1060 W. Addisong-poem: The Clark and Addison Song-Poem

HAPPY CUBS SEASON!!!

I know most people are calling it baseball season, but that's just because they're not Cubs fans. What a pity for them. A damn shame, really. And I know that there are 29 other teams, but that's just so that the Cubs have a variety of teams to play. Because IT'S CUBS SEASON!!!

And to honor this wonderful occasion, I have a real rarity - not only is this a song-poem 78, the sort of item which doesn't turn up every day, and a record on the Stylecraft label, of which there are really only a handful documented, it's a song-poem ABOUT THE CHICAGO CUBS! Specifically, it's about Hank Sauer, who played left field for the team from 1949-1955.

The song is performed by label regulars The Stylecrafters, with the lead vocal by Ray Vali. Among the other unusual features of this record is the way it begins, with a mock radio broadcast of a Cubs game!

I actually have some questions about the Stylecraft label, and maybe someone out there knows more about this than I do. Clues as to its status as a song-poem label are almost non-existent - on the AS/PMA website, there are no links to other labels, and there does not appear to be overlap between artists, either. The quality of their productions is considerably higher than that of other labels, and there are few indications from those records themselves that they are song-poems. One of the few clues in that direction here is what I hear as a mispronounciation of "Waveland", one of the streets surrounding Wrigley Field - I can't say I've ever heard it pronounced the way it is here, but that could mean nothing. I would love to know based on what information the label was identified as a song-poem outfit.

But.... I've featured songs from the label before, and may do so in the future, and I'm certainly glad that having them identified as a song-poem label allows me to post a song about my beloved Cubs.

Download: The Stylecrafters - Sweet On Sauer
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The flip side, "Love Just Won't Keep On Ice", is a pretty standard issue offering for the day and era, performed for us by an outfit with a name that just trips off the tongue: "The Howard Sutor Orchestra".

Download: The Howard Sutor Orchestra - Love Just Won't Keep On Ice
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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

The Latest in Song-Poems!

Here are a few comments about two tracks I'm sharing today. I've been collecting song-poem records for nearly ten years now, and although my collecting had slowed to a crawl a couple of years ago, it is now going at full speed again, due to CDR trading and online buying.

(for those of you just joining the song-poem world, or not there yet, please see www.songpoemmusic.com for an explanation.)

The songs I've uploaded are two of my favorites among my recent purchases. The first is "Be Optimistic" by Sammy Marshall and the Rays, on the "Roxie" label. Following a short burst of the chorus, this song opens up with a line which has to be among the least likely lyrics one would ever imagine opening a song called "Be Optimistic". But I'll leave that surprise for you.

In general, the song doesn't sustain that insanity level, but the main point of the song - which seems to be along the lines of "don't gamble, and don't believe in luck, but still, 'be optimistic' " - is muddled enough to make for a bizarre listening experience, especially since the singer barely describes anything good happening to you - prior to your arrival in heaven, that is.

Of course, that is to say that the Lord is involved, a message I could agree with, if the theology wasn't so completely black and white: is he actually saying that the bad news of the first verse happened because he "rolled them dice"? And is blind faith in God the very definition of Optimism? Apparently so. Well, um....

But above all, that opening verse, with it's combination of peppy presentation and sad lyrics, just floors me. All of the above is strongly enhanced, all that much more, by one of my four favorite song-poem singers, Sammy Marshall. (The glitches near the end of this MP3, by the way, are present on the record itself.)

The other disk is my very first 78 rpm song-poem purchase. At least I assume it's a song-poem - it's on a label said to be dedicated to such releases, "Stylecraft". On the other hand, maybe it isn't a song-poem - it sounds fairly professional, if odd in lyric and subject. The song is "The Grinder Man", performed by Frankie Day. I love the arrangement, and I'd also love to know exactly what the lyric "...knives and shivs..." means, as I'm not aware of the difference between the two. Perhaps a kind reader/50's gang member out there can clarify this point for me. I'm just glad to own a smoothly sung, demo performance of a tin pan alley-ish song which contains the word "shiv".

Enjoy!

Download: Sammy Marshall and the Sun Rays with the Gold Coast Boys - Be Optimistic

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Download: Frankie Day - The Grinder Man

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ADDENDUM, 2/22: As seen in the comments, the line in question is "Knives and Shears", and the song is about a traveling knife sharpener. D'uh.