stu pointed out to me, Sandone also submitted songs in the more typical way, to Preview, and several of his songs were recorded by the regular Preview team, including one of the songs on this 45. What a successful bandleader (Carter, not Sandone) was doing making a record on Preview is indeed a question for the song-poem ages. 

And a bigger question is this: how did Eddie Carter and the Sunset Ramblers become popular at all, with a bass player who clearly has no idea how to play his instrument. The bass playing here is just as incompetent as that heard on my recent Tin Pan Alley posting (and in the other posts reference within that post). I'm not sure there's a single moment here where the bass player hits a note which is consistent with the chord changes of the songs, on either side. 

What's more, Chick Sandone certainly had an idiosyncratic way with a song, and it's to the band's credit that they learned and played it correctly. Coming out of the verses, this first song suddenly goes into 5/4 or 6/4 time! The two songs are fairly interchangeable, so I'll start with the one that has the far clunkier, less commercial title, "That's Where I Want to Be With You": 

Download: Chick Sandone with Eddie Carter and the Sunset Ramblers - That's Where I Want to Be With You

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Everything I said about that side also applies to "I Wish It Could Be Me", except for in this case, there does not appear to be a time signature at all. I defy ANYONE to tell me where the down beat on "1" is going to be in any particular measure. I tried to count out the measures during the parts of the song where he sings, in this one, and found myself completely unable to do so. Interestingly, the otherwise incompetent bass player did seem to know where that down beat was going to be, making me suspect that the bass player was none other than Chick himself. Otherwise, I can't fathom how that musician new where to hit a note with emphasis. Maybe that's how Eddie Carter's band made it - they had an actual bass player who sat out this session in favor of the songwriter/singer. Just a guess. 

Download: Chick Sandone with Eddie Carter and the Sunset Ramblers - I Wish It Could Be Me

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Dorothy and Mary

 Greetings! 

I don't have a lot to blather on about today - I just thought I'd go back into the archives and find a Rodd Keith Film City release which doesn't appear to have ever made it onto the internet before. So that's what I did: 

Song-Poet John Murynski's name does not show up in the AS/PMA website (and neither does this single), so these could possibly be his only two submissions to such a company. And both of the songs contain the names of women in their titles. 

Both of these are sort of Middle-of-the-Road, mid-tempo numbers. Rodd is, of course, heard here is his guise as "Rod Rogers", with his one man Chamberlin band identified, as it so often was, as "The Swinging Strings". First up is "Dorothy". It's pretty standard issue for Rodd, but, as is so often the case, I have great admiration for what Rodd did with the various setting and voicings of the Chamberlin: 

Download: Rod Rogers and the Swinging Strings - Dorothy

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Turning the record over, we encounter "Goodbye Mary", in which a sailor bids his love farewell until some unknown future date (betcha she doesn't know about the flip side, in which he's trying to find "Dorothy"). Rodd really sells this one - summoning as much smarmy sincerity as Paul Anka, only with a much better voice.   

Download: Rod Rogers and the Swinging Strings - Goodbye Mary

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