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as a drummer, guitarist, tenor sax and violin can do, after a day of playing music that was otherwise about 40 years out of date, if not more.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.
1 comment:
Thank you for this! Can't wait to listen. That rock song is really something--quite an effort. I wonder if they thought, well, let's play it like a jump tune but with a little more shuffle in the beat...
Post a Comment