You Gotta Have Faith

 Quick, shout out the first few adjectives that come to mind when you think of Santa!

"Jolly?" Sure. "Fat?" Of Course. "Pretend?" Shh. Don't Tell. "Giving?" Probably less common, but not inaccurate. 

How many of you said "Faithful"? How many other words did you get to before you got to "Faithful"? 

Well, Sammy Marshall, in his guise (for Ronnie Records) as Ben Tate, is going to tell you all about "Jolly, Faithful Santa". This being Ronnie Records, the band is, of course, almost frighteningly sterile in performance style, and the most interesting thing here may be that Sammy hits a few bum notes while (probably) site-reading the song - indeed, this is one of most low energy and generally poorly sung songs I can think of from Sammy. Anyway, can you imagine a child being captivated by any of this?

Download: Ben Tate - Jolly, Faithful Santa

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On to the next song, and I have this to say: Ronnie was the wrong label, and Sammy Marshall the wrong singer, to have sent a song called "The Blues and Me". This musicians are competent, and no doubt had an intellectual understand of what The Blues is - and perhaps even an appreciation of the genre. But they were in no way capable of producing a Blues number. See if that isn't clear within the first four bars of this track. 

And I have NO idea what the Blues "Usually Make a Home Run" means. 

Download: Ben Tate - The Blues and Me

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~~

I mostly posted this EP for the first song - I wanted to offer something Christmassy. And then there is the ridiculousness of that Blues song. But I have VERY little to say about the remaining songs. 

The two songs on the other side sound awfully to each other, at least to my ears. Neither has anything to recommend it. The first is "I'm Sitting Here Alone". 

Download: Ben Tate - I'm Sitting Here Alone

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"My Heart and I" is, as I said, similar to the above song, but it does have a nice, loping beat and as a result, it swings a little bit, making it, I suppose, my choice as the least-bad among four poorly written and performed songs. Even the guitar solo called for here seems to be more or less in this guitarist's wheelhouse. Or at least in that neighborhood. 

Download: Ben Tate - My Heart and I

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A Great Day... Just Before... A Not So Great Day

Right off the bat, I want to correct an oversight, something I meant to link to two months ago. Sammy Reed has posted several songs from the ultra-rare JOiFU song-poem label, including Gene Marshall singing a song that I posted in a completely different, Tin Pan Alley recording, nearly sixteen years ago. Have a listen!

And now, for something I ALSO forgot to do when I intended to: 

I totally meant to share this one for St. Patrick's day. Perhaps still being in March and only two weeks late will suffice. It's no great shakes, but it does have that St. Patrick's day tie-in, and it's also about someone who was a favorite of song-poets for a while, John F. Kennedy. Now most of the JFK records came out after his death, just as most legit albums about JFK came out after his death. But I don't think this one did. 

No, "A Great Day for J.F.K.", as sung by Sammy Marshall under the name Ben Tate, which was always his credited name when he sang on the Ronnie Label, makes no mention of JFK's death, and quite clearly was a lyric full of pride, by the extremely Irish-ly named Marcella Ridenour, about the current president being Irish. 

The song itself is another one of these nearly soulless Ronnie performances. Sammy provides a nice, warm vocal, but the backing band could be playing any of at least 50 other Ronnie tracks. I wonder how many of these they did in a day or week. 

It's also worth noting that, although there is no copyright date on this 45, dates are known for other Ronnie releases, and 2043 seems to have been the first 1963 release on the label. Then, by Ronnie 2151, it was 1965. The label seems to have released fewer and fewer records per year as the decade continued - and almost certainly fewer than 100 records during 1963. As this is number 2099, I suspect it was made well after the half-point of 1963. If so, or even if it was made in the spring of that year, Ms. Ridenour probably only had a few months - perhaps only a few weeks - to play it for her friends before a certain world famous event caused her to throw it on the pile with Vaughn Meader's "First Family" albums and not think about it for a long, long time. 

