Try to See It My Way

It's been awhile since I shared any Halmark inanity with y'all, so I thought I'd share an EP featuring a mini-concert by the label's main female songstress, Mary Kimmell, who is joined by a male singer I don't know that I recognize on the first two songs. Normally, Mary sang duets - MANY duets, with her husband Jack, who was the resident tenor on staff, often credited (where there was any credit) as Jack Kim, even on a few records where the singer clearly wasn't Jack Kim. 

But in this case, Mary's partner is absolutely not Jack. I don't know who he is - I don't recognize him from other Halmark records, but I am not really that enamored of most Halmark records that don't feature the more manly vocalist identified as Bob Storm (I say this because there were two different men identified from time to time as Bob Storm). 

First up is a typically Halmark-level dreary piece - dreary despite the nature of the lyrics, "Magic Night". 

Download: Halmark Productions - Magic Night

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Next, I don't know what anyone would be thinking by naming a lyric with the same name as a song which is extremely well known throughout the western world. But on the other hand, I could totally believe that a person who would buy what Halmark was selling would be completely unaware of a worldwide number one hit of just a few years earlier. 

Mary is joined again by our mystery man on "We Can Work it Out". It's actually worth noting that this song is actually all about two people trying to work something out, as opposed to Paul McCartney's version, which is famously all about how the person he's singing to needs to "see it my way". I actually have never understood how that amounted to any "we" engaging in "working it out". 

Download: Halmark Productions - We Can Work it Out

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Mary sings solo on both songs on the flip side. The first song is the interminable "Sound the Trumpet", which spreads out its limited lyrics across a mind numbing four minutes. I will say that the backing track heard on this one has a more contemporary feel than most of what Halmark released, complete with that Godawful fake violin sound that infected MSR and Columbine records in the late 1970's and early '80s. 

Download: Halmark Productions - Sound the Trumpet

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The final song is called "True and Faithful Friend", and if you can't guess the identify of this friend, then you haven't been paying attention to the proclivities of Halmark customers. 

Download: Halmark Productions - True and Faithful Friend

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Vintage song-poem ads will return next time around.