Today's BROSH-Ball Score: Cara 3, Sammy 1

This is post # 700. Wow. 

Today, let's attend a little BROSH-Ball game. You remember the BROSH label, right? I don't actually understand how this works, but it released the products of a variety of other small and large song-poem outfits, often mixing two to four different outfits on one EP. And what's more, given the address on this record, it seems to have operated out of a non-descript four bedroom house in the middle of nowhere, better known as the furthest reaches of the Chicago suburbs, a town called Carpentersville, IL

Today's game features a match-up between the Globe company stalwart Sammy Marshall, playing against Lee Hudson's favorite chanteuse, Cara Stewart 

Sammy Marshall, playing for the Nashville Globes, scores first, with "The Chimes of Heaven", although given the nature and low quality of this song and performance, I imagine his run came in on a cheap error or a wild pitch, 'cause he didn't earn his run honestly with this track. It's as sappy as they come - it's a wedding song, backed by a truly bland and boring band arrangement, and bathed in echo. 

Download: Sammy Marshall - The Chimes of Heaven

Play:

Up comes Cara Stewart, the star player of the California Lee Hudsons, and she ties the game, hitting one - a number called "Dance With Me" - right out of the park. The debt owed to Les Paul and Mary Ford has rarely been more clear on a Lee/Cara record than it is on this number. Slinky and sexy, with some great guitar, and yet another killer vocal from Cara, and a lovely overuse of reverb (there is no such thing as too much reverb, in my book). The song is cool, too. And instead of the usual Lee Hudson "downward chord" effect at the end, in this case, the chord moves up a notch for the final bit.  

Download: Cara Stewart - Dance With Me

Play:

The Lee Hudsons take the lead for good, with what must have been a workmanlike series of walks and hits, with the second side opener. This one isn't really much better, as a song, than Sammy's number, sort of draggy and some stale "poor little me" lyrics, but Lee and Cara elevate the material, as they so often do, with that same winning combination of slinky guitar, sexy vocal and irresistible reverb. 

Download: Cara Stewart - Love, What Is It All About

Play:

Cara scores an insurance run with the final number, "I'm Coming Home to You", perhaps a single and a double, or vice versa. Honestly, much of what I wrote about "Love, What Is It All About" would apply here, and yet.... well, Cara Stewart is one of those proverbial people who could sing the phone book and make it sound great. I'll just let her voice wash over me, and wish that I was the one she was coming home to. 

Download: Cara Stewart - I'm Coming Home to You

Play:

 

Cara and Larry and Johnny, Oh My!

Hello, everyone, and Happy Whatever You're Having!!!!

First, before today's EP, I want to update you as to the mending of the oldest posts on this site. I only updated two posts this time around, but they are chock full of interesting sounds. In both cases, they were sequels to one of my favorite WFMU posts ever - the Merigail Moreland tapes. After I posted 15 songs to WFMU, I promised to fill in the blanks on my site, by posting the rest of the Moreland tapes to my site, and then, by posting some recordings Merigail made in 1979 or 1980, which were sent to me by a relative. 

I have now "fixed" the post containing the further1953 era recordings, and the post featuring the 1979/80 recordings. 

~~

And now, for my third post in a row, let's have an EP!!!

The Brosh label, like the Air label two weeks ago, was an amalgam of the works of various song-poem label, and the combinations differed from release to release. Some material on Brosh actually appears in the same exact form on other labels, while in other cases, some songs (including one from today) turn up on multiple Brosh releases. 

What's fascinating to me today is that, of the three performers listed on this EP, only one of them is documented anywhere on AS/PMA, and additionally, I don't recognize the two (male) singers previously undocumented there. Perhaps I'm just not that good with voices, or maybe the fake names are throwing me off, but I cannot immediately recall having heard the voice of either "Larry Dee" or "Johnny Dale" on a song poem record before. Perhaps some wise person out there will educate me.

But first, lets hear the always lovely, and very well known voice of Cara Stewart, sounding as wonderful as ever, on "Four Open Doors": 

Download: Cara Stewart - Four Open Doors

Play:  

Now, while "Four Open Doors" is probably the best song and recording on this EP, the most intriguing has to be the one credited to Larry Dee: "Ballad of Alan Rose". This song's lyrics have a verisimilitude that certainly makes me believe it's based on a true story, but if so, it's one I've been unable to track down, in what was admittedly a cursory search. My guess is that it was a local tragedy, from the late 1950's or early '60's, as this record likely dates from around 1962 or 1963. 

Not only do I not recognize Larry Dee, I also don't really recognize the arrangement as being the hallmark of any particular song-poem factory - my best guess is Globe, but I suspect that's wrong. Also note that the female duo perform nearly a third of the song, without the benefit of a credit. 

Download: Larry Dee - Ballad of Alan Rose

Play:  

~~

The flip side of the disc features what can only be termed raw demos, and I really wonder whether a song-poem company was involved with them at all, or if the fabulously named "E. Quattrocelli" (who submitted songs to at least two other song-poem labels over the years) simply submitted a recording of a friend playing his or her songs. 

Regardless of the back story, they are credited - I think - to Johnny Dale. I say "I think" because unlike most records, and unlike the flip side of this disc, Johnny Dale's name is added in parenthesis under E. Quattrocelli's name, rather than in bold and/or capital letters. I'm pretty sure that's a typo, rather than a co-writer credit. 

Both songs are ballads of the pain of young love, with an emoting singer accompanied by a simple guitar backing and bathed in echo. They are simple, direct and.... amatueristic. First up is "Teen Age Tears.  

Download: Johnny Dale - Teen Age Tears

Play:  

And then there is "I Should Be Crying"

Download: Johnny Dale - I Should Be Crying

Play:

Any guesses as to the back story of these last two songs, and the identity/song-poem factory for "Ballad of Alan Rose" would be welcomed.  

Sammy Rocks Again!

Happy Snow-Covered Presidents' Day!

I have, as usual, updated another month's worth of posts, in today's case, those from TEN YEARS AGO, February of 2011. Time flies. You can't, they go too quickly. 

Anyway, those posts I have corrected today include a dreamy Cara Stewart number, a nice, really heartfelt offering from Gene Marshall, a goofy late era Tin Pan Alley record, and another Vietnam-related number from Rodd Keith, a sequel of sorts to "The Ballad of the Green Berets". 

And now, for your dining and dancing pleasure.....

I don't have a lot of time to write today, but I will say that I didn't have a lot of hope for the Sammy Marshall record, "Just Like a Jet Plane", on the tiny Brosh label (which released both song-poem and non-song-poem material). Neither title on this 45 suggested that it would be anything special. But I was delighted to find that the record was actually one of Sammy's fairly rare and always entertaining early '60's style rockers, bouncy and fun from start to finish. 

I hope you think so, too! 

Download: Sammy Marshall and Band - Just Like a Jet Plane

Play:  

The flip side, "Yellow Gold" is bouncy in its own way, a loping ballad of the 49ers. I'm not sure any of those folks "garnered fame". It's a bit too slick for my tastes, in the direction that the Globe factory would move ever further towards in the years after this release, but still has some appeal. 

All in all, a fun pair of songs from Sammy's early days. 

Download: Sammy Marshall and Band - Yellow Gold

Play:  

Wishful Thinking on Vietnam

I've commented on the Brosh label before. I've never seen a Brosh release which features material that wasn't either a vanity pressing, or clearly from another song-poem factory - it's quite possible that they didn't do anything "in-house" at all. Similar to Air Records (whose label Brosh sort of resembles), most Brosh releases, including today's EP features singers who are well known to have worked for other production houses, specifically, Bob Storm at Halmark, Sammy Marshall (credited here as Sonny Marcell) at Globe and Cara Stewart with Lee Hudson's operation.

In some cases, records of the same some have been found on the Brosh label and on whatever label the song was originally produced by, sometimes with the latter having noticeably better sound quality. Even when a non-song-poem song shows up on Brosh, there is typically some record of the same material showing up on a different label, as well, and as I mentioned, most of these look like vanity pressings. (I will mention that AS/PMA documents that Brosh released the same songs, with two different label numbers, featuring backing by Floyd Cramer and Chet Atkins, but even those songs are known to have been released by another label, as well.)

