A Texas Two-Fer

Today, we make another visit to the waning days of the great Film City label. This is number 4035 on the label, that label having started at #1000 and going to around # 4140, so this is late indeed. It's two releases up from Rod Rogers' great "Little Rug Bug", so there is quite the chance that Rodd Keith is also the Chamberlin master herein. And like several other releases in this numbering sequence, this record appeared on goldish-yellow vinyl. 

The singer is Jim Wheeler, about whom the less said the better, and the songs - both about Texas - represent a fairly rare occurrence in the land of song-poems, and that is, submissions by a songwriting team. Both of these song-poems were written by the same two-man team. Does that mean they wrote the words AND music (making this more of a vanity number), or just that they both wrote the "song-poem" lyrics. There's no way to know for sure, but these melodies and chords sound so traditionally "Film City-ish", that I'm betting these were traditional song-poem, with music by the Film City crew, and not a full submission of completed songs. 

The better of the two by a wide margin - better being very much a relative term here - is "Remember the Alamo". It is peppy, with a creative backing arrangement, a nicely structured "string section" solo and a lilting melody. And best of all, it doesn't wear out its welcome, ending in well under two minutes. 

But please, while everyone is remembering the Alamo, let's not forget that those fighting for America were on the wrong side of history: The battle at that time and place was really about trying to control Texas in order to allow those living there to have slaves, a practice that Mexico had outlawed. 

Download: Jim Wheeler and the "Swinging Strings" - Remember the Alamo

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I can muster up no enthusiasm for the flip side of this record. "The Beautiful Texas Waltz" goes on for roughly five days, or at least seems like it (it is actually just under twice the length of "Alamo". The word "dreary" comes to mind, which is unfortunate, as the song tells a happy story, and seems to have been designed to be a counterpoint to "The Tennessee Waltz", a song with a positive outcome. 

I'd also like to point out that both of these songs contain the weird feature - mentioned here from time to time - of songs which have a fade out, but then end before the face out is completed. Why fade a record out if you ended on a full stop? 

Download: Jim Wheeler and the 'Swinging Strings' - The Beautiful Texas Waltz

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The New Sensation for 68?

 

Today, we have a record from near the very end of Sandy Stanton's Film City empire. Label numbers for Film City's known releases barely extend another 100 numbers beyond this one's #4032 A/B.

 

And what an A-side! Over a bouncy Chamberlin track (very likely a Rodd Keith  production, based on its quality), Patty Stanton sings a ridiculous little song called "Beer Can Drag", the wonders of which I'll let you discover on your own, aside from calling your attention to the way Patty manages to pull three syllables out of the word "suppress" (which is such a musical, lyric-worthy word to begin with).

 

Download: Patty Stanton with the Film City Orchestra - Beer Can Drag

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As fun and contagious as that song and performance are, the song poet for the b-side, "Love Me Darling", saw greatness in the future of that song, rather than "Beer Can Drag", going so far as to inscribe the 45 sleeve with the following question and request:

 

 

 

One listen to "Love Me Darling", however, strongly indicates that such a thought was somewhere between wishful thinking and delusion, as "Love Me Darling", sung by Jim Wheeler, is a terrible song, with a melody that would be a challenge for anyone to remember or follow, let alone sing along with. The tune meanders here and there, and there's a stultifying instrumental break, and in a more general sense, the backing and the vocal are turgid.  

 

My first thought was that the writers of "Love Me Darling" should have heard the flip side and said "well, that's a much better song and performance - why didn't they work that hard on our song?" However, a peek at the label shows that the team that wrote "Love Me Darling", also wrote "Beer Can Drag". Not that either of these songs would have been a "new sensation" in 1968 or any other year, but still...the logical assumption is that they thought "Love Me Darling" was the better, and more commercial of the pairing. Uh, no.



 



Download: Jim Wheeler with the Film City Orchestra - Love Me Darling

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A Panoramic Port of Call

 

Following the intricacies of some of the smaller song poem label's relationships with the bigger song-poem factories can be a bit of a rabbit hole experience. Today we have the "Panorama", which was, as indicated directly below the label name "A Division of Endeavor Records". But "Endeavor" was also a fairly teeny label, releasing lease masters from Film City and Globe, and perhaps others.

