Sterling Tries Something New!

Good Day!

First, I'd like to offer up yet another vintage song-poem ad (two of them, in fact) as supplied by Vinnie. The top one is for Columbine, one of the kings of the 1980's song-poem world, and a label I've barely featured here due to my not being able to stand well over 95% of their output. The other ad... Well, I have no idea. 

I love the early Sterling label records. They have a sound and a style unlike any other song-poem label. And even when they got to be more bland in the late 1960's and early 1970's, the singing was still stellar, as it was usually coming from the magnificent Norm Burns. After Norm's VERY sudden death, they turned largely to Gary Roberts, who was the anti-Norm - a man who could barely carry a tune at times, and had a guileless, yet at the same time virtually charmless way of performing. Throughout what was at least a 10-15 year period under both these singers, the label presented a very pop oriented feel. Norm occasionally was asked to sing songs which had titles that implied a certain level of soul, or at least earthiness, and he once had to take on a lyrical role suggesting that he was something that he most certainly was not. But even on those records, the MOR feel and a definite "Whiteness" prevailed. 

That makes today's record more than a bit startling. Because after the departure of Gary Roberts, Sterling's next (and final) male singer was Mel Moore. And by a few years after Mel took over, roughly 1978 it would appear, Sterling released this record: 

If you simply played this song for me and told me it was a song-poem and asked me to guess the label, I doubt I would ever get around to guessing Sterling. This record is heavily influenced by Soul and Jazz trends from the late '70's, particularly the records of George Benson, and it bears no resemblance to the God-Awful Gary Roberts records, or the often wonderful Norm Burns records. This is as complete a makeover as I can remember hearing from a song-poem label, and in pretty quick order, too. I'm not saying this is good - it's not, at least to my ears - but it's certainly a surprise. 

The song was written by someone named Gutmundur Reynisson - whose first and last names each sound like a nonsense word you'd use when you can't remember the name of some little thing you're looking for. However, someone with a nearly identical name has credits on at least three albums released during the 1970's. I'm guessing none of those songs sound like Mel Moore and Image performing "Take it All Easy", though. Have a listen: 

Download: Mel Moore and Image - Take It All Easy

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For the flip side, "My Woman", Mel Moore seemingly left his band ("Image") at the bar they were playing at and took the band van back to the studio by himself, because they're not credited on this one. Yet there's a band, such as it is. On this one, the closest hit records that are perhaps being emulated are no longer the ones by George Benson, but something closer to... Barry Manilow? 

God knows what the song-poet did, but he apparently thinks his woman is a saint for putting up with what seems to have been a whole bunch of crappy behavior. And he's gonna tell us how much he appreciates it. And then tell us again. And again. Or maybe he's only telling one person. Let's hope she decided to stay. 

Download: Mel Moore - My Woman

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First Person Christianity

In the notes to the fourth song-poem compilation album, "I'm Just the Other Woman", there was a section in which was pointed out an uncommon aspect of the song "The Will of God", that being that it was sung from the perspective of the singer being Jesus Christ. And I agree that such a conceit is a fairly unusual one. 

Here we have another one, from the waning days of the once-great Sterling label. Sterling's greatness came from one man - Norm Burns, a singularly great singer - with a large assist from one other man - Lew Tobin, the arranger and frequent composer who set the song-poems to music. Well, Norm died in 1974, and was followed by a series of much-lesser lights, and Lew's name - which showed up as a bandleader and/or co-composer on the vast majority of Sterling records releases into the mid-1970's, disappeared from the credits, never to return, right around the time this record was made. 

The singer on this side is Mel Moore, heard here with "The Starlets", who was the dominant performer for Sterling from around 1977 until their demise around 1984. I have a few Mel Moore 45's, but had never featured him before, largely because Sterling records after the departure of Norm and Lew are often deadly dull. 

But I do get a kick out of this one. Jesus is singing the song, you see, exhorting his listener to "Walk On" and "Stand Tall", those being the two parts of the title of the song. Jesus doesn't actually get around to identifying himself until nearly half way through, by which point he's clearly irritated at not being asked "Dude, who are you anyway", and gives away his secret. I can commiserate with him there - it seems like that might be a conversation you'd have with some random stranger who was telling you how to live, somewhat earlier in your interaction. 

For all I said about the suckiness of late era Sterling records, this one is actually bouncy and even sort of swings, with a Johnny Cash, "I Walk the Line" beat on the drums, a really nice interplay between the piano and the guitar, and an equally nice give and take between the lead singer and the backing gals. It's a sweet sounding track. 

Download: Mel Moore and the Starlets - Walk On - Stand Tall

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Shelley Stuart (whose name I now see I have misspelled on more than one occasion here) is the singer on the flip side, another religious number from the same song-poet. Shelley shows up on a few of the earliest tracks on Sterling, and then made well over a dozen records for the label during the period just before Norm Burns' death, but this is a later release for her on the label that I can find reference to online, exactly one hundred label numbers later than her previously known last release. For a label that seems to have released only 40 or 50 records a year, that's a significant gap of time between recordings. 

Anyway, Shelley's song, "Live For Jesus" is awful. It goes on for about 17 days, or at least it seems to. The folks at Sterling did do an effective job of creating the sort of dashed-off gospel/inspirational sound that could have been heard on a dozen religious fund-raising TV shows or cheapo Christian albums of the time. It's not a good sound, but they did a good job capturing it. 

Download: Shelley Stuart and the Starlets - Live For Jesus

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