Storytime! With Teacho Wiltshire

Hey there, 

Before I get to today's rockin' offering, I wanted to share something that Sammy Reed, who has offered so much to this site over the years, wrote about this Halmark posting from two weeks ago. 

I will say right off the bat (a little pun there) that I don't know anything about the various sites and discussions that go on about Rite pressings. That's not my area at all, and if you explained to me what they are and why they mattered, I'd probably be looking at you blankly within 27 seconds. 

But what Sammy found is that the numbers on that Halmark disc line up with a gap in a Rite discography quite nicely, and that the Halmark release is probably the missing disc in that discography. Here's where it gets interesting for me: assuming he's right (or Rite) about where those numbers come from, then the Halmark disc in question is from 1966. The song poem archives website has Halmark ramping up to a start in 1967, and most of what I've read and learned has them doing most of their work in or after 1970. I just thought that was interesting enough to mention. 

And now, let's visit with my sixth favorite Marx Brother, Teacho:  

Have I mentioned that I tend to really enjoy records by Teacho Wiltshire? His tenure with Tin Pan Alley was brief, at the very start of the label's history, and I think I now own a copy of all but one of the records that came out under his name on the Tin Pan Alley label. (He also went on to a successful and distinguished career in the more legit music business.)

I really like both sides of this record, which is from 1956, but my vote for the better of the two goes to "I've Got a Story Tonight!". It's a rockin' slab of vintage R & B, in which the first person narrator tells his sad-sack tale to a bartender. Sometimes, I think I write to much in describing a record, so I'm gonna stop there, and let this one speak for itself. 

Download: Teacho Wiltshire, His Piano and Orchestra - I've Got a Story Tonight!

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On the flip side, there's another pretty good mover and groover, titled "Check Your Heart". I enjoy Teacho's vocal mannerisms, and I think in this case, they - as well as a pretty hot band - make the song better than it would otherwise be. I could even easily imagine someone liking this one more than its flip. Good stuff!

Download: Teacho Wiltshire, His Piano and Orchestra - Check Your Heart

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And now, it's cut-up time. Or rather, one cut-up and one mash-up. The appetizer is the cut-up, and it is about as brief as a joke can be. Every now and then, while playing around with records, I would get an impulse to take a record that I found particularly wretched and/or annoying and dispense with it with a quick one-off joke. Too many of those, and it'd become repetitive, so I just did it now and then. Here's what I did with a # 1 song from 1963 that I've always thought was aggressively stupid: 

Download: The Angels - My Boyfriend's Back (cut-up)

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And that mash-up: In 2005, when mash-ups were still (I think) a fairly popular thing, I got the impulse to do a bunch of them, from my own weird perspective. I posted two of them, many years ago, here, and here. 

But before I did either of those, I put together the following little item, which I think is quite inspired. I was listening to "Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35" by Bob Dylan, and got to thinking about the the rhythm played in the opening drum beat. What song, I wondered, had that distinct rhythm, and might make for a good mash-up. 

What I thought of was a song from 1956, which is about as innocent a record as you can get, the polar opposite of the Dylan track. But they both had that rhythm, and in that way, they fit together perfectly. Over the bridge section, which occurs twice, I layered altered elements of another song, one from 1967. I suspect many of you will recognize where that sample comes from, as well. Quite simple work, actually, but very effective. 

I hope you'll enjoy this. It's one of my favorites. 

Download: Tonight You Get Stoned (mash-up)

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Hot For Teacho

 Happy Halloween!

And I have about the unscariest news possible: Today is the day I have completed the correction of the last of the as-of-today still broken "Song Poem of the Week" posts. 

There are a handful of posts between January of 2009 and today which have not been updated, but they are none-song-poem related, and of course there are the 40-odd posts I made between 2005 and 2008, before I focused heavily on song-poems (and those posts feature a few song-poems as well), but every post labeled "Song Poem of the Week", including those from the first month of that project, are now fully corrected, with all tracks playable and downloadable. 

Today, I corrected those earliest posts, from January of 2009. A reminder: at that point in the project, I was not sharing both sides of individual singles, nor was I always posting scans of the labels. I do intend to update at least the scan issue at some point in the future, but for now, I just focused on the tracks. 

