Toby Deane

As promised in a previous post, today I'm writing a tribute to a woman whose name I'd never heard six months ago, but whose records I've been collecting ever since finding out who she was, back around August.

It was some time last year, I think, that I posted a recording of an obscure 78 that I've loved since childhood, a version of The Three Little Pigs, which I only had on a reel to reel tape. I have long been head over heels in love with the singer on that 78. When I asked the readers of this blog who the singer might be, I got no answers, so I turned to the readers of the WFMU blog.

I was quickly informed to seek out an online children's record expert, who just as quickly told me that the woman's name was Toby Deane. After further contact with Irwan Chusid of WFMU, I learned that she had died earlier this decade, and that she had made at least one other amazing record, "Alice in Christmas Wonderland", which I shared a few weeks ago.

This set me off searching for more Toby Deane records. I immediately found out that another of my childhood 78's, one greatly loved by my mother and sister, of the story of Peter Pan, also featured Toby Deane, and then I started buying records.

Just recently, after I wrote about her, a fellow named Thomas contacted me, and has sent me a photo of Toby Deane, with Benny Goodman, which appears above. Many thanks to him.

The following is the story in sound. While I think most of these are great, I will also admit that not all of these are good - in fact, I'd say a couple of them are downright bland, and one really grates on me. But I'll get to that, later. First, the record I grew up with, which I've always adored. Even if you've heard this before, when I've posted it, have a listen - I've found a 10" 78 of the record, which not only doesn't stop in the middle, but also is in MUCH better shape. Toby Deane, with Bob Mallit, sing about The Three Little Pigs:



Next, although I just posted it a few weeks ago, for the sake of completeness, here is Toby Deane and the Hummingbirds, with "Alice in Christmas Wonderland":



Here's a remarkable record, which I mentioned above. Victor Jory narrates the story of Peter Pan, while Toby Deane performs as both Peter and Wendy, using completely different voices for each. This is a fairly scratchy, much loved record:



For a change of pace, here she is, singing a major hit from the early 1950's, on one of those budget label EP 78's which contained the hits of the day, sung by people no one had heard of, in this case, a fairly complete reworking of Rosemary Clooney's Come On-a My House. I would assume that this was her "normal" singing voice:



Moving into a somewhat less-than-great category, here's a Toby Deane record from a little 7" picture disc from the Voco label (the same label which supplied the first three tracks posted above). "'Round and Round the Village" is no great shakes, but there remains something quite magical about her voice, which gives this record a sweetness and pull on me that most other vocalists would have been unable to provide with such material:



Another record which might be consider more than a little cloying is "Jingle Dingle", another 7" 78, in this case on both sides of the record. There are moments here, again, where Toby Deane's vocal magic lifts this above the mundane material. She's actually credited as "Toby Dean" on this record:



Moving another step down, the following track, "Songs of the Farm", is the B-Side of "The Three Little Pigs". It's really nothing special, except again, the voice draws me in here and there:



Next up is a track from an apparently much beloved 1950's children's Christmas album, "Christmas is For Children". Toby Deane is credited on the cover, and this is the only track where it sounds remotely like she might be involved. Curiously, this is a much sought-out track among those of a certain age - repeatedly asked for and posted on blogs, and the album sells for many dollars on eBay.

I say "curiously" because, to be honest, I found the album wholly wretched, and the best things I can say about this track is that it isn't as bad as most of the others, and more than that, that it plays up her strengths as a voice actress - in this case, portraying a boy of about eight, yet another characterization! It's called "I've Got 18 Cents":



Finally, a change of pace. A decade or more after all of these records were made, Toby Deane took part in a sort of "answer record" to the massive hit album "The First Family". This was called "The Other Family", and she appeared on about half the tracks, playing Mrs. Kruschev to Larry Foster's Nikita. While I didn't find this album funny, perhaps you hadda be there, and it's worth hearing her do a version of the original "First Family" album's Jackie, reimagined as a Russian Woman. This is called "Another Saturday Night":



And here is a picture and some text about Toby Deane, from the back of that album:




I sure wish I'd known of Toby Deane and her work earlier. I'd have loved to be able to contact her, as I have with some of the other wonderful singers I've been able to reach via my posts - I'd like nothing more than to tell her home amazing and wonderful I think her work is. Anyone having more knowledge of and/or recordings by Toby Deane is welcome to contact me either by posting to this blog or by writing me at Rasmaster@aol.com or Bobpurse@gmail.com

Fun with Decorations

Since you've probably got your tree decorated by now, perhaps you'd like to hear how someone else's decorating is going. Here's Ben Light and the Surf Club Boys, to tell you about the "Christmas Balls" on the tree of someone very special! 

Download: Ben Light and the Surf Club Boys - Christmas Balls

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Christmas Music - The Sublime and the Ridiculous

I'm going to try an provide several obscure and (in most cases) wonderful Christmas recordings over the next week or so. First, two tracks that couldn't be more different. We'll start with the sublime, in this case, a performance that doesn't seem like it would work well: A New Orleans styled version of "Silent Night", performed by one of my '50's heroes, Huey "Piano" Smith and his group The Clowns. Even though they repeatedly get one of the chords here wrong, this is still a peerless, exquisite performance, filled with deeply emotional singing, a rollicking beat, and great instrumentation: 

Download: Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns - Silent Night

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On to the ridiculous. All thanks to Dr. Demento for this one, which I'll let speak for itself. Ladies and Gentlemen, "The Chipmunk Song" as performed by The Whales: 

Download: The Whales - The Chipmunk Song

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More to come!

John Cleese Sings!

During an interview many years ago, on David Letterman's show, John Cleese told the story of his first work in America, as a chorus singer on Broadway, as I recall. The point of his story was that he cannot sing, and although he managed to get the job anyway, he more or less pretended to be singing throughout the length of the job. 

As a result of having hearing that story, I was quite surprised to hear the following selection, which I've excerpted from an episode of the long running BBC-Radio comedy show, "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again", which featured Cleese before, throughout and after the run of Monty Python, during its mid-'60's to mid-'70's run. 

On the other hand, I was not surprised at the quality of Cleese's singing or of the opening joke, "Anybody should be singing it but John Cleese". I hope you enjoy Mr. Cleese singing his heart out on "The Ferret Song". 

Download: John Cleese - The Ferret Song

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Mom

Well, there's been no activity here for some time, and that's almost entirely due to the death of my mother at the end of last year, after a series of illness over the past few years. 

I've written about her before, and rather than go into any great detail, since this is a music blog, and if I can indulge a bit, I thought I'd just share some of the music I was lucky enough to hear, while growing up, as well as one song I had the pleasure of introducing my mom to, and playing piano for. 

First, two acetates, both of which I believe are from around 1944, when she was perhaps 20 years old: I apologize in advance for how loud these may be coming out of your speakers. 

Download: Mary Frances Godwin - Je Suis Titania

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Download: Mary Frances Godwin - The Little Shepherd Song

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A Broadway standard, recorded in the late 1950's: 

Download: Mary Fran Purse - I Could Have Danced All Night

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A more gorgeous piece you're unlikely to find, than "Shepherd on the Rock", heard here from 1959. This is admittedly quite lengthy, but I love it. There is an unfortunate splice right near the end of the piece, which cuts out a few moments of the big finish: 

Download: Mary Fran Purse - Shepherd On the Rock

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The following version of Mozart's Alleluia, recorded around 1965, was played at my mother's funeral (despite it being marred by it's own glitch in the last second): 

Download: Mary Fran Purse - Alleluia

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And finally, a song by William Bolcom, which became mom's signature piece near the end of her life, particularly once her days as a soprano soloist were coming to an end. That's me fumbling around on piano on this recording. The picture below this link is of the two of us, performing the song (not the same time as this recording) at mom's 80th birthday party, in 2003: 

Download: Mary Fran Purse - Lime Jello Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise

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Thanks for everything, mom.

That's Rock and Roll

I think that sometimes I go on too long about the recordings I'm sharing here, so today, I'll just say that I'm offering up a classic by a lost father (or perhaps brother) of Rock and Roll, Mr. Barry Gordon, and his classic MGM release "Rock Around Mother Goose". Rock Me Another, Barry!

Download: Barry Gordon - Rock Around Mother Goose

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Guessing Game

I have no real clue how many folks are reading the these posts, but I wanted to involve as many people as possible by asking you to guess the recording act heard on this record. Comments are always welcome, and can be shared by clicking on the comment button at the bottom of any post. 

Anyway... The Golden Age of Novelty Records (roughly 1956 through the late 1960's) is, in my opinion, well named. There is a virtually endless list of funny, odd, and downright peculiar records from that era, hits, near hits and obscurities, that were made in order to deliberately make people laugh, become confused and/or collapse into bewilderment.

Certainly a favorite of mine from that era is Rolf Harris' "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport". It was a massive hit, one of the bigger hits of any genre in 1963, and like most novelty records, would seem to be the type of thing that wouldn't really work well as a cover record or remake. 

Novelty songs as different in style and quality as "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha Ha", "Witch Doctor", "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" "My Boomerang Won't Come Back" and "Tie Me Kangaroo Down" are all so unique, and uniquely tied in with their creators that to have made another version, particularly while the song was still a hit, seems ludicrous. 

