Guest Post: A DOLLY-O of a Record

 I have something very special for you all today, but before I get to that, I want to return to the series that I started two posts ago, and then forgot about last time - the song-poem ads that were sent to me by a fellow named Vinnie. Here is one for the an agency called Songcrafters. The ASPMA page for this organization indicates that very little had been found out about them by the time the ASPMA website was mothballed. 

And now, I am supremely pleased to turn my site over, for the week, to my very best pal of more than 45 years - and a very frequent commenter to this site - Stu Shea. Thanks, Stu, and.... Take it away!

I happened upon this record recently in a store, and my eyes sort of popped out when I realized it was a Dolly O. Curran disc. Bob asked me to describe this record to you.

This record came out in 1973 on Mrs. Curran’s Dolly-O label, headquartered in a modest house in South Bend, Indiana. These songs were recorded by song-poem professionals in Los Angeles.

Both songs certainly have  “plain speech” lyrics. Mrs. Curran went a good distance for a rhyme, and had a habit of fitting far more words into a sentence than a professional songwriter would—but in these things rest much of her songs' charm. And in these things rest challenges to a singer.

“Write Your Congressman” is an earnest plea for citizens to get involved in their government. Dick Kent sings it, with hearty enthusiasm, as “Dick Lee,” with backing vocals that I’m sure are Bobbi Blake. The backing seems a little like a march, but then again it’s hard to know.

According to the lyrics, your congressman will be not just duty-bound, but happy to read everything you have to say, study all your plans for government, and even share his power. Because, of course, “the little guys got a right to have our say.”

The lyrics say, “Don’t tell Sweeney,” (invoking “Tell it to Sweeney,” an early 1900s version of “You’re tripping”), just get in touch with your good ol’ congressman. There’s even a talking outro.

Download: Dick Lee & the Busy Bees Orchestra - Write Your Congressman

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The flip side, “What You Wish – I’ll Try to Be” seems to concern a man hoping and striving to change himself to fit in better with the lifestyle of his extraordinarily wealthy socialite partner. (There's a situation we can certainly all relate to.)

Dick Kent duets with himself, with Bobbie in support. The strolling backing is fairly well suited to the song.

Both sides feature the wobbly, wonderful Chamberlin fun-house sounds associated with Sandy Stanton’s productions, even though Dolly O. Curran and her husband Jack are credited as producers.

Technical notes: side A’s left channel had to be boosted dramatically, as it was pressed at a far lower volume than the right. While both sides of this record appear mint, there are still a lot of pops and clicks, some of which I digitally removed.

Hope you enjoy!

—Stu Shea

Download: Dick Lee & the Busy Bees Orchestra - What You Wish -- I'll Try to Be

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THE M.S.R. SWINGERS!!!

Hello, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Before getting to today's offering, I want to make sure I send all y'all to Sammy Reed's site for something quite interesting and off kilter. 

Nearly 14 years ago, in this post, I offered up a Tin Pan Alley single with the singularly unwieldly title "What Do You Say Baby Beautiful Joyce". 

What Sammy has found is a 45 on a custom (vanity) label, wherein the same song writer (well, let's assume "Frank Wilson" and "Fu Wilson" are the same person), teamed up with Joi Dibrango (which I'm assuming is someone's name, although it sounds like something a call-girl has on her menu of pleasures) to create the J..D..i..F..U label, and released a Preview-sounding recording of the same song. 

Gene Marshall's rendition (in which he is joined by a catchily named fake backing band) proves that it was probably impossible to set these lyrics to a catchy tune, and the flip side is worth the price of admission. Sammy's post is here, and I encourage all of you to take a quick jog over there when you're done here. 

~~

For my own presentation this week, I thought I'd kill three birds with one stone, or perhaps "destroy three Smashing Pumpkins records with a 200 pound lead needle" would be a better way to phrase it. 

Anyway, I'm not much of a fan of MSR in general, or Dick Kent in particular, so I don't share their work (together or separately) here very much, and I know there are people out there who dig their stuff. So I'm going to share Dick Kent and MSR. The third side aspect that I'm taking care of today is that the record below involves a consortium of artistes who seem to have only been credited on an MSR label once - at least that is documented. To wit: 

Yes, M.S.R. Swingers. 

In actuality, as you'll hear, it's just the usual yokels that played on MSR records, with a vocal by Dick Kent. Which in itself is odd, since he is featured on the flip side, as well. Perhaps the song-poet requested that the song be performed by a group - that's quite possible. But then, why pair it with a record that so obviously has the same singer credited solo on the flip side. Were they assuming that the song-poet was dumb enough not to notice? 

Who am I kidding? Of course they were thinking that. 

Anyway, I fully expected M.S.R. Swingers to, you know, swing. And I was sort of excited to hear it - it's a low number MSR release, from some time before their releases truly began to suck, across the board (your mileage may vary...). But it's a dreamy slow number, even lush in places, with a "closing-time-at-the-supper-club" feel to it that I expect plenty of you will dig. Far more than I do, anyway. But "swing" it most certainly does not. 

It's also over four minutes long, and certainly feels it. 

Anyway, for the second post in a row, it pleases me greatly, Ladies and Gentlemen, to present a previously unheard song-poem artist (or, in this case, group). I give you.... M.S.R. SWINGERS!!!

Download: MSR Swingers - Wish I'd Never Known Your Love

Play: 

~~

As I said, the flip side is clearly the same band and the same singer, in this case, labeled as Dick Kent, and the song is "Song to September", which features what I think might be an early synthesizer bleating out a tinny, high pitched backing throughout, one which hurts my ears and threatens at times to overwhelm the rest of the backing. Blech.  

Download: Dick Kent - Song to September

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Rusty Ray is a Dick

Hello, 

First, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who will be celebrating it this week!

Also, I am continuing to slowly rebuild the early days of this site. Having completed all of the "song poem of the week" posts, I am now addressing the first few years of posts. Today, I have "fixed" two posts which each had a half-dozen offerings in them. 

One was a follow-up to a WFMU post, in which I offered up several vintage children's records, and a few others that I have known since I was a child. The other, from February of 2008, was in tribute to my mother, who had died several weeks earlier, and I shared several tracks that she recorded during her long career as a coloratura soprano, tracks ranging from 1944 to 1990. 

Now, here's a singer who was not a coloratura anything: 

Six years ago, I shared the only record I owned at that time, credited to "Rusty Ray" I stated that I did not recognize the singer as anyone who I had previously heard on a song-poem release, and, for that previous offering, that statement still stands. 

I have since obtained another Rusty Ray record, also on the Action label, but in this case, the singer is quite clearly the man much better known as Dick Kent. This is weird, because Action already had a name for Dick Kent, specifically, "Dick Lee", so why did they change his name for this release. And why, having done so, did they offer up an entirely different singer, seven releases later, under the same name of Rusty Ray. 

These are the questions that no one today has answers to. 

Anyway, the winner here has to be "Happy Hippy", which bops along with a Chamberlin approximation of a swingin' Holiday Inn lounge sound. If you want one writer's stereotyped idea of what a hippy might have said, in the early 1970's, this "happy go lucky" portrait will be your cup of tea, complete with a moral/warning at the end

Download: Rusty Ray (Dick Kent) and the "Singing Strings" - Happy Hippy

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A heavy, almost thuddish beat greets us at the start of "Jigsaw Heart", on the flip side, and that drum beat, heard throughout, sounds more appropriate for a stripper than what the words portray here, which is a wish for the singer's loved one to come back home. 

Download: Rusty Ray (Dick Kent) and the "Singing Strings" - Jigsaw Heart

Play:

Introducing Jerry Martin!!!

Guten Tag!!

I know I've gone ages between postings, and as I said in my other blog, work has been overloading my life in recent weeks. I hope to get at least three postings done this month, and look forward to the day when four is the standard again. 

I am inching ever closer, though, to completing the project of correcting every single post of this blog, going back to the point where I re-dedicated it to song-poems, in January of 2009. And we're almost there, as this month, I have fixed those posts from March of that same year, 2009. 

At that point, in my third month of the project, I wasn't always sharing both sides of the same 45, and also did not always provide scans of the labels of the records I shared. I will go back and fix the lack of labels at some later point, and maybe share some of the flip sides that I skipped in a later post, but for the time being, I just going to fix the file links themselves. 

That month, I shared two unrelated records, tying them together with the vaguest of links possible, featured three Real Pros songs from three different 45s, an absolutely wonderful record by "The Enchantments" which may or may not be a song-poem, and a really good record by Bob Newkirk, which, as it turned out, is NOT a song-poem (see the comments to that post). 

Now let's hear something I didn't share twelve and a half years ago: 

Today's featured song is by everyone's favorite, Jerry Martin. "Um, Who?" I hear you cry!

Actually, as far as is documented as AS/PMA, only one song-poem 45 was ever credited to Jerry Martin, although of course there may have been others that were never captured in the discography. And a quick perusal of the contents of that 45, which is happily in my possession, reveals Jerry Martin to have been none other than..... Rodd Keith. 

And Rodd's performance as Jerry Martin, on a song titled "Love At First Sight", turns out to be a countrified offering, a minor pleasure to these ears, aided by some steel guitar, subtle but effective piano, and a vocal which is absent of the condescension one sometimes hears in Rodd's country offerings. 

Download: Jerry Martin (Rodd Keith) - Love At First Sight

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The flip side is "The Dream", and it is credited to Dick Mason. I had little doubt that "Dick Mason" would turn out to be the singer best known as Dick Kent, and I was not mistaken. However, I should point out that an unrelated song-poem label, working in 1958, also released a single by Dick Kent, which I shared here, and that 1958 singer was clearly not Dick Kent. 

What are the chances of two different labels independently choosing the same pseudonym for two different singers? I don't know, but maybe someone could ask Bobby Boyle or Bobbi Boyle. 

Anyway, the song is barely worth writing about - a far below average Preview release with vapid lyrics and cookie cutter arrangement. 

Download: Dick Mason (Dick Kent) - The Dream

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Certainly Mellow, But Not Very Classy

Merry Christmas, Everyone!! Stay tuned all the way to the bottom for this year's offering in my family's series of Performance Art flavored Christmas Cards. 

I want to make sure I make sure that I offer up a last minute link to a site that long time reader and commentor JW put up last week, filled with Christmastime song-poems! It looks like he set up this blog specifically to share these Christmas treasures, so go and have a look. The first post, at the bottom, has nine song-poems available for download, while the second, more recent post, has a couple more songs you can download, AND a link to his "song poem yule log", with a veritable cornucopia of Christmas song-poems. 

You can find all of the above here!

I have also, as per usual, updated another month's worth of old, broken posts, in this case, August of 2011. These include a typically badly pressed MSR offering from Bobbi Blake, a typically inept performance by Gary Roberts, a fantastic early Tin Pan Alley number from Ellen Wayne, and a downright weird tribute to Elvis by The Real Pros. There is one more repaired page, as well, as I'll explain below. 

~~

The Meloclass label both fascinates and sort of confounds me. It seems to have been more of a vanity label than a true song-poem label, in that the songs sound like semi-professional work in a lot of cases, or at least as if they were written by people who had some idea of how music works, and with a definite sense of humor. And most of the releases boast credits showing a team of songwriters, often some combination of "J. DeFranco", "G. Vanderburg" and the fantastically named "Tumbleweed Thompson". 

That all spells out a vanity label, and yet... they returned to the song-poem market again and again for their singers. They utilized the Globe factory on a Sammy Marshall release on a small label, and Vandenburg was the co-writer of multiple songs on a Rodd Keith album generated by Film City. And after I posted another song sung by "Richard House" (who is credited on today's feature), at WFMU - labeling it as a vanity release - Sammy Reed was good enough to point out what I'd overlooked: that "Richard House" is an early nom-de-song-poem of the man later and better known as Dick Kent. 

On the other hand, my favorite release on the label seems to have been a straight vanity release on one side and what sounds like a song-poem on the other, although the two sides, which are extremely disparate, were credited to the same group. And I went out of my way to "fix" the posting of that song, more than three months ahead of schedule, as it is from 2010. It can be found here, and is absolutely worth hearing, again and again. . 

That brings us to today's feature. It is, as mentioned, sung by Dick Kent, under the guise of "Richard House", at least on the first side I'm offering up, and he is joined by what seems to have been Meloclass' house vocal group, "The Five Fellows". 

"Who No Pay José" is, from today's perspective, full of fairly obnoxious stereotypes and hackneyed soft racism towards Mexicans - although oddly, near the end, "Richard House" seems to sound more like the Italian stereotypes of the day than the Mexican ones. 

If you can overlook all that - and I'm sure there are those who can and will - this is an enjoyable-sounding record, with a bouncy track, a moment in the middle with some momentary, odd key modulations, and an honest-to-goodness jazzy solo by a muted trumpet, something I don't recall hearing on a song-poem record. 

And as was the case with the single that I shared in 2010, this record was released at least twice, with two different songs on the flip side. 

Download: Richard House and the Five Fellows - Who No Pay José

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On the flip side, is another song which is more clever and well put together, by at least half, than all but the best song poems. That's not to say that I enjoy this one. "Cinder Fella" is performed in the sort of pre-rock style, akin to the Four Aces or The Four Freshmen, that I simply cannot abide, at all. Ack. Your mileage may vary, of course. 

It's too bad, because the lyrics are clever, and I'd like to hear what someone else would have done with them. 