Download: Ben Tate (Sammy Marshall) - A Great Day for J. F. K.

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The less said about the lethargic flip side, "Thinking of You", the better. 

Download: Ben Tate (Sammy Marshall) - Thinking of You

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Sammy Marshall Fans Rejoice! It's a Full Sammy Album!

 Greetings, 

I'm still having trouble finding time to post, and it's likely September will be one of the dreaded "only two posts" months. But I gave you four tracks last time around, and to make up for the scarcity of posts again this time, I'm giving you TEN BIG TRACKS - and they're all on one album!

More about that in a moment. But first, the usual business about updating broken posts from what is now getting to be the distant past. 

We're all the way back to April of 2009! That month, I wrote a whopping seven posts, five of them song-poem related. These included a particularly ridiculous Mike Thomas entry, a Preview single featuring two different singers under the same name, the fabulously named Teacho Wiltshire on an early Tin Pan Alley release, an excellent early Rodd Keith record from Film City, and the story of - and contents of - the very first song-poem record I owned, which I acquired in 1976, with no idea what it was. 

At that time, I was also regularly sharing recent finds that were of the non-song-poem variety, and for that month, I shared a wonderful Louie Prima record (now readily available on Youtube, but I thought I'd be a completist), and a record I'd discovered by an obscure singer I love (and who I'd been featuring for some time at that point), Toby Deane - song record which is not yet on Youtube (that post's track is of extremely low sound quality, and I'm looking for the record in order to update the link with a better sounding file). 

Okay, that's outta the way....

~~

The AS/PMA site documents one album on the fairly horrible "Ronnie" label, and while this is not that album, it does carry the same title, "Ronnie Presents New Songs of Today", which seems rather redundant to me. I mean, "New Songs of 1913" wouldn't make much sense, would it? 

Anyway, this is a 10 inch LP, with five songs on each side, ALL sung by "Ben Tate", which is a pseudonym for Sammy Marshall (and yes, I know, "Sammy Marshall" was also a pseudonym - his real name is Marc Simpson). The album label looks like this for side one: 

I have to admit, were it not for the oddity and rarity of this being a song-poem album, and all by someone not known for albums, I wouldn't necessarily have chosen any of these for individual feature. They are, for the most part (some may say entirely) lifeless, dull, soulless, musically vapid and generally have lyrics which are about as uninspired as can be. In other words, typical Ronnie song-poem tracks. 

But sharing it is what I'm doing today, and here is side one of the album: 

Download: Ben Tate - New Songs of Today, Side One

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And here is the other side, featuring the two songs which I think at least have some oddness to the lyrics, track two, "Farewell, My Beloved", and the closing tune, "Do It Right"

Download: Ben Tate - New Songs of Today, Side Two

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By the way, if anyone is interested, the same eBay seller from whom I bought this album has another copy listed on eBay right now. 

And here's the side two label: 

Poodles and Moons and Sammy, Oh My!

Sorry about that title. I just finished reading a wonderful, fairly legendary book from the '70's, about the making of the Wizard of Oz. I inherited it from my mother, and finally got around to reading it, after seeing it on her bookshelf, then mine, for 40 years. 

I also meant to include, in last weeks post about the plagiaristic song-poems, that the three 45's that I excerpted, sold for a combined total of almost $200.00, which strikes me as excessive. But your mileage may vary. 

I have also, as usual, updated yet another month of previous posts, in this case, April of 2010. Discs which had their contents posted that month include a record from early in Rodd Keith's tenure at MSR, a record written by my favorite song-poet, Edith Hopkins - a fantastic teen-idol type tune decrying empty churches - as well as two, count 'em, two, records by Ellen Wayne on Tin Pan Alley, one is quite decent, and is titled "Devil Fly", and the other is an amazing song-poem record for the ages, titled "Don't Touch Me There!"

