A Quartet of Globe Acetate Demos

I thought I'd do something I haven't done in a while and offer up a few examples of one early stage of the song-poem process. Now, what I'm sharing here is not how things always worked, and it certainly didn't work like this at all at some of the labels. But, this was at least the way it sometimes worked at the massive Globe song-poem factory. Globe seems to have been about the biggest of the song-poem companies, although they never released anything but acetates under their own name. All of those Sammy Marshall (et al) releases were Globe products, as were those by several other singers. 

Anyway, one choice the Globe company customer had was to pay for a simple demo - a few instruments and a singer doing the song the Globalists had created from the submitted lyrics. Sometimes, I'm sure, this was to demonstrate what Globe had done with the material and was the first step towards a full band performance with one of the company's regular singers. But even more often, I would bet, the process ended with the acetate - the customer got to enjoy his or her song on a real record to share with friends. 

Here are four examples which come from a larger collection I acquired somehow, all of which bear the lyrical credit to the team of James Fout and Dottie Orr. In all four cases, the accompaniment is just an acoustic guitar. The first two shared here are song by a woman, the last two by a man. A sense of loss, of nostalgia and memories of times past pervade most of the lyrics here. 

The only other comment I'll make is that "The Little Things" probably was not meant by its authors to be sung by a woman, given that it is about missing a female sweetheart. Today, such a combination would likely not even cause a raised eyebrow (and we're a much better society for that), but in those days, I doubt it's the lyricists had in mind. 

Here, without further comment, four songs from Globe acetates:  

Download: No Artist Named (Globe Acetate) - The Little Things

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Download: No Artist Named (Globe Acetate) - The Little Rascal Next Door

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Download: No Artist Named (Globe Acetate) - A Beautiful Rose

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Download: No Artist Named (Globe Acetate) - I'll Be There

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