I Can't Live Without Your Imagination

I am distressed at how little I've posted so far this year - an average of less than once every two weeks so far. So I really wanted to get something up here before nine weeks of the year had gone by with only four posts. And what better way to do that than with something I have very little to say about: A Halmark record that doesn't feature the crazy-voiced Bob Storm. 

To be sure, this one is credited to Bob Storm, but it's the other Bob Storm (search my posts for his name if you need an explanation). And aside from the hilarity that crazy-voiced Bob Storm causes for me, I think I'm just about out of things to say about Halmark (or in this case, Hallmark) releases. 

Here we have "I Can't Live Without You", backed by one of the most common of the Halmark backing tracks. Please note, I did not clip the start of the backing track. The record was released that way. I think that marks three posts in a row in which there is something faulty about the recording heard on one side of the record. Aside from the faultiness of the entire endeavor, in this case, I mean. 

Download: Bob Storm - I Can't Live Without You

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And yet another of the classic, most overused backing tracks is featured on the flip side, "Imagination". There is, at least, an interest conceit in the lyrical makeup of this one, although the resulting record is just as stultifying as at least 85% of Halmark, er Hallmark releases. 

Sing it, Other Bob!

Download: Bob Storm - Imagination

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Gabriel Is the Pin Boy

I haven't featured Gene Marshall for a while, so today it's Gene Marshall day. "Thunder Lullabye" consists of a parent trying to calm a child down when the child is frightened by a storm. The parent's explanation here is an old standby (or perhaps "standbye" given the spelling of "Lullabye") fleshed out with some unlikely manual tasks assigned to a few heavenly heavy hitters. 

This record also features a rare flub by the folks behind the scenes at Preview, which you'll no doubt notice as the song comes to an end. 

Download: Gene Marshall - Thunder Lullabye

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I would love to tell you the name of the song on the flip side, and share the label with you, but this particular record came to me with the same label - the one for "Thunder Lullabye" - so I don't know its name. And this record never made it into the song-poem archives database. So feel free to supply whatever name you feel most fits the track. 

The singer is again Gene Marshall, and it's one of the endless series of "you're leaving me" song-poems, as well as yet another one of those records where the chirpy backup singers repeat the last thing the singer said, like a child with echolalia. And a hint to the song-poet (sadly unnamed, due to the lack of label credit): The phrase "Please Repeat This Again" is redundant.  

Download: Gene Marshall - Flip Side of "Thunder Lullabye"

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LIsten to the Eagle Scream!

Howdee, 

I'm going to lead off with a funny comment from Sammy Reed, in response to my last post, in which a song about a steel guitar didn't actually feature a steel guitar. He wrote, regarding two other songs I've posted:

Gene Marshall was also "Hummin' and a-Strummin' on a steel guitar" with no steel guitar. Then there was his "Didgeridoo" song with no didgeridoo.

 

Quite right, indeed. I would add that, so far as I know, one doesn't usually "strum" a steel guitar, at least not in the way I would use the word "strum"....

On to some ridiculous patriotism!

I've probably explained the "Air" label far too many times. Suffice it to say that the label re-released (or provided the only release) for the products of multiple other song-poem labels, and does not appear to have produced any work of its own. I don't understand how or why this worked, but there it is. 

And like plenty of other Air releases I've  heard, both of these sides seem to have been mastered directly from a 45 or acetate provided by the respective song-poem factories, as the sound is relatively poor and, on each side, there is a moment in which the sound dips, considerably, for no apparent reason. I doubt those dips in sound were on the original tapes or on the original discs which contained these songs. Both sides also cut off VERY suddenly, before the last chords have a chance to fade away. 

From the Film City company - complete with requisite Chamberlin, played, perhaps, by Rodd Keith - comes the rarely utilized Joe Staunton, manly vocalist. (Air also released multiple tracks by a Joe Stanton, a much less manly singer and clearly not the same person - also, Joe Stanton's records were clearly not Film City productions. Whether either Joe was related to Film City and Fable Records maestro Sandy Stanton, I just don't know.)

ADDENDUM: My friend Stu suggests that Joe Staunton is Rodd Keith. I can certainly hear that, after the fact, but I don't think it occurred to me because as far as I know, Rodd didn't use any pseudonyms on Film City apart from "Rod Rogers". But then, this was licensed out to Air Records. So yeah, it could well be. Probably is!

 

Joe Staunton gets to sing - double tracked, yet - the song "Stand Proud and Tall On the U.S.A.". And it's exactly the sort of patriotic clap-trap that I'd expect from a title like that. The march arrangement is perfectly suited to the lyric and yet ridiculous at the same time. 

By the way, shouldn't that be "With the U.S.A." or "For the U.S.A." Maybe that's just me. And then there's the line that made me laugh out loud the first time: "This is the land where the eagle screams". I looked it up, and I guess eagles really do scream, and there are even alcoholic drinks and restaurants called "Screaming Eagle", but it still sounded REALLY weird to me. And that ending is classically incompetent. 

Download: Joe Staunton - Stand Proud and Tall On the U.S.A.

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The flip side is from the fabulous Lee Hudson's song-poem factory. And I would have to say that, well over 95% of the time, if I have a record with Cara Stewart on only one side, I'm going to lead with the Cara side. She might just be my favorite song-poem singer. However, the oddness of the U.S.A. song won out here, especially since Cara turns out to be a supporting player on "Wishful Thinking". It's a duet with Jeff Reynolds, but Jeff gets all the solo bits, as it's clearly - in this arrangement anyway - the man's story being told. In fact, it's a little weird that Lee Hudson put Cara on it at all, as she seems to be singing Jeff's story along with him, while he's singing about her. I mean, by the end of the first chorus, wouldn't she know all the things he seems to think she doesn't know? 

Anyway, this song bounces along in a pleasant slow clip-clop, with an absolutely typical Lee Hudson arrangement, and that's just fine with me - I love his sound. 

Download: Cara Stewart and Jeff Reynolds - Wishful Thinking

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