 

So this is a satellite of a satellite. In this case, it's clear that the recording originally came from Film City, due to the presence of the unwieldy group name, "New Sounds From the Film City Orchestra and Chorus", and the lead singing (on the A-side) by Jim Wheeler.

 

The song itself is a description of an island paradise, with those new sounds, Orchestra and Chorus all being provided by someone playing the Chamberlin. Please enjoy "Port of Call":

 

Download: Jim Wheeler with New Sounds From the Film City Orchestra and Chorus - Port of Call

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For the flip side, for whatever reason, the good folks at Film City/Endeavor/Panorama put an instrumental Chamberlain arrangement of the song on the flip side. This is not simply the backing track from the a-side, it's a complete arrangement of the melody, built on top of that backing.

 

Download: New Sounds From the Film City Orchestra and Chorus - Port of Call (Instrumental)

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 Incidentally, my pal Stu has (in the comments) found two more related items, both involving the man who apparently was a label honcho at Endeavor and Panorama (and who co-wrote this song), Hardie W. Daniel. First, here's a book with a very egotistical name apparently full of his marvelous poetry. And second, here's a blurb from Billboard magazine, about his supplying of records to jukeboxes. I wonder how that went over...

 

Back in Business!!!

I was effectively out of town the weekend before last, and knew I'd be a bit late updating the site as a result. What I didn't know was that, within about 24 hours of returning home, I'd lose my internet connection for the better part of a week. I was (and am) online at work, but that wasn't going to help, if you know what I mean.

So I've had one of those rare periods where I've been unable to post for two weeks. And I don't like it. I'm going to try and post every four or five days until I'm back on schedule in a few weeks. For this week, I don't have much time to blather on about it. Suffice it to say that it's a very late period Film City masterwork (okay, that's a bit of an overstatement - it's a work), featuring Jim Wheeler. Note that Wheeler gets co-writing credit on both sides.

The better of the songs, by a wide margin, is on the b-side. "Old Grey Mule" is no great shakes, and the sound quality is awful, but there is a home-spun charm about the lyrics, at least if you don't mind hearing about the singer getting beaten up by.... well, I'll let you hear it... and as always, the otherworldly sound of the Chamberlin.  

Download: Jim Wheeler and the "Swinging Strings" - Old Grey Mule
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The flip side of this record, "The Lawman's Creed" is a genuinely tedious (four and a half minutes!!!) telling of an Old West tale, with an ironic ending straight out of six dozen other songs and stories of this type. I swear this song seems ready to stop entirely at a few points along the way, and the story could be summarized in a half-minute at most.

Download: Jim Wheeler and the "Swinging Strings" - The Lawman's Creed
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More this weekend!

An Instrumental Song-Poem

Here's something quite unusual - in fact, I'm only aware of a few examples of each of two unusual facts regarding today's featured record. The first is that it came with a picture sleeve - I mentioned owning two a few weeks ago, when I posted the other one which I own, and I've since been reminded that a few other song-poems came with picture The other thing is that one of the songs is an instrumental.

There are very few song-poem records with instrumental tracks that I'm aware of, one of them being the marvelous "Elmer 21 Century Hop", which was included on the first Rodd Keith compilation. Like that track, today's offering comes from the Film City factory (although the record itself appeared on the smaller Endeavor label), and is in fact credited to "Film City Orchestra". Like "Elmer", what we have here is a chance to hear the Chamberlin played as a solo instrument, with every sound on this record created on that most wondrous of instruments.

There's no way to know who played this piece for certain. It sounds a bit simplistic for Rodd Keith, but on the other hand, who else was making Film City tracks at the time? And perhaps it sounds so simple because the author of the instrumental (titled "Carmel-By-The-Sea") wrote a simple tune. Whatever the story, it's certainly a fascinating little record, and here it is: 

Download: The Film City Orchestra - Carmel-By-The Sea

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Here are both sides of that picture sleeve:

The flip side is pretty much a standard-issue Film City style ballad, with the lead singer (as seen above) by moody, handsome JIM WHEELER!!!. Here' s "Smiling Blue Eyes":

Download: Jim Wheeler with the Film City Orchestra - Smiling Blue Eyes

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