Download: The Five Fellows - Cinder Fella

Play:

~~

Finally, as promised, my family's Christmas card. For most of the past decade - with a few exceptions - we have tried to create something interesting and different each year, and most of my late-December posts in recent years have featured a sharing of the latest card - you can click around in those old posts if you're interested. 

Anyway, here is this year's card. The concept was mine, but my older child Sage had the wherewithal to make it work via computer wizardry and such. For those who might ask (if any), the fifth person, a young man seen in our previous few pictures, is my younger child's boyfriend, and they are still together, but he couldn't be present for this photo. 

Truth and Universal Truth: The Inspirational Songs of Michael Kasberg

Several weeks ago, I posted a song-poem single written by the singularly unusual and wonderful song-poet, Michael Kasberg. I mentioned that, once he got the song-poem bug, he really went to town, creating his own label, and churning out several albums of his idiosyncratic material. I had a few requests for more Michael Kasberg, and today, I am honoring those requests.

But first, I want to update you yet again as to the fact that I have corrected the broken links on another month's worth of posts, in this case, those from March of 2013. These include a typically odd and disjointed entry from Mike Thomas on Tin Pan Alley, an above average record for the Noval label (which admittedly isn't saying much), a typically stodgy release on Film-Tone, and a Gene Marshall record featuring a really poor choice of words on one side and blatant plagiarism on the flip side. I've actually updated the text on that last one to indicate that the folks at Preview seem to have recognized the thievery and turned the publishing credit over to the holder of the copyright on the song being ripped off.

~~
And now on to Michael Kasberg, with that full album as promised, "Truth and Universal Truth: The Inspirational Songs of Michael Kasberg".

Mr. Kasberg seems to have used the folks at MSR, perhaps exclusively, for his releases on his own Kay-Em label. Here, he credits Richard Kent (much more well known under a similar aka, Dick Kent), Barbara Foster (who I believe is Bobbi Blake - I'm sure Sammy Reed can confirm or rule this out), and Joan Merrill, who I am not familiar with. I don't see a date my copy of the album, but the AS/PMA website lists it as having been released in 1982 (with all of his albums having been produced between 1978 and 1984, the latter date lining up with the end of known production from MSR).

Here's an edited, rearranged version of what I wrote about Michael Kasberg back in December:

Kasberg's songs feature tortured syntax, a sense of jokiness, and a "slightly off" feeling throughout much of his material, and all of this shines through on most of his songs - certainly more often than not. The word "idiosyncratic" could have been invented for Mr. Kasberg.

I am not going to highlight anything specific from this album, but rather, just let you enjoy it from start to finish. I've simply digitized it in two files, side one and side two. The titles can be seen in the scans of the record labels and in small print on the photo of the back cover. I also encourage you to read this enlarged scan of the text found in the center of the back cover, as it is just as enjoyable as the music:

I have not checked these files for any skips or electronic glitches - I simply didn't have time to listen to the entire thing twice - if there are any imperfections, please let me know, and I will fix the section as soon as I get the chance.

Download: Richard Kent, Barbara Foster and Joan Merrill - Truth and Universal Truth: The Inspirational Songs of Michael Kasberg, Side One
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Download: Richard Kent, Barbara Foster and Joan Merrill - Truth and Universal Truth: The Inspirational Songs of Michael Kasberg, Side Two
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Hello, Dolly!

Hello, all you home-bound readers and listeners!

Today, I have corrected all four posts from June of 2013. These include a one sided acetate on the Noval label, a really nice offering from Rodd Keith, the only known song-poem release - and it's an absolutely wonderful one, on Tin Pan Alley - by Eddie Eltman, and a Halmark release which may or may not feature Bob Storm on both sides. You be the judge. 

I also have another song-poem ad, courtesy of Brian Kramp, this being another one from the Five Star Music Masters, which was directly connected to the Sterling song-poem company: 

And NOW!!!:

Dolly-O Curran, along with her husband, Jack, seem to have been among those relatively few song-poem customers who truly understood what the various labels and outfits were doing, and took full advantage. Many, perhaps even more or all of Dolly-O's song-poem submissions, which went to multiple companies, initially came out on those labels themselves. These included MSR, Halmark, Preview, the Globe family of labels, and very little doubt others. I've featured her work, as featured on other labels, a few times. 

But Dolly-O would then take at least some of her song-poems and re-issue them on her own, eponymous label, from her home in South Bend, Ind. The good news is that this gives a good picture of a unique lyricist, who sometimes knew her way around a turn of phrase and sometimes got lost in the weeds. The bad news is that these re-releases seem to have been mastered directly from the originally released 45s, and as such, are often of poor quality, are mastered very softly, and may not even quite run at the right speed. 

Today's offering is a Dolly-O EP, hot off the US Mail, direct from eBay to my mailbox this week, and features one old favorite, and three I've never heard before, including one with quite the odd set of lyrics.

And the first song up on side one is that lyrical oddity, a ragtime-esque, bouncy number titled "A Brand New Pair of Scissors". Whoever put together the label for this record forgot to include the singer's name, but someone has written in "Big Al 'Voice Giant'". I do not recognize this vocalist, nor does the style remind me of any particular label.

But oh, that song! I'll mostly let you discover it's lyrical wonders, while only observing that there are not a lot of songs about scissors, and certainly there are far fewer songs that have choruses that start with the single word "Scissors!"

This is by far my favorite of the four songs heard on this EP.

Download: Big Al "Voice Giant": A Brand New Pair of Scissors
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Next up is a performance of the song "Good Night My Love But Never Goodbye". As befits such a mouthful of a title, the story here is fairly convoluted, starting with a statement of falling out of love, but actually being (as the title would suggest) a story of a love story. The singer is identified as "Dick Kean", but I'm pretty sure this is Dick Kent, and I wouldn't be surprised if the original release ran a little faster and higher in pitch.

Download: Dick Kean - Good Night My Love But Never Goodbye
Play:

Next up is the previously featured number, which was shared here a decade ago (and therefore, its files have not yet been repaired). On the original release, it was credited, much more logically, to Suzie and Rodd (since Suzie Smith sings the whole song, accompanied only on the choruses by Rodd Keith). Here, "I'm the Wife" is credited to Rodd and Suzie. Here's what I wrote about it, almost ten years ago:

Here's one which is a favorite of my great friend and fellow song-poem maven, Stu, one which I just obtained my own copy of, this week. It's a Rodd Keith production, although he takes a back seat on the lead vocal, turning that duty over to Suzie Smith, and providing not only the arrangement, but a nice harmony vocal. The record is credited to Suzie and Rodd, and is titled "I'm the Wife". 

This is a really nice set of lyrics, and I was a bit surprised to find that they were from the pen of one of the weirder song-poets, Dolly O. Curran, who, along with her Dolly-O label, I've written about before. Paired with an excellent arrangement, the result is a first class record which, with perhaps a little tightening up of some clunky lyrics, and a few other changes, could have been something, or at least maybe in an alternate universe where song-poems competed with the "real labels" for airplay. 

Please enjoy this delightfully peppy song about having a cheating spouse: 

Download: Rodd and Suzie - I'm the Wife
Play:

(By the way, that rendition is of considerably lower sound quality, and runs about a quarter to a half-tone lower than the Preview release, which is consistent with my opening comments.)

Finally, we have Sam Ronson and the Rompers, with the very oddly titled "By Gum Can't Make the Grade". This song, and the Scissors one earlier, come from the more indescribable side of Dolly-O's lyricism, along with one of my all time favorites, which she also wrote, "Lady Off Pedestal at Notre Dame".

Unfortunately, this part of the record is damaged, and despite multiple tries, I cannot get it to play straight through at three spots where it skips, so I have digitized it as it plays.

This song goes on and on, with a vaguely south-of-the-border feel, and finishes up at over four minutes. The story is one of a person who never wins or succeeds at anything, and features an abundance of tortured verbiage, sentences twisted into pretzels in order to end with words that rhyme. From someone who had proven her ability over and over again, this is laughably bad. And ending a song with a triumphant "Yes! By Gum!" is pretty funny, too.

As with the first track, I do not recognize this singer and nothing about the "sound" of the record suggests any particular song-poem company. Any thoughts?

Download: Sam Ronson and the Rompers - By Gum Can't Make the Grade
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Dick and Bobbi

As has been the case for several weeks now, before getting to today's offering, I want to update you as to updates. I have moved back another month, and have now made new connections for all posts from October, 2014. They include: A Hal(l)mark Bob Storm special, a minimalist Mike Thomas number on Tin Pan Alley, a jawdroppingly ridiculous Gene Marshall record about Nixon, and an very late, and depressing, MSR effort by Rodd Keith, or, rather, Rodd Rogers. 

And speaking of MSR....: 

I'm just not much of a fan of this label, particularly its output after the death of Rodd Keith. But I know there are plenty of MSR fans out there, so much so that the compilations that were released a few decades ago were subtitled after the label.

Despite my general disinterest, I do find this one, "Bye Bye" to be a minor pleasure, a nice, bouncy, almost polka-esque number, sung with more gusto than it deserves by Dick Kent. The sing-songy melody here reminds me more than a little of the repetitive melodies created by William Howard Arpaia, for those who know about him. That is not meant as a compliment.

Download: Dick Kent - Bye Bye
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On the flip side, as she so often was with Dick Kent (or, if you prefer, he on her backside), is Bobbi Blake, singing a curious lyric titled "My Souvenir". Again, this is a nice vocal, but this one suffers, as to many latter-day MSR records, from the sound of a certain deeply chintzy, early synthesizer, a model which renders many of those records unlistenable, at least to my ears.

Download: Bobbi Blake - My Souvenir
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Dick is a Real Pro

Howdy, everyone,

 

First, I wanted to thank everyone for their recent comments. I would like to point you to Darryl Bullock's suggestion that on the "Carof on the Boys" post from last month, the singer might be Rodd Keith (who did record on that label). I'm not sure I'm hearing it, but I'm not sure I'm not, either. Thanks to Stu Shea for more information about Mando Guitars, too - it seems the group chose its name completely separate from the actual instrument of that name, which didn't exist at the time.

 

I particularly want to acknowledge Sammy Reed, who has identified the release date and some other information regarding my last few posts. But even more so, I want to point to you Sammy's own site, where he has posted nearly three dozen song-poems, primarily ones from this site which were lost in the Divshare meltdown a few years ago.

 

I do intend to fix those posts - and maybe this will push me to do so (I took several down about a year ago, intending to fix them) - but in the meantime, and that may be a long meantime, you can find a bunch of them here.

 

And now, back to the countdown:

 

From 1975 comes a set of two soul-pop entries, featuring the unmistakable voice of Dick Kent. It is a song-poem truism - to use the phrase of another collector - that for those labels that did try to copy trends in pop music, they always seemed to be 2-4 years behind those trends. So it is with this record, both sides of which feature musical sounds which strike me as being very 1971-72 in nature.

"Springtime Blues" is pressed a little bit off center, giving it a minutely wobbly effect, a fun feature for a song which literally mentions singing out of tune. The song-poet did not provide anywhere near enough lyrics for a 150 second single, so we are treated to a lengthy band instrumental (over 50 of those seconds), featuring electric piano and (buried) wailing guitar, and then a repeat of the first verse!

Download: The Real Pros - Springtime Blues
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On the flipside is another midtempo shuffle, one which even more strongly sounds like 1971 to me, especially in the drumming and piano playing. This side is generally put together better than "Springtime Blues", and the lyrics certainly have more meat. If it wasn't for the ultra-cheesy synths, I could absolutely believe someone could find this record, and believe it was a failed attempt to make a hit record in the early '70's. Not a very good one, but it does have that sound, which is not really something I find myself saying, all that often.

Download: The Real Pros - Don't You Know I Love You
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Northeast of HELL!

First, I want to send a message to David S, who wrote to me recently about a Fable record I'd posted. He indicated that he wanted to share more information, but in e-mail. I'd rather not post my e-mail here, because I've found that leads to massive amounts of spam, but if you go to this post from a project I was involved in, in 2003, you'll find my e-mail address there, at the end.

(Also, thanks to Dan for a recent comment containing a strange sidelight to the Tin Pan Alley story!)

~~

Every now and then, I find a song-poem listing - in recent years, usually on eBay, but in many places, over the years - which has a title that I just can't refuse (providing the price is right). The sort of title that draws me in even if the performer or label or era is one that I don't normally collect. Such would be the case with a 1976 Real Pros single on Cinema. The chances that a record from that troupe (whoever was singing), in that time period, would appeal to me are roughly one in fifty. Maybe less.

But then came "Northeast of Hell". I decided I really wanted to hear a song-poem called "Northeast of Hell", and the price came down just enough to make it a worthy risk.

So here it is, and in this case, The Real Pros are fronted by Dick Kent. And I will not make the argument that it's a world wide winner - for one thing, it has the typical, soulless, going through the motions band sound of 90% of the song poems I've heard from after about 1974 (from this and every other label), with that awful early synthesizer sound, to boot.

But it does have a remarkable lyric - a plaintive cry of a lyric from a soldier who is deeply regretting having joined the U.S. army, due mostly to where Uncle Sam has decided to have him live. He is so disillusioned he even advises others to.... well, I'll let you hear for yourself, but it is a truly startling line.

Download: The Real Pros - Northeast of Hell
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If there's a pleasure to be found in the flip side, "My Last Care", it's escaping me. Perhaps those of you who enjoy the style of music being aped here will like it more than I do. Dick Kent injects some feel into the lyrics, I guess, but I have no use for this sound whatsoever.

Download: The Real Pros - My Last Care
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Dick Kent's Home Is His Castle

Before I get to this week's feature, I have quite a bit of housekeeping - a variety of comments which I want to acknowledge, share with the readers and/or respond to. 

First, regarding what I thought was a mysterious performance labeled as being by "Rod Rogers" on Halmark, of all places, a great blogger and frequent commenter here, Darryl Bullock, has indicated that there indeed was another song-poem performer who went by that name, aside from Rodd Keith. He writes: 

Surely the vocalist on Trailways Bus Driver is Nu Sound's dreadful Todd Andrews? Incidentally, there is also at least one Rod Rogers 45 on Nu Sound, 1008: Don't Be A Dope/Birds And Bees And The Stork (both L. Smith). I don't have a copy of the latter but I'd put money on that Rod Rogers being Todd Andrews rather than Rodd Keith 

Regarding a post from February, featuring a singer identified as "Dan Monday", who I indicated was Rodd Keith, I heard the following from our friends at the excellent record label Roaratorio: 

Just as an FYI.... Rodd Keith was *not* the singer known as Dan Monday, on any of the records, as far as I know. I think this misconception was fueled in part by the misattribution of the Dan Monday track "General Custer's Story Remains Legend" on 'I Died Today' to Rodd... but they were most definitely two different vocalists. Milford Perkins also gets lumped in with the Rodd pseudonyms on occasion, but he too was a different vocalist.

It's not clear to me how the writer knows for certain that Dan Monday is not Rodd - it certainly sounds like him to me - and I admit that I've not written to ask, due to the general busyness that I've alluded to, but I will defer to the folks at Roaratorio, whose knowledge and insight about Rodd far surpass mine. 

Finally, Jake writes to ask: 

Are you aware of any song-poem companies that are still active or is this pretty much a dead medium in the 2010s?

It's not I can't answer this for certain - but I strongly suspect that the scam is still out there. It certainly was a decade ago, when a friend of mine was an avid collector of recent CD releases of song-poems on the then-current song-poem labels. Also, in the late '90's, a few of us got together and purchased a song-poem based on a poem by a late acquaintance of one of our group - I believe the price was $200 - and I think we did business with the folks who now run whatever the current name of Halmark Records has become. To be certain about its continued existence, one might buy a copy of The National Enquirer, or some other similar rag, and look in the classified ads, but that's not something I'm going to do. I know for a fact that the poetry version of this scam (in which people are self published, or have their poems narrated on CD) still exists. 

Thanks, everyone, for writing - I really appreciate all comments!

And now, on with the countdown!

Today, we have the singer best known as "Dick Kent", sounding very young, singing in what I'm guessing was early in his career, trying to "advance" himself up the ladder of success, on the Advance label, under the name "Dick Castle". The song is "A New Love", and the entire, fairly pleasant, non-taxing enterprise sounds like something Paul Anka might have released in the early '60's (which is when I'm guessing this dates from), including Dick himself sounding more than a little bit like Anka. Although I hasten to say, Dick Castle/Kent, like 98% of the vocalists who have ever been recorded, is a better singer than Mr. Anka.

Download: Dick Castle, Vocal, with Page Cavanaugh - A New Love
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The flip-side, "Dream One Dream At a Time", is a far duller trip, to my ears, a lyric as clunky as the title, and a music bed which has nothing to recommend it.

Download: Dick Castle, Vocal, with Page Cavanaugh - Dream One Dream At a Time
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A Mid-Summer Treat - A Full MSR Album from 1971!

I thought I'd send out something extra special today, especially in light of the fact that I've been sharing more like three "song poems of the week" each month instead of four for most of the year.

So.... here's a FULL album from MSR, titled "New Songs for '71", featuring Dick Kent and the Lancelots on most of the tracks, and Bobbi Boyle (Bobbi Blake, I do believe) and the MSR singers on the remainder.

Just a few notes:
     - I believe that "Hot Pants and Leather Boots That Shine" has traveled the song-poem collector  circuit, although I'm not sure. I just know that I'd heard it before getting this album.
      - Even though that's the case, it is not, by far, in my estimation, the most interesting track here. The next to last song on side, for example, "Do Right", stood out to me for it's ridiculously simplistic sloganeering, and the final track on side one, "California City" is a marvel, in the way it seems to be wanting to tell a story, but simply repeats the same incomprehensible and pointless anecdote twice.
      - The most amazing track here, by far, is on side two, and is called "Forty Going North". I was actually inspired to get up and make sure I still had the same album on the turntable, so different was this from anything else on the album, and indeed, from anything else MSR was doing around this time. Truly an amazing track.