What a weird label. I sometimes wonder what the average record collector thinks of a Brosh or Air release, upon listening to the haphazard, clearly unrelated material on one of their EPs or singles.

Today's first offering is definitely one of those with abysmal enough sound that it seems to be mastered directly from another 45. Even the surface noise is noticeably different than that of the song which follows it moments later on the same side of the EP. That's too bad, because "How Many Have Kissed You" is a fairly peppy, countrified Sammy Marshall performance, with some effective guitar picking and a lilting melody. I'd like to hear this from a clean copy.

Download: Sammy Marshall - How Many Have Kissed You
Play:

The title of this post, though, is in reference to song two, "A Cold and Stormy Night", which is by far the most interesting lyric and arrangement here. The song-poets wrote what could have been a fairly harrowing story of a soldier's experience in Vietnam. I say "could have been" because it doesn't really work. First, the lyrics are hackneyed and obvious - exactly what you'd expect the average person on the street to think a soldier's experiences and thoughts would be. Second, the big lyrical build-up ends with a piece of fiction that can best be labeled "wishful thinking", and ruins whatever emotional resonance the earlier lyrics had delivered.

But the biggest mistake here was when the lyricists sent their poetry to Lee Hudson, who set those words to one of his sultry, romantic, Les Paul-esque backings for the equally sultry, echoey and dreamy vocals of Cara Stewart. I can hardly think of a song-poem where the lyrics and the arrangement/singer/performance were more of a mis-match. See what you think:

Download: Cara Stewart: A Cold and Stormy Night
Play:

~~

I don't have nearly as much to say about the tracks on the flip side of the EP. The oddly titled "Drop Me Love" is yet another unctuous performance by Bob Storm, over vapid music, as is so often found on Halmark releases. Come to think of it, Bob Storm and Halmark probably could have given a much more appropriate and performance to "A Cold and Stormy Night" than Lee Hudson and Cara Stewart. Not that I believe it would have been good, you understand, just better matched to the subject and material.

Download: Bob Storm - Drop Me Love
Play:

We end up where we began, with Sammy "Sonny Marcell" Marshall, with another track with terrible sound quality, this time without much, musically speaking, to distinguish it. It's Sammy in sad-sack mode, which he inhabited far too often, as he warbles about being "On Your List of Broken Hearts".

Download: Sammy Marshall - On Your List of Broken Hearts
Play:

A Brosh-Tastic EP

It's four for the price of two today, here at song-poem central, and what's more, today's EP, on the tiny Brosh label, features four different singers, all but one from the Globe song-poem empire.

First up is frequently used Globe female vocalist Kris Arden, with a song not written by Smokey Robinson, nor sung by Mary Wells, yet still titled "My Guy". The backing track is Globe 101 - if not for the lyrics, I'm sure Sammy Marshall would have been singing this. But just listen to these lyrics - her guy sounds like a dreamboat; he's swell.

Download: Kris Arden - My Guy
Play:

Speaking of Sammy Marshall, he's up next, with a number titled "Just a Few". This is also paint-by-numbers Globe stuff, and Sammy sounds (to me, anyway) pretty darned wistful, as if he believes the songwriter doesn't expect to win the girl. The ache in his voice here doesn't match the promise of the lyrics.

By the way, I'm going to make another file of this record tonight and see if it gets rid of some of the harshness of the sax portions (I didn't notice at the time of making this file that there was so much distortion, and the other tracks seem to be fine, so it might just be the track).

Download: Sammy Marshall and the Keynoters - Just a Few
Play:

Best of the batch by a wide margin is "Makes My Heart Start Flopping Around", sung by everyone's favorite, The Mystery Girl. Here we have a swingin' little track, with a winning vocal, a nice band sound, and a lyric that, with a few improvements, could have sounded like someone's attempt at a hit record, at least during the late '50's (although I'm pretty sure this record is not from the late '50's). I could do without the honking sax, but that's a minor complaint - this is a fun song and record.

