Come See the Man! After All, Vicki Sees Him!

 Any time I acquire a song-poem record on a small or tiny label, if at least one of the songs is at all worth sharing, for any reason, I like to do so, in order to give a more full picture of the song-poem world. So it is that today, I have another record on the Vellez label of Lomita, California, where "The Songs They Play Are On Vellez"

I've offered up at least one simply marvelous record on Vellez in the past, which is heard here, and two other records, one of which was fairly interesting but bad, and the other which was comically bad. All of the Vellez tracks will pop up, in backwards order, starting with this post, if you click here. 

The "Comically Bad" previous posting featured a woman named Vicki Farrell, and what I said there, applies here, too: Here's what I wrote: 

Vicki Farrell doesn't sound like she was ready to be within two miles of a recording studio. 

It's more than a bit of a mystery as to why they utilized her, too. As you'll hear, Vellez seems to have had plenty of money to spend on musicians, and people to arrange their music. Money that other song-poem labels would have LOVED to have had, but didn't. Both sides of this record sound well made. Except for the little manner of the singer. It's not good music, but it's rendered absolutely professionally, with real strings and competent backing vocalists. 

Both songs are Christian oriented. I assume so, anyway. "Won't You Come and See the Man" never mentions Jesus, so I guess she could be singing about, oh, I don't know, Fernando Lamas or Andy Devine, but I doubt it. But she is just awful. The fact that this side seems to have been pressed slightly off center just adds to the incompetence of her vocal. 

Download: Vicki Farrell - Won't You Come and See the Man

Play:   

Incidentally, while preparing this post, I discovered that, almost nine years ago, I featured a record on the even tinier "Hit Records International" label featuring a singer just named "Vicki", of whom I was equally dismissive, saying, at the time: 

"I'm reminded of the beautiful but tone-deaf singer who Keith Partridge went crazy over in an episode of The Partridge Family - as long as he was looking at her, he couldn't hear her awful singing"

It's clear to me now: That "Vicki" and "Vicki Farrell" are one and the same. See if you agree. 

Anyway, the flip side is "I See Him", another religious ballad, this one more about God's presence all around us. Again, we have a backing which is thoroughly professional - this could be the backing to a Doris Day or Tony Martin record. Not that that's a good thing, but it is rare for the backing track on a song-poem to be this 1952 Big-Hit-On-Decca-Esque. Vicki Farrell nearly holds her own here, much more so than on the other records I've featured her on. But she's still not good. 

I think that the folks who make Hi-C could have used a bit of this song's chorus, where Vicki and guys momentarily seem to be singing about their product. 

Download: Vicki Farrell - I See Him

Play: 

Incidentally, this record was received by Billboard Magazine upon its release in 1961. That was during a period in which Billboard essentially mentioned every record they received. As you can see from this page, they felt this record had "Limited Sales Potential".