But here we have just such a cover version. I would never have expected this song to be covered, and I never would have expected this recording act to have done such a record. The charm of the original is completely lost in this overblown version, with it's sound effects, unnecessary additional shout outs, such as "in memoriam", and the sheer incompetence shown by the singing of the line "watch me wallaby's feed" as "watch me wallaby's feet".

Anyway, let's play guess who made the record. Here 'tis:

Download: Mystery Artist - Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport

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ADDENDUM, 2021 - The answer has long since been in the comments, below. Did you guess him? 

Shame On the Man Who Tattooed Her!

Today's song is "TATTOOED LADY" by Rudy Vallee and His Connecticut Yankees.  

I just got this record, which I REALLY wanted for quite a while now. I found part of it on a tape of a radio show several months ago, and it's been rattling around in my head ever since. I'm getting to like Rudy Vallee more and more, just about every time I hear another one of his early records. 

There is much to love here, from the weird inflections he chooses at various points of the lyric, to the lyric itself, to the almost out of control little tag sung by the group after all but the first singing of the chorus. I love that 6th chord at the end, with the fifth-note wavering on top. 

I'm usually more verbose about what I post, but I think in this case I'll just let you hear for yourself. Tell me what you think! 

Download: Rudy Vallee and His Connecticut Yankees - Tattooed Lady

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Incidentally, you may have heard the "laughing" version of "Tavern in the Town", but in case you haven't, maybe I'll put that up here, too some time. That's a record I've wanted to own for at least 35 years, and it's on the flip side of this one, complete with a joke label replacing the regular RCA label!

HE'S CUT-UP GOOD!!!

A friend of mine recently posted one of his montages of sound to his site, so I thought I'd put up a few of my "Cut-Up" tapes. 

It's sort of funny, but back when I had to do these "cut-ups" with the pause button on a cassette recorder (along with another cassette player, a record player and a reel to reel), I made these tapes all the time - hours of them. Since having access to computers and programs which might make this sort of thing easier, I've made about a dozen mash-ups and a total of two of these sorts of cut-ups. 

Today, I'm putting up a link to one cut-up of Harry Belafonte's masterful "Jamaica Farewell", that I particularly like, and another one of "King of the Road" by Roger Miller, which is almost as good. I typically only sliced up records I really like, not having the stomach for learning to know records I don't like well enough to effectively cut them up. My style was the random word replacing the perfectly normal lyrics of the original song. Some of these inserts may be familiar to you, others are from private recordings in my collection. A few of them are in questionable taste. 

Each of these reconfigurations of popular songs were done over 25 years ago. I hope you enjoy them.

Download: Harry Belafonte - Jamaica Farewell (cut-up)

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Download: Roger Miller - King of the Road (cut-up)

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ADDENDUM, 2021: I actually don't know which versions of these two songs I originally shared - I did "cut-ups" of each of them multiple times, but I think I have the right ones. 

I think I planned to feature more of these as the weeks and years went by, but with the exception of a couple of Mash-Ups, I never did. If anyone is interested, I still have all the old tapes, and they are digitized, and I could share more. While I enjoy the above two, there are a bunch that are much better. 

Cool Yourself Off!

Just in time for summer, I'm sharing a little known, ridiculous novelty song from the early 1960's (one which came out on a major label, no less - Warner Brothers!), called "Beer Beer Bottla Beer" by A.C. Ducey. 

I first heard this song on the Dr. Demento show around 1980, it immediately went into heavy rotation on my home playlist; I spent the next 20 years looking for a copy, finally securing one on eBay a few years ago. 

I don't actually drink beer, finding it quite vile, thank you, but that doesn't stop this record from being one of my all time favorite records. That's not Thurl Ravenscroft singing, but for more than a moment one might think it is, even though I now suspect that the vocal has been slowed down for effect. And as one might have gathered, I'm a sucker for an eccentric bass vocal performance. 

There is so much to love here, from the double tracked vocals, which start and stop more or less at random, to the understated arrangement, to the minimilist lyrics ("whattaya mean, wait'll next year" being my favorite moment), to the clinking of beer bottles as the instrumental sections begin. 

I can't imagine a way this record could be improved! I hope this will become one of your favorite songs, too, whether you enjoy beer or not.

Download: A. C. Ducey - Beer Beer Bottla Beer

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ADDENDUM, 1/22/23: My best pal Stu has demonstrated, by speeding up this record a few keys, that you can then tell quite well that you're hearing the singer's natural voice in that higher key. This confirms that the recording was slowed down for effect and that it's also clearly not Thurl Ravenscroft.