Minimalist Lyrics, With Frank Perry

Okay, a few things before we get to today's feature. 

First, I heard from a correspondent named Jay, who has found the most phenomenal picture. Please research (here and elsewhere) W.L. Horning if you are unfamiliar with this man's work. With that said, I share with you now a picture of W.:L. Horning that Jay managed to discover. 

The picture had a caption which read: 

Wesley Horning, Denver Composer He learned to compose by picking out tunes on guitar.

If you have heard any of his "compositions" you will doubtless find that statement extremely hard to believe. Anyway, here he is: 

The other thing I want to share is that Sammy Reed has posted an entire song-poem album, one of the countless editions of "Music of America" collections which appeared on Hollywood Artists. There are some doozies on that album, which is posted here.

And now:  

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I get a kick out of today's 95 second feature, because it features what must be among the shortest bits of song-poetry ever committed to a song-poem record. When I saw that Frank Perry would be singing "You're Messing With the Wrong Guy", I assumed that Frank's performance would be a first person warning to someone that he himself (Frank or the song-poet) had had quite enough of... something and was offering a warning to stop messing with him. 

But nope, that's not it. In fact, the lyrics couldn't be less specific. Or less wordy. I hope you'll forgive me for ruining the surprise, but over some super peppy Chamberlin backing, the following four lines are all there is to the lyric here. Anything else is repetition or slight variance: 

Baby, you're messing with the wrong guy

Don't you know that guy will get you down. 

You're fooling with the wrong type of people

Don't you know they're trying to make a fool of you. 

And that's it. I also enjoy the hard stop at the end. 

Download: Frank Perry and the "Swinging Strings" - You're Messing With the Wrong Guy

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The flip side, "Going to Memphis" threatens (on the label) to be almost four minutes long, but it's actually just under three minutes. And this song honestly doesn't have many more words than "Messing", despite having an extra 75 seconds to say it. Perhaps you won't be surprised to see that the same song-poet wrote both of these masterworks. I find this side a whole lot less interesting than its flip side. It plods along, doesn't it? 

Download: Frank Perry and the "Swinging Strings" - Going to Memphis

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Gary Roberts: Bluesman Extraordinaire!

 

Those of you unfamiliar with Gary Roberts would do yourselves a favor and peruse this set of posts (which will start with this very post, until I post another Gary Roberts record). You will not be disappointed. You also can't go wrong listening to this classic. 

Those of you who are familiar with the song-poem work of Gary Roberts might have several words to use to describe his performances. I'm guessing that well down below word 100 on that list would be "Bluesman". 

And yet, that's what the bosses at Sterling assigned Gary to become, for the song "Remembering". The results are just as one-fifth assed as you might expect. Only the pianist here sort of seems to understand the genre, and the proceedings made even more delightfully incompetent by a blues harp solo which is shows off just about the equal to Gary's blues chops. (Now, admittedly, the appeal of the blues harp is 100% lost on me, but even as someone who avoids the instrument in that style of usage, I can recognize when it's being used by someone who has no idea how to use it.)

I note with some amusement that this is the very highest record label number found so far on which Gary Roberts' name appears, and that his tenure there lasted barely 100 label numbers (and he was not on all of those releases). I can just imagine - although I have no belief that this actually happened - that after hearing this performance, the folks at Sterling cut their losses and moved on to someone else. 

Download: Gary Roberts - Remembering

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In comparison, the flip side, "You Did Me Wrong", sung by Shelley Stuart, is a solid piece of entertainment. But only in comparison. The lyrics are artless, in the style that song-poets have achieved since the genre came into being ("Why are you doing this the way you are?"), and they read more as a series of prose sentence than as poetry or lyrics. A sense a bit an attempt at proto-disco by the band at the 1:33 point, although the beat is a bit slow for that. Other than that, musically, this is sort of a throwback to Sterling's earlier days, when Shelley Stuart showed up more often, along with Norm Burns, particularly in the use of all that echo. 

This is also the second highest numbered Shelley Stuart release on Sterling which has been found, to this date...

Download: Shelley Stuart - You Did Me Wrong

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Another Piece of the Norris Puzzle

To start today's post, let me just reiterate that, any time I come to own a previously unknown / unshared record linked to the fabulous Norridge Mayhams (AKA Norris the Troubadour), it will get shared here, and very promptly. 

I will do this even though many of these records have a dubious - or even virtually no - connection to song-poems. The link remains that, at a certain point in the 1960's, Norris stopped performing his own songs (or, as in this case, hiring and no doubt paying existing outfits to record them), and started using the song-poem companies to record his songs. But even at that point, as he had always done, it seems likely that he wrote both the words and the music for his material, so even when he used the song-poem companies, his releases were a little different than the standard material found on those releases. 

However, I find his story - and his music - endless fascinating, and so will always share with you what I find. And here's something believed to be unique among the tens of thousands of people who utilized the song-poem companies at one point or another. Norridge Mayhams wrote an actual, honest-to-goodness popular hit record. The song was "We'll Build a Bungalow", and you can hear the hit version here. Note the absence of Mayhams' name on the label. He spent years trying to sue his way into both receiving writer's credit for and receiving the profits of his song. 

Anyway, Norris recorded (and paid for others to record) "Let's Build a Bungalow" on his own labels more than a half dozen times, from the 1940's through his final records in the 1980's. But I'm going to guess that my new acquisition, heard below, is the first recording of the song, and it appears on Norris' own Co-Ed label, on a 78, which I'm guessing is from the late 1940's (although the lousy sound quality suggests to me the recycled shellac which was used near the end of World War II). It's credited to Carl Bostic and His Orchestra, a conglomeration which appeared on other Co-Ed 78's, as well, including one that I've shared before on this site, in a most excellent performance of an excellent song. 

For all of the reasons that I described above, this is probably better described as a Vanity Record than a Song-Poem, but again, in the interest of bringing more Norris/Norridge Mayhams to the world, I'm sharing it here. I'd like to draw particular attention to the almost random nature of the piano solo, particularly from 1:45 to 2:10. Some measures feature only a single note, others have flurries of notes which seem played almost by accident. 

Download: Carl Bostic and His Orchestra - We'll Build a Bungalow (You Spell It For Two)

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On the flip side, Carl Bostic and His Orchestra return, with a song called - and I want to get this right, exactly as it appears on the label - "I WANT A Co-ED by my SIDE". In case you just thought "Co-Ed was a clever label name, with a clever and unique logo, well, no. Norris was obsessed with all things college, and wrote songs about various aspects of college for much of his life. For me, the highlight of this song is the rather unusual use of language in spots, which is a trademark of Norris' compositions, although the pianist, yet again, makes some unusual choices in both the solo and in his fills. 

 Download: Carl Bostic and His Orchestra - I WANT A Co-ED by my SIDE

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