And, keeping with the Wizard of Oz theme, at least in that the movie features a dog in a key role, and so does today's feature.....

Today's feature, from Sammy Marshall, under the name "Ben Tate", which was his moniker at the fabulous Ronnie label, contains two demonstrations of the "writers who were not nearly as clever as they thought they were" school of song-poemetry. Both records, particularly the first one, contain some lyrical howlers. 

The first is "My Poodle", and it is a veritable plethora of tortured rhymes and forced cleverness. Right away, we havelines designed to end with "curly" and "surly" and then some. My favorite stupid lyrical moment comes at 0:55, and I will not give it away here. 

Download: Ben Tate (Sammy Marshall) - My Poodle

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The author of the flip side, "A Half Moon", fails (to my ears, anyway) for a different reason, that being that he starts with what surely seemed like a clever idea, but which doesn't stand up to any level of attention. It contains the following rhyme: 

"A half moon is mysterious / as you gaze upon it at night

It can  make you delirious / about the half that's out of sight"

My problem is: does anyone actually think a half moon is mysterious? Since the rest of the song is a simile, comparing this moon analogy to the way everyone has a half of us which is mysterious to our loved one, it seems like the initial concept should at least have some truth to it. 

What the writer says about we humans (apart from the moon comparison) is pretty accurate. I just wish there was a better analogy behind it. 

But maybe I think too much. 

Download: Ben Tate (Sammy Marshall) - A Half Moon

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Trouble, Trouble Blues

Greetings - updates to the old posts will have to wait until next time. It's been a terrifically busy 10 days, and I wanted to at least get a post up...

I've rarely featured the Ronnie label here. I find most of their records very bland and samey. I don't know if they were part of the Globe empire - there is some overlap in the quality of that blandness, and Sammy Marshall was the star of both companies. But I discern an even blander sheen on most Ronnie releases than I do Globe. 

Which made this record a pleasant surprise. I make no argument for "Trouble, Trouble Blues" (by May Redding) being great, or outstanding in any significant way, but it does have a bit of energy, mostly in the rhythm section, and even sounds a bit like an early Sterling release in certain aspects. Plus, the guitarist tries to actually do something during the solo. Something. All that said, I think it should be at least 20 bpm faster and then there might have been more to work with. 

Download: May Redding - Trouble, Trouble Blues

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The aforementioned Sammy Marshall shows up on the flip side, in the guise of "Ben Tate", a name he was only billed under on this label, as far as I know (another reason I'm doubtful as to the Globe link). 

This one is an out and out car crash, mostly because the bass player seems to think he's playing in a different song entirely. Aside from a couple of hysterical Tin Pan Alley records from the mid '60's, I don't think I've ever heard this many flubs on a song-poem record. I mean, the whole thing blows, but at least waiting for the next flub from the bass is entertaining. 

Download: Ben Tate - The Night I Lost My Love

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Big Belly Berelly, Trouble with Girls, and a Bit of Plagiarism

I will resume the correction of old posts next week. With the holiday week that is now coming to an end, I've had little time for online activities. I hope that today's wonderfully odd new items will make up for this lack of old fixes. 

This one literally arrived in the mail yesterday, and I couldn't wait to share it. I think each side is good enough to be featured first, but I've chosen the one with the more unusual title and subject matter to go first.

The singer is Sammy Marshall, under the name of Ben Tate, which he used on all of his releases on the Ronnie label. I've usually found Ronnie releases to be staid and way too glossy/bland, but both sides here prove to be an exception, with approximations of someone's idea of what the rock and roll of the day sounded like.

And so here we have "Big Belly Berelly"! Now there may be a way to make that title phrase fit musically in a way that a singer could make it work, rhythmically, but the folks at Ronnie did not find it, as you'll hear. Then there's a line like "Though he wasn't educated", which would be hard for Irving Berlin to make into something musical.

Everyone involved does the best they can with what they were given, and I suspect that someone who didn't speak English might well believe that this was a legitimate release by a label shooting for a hit record. Then again, this record appears to date from about 1965 or 1966, so perhaps not.

Download: Ben Tate (Sammy Marshall) - Big Belly Berelly
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The first thing I noticed about the flip side, "Girls Are Trouble" was the writer credit, which is to 'Rattlesnake' Davenport. I sort of wish my name was 'Rattlesnake' Davenport.

The second thing I noticed about this record was that it opens with a blatant and completely unnecessary bit of plagiarism. Not only have the folks at Ronnie quoted a key melody from a number one song from earlier in the decade, I can't figure out why, as going forward from that point, they didn't make that melody part of this song's melody, and, in fact, the chord changes for "Girls Are Trouble" never matches that melody, or the earlier song, for the rest of the record.

Aside from that, this is another faux 1963 style rock and roll record, more obviously song-poemy this time in terms of the performance - complete with uninspired sax and guitar solo, followed immediately by a bum note on the bass - although Sammy tries his best to sell it.

And that opening still cracks me up.

Download: Ben Tate (Sammy Marshall) - Girls Are Trouble
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Roger and Ronnie, Margie and Hawaii

First and foremost, Happy Father's Day to all of you fathers out there, and to the fathers of everyone reading this!

Here's my solemn promise to everyone out there - when I obtain a Roger Smith 45, I will always post it here very quickly. Or maybe that doesn't mean much to anyone but me, but I sure do love the barely-in-control vocals on many of his records (at least the upbeat ones). 

Here we have a very early release on the Ronnie label (the first one documented at AS/PMA), dated to early 1961, via a mention in Billboard within a list of records believed to have "limited sales potential". That assessment was no doubt accurate, but I really enjoy one side of the record, "Margie Now", which features some lyrics about the nicknames of a certain young woman. The words seem to assume we will understand what the changes in names indicate about her, but I admit to being clueless about this. But Roger Smith sure sells it, and the pedal steel sounds nice, too. 

There is a some truly awful damage to the record, at the 2:32 point, which is really peculiar, lasting essentially two rotations of the disc, and barely visible at all on the record itself. It plays right through, though. 

Download: Roger Smith: Margie Now

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I cannot work up much (or any) enthusiasm for the flip side, "Aloha, Miss Hawaii", but it would have been quite topical at the time, given that this record was produced less than 18 months after our 50th state joined the union, and the lyrics are serviceable enough. Like the flip side, this record sounds, to me, very much as if it came from the early days of the Globe song-poem factory. 

Download: Roger Smith: Aloha, Miss Hawaii

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From Ronnie to JFK

Greetings, Song-Poem fanatics!

 

First off, I'd like to thank reader Graham, for a flurry of comments, some of which were prods for me to start repopulating the old posts with working files. I hope to make a concerted effort to do this soon, and hearing that people are clambering for them (he's not the first) helps push me in that direction. I will announce this when I managed to actually start fixing the old posts. 

 

Second, here is yet another ad from a 1931 issue of Modern Screen Magazine, courtesy of correspondent Pete:

 

 

My guess is that the results of this ad's promises would have been sheet music, rather than a record. Thanks, Pete!

 

And third, here's a record from Ronnie. Ronnie Records that is. I have not featured the Ronnie Label very often. I find their typical product slick, soulless and exceedingly boring. Those aspects are not entirely absent among the four songs on this EP, but there are some things that make me want to share the record. Like many Ronnie records, this one features Sammy Marshall, or, as he was known to purchasers of Ronnie's products, Ben Tate.



 

First up, a song I'm featuring as a tie in to the new, highly acclaimed motion picture Jackie, which came out last weekend. It has the clunky title, "Our President (J. F. Kennedy)", and insipid lyrics to match. A true winner!