Download: The Mystery Girl - Makes My Heart Start Flopping Around
Play:

The final track, on the other hand, is as vapid as they come. It's called "I Love 'Em So", and it does NOT sound like it comes from the Globe world (so to speak). The lyrics here are literally as stupid as I've ever heard on a song-poem 45, and there are so few of them that some sections have to be repeated three times (almost everything is sung at least twice) in the 110 seconds it takes for the record to mercifully end. The bridge is especially inspired:

Nothing but girls
Lots of girls
Nothing but girls
I'm in a whirl

I don't believe I've come across the song stylings of Ronnie May before, and I'm not sure what casa-de-song-poems put this masterpiece together, but I'm sort of interested in hearing more.

Download: Ronnie May - I Love 'Em So
Play:

Blue Memories

There are only a handful of documented releases on the Brosh label (pronounced "Broash", we're told). At least a few of them, as documented on the AS/PMA website, were clearly not song-poem releases, while others clearly were. This one, which likely was the first release on the label, would appear to fall into the latter category. It features Cara Stewart on one side, while the other side features Dwight Duvall, who also pops up on other song-poem labels (he also appears to have made at least one legit record, for the same label that released Dave "Baby" Cortez' "The Happy Organ"). But this inaugural release from Brosh is certainly worth a listen or two. Dwight Duvall's voice and delivery are certainly unusual - the only singer I can think of to compare him to is Ray Phillips, who you can hear here. And "Blue Memories" seems custom made for Dwight's talents. Enjoy! 

Download: Dwight Duvall - Blue Memories

Play:  

 And it's always good to have a chance to share some Cara Stewart, which I haven't done nearly enough on this site. Some may say (and have said) that the vast majority of her records sound very similar, and I guess that's true, but what a fantastic sound it is. Here's Cara with the song "Yearning":

Download: Cara Stewart - Yearning

Play:  

 

That's Very Brosh of You

The Brosh label is a mystery to me. There are only a handful of known releases, almost all of them bearing label numbers ending in "00", and the label's tracks are a mish-mash of songs produced by other song-poem factories, particularly Globe, Halmark and the labels produced by Lee Hudson. There were also some releases that were either legitimate or vanity products. There are other labels like this - several of them, actually - but in almost every case, by looking at the songwriters of the various releases, you can quickly get the name or names of the person or people behind the label. Not so with Brosh - there are almost as many different songwriters as there are sides to singles. Aside from a couple of records by Judy Jae, today's offering may be the most notorious Brosh release. It's an EP combining two songs from the Globe song-poem factory with another two songs from the Halmark label. First up, Sammy Marshall with two fairly nice, peppy, but (in the end) nondescript numbers, first "Edie": 

Download: Sammy Marshall - Edie

Play:  

Then its soundalike, the wonderfully named "Fava Beans and Pepperoni": 

Download: Sammy Marshall - Fava Beans and Pepperoni

Play:  

  Now I'm hungry. The real attraction for me, though, is on the b-side. Both of these songs were also released on a Halmark 45, where they were attributed to the correct singer, the always astonishing Bob Storm. For the Brosh copy, no doubt due to some breakdown in communication, both songs were attributed to "Jerry Dee", whose only other song-poem credit was a listing as the "Musical Director" on many of Halmark's 45's. That would be a dubious credit indeed, since nearly all of Halmark's backing tracks were old tapes purchased, ready-made and already recorded, a system which would rule out the need for a musical director. I could be wrong, but it appears to me that this side of the EP was mastered directly from a copy of the Halmark 45, such is the low quality of the recording. First up, the plaintive "Her Name is Kathleen": 

Download: "Jerry Dee" - Her Name is Kathleen

Play:  

  Finally, the star of our show, a little ditty titled "The Ballad of Johnny Horton", or, as you may notice, looking at the scan of the label, Brosh accidentally re-titled it "The Ballard of Johnny Horton". This song uses the same backing track as did the mind-numbing "Let's Lay It On the Line", a song which could not be less similar, in terms of lyrics. Enjoy!

Download: "Jerry Dee" - The Ballard of Johnny Horton

Play: