The Night is Almost Over, and The Year is Almost Over, Too

Happy New Year's Eve! 2026 can't get here quickly enough. Let's hope it's a damn sight better than 2025. As John Lennon once sang, "Can't Get No Worse". 

And speaking of things that are almost over: 

I don't know what was going on at the Tin Pan Alley label around 1969 and 1970, but for a short time, they chose to employ a couple of truly awful sopranos on a handful of releases. Just over a month ago, I wrote my latest post to feature Eleanor Shaw, who made at least a dozen records for the label in quick succession, and whose performances often have to be heard to be believed, and now, for the second time, I am featuring Madelyn Buzzard, who may have made only three or four records for the label. 

I featured her in a Christmas post at the now offline WFMU blog in 2012, and in a follow up post on this blog exactly 13 years ago today (and that one - Chicken House Blues - should be heard immediately by anyone who hasn't already heard it)

(Incidentally, someone with the very unusual name of "Madelyn Buzzard" had a small role in a tiny-budgeted horror film in 1973, titled "Three on a Meathook". I'm guessing that was the same person. Maybe she sang this way because she was dangling from a meathook.)

So anyway, today we have Madelyn warbling - and that is the right word - about how "The Night is Almost Over". The band is providing a pretty credible supper-club samba arrangement - the solo is sort of rote, but effective enough - but Madelyn fails to hold up her end of the bargain. 

And is that actually an encouraging "Yeah!" from a band member at the 2:20 point. Could it be? Someone in this combo actually thought this performance was good? 

Download: Madelyn Buzzard - The Night is Almost Over

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On the flip side, we have "Because of You". Somewhere between the recording of these sides, the bass went out of tune and this was not corrected. It's not as bad as the bass as heard on those ridiculous Bob Gerard records, but it's bad enough to be extremely distracting. And the oompah beat of this one doesn't do Madelyn any favors (as was the case with the nice groove on the flip) by distracting from her vocals, or the places where she lands on the wrong note. 

Download: Madelyn Buzzard - Because of You

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A Little Housekeeping

Shortly after I began this song-poem-of-the-week project - exactly four years ago this week, as a matter of fact - commenters began requesting that rather than share just one song, that I post both sides of any single that I choose, and that I scan and include the labels from both sides. I aim to please, and with very few exceptions, I've done that in all of my posts since early in the project. 

But I didn't do so in my recent WFMU post of ten Christmas song poems (which, in case you missed it, can be found here). So, in a little act of end-of-the-year housekeeping, here are nine of the ten flip sides from the tracks featured in that WFMU post (as mentioned in that post, the tenth record, "Picolo, The Christmas Elf", had a significant, crescent moon shaped crack in it - the flip side was virtually unplayable, and in trying to make it playable, I broke that crescent shape right out of the record. Ah, well...)

Here goes!

I actually believe this record, and one other (below) have been available online at some point, and may circulate among collectors, but I can't find that either of them are currently available, so, in the interest of completeness, I'm including them. The flip side of the Norris Mayhams Christmas single "Jingle Mint Twist", also by Mayhams, and sung by "Singing Sammy Marshall", is "Come Back to Me": 

Download: Singing Sammy Marshall - Come Back to Me
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The flip side of Norm Burns' "Christmas With You" is the rather bland "Living Rose":

Download: Norm Burns - Living Rose
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"Xmas and You" may have been a bit of sweetness from Eleanor Shaw, but the flip side is anything but sweetness. Have a listen to "Scars On My Broken Heart": 

Download: Eleanor Shaw - Scars On My Broken Heart

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The high-end song-poem outfit Stylecraft brought us "Christmas in Ireland" in my WFMU post, and on the flip side, the same batch of performers, headed by Lynne Richards, offers up "You've Got to Live to Love":

Download: Lynne Richards with the Bill Lawrence Orchestra - You've Got to Love to Live
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Next up, two songs which I really should have included in that WFMU post, because they are both Christmas songs. But I was paying attention to titles, and not having a re-listen before making the files, so I didn't pay any attention to that fact. Here, a week or so late, is the flip side to "Christmas Tree", Sandy and Patty's Fable label rendition of "Oh, Lovely Night": 

Download: Sandy and Patty with The Panics - Oh, Lovely Night

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And another Christmassy one, here's that other record that I think probably floats around in trading circles, Rod Rogers' flip to "Smile, It's Christmas", in which he expresses a holier thought for the day, "Let's Share a Prayer":

Download: Rod Rogers - Let's Share a Prayer
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Eleanor Shaw is back again, with the flip side of "Dear Santa", which is titled "Come Back":

Download: Eleanor Shaw - Come Back
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As was often the case on MSR records, labelmates shared a release on MSR 2377. On the reverse of Dick Kent's "Everywhere You Go on Christmas" lives Bobbi Blake's very un-Christmassy "Wicked Woman":

Download: Bobbi Blake - Wicked Woman
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Saving the weirdest for last, here is Madelyn Buzzard. At WFMU, I shared her song "Christmas is the Love Within Your Heart". For the flip, we have the mid-winter saga "Chicken House Blues", which pairs deeply strange lyrics with half-assed musical performance, and Madelyn's relentlessly terrible singing for true song-poem trifecta. Enjoy!

Download: Madelyn Buzzard - Chicken House Blues
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HAPPY NEW YEAR - It's been a challenging, at times wretched year, for family, friends and neighbors. Aside from a bright spot at the beginning of November, there's not much I would want to relive, and I'll be happy to see a new, hopefully better year come along. Despite all that, I have greatly enjoyed, yet again, sharing all of this wondrous, odd and unique music with you, and one bright spot has been the feedback that I've received here, and at WFMU, and for that I am thankful.

Bob