Two Very Different Goodbyes

This month, I was lucky enough to obtain yet another Norm Burns 45, although technically this record is by "Lew Tobin's Orchestra & Singers with Vocal by Norman Burns". Happily, it's from the same early period of Sterling which featured a lot of piano and sax driven, vaguely (or very) twist oriented numbers. "If I Had Believed In You" clearly shares at least some of its inspiration to the same person or people who arranged "Sunshine Twist" and "Darling, Don't Put Your Hand On Me".  

Today's song isn't nearly up to the level of "Sunshine Twist", and certainly not to "Darling, Don't..." which is possibly my favorite song-poem of all, but it's a sweet pleasure, bouncing along with its cowbell and the chirpy girls, an unusually intricate vocal arrangement, and Norm(an)'s typical warm and inviting vocal. The lyrics are far more downcast than the music, being that they are a dismissal of and a goodbye to an unworthy lover. I especially enjoy that the backing girls actually sing "forgive me" a couple of times in counterpoint to the lead vocal. 

Download: Lew Tobin's Orchestra & Singers, Vocal by Norman Burns - If I Had Believed In You

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The flip side, with words by the same song-poet as "Believed in You", is "She Took the Ring From Her Finger". This one is nearly a dirge, and that's a well matched style. This is another song of goodbye, but quite a different type of goodbye. The song doesn't do much for me at all, but the words are heartfelt,  and there's more well arranged interplay with the backing vocalists. The microphone popping on a couple of "p's near the end of the song really should have resulted in another take, but that's not the way things were done in song-poem land. 

Download: Lew Tobin's Orchestra & Singers, Vocal by Norman Burns - She Took the Ring From Her Finger

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Oddly, both of these songs are listed as being two minutes and twenty seconds on the labels, although neither of them comes close to that length. 

The Shortest Song-Poem Title Ever?

First up, a quick thank you to "Nedzilla" for a really great comment. I enjoyed it mightily. Actually, now that I look back at that post, all four comments were fantastic. That one really brought out the best in you reader/listeners. 

I recently came across an eBay auction for a record with what has to be at least tied for the shortest song-poem title ever. Unless a song called "I" or "A" comes along, I'm going to assume that there's never been a shorter title on a song-poem 45 (and never a title which gave away less of its lyrical direction), than Alan Poe's rendition of "To". Happily, no one else bid and I got the record at a reasonable price. Here it is: 

I'm not at all sure that this is the singer who usually went by "Alan Poe". There were multiple records released under that name, and clearly they weren't all by the same singer. At least one those was actually sung by Rodd Keith, but this doesn't sound like the other Alan Poe records I'm familiar with, and it's certainly not Rodd.

Anyway, both "To" and the flip side, the almost equally generically titled "Lovely" are religiously themed offerings, both from the same song-poem. I think it's sort of odd that Rodd Keith isn't singing, here, actually. The backing track has many of the hallmarks of his production, and the melody of this song could not more clearly be a Rodd melody and chord changes - it resembles several of his creations, none more than elements in the melodies of "Ecstacy [sic] To Frenzy" and "Nativity", two of his most beautiful melodies. This tune is not anywhere near the same league as those two, but it's nice, and neither "Alan Poe" or the color-by-numbers Jesus lyrics of "To" are worthy of this melody.

Download: Alan Poe - To

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"Lovely" - about all the lovely creations the Lord has made - has almost a sunshine pop sound (if it was a bit bouncier, perhaps), and again, this melody and chord structure has Rodd dripping off of it in every measure. I'd like to think that Rodd kept his distance from the vapidity of these lyrics, but of course I know he had no problem selling much worse song-poetry than this. So his decision to make the arrangement, lead the band and call in a rather lugubrious singer remains a mystery. 

Download: Alan Poe - Lovely

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Another Michigan "Air-Loom"

 Howdy folks, 

First, just a quick nod to Sammy Reed, who has posted an entire song-poem album here.

And now for an echo of a post from a few years ago: 

Nearly eight years ago, I posted a record on the "Air-Loom" label, with both sides sung by Cara Stewart. The song featured at the top was "Michigan, My Home". Today, I have another rendition of the same song on the same label. This time, the artist is Jeff Lawrence, accompanied by the far too wordy "Film City Orchestra (New Sounds From Hollywood)", all of which immediately identifies this as a Film City creation. 

The existence of this record confirms (or nearly confirms) one thing about this label and one about the author of these songs. The first is that "Air-Loom" was very likely the product of one Gail Hines (or as she is credited here, Gail Hamilton Hines). Ms. Hines is the credited author of every documented song released by the Air-Loom label. 

And the second is that Air-Loom, and Ms. Hines creations, are probably more accurately identified as vanity releases rather than true song-poems. A quick listen to Cara Stewart's rendition of "Michigan, My Home" and Jeff Lawrence's performance demonstrates that they are the exact same song - tune and words - although the two versions start at different points in the lyric/tune. 

Almost always when two renditions are found of the same song-poem, by two different companies, the backing, tune and arrangement bear no similarities. In this case, Lee Hudson took this material, and at some other point, Sandy Stanton took the material, and each made a record of it, and they both came out with the same song, lyrics and melody. My guess is that Ms. Hines was actually a songwriter and not just a lyricist. 

Jeff Lawrence seems to have made only a handful of records for Sandy Stanton, and he is just as ineffectual as the other post-Rod Rogers/Keith singers he featured at Film City, and this rendition of "Michigan, My Home" cannot compete with Cara's version. But few can really compete with Cara. 

Download: Jeff Lawrence with the Film City Orchestra (New Sounds From Hollywood) - Michigan, My Home

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Speaking of the ineffectual singers of the late period Film City crew, the flip side of this record features another Gail Hines song (of course), this time sung by Frank Perry with another rarely heard from song-poem singer, Karen Kent. "A Sweetheart By My Side" is a lugubrious slog of nearly four minutes, with the dullest Chamberlin backing imaginable, poor production and bland vocals. A song-poem trifecta!

Download: Frank Perry & Karen Kent with The Film City Orchestra (New Sounds From Hollywood) - A Sweetheart By My Side

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