Halmark: The Label Christian Song-Poets Prefer 10-1

This week, Christians are celebrating Holy Week, and so I thought what better time to feature a religion dominated record from that most religious of song-poem labels, Halmark. I don't know what it was about Halmark that attracted so many more religious oriented song-poets than utilized the other labels, but there's no doubt of the difference. Pick up any two or three Halmark releases and you are likely to find at least one, and maybe two or three songs with a Holy theme. 

(My apologies to Jewish readers, in that I have corrected the above paragraph, in which I indicated that Passover was also this week. I was sure I had heard that information, and even looked it up double check, but only looked that the dates, not the month, which is April and not March. Sorry about that.)

I have very little to say about today's offerings - really only a comment on one of them - so I will just line them up and let you enjoy them. Keep in mind that Halmark rarely labeled the performers on on their releases, preferring to provide the names and addresses of the song-poets. As it happens, these four songs all feature Jack Kimmel, in one case duetting with his wife Mary Kimmel: 

Side one features "I Am Thankful" and "Christ Jesus Touch": 

Download: Halmark Productions - I Am Thankful

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Download: Halmark Productions - Christ Jesus Touch

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Side two starts with the one song I'd like to offer a comment on. It's called "Things Just Don't Happen". So first "Things Just Don't Happen"? That phrase means that whatever things you are expecting won't be happening - it's an expression of dismissal of a possibility or, from the other side of the coin, disappointment about what didn't occur. I assume the song-poet's thoughts, based on the rest of the lyrics, was "Things Don't Just Happen", which is a completely different thought - things happen for a reason, they are... planned, caused.  

And this is yet another lyric of the type I mention last week, artless lyrics whose writer gave no thought to whether they could be fit into musical phrases. My favorite is probably "it's not a guess on the issues of life", but there are a few others. In fact, eventually, the singer has to narrate words that simply don't work musically, at all. 

Download: Halmark Productions - Things Just Don't Happen

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The EP ends with the only non-religious number of the set, "Dancing, Loving, Dreaming". Unless I'm reading too much into the lyrics, it sounds like this is the song of a man returning from time in the armed forces, and looking forward to his reunion with the one he loves. 

Download: Halmark Productions - Dancing, Loving, Dreaming

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Forlorn Norm

 

It's been eight months since I featured Norm Burns, and that's just too long. Here we have a pair of songs which are both about love, but which otherwise have very little in common, subject-wise. One is a forlorn expression of sadness at the wedding of a former flame and the other is a celebration of new love. I do think they share something else in common, though - that frequent feature of song-poem lyricism: The artless effort - the use of phrases which are not poetic and/or which are simply not phrased in such a way that they can be rendered effectively in musical fashion. 

For example, in the supper club-y "Lily! Oh White Lily!" we hear the decidedly unmusical phrase "during the wedding ceremony". I also want to pay special tribute to the drummer on this track, who could just as well be a loop of a set of two snare drum taps. The guitarist, on the other hand, seems to be really trying, and a few of those guitar fills are kinda nice. This song goes on forever, doesn't it?  

Download: Norm Burns - Lily! Oh White Lily!

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If you really want to have some fun with artless lyrics, though, I offer up the flip side, "Locked Hearts". These are not so much unmusical as they are simplistic and repetitive, not to mention that they rhyme "Hearts" with, um, "Hearts"

So your love and my love, they are the key to our hearts

So let's find the find the key so that we can open our locked hearts

That rhyme is null and void. 

There only appear to be four lines to the entire lyric, (well, eight if you want to divide each of the phrases into two separate lines.)

Download: Norm Burns - Locked Hearts

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A March Treat - a Full Star-Crest Album - And it ROCKS! (Well, Once)

 I have a treat for you today!

It's a full song-poem album. And it's on the mustiest of fusty old early 1960's labels, Star-Crest. I don't have a lot to say about it. The singer is Tony Rogers, who I have featured on this site twice - nearly ten years ago, and more than a year after that, and a label which I have featured in the past both here, and ages ago at WFMU. 

Here are the front and back covers, which, aside from song titles, were largely interchangeable from album to album. Note that, on this one, Tony Rogers doesn't even get a mention - just a tiny rendition of his name on the labels themselves. 

Star-Crest tracks tend to sound like not only were the musicians not aware of the Rock and Roll Revolution, but that they'd missed The Big Band Era, too. I'll really only make three more comments. 

The first is that, as they did on several other releases, the folks at Star-Crest included a song that everyone would know, perhaps to fool the listener (presumably a friend of one of the song-poets featured) that this is a legitimate release. Otherwise, why would there be a rendition of "Oh! Susanna"? 

Second, I have not separated the tracks. To do so would have pushed this post back another week at least. So there are just two files to download, one for side one, and one for side two. 

And third, the winner here is definitely, "Rockin' All Over the World" which is on side one, starting at 10:55. The good folks at the session make there very best attempt as a drummer, guitarist, tenor sax and violin can do, after a day of playing music that was otherwise about 40 years out of date, if not more. I'm actually impressed at how (relatively, and only relatively) close they came to being convincing, given how comically bad the folks at Noval did with a similar set of lyrics, although that label's Rock and Roll product, Rock, Rocking All the Time, is both more unintentionally hilarious and somehow, much more endearing. 

Download: Tony Rogers - Music of America, Star-Crest LP6200, Side One

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Download: Tony Rogers - Music of America, Star-Crest LP6200, Side Two

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