Download: Ben Tate (Sammy Marshall) - Our President (J. F. Kennedy)
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 Next up is perhaps the calmest, most sedate sounding song ever recorded about a "Plane Crash". The writer sounds quite resigned to her fate, secure in the knowledge that she's in God's hands now. This is the antithesis of "D.O.A." by Bloodrock.

Download: Ben Tate (Sammy Marshall) - The Plane Crash
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Flipping over the record, we find the quintessential Ronnie Records/Sammy Marshall team up, with one of the quintessential song-poem titles, "I Love You". I can't work up enough interest to say anything funny, pithy or otherwise interesting about this song...

Download: Ben Tate (Sammy Marshall) - I Love You
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However, I GUARANTEE that one listen to the last song, "Please Don't Laugh", will be worth the price of admission. I will not spoil the surprise, but I will say that most listeners will specifically be unable to "not laugh" upon hearing what the good folks at Ronnie did for this song-poem.

Download: Ben Tate (Sammy Marshall) - Please Don't Laugh
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Blatant Plagiarism!

I don't often feature the Ronnie label - I find their product particularly bland, with a production sound that is typically anti-septic enough to add another layer of disinterest to my reaction to their records. With that background, I was particularly unprepared to hear what I heard when I put the needle on Jill Donner's rendition of "Tropical Ecstasy". Because here we have the most blatant plagiarism I think I've ever heard on a song-poem 45. Sure, I've heard songs where the musicians copped the feel, or even some of the chords and melody of another song. And I've even heard song-poems where the self-proclaimed "writer" sent in the words to an existing song as their own composition. But in this case, the opening of this record is a note-for-note copy of Martin Denny's "Quiet Village", the biggest hit that the exotica movement ever claimed, a top ten smash from 1959. If you're not familiar with that record, you can hear it here. Now have a listen to today's offering:

Download: Jill Donner - Tropical Ecstasy

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The flip side of this record, "Bitter Tears" is exactly the kind of recording that keeps me from featuring more of Ronnie Records song-poems in the first place:

Download: Jill Donner - Bitter Tears

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He's Insulted

This is the first time I've featured the "Ronnie" label, and the reason for its absence until now is that the records released on this label are almost uniformly uninteresting. Not car crash bad or hysterically bad, or compelling in some other way. Just dull. This EP features the one exception, in my view. I excerpted the best song from this batch at WFMU when I first announced this project, but it's heard here with better sound quality, and surrounded by the other songs from the EP. The A side features Sammy Marshall, using (appropriately) his blandest pseudonym, "Ben Tate". The first track on this side is humorous in that Sammy is heard discussing his baby's love of dancing to rock and roll, and yet, if that's the case, there's no chance she'd be dancing to this song! This song joins a long list of song-poem records about rock and roll whose settings have nothing in common with the genre. Not surprisingly, it's titled "My Little Baby Loves to Dance"

Download: Ben Tate - My Little Baby Loves to Dance

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The real winner here is Mr. Tate's second song, "You Insulted Me". The over-the-top reaction of this writer to... whatever the insult was, never fails to get a grin out of me and has tended to startle listeners who are new to the song. We quickly go from a bit of hurt and outrage to assumptions of complete (and aggressive) non-interest on the part of his target. 

Download: Ben Tate - You Insulted Me

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Two less-than-interesting songs by someone named "May Redding" round out the EP. On "Christmas Day", it's a bit fun to listen for the sax player fitting in little pieces of "Jingle Bells" between the verses, a peculiar choice for a lyric which is focused on the religious aspects of the holiday. 

Download: May Redding - Christmas Day

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Rounding out the foursome is the oddly titled "Life's Lesser Joys", which starts off almost identically to the previous song. The off-center pressing of this side of the record adds a woozy quality to this otherwise sleep-inducing track:

Download: May Redding - Life's Lesser Joys

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Finally, a shout out to my father, Frank Purse, who left us on this date, May 3rd, back in 1996. We all miss you, dad.