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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Gary Roberts: Bluesman Extraordinaire!

 

Those of you unfamiliar with Gary Roberts would do yourselves a favor and peruse this set of posts (which will start with this very post, until I post another Gary Roberts record). You will not be disappointed. You also can't go wrong listening to this classic. 

Those of you who are familiar with the song-poem work of Gary Roberts might have several words to use to describe his performances. I'm guessing that well down below word 100 on that list would be "Bluesman". 

And yet, that's what the bosses at Sterling assigned Gary to become, for the song "Remembering". The results are just as one-fifth assed as you might expect. Only the pianist here sort of seems to understand the genre, and the proceedings made even more delightfully incompetent by a blues harp solo which is shows off just about the equal to Gary's blues chops. (Now, admittedly, the appeal of the blues harp is 100% lost on me, but even as someone who avoids the instrument in that style of usage, I can recognize when it's being used by someone who has no idea how to use it.)

I note with some amusement that this is the very highest record label number found so far on which Gary Roberts' name appears, and that his tenure there lasted barely 100 label numbers (and he was not on all of those releases). I can just imagine - although I have no belief that this actually happened - that after hearing this performance, the folks at Sterling cut their losses and moved on to someone else. 

Download: Gary Roberts - Remembering

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In comparison, the flip side, "You Did Me Wrong", sung by Shelley Stuart, is a solid piece of entertainment. But only in comparison. The lyrics are artless, in the style that song-poets have achieved since the genre came into being ("Why are you doing this the way you are?"), and they read more as a series of prose sentence than as poetry or lyrics. A sense a bit an attempt at proto-disco by the band at the 1:33 point, although the beat is a bit slow for that. Other than that, musically, this is sort of a throwback to Sterling's earlier days, when Shelley Stuart showed up more often, along with Norm Burns, particularly in the use of all that echo. 

This is also the second highest numbered Shelley Stuart release on Sterling which has been found, to this date...

Download: Shelley Stuart - You Did Me Wrong

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Soap Opera Relationships, On Sterling Records

Howdy, 

This is an intensely busy moment in my work life, but I really want to get a post up this weekend, so I am doing so, but will be uncharacteristically brief. I meant to offer some thanks and links to a few people, but I want to do that right, and I will wait until next time to do so

I have, however, taken the time to repopulate the links on another month's worth of posts, in this case, all the way back to October of 2009. During that month, I posted a song-poem on the Canary label, a nice Rodd Keith confection, a World's Fair related disc from Sammy Marshall, and a personal favorite on the Allstar label. Be sure to read the comments - there was some interesting information about the Canary label (including contact from a relative of the man behind the label), and for the Allstar release, the actual singer of the song posted a response!

Today, we have Sterling Records' favorite pair of 1960's and early 1970's singers, Shelley Stuart and Norm Burns, one on each side of the 45, helped out by house band "The Five Stars", giving us two songs from the same song-poet, Faye Bottoms. Ms. Bottoms seems to have had a flair for portraying the soap opera type of relationship, as the protagonists heard on each side of this record are dealing with the sturm und drang of a difficult relationship. 

Shelley Stuart goes first, with a song whose title tells you exactly how difficult the relationship is going, "I Am Locked Up in a Prison of Love"

Download: Shelley Stuart and The Five Stars - I Am Locked Up in a Prison of Love

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Over on the flip side, we have everyone's favorite singer, Norm Burns, who, in this case, is portraying a man who has entered into a relationship with a married woman, and now finds himself in love. Here's "Now It's Too Late Darlin'"

Download: Norm Burns and the Five Stars - Now It's Too Late Darlin'

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The Ted Lane Sound

I get a kick out of today's billing, and that's what's referenced in the name of this post. More on that just below. But first, I am featuring today one of the singers at the Sterling label, who hasn't been featured enough (because she's not on that many records, and because I have even fewer than that), Shelley Stuart. I have consistently - during three other posts feature her work - misspelled her name as Shelly, despite the fact that the correct spelling was clearly evident on the labels of all three records featured in those posts. I hope to fix those posts, or at least the labels, soon.

Anyway, in this case, Shelley has a peppy, pleading number to sing, titled "Come and Take Care of Me". She is accompanied (as is the case with her label mate on the flip side), by "Ted Lane's Orchestra", a combo which shows up infrequently enough on Sterling records that it is not found on any of the records indexed on the Sterling page of the song-poem website. But here's the thing: You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who can tell the different between Ted's band and Lew Tobin's ensemble, which is usually credited (if a backing "orchestra" is identified at all. This is clearly the same band. So what's the story there? I recognize that I may well be the only person who cares.

Download: Shelley Stuart, Ted Lane's Orchestra - Come and Take Care of Me
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On the flip side is everyone's favorite Norm, Norm Burns, here going by the more formal Norman Burns, backed again by Ted and the boys, led off by a loping and appealing guitar introduction, and then going into a tune, "Little Butterfly", that is completely in Norm(an)'s wheel house. It's fairly slight, but his vocal is appealing,and I sure do like that repeating guitar phrase.

Download: Norman Burns, Ted Lane's Orchestra - Little Butterfly
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