I have not separated out the tracks - they are linked here simply as side one and side two.

Enjoy!!!!      

Download: Dick Kent and the Lancelots and Bobbi Boyle and the MSR Singers - New Songs for '71, Side One
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Download: Dick Kent and the Lancelots and Bobbi Boyle and the MSR Singers - New Songs for '71, Side Two
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Mary Maddox' Greatest Hit

Here's a neat record from our friends at the Preview label, featuring a singer who is not documented to have been credited on any other song-poem record, on Preview or any other label. She is listed as Mary Maddox. I am absolutely not the expert in the voices of the female singers from the Preview/MSR/Cinema world, so perhaps this voice is quite recognizable to some of you, but I certainly don't recognize her.

The song is called "So I Can Hold You", and the Preview band do a nice job, turning in a jangly, atmospheric mid-'60's pop hit sound. Ms. Maddox has the most vibrato this side of Ronnie Spector, and there is a nice pleading quality to her voice. All in all, it's a winner in my book.

Download: Mary Maddox - So I Can Hold You
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On the flip side is, unless I'm very much mistaken, the singer most commonly billed as Dick Kent (although, like Gene Marshall, he showed up under many other names). There are little more than a dozen records on Preview by "Freddie Flagg", and as this is the only one of them I own, I don't know if that name always meant Dick Kent was the singer. Before I got this record, I didn't realize he'd recorded for Preview at all.

The song is "The Church Bells Ring", and no one involved appears to have been very inspired by the prosaic lyrics, to turn in anything but an equally workmanlike performance.

Download: Freddie Flagg (Dick Kent) - The Church Bells Ring
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Decaying Dick

First, here is another in the series of ads that correspondent Pete has generously contributed to this blog, this one from 1948, and again from the "Cinema Song Company". Get out your pen, paper and checkbook!

Today, it's our old friend Dick Kent, appearing on an early release from MSR records, with a lyric decrying the state of "This Decaying World" and showing some realy mastery, by singing lyrics which simply do not scan in any way with the music that they've been attached to (and certainly, some of them might not have scanned with any melodies). Sing, Dick!

Download: Dick Kent - This Decaying World

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I can't work up anything worth saying about the somnambulist flip side, "My Dear Mary, besides "ecch".

Download: Dick Kent - My Dear Mary

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Say No to Dick

I'm not much of a fan of the MSR label, as I've mentioned perhaps too many times. But an exception is their early releases, where the bands were often cooking, and the vocalists - lead and backing - often sound very involved in the lyrics and performances in general. 

Here's an example. The lyrics to "Can't You Say No" are fairly tortured - something about the lyricists complain that the object of the singer's attention has had the audacity to say "no" to the singer, while the singer thinks that his beloved should be saying "no" to everyone else but him. 

In a rarity, I really dig Dick Kent's vocal here. He really sells the lyric and the song. But even better is the backing band , who are playing a track which deserves a better song. and the backing vocalists, who are offering up some wonderful three part harmonies, particularly during the line "say yes to me" which finishes each verse. Good stuff!

Download: Dick Kent: Can't You Say No?

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I cannot work up the same enthusiasm for the flip side, Dick Kent's performance of "Come Join Us", a story of promoting Christianity to everyone within earshot.

Download: Dick Kent: Come Join Us

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The Simple Solution That Fixes Everything!

What it is, Bucko?? You say your life's in the dumps, and nothing's gone right in two years? Well, man about town Dick Kent has the solution for you! It doesn't even matter what the problem is: lost job, divorce, terrorism, hemorrhoids, dishpan hands, an oil leak, Fox News, carotid artery issues, running out of Pampers...you name it!!!

The solution is: JUST WALK THROUGH (sorry: THRU) SOME DANG DAISIES!!!!

And it only takes 99 seconds, too!

Sing it, Dick!!!

Download: Dick Kent - Walkin' Through the Daisies
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This record may be the only Dick Kent/Rodd Keith pairing where I actually prefer the Dick Kent side. On the flip side, an unbearably unctuous Rodd sings a fairly turgid weeper about a son who used to be little, isn't any more, and is far, far away. Yes, for those who collect such things, it's a Vietnam song-poem!

Download: Rodd Keith - All I Have Now is a Picture On the Wall
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