First, I will mention that, in January of 2009, I wrote two posts that are not updated. One was simply a snarky celebration of the end of George W. Bush's tenure in the White House, and the other was a lengthy tribute to Toby Deane, a singer I was just discovering at that time. Mysteriously, all but two of my Toby Deane tracks (and their folder) have disappeared from my computer (nothing else is gone!), and I will have to find those records and make new files of them. 

On the song-poem beat that month, I offered up three posts with no central theme, one featuring Gene Marshall and Rodd Keith, one featuring Phil Celia and Little Donnie Lane, and one featuring Rodd Keith, The Real Pros and Mike Thomas. I also featured an astonishing case of Preview Records putting out two different songs with the same backing track on the same single. And I kicked off the entire project that month, with one of my all time favorite song-poems, an 88 second oddball patriotic number titled "In God We Trust". 

~~~

A favorite of mine, from the earlier days of the song-poem business, and probably the coolest name in the game, ever, is Teacho Wiltshire. Mr. Wiltshire had a legit involvement with the music business, both before and after his brief tenure at Tin Pan Alley (I've found references to him in Billboard magazine as early as 1948, and he was actively involved in record production and arrangement at legit labels for many years thereafter. 

Teacho's work for Tin Pan Alley was largely behind the scenes, but he made a handful of records under his own name for the label in their earliest years. On the slower numbers, which tended to be what Billboard called (in those days) "rock-a-ballads", he sings with an overenunciated style, sounding like he's about to cry from time to time, and drawing the words out in a manner I find rather unctuous, yet still appealing in a ridiculous sort of way. 

Today's record is from 1955, and the two sides are fairly interchangeable - I wasn't sure which to lead off with, as they both draw me in for the same reasons - the cut-rate Platters-esque stylings of the band, the reverb, and those insanely over-the-top vocals. Here's the one I chose to lead with, "Are You Willing?"

Please note that this is "the one and only, original Rock and Roll Waltz". Based on the dates on other Tin Pan Alley releases in sequence, it really does appear that this record was released before Kay Starr's # 1 hit, "Rock and Roll Waltz"!

Download: Teacho Wiltshire, His Piano and Orchestra - Are You Willing?

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The flip side carries the tautologistic title of "Love Your Loved Ones", and it contains most of the same features I've ascribed to "Are You Willing?". 

Download: Teacho Wilshire, His Piano and Orchestra - Love Your Loved Ones

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You can see lists of some of the records Teacho was involved with, and find a picture of him, here. 

MAMBO-ITIS!!!

Today, we're going to travel back in time, to the era when America was Mambo crazy, and join with one of my favorite early song-poem purveyors, Teacho Wiltshire (who, in a rare exception to the song-poem rule, went on to a significant "legit" career in music), on one of my favorite labels, Tin Pan Alley, for a little bit of MAMBO-ITIS! Take it, Teacho:

Download: Teacho Wiltshire, His Piano and Orchestra: Mambo-Itis
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Having just expressed my undying appreciation for Teacho, I must now backtrack and say that I find very little like about the song on the flip side, "Time is Precious (Don't Waste It)", or his ingratiating, smarmy vocal performance. Perhaps you'll find more to like.

Download: Teacho Wiltshire, His Piano and Orchestra - Time is Precious (Don't Waste It)
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Teacho's Working Overtime!

It's been too long since I've featured the great Teacho Wiltshire. An early stalwart at Tin Pan Alley, Teacho is one of the relatively few people named on Song-Poem release labels who went on to have a significant career in the legitimate music business. His name can be found in the production and arrangement credits of dozens, or more likely, hundreds of hits and near hits from the 1960's.

This, however, is from long before all that, late 1955, to be precise. It's a charming ditty titled "Working Overtime". This one was actually released twice by TPA, with two different flip sides. Sadly, I do not own the release with "Are You Willing" on the flip side, since it was indicated to be " The One and Only Rock 'n' Roll Waltz!", right on the label. But still, I doubt it would have lived up to the entertainment value of "Working Overtime".

Darryl Bