His Body Don't Rest Easy

I prepared this post about five days ago, and then didn't post it. I didn't realize it until this morning. Sheesh. 

I had the following question from an anonymous poster regarding the Tin Pan Alley label: 

Was the Tin Pan Alley label exclusively a song poem label 

or did they also do vanity press records and bootleg reissues?

Thanks for an interesting question! Any answer I would give would rely heavily on the piece about TPA that Phil Milstein wrote more than 25 years ago at the AS/PMA website, which you can find here. 

In a bit of a summary, TPA certainly started off with more a "legit" feel than the other labels, using established groups and behind the scenes musicians who would go on to bigger and better things, and charged much more than the other labels, while turning out material several levels more "legit" sounding than many of their peers in the early to mid 1950's, but soon enough (certainly by around 1958), they dumbed things down, simplified their work and started turning out many of the weird records I've featured here. The label seems to have started with record 100 - by early in the 200 series, the silliness had already set in.  

A few of their pre-downgrade records (from the 100 series) fetch hundreds of dollars. This has definitely led to repro and bootlegs of those specific releases (I just sold one of those repros on eBay - even the repros are collectable!), but I have no information indicating that TPA re-released those themselves. I suspect the repro game became hot well after TPA ceased to exist. But this is little more the speculation on my part. 

I have not personally seen anything on TPA that is clearly a vanity release (i.e. written by the same person who is performing the song, which was frequently the case at another 1950's label, Fable). TPA tended to have a couple of singers in their stable at a time, and nearly everything during... whatever period you are looking at... .features those same singers again and again, rather than some outlier singing his or her own material. 

There is, however, one exception on that TPA discography website, one which is sung by the writer of the song, and one which has a completely different numbering system than the rest of the documented releases: 

PA 1101: Elmer S. Galloway -- Your Voice Is Like A Song / Take A Cup Of Kindness (both wr. Elmer S. Galloway)

So there's that!

And speaking of Tin Pan Alley: 

If anyone represents the idea that TPA stuck with the same singer(s) at length, it's Mike Thomas. Obviously, the song-poem website is mothballed, and having been updated in some 20 years, but for those records captured on the TPA page of that website, Mike Thomas' run of releases starts at # 538 (and I recently discovered he did a few, before that, under what I assume is his real name, Mike Yantorno), and then proceeds to be the named artist on every single then-identified TPA release until # 914. And at that point, a group called "The Melodiers" take over the next several releases. The lead singer of "The Melodiers" being, quite obviously, Mike Thomas. 

Anyway, here's Mike Thomas and the small, energetic TPA combo, with a song called "My Body Don't Rest Easy". I really enjoy the energy on some of these upbeat performances by this admittedly limited, but very peppy group. 

Download: Mike Thomas - My Body Don't Rest Easy

Play:

The first thing I have to say about "The Flowers Came to Late" is that the band should have stopped and started over again after the guitarist got his instrument in tune. Aside from that, as in general, these guys are less interesting in mid-tempo numbers (especially when the song-poetry starts to get recited as it does here). I still enjoy the interplay of the organ and guitar here, in spots, especially on those lovely 7th chords transitioning the melody into another section, as well as the little solo at the end. And at this speed, they were still better than they were on the dirges that they sometimes had to perform. 

Download: Mike Thomas - The Flowers Came Too Late

Play: