Linda Dahrling's Greatest Hits

Right off the bat, let me point y'all to Sammy Reed's page, where he has just posted a fairly ridiculous song-poem album. 

And now: 

Today, I have a bit of an oddball release - this preview release appears to be the only record ever credited under the oddly named spelling "Linda Dahrling". It's been suggested to me that this is Bobbi Blake, and I initially identified her as such, but Sammy Reed, who knows his Bobbi Blake perhaps better than anyone in the world, says that's not the case, and suggests that it might be the singer identified elsewhere as Joan Merrill. I have no idea, so I am leaving her identified as Linda Dahrling in the tags. 

This is clearly, to my ears, a Rodd Keith production, and I'm fairly certain that's Rodd singing in the background, too. It's not one of his best - both songs sound very much alike to me and the level of creativity is far below what he was capable of. But... it's a relatively early Preview release with Rodd's involvement and for those reasons alone, good enough to share. 

The first song is "Poor Little Sparrow", in which the song-poet minimizes the future problems of a bird suffering from a broken wing (she seems to think it will heal itself - I don't think it works that way) when compared to her life, given that her man is in Vietnam and might not come back. 

Download: Linda Darhling - Poor Little Sparrow 

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The flip side, "God Bless You" is standard issue "thanks for loving me" paean to a woman's lover. 

Download: Linda Darhling - God Bless You 

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Blazing Hoofs and Impeachment, Too! - Another Ridiculous Record from Gary Roberts

Hi, everyone, 

Well, I said things might slow down here and they sure enough have. I want to explain that an immediate family member has received a serious diagnosis and has had two surgeries since my last post. Depending on the news coming in the next week or so, I might return to having the same amount of time to post here as in the recent past, or... I might not. I hope you will continue to visit and view, read and listen whenever I do post. 

But I do have something today, a record I pretty much literally JUMPED at the chance to buy on eBay, just based on a awesomely weird titles, and the fact that the songs attached to those titles were such by the ridiculous Gary Roberts. 

"Blazing Hoofs". Okay. I had to look that up, and it appears that, in addition to "Hooves", "Hoofs" is an acceptable plural of "Hoof". Who knew? It still looks goofy to me. And of course, who better to sing a western outlaw ballad than Gary Roberts. I know, almost anyone would be better. After a faux Flamenco guitar introduction, the band settles in to a "Western" gallop which is about as authentic as one might have heard at the time in a skit on a local kiddie TV show. 

The lyrics are a compendium of genre clichés (although I did web search for the phrase "My Pinto's Going Dry" and it literally came up with no hits - an absolutely original, if genuinely stupid, set of four words). The words of the lyrics are manipulated into phrases that just don't work, all for the sake of rhymes. My favorite example, in which a rhyme for "sleep" was needed: 

The girl I left behind / yes the girl who says she's mine

Whom I kissed before I left / began to weep

The whole thing is over in barely two minutes. I found myself wondering what Halmark would have done with this material. 

Download: Gary Roberts - Blazing Hoofs

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Based on Sterling's numbering system, it would appear that his record came out at the end of 1974 or, more likely, in 1975. And that would line up nicely with the title of the flip side, "Impeachment of Love", as well as with the wah-wah sound and beat (such as it is) heard on the track. 

It is, as you might guess, a song of a cheating lover being discovered. We're off to a fun start in the two lines, in which "love" is rhymed with, um, "love". And then, when the protagonist discovers his lover's indiscretion, he appears to have witnessed - "Hiding like a clown" (another line shoehorned in to create a rhyme) - an unusual lover's embrace, to be sure: 

I saw you kissing, embracing and strangled in strangled in strange arms.

Gary gives his all to try to sound outraged, hurt and enraged, but it's just beyond his abilities. Just picture what Gene Marshall, for example, could have done while singing that last verse. 

Download: Gary Roberts - Impeachment of Love

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All in all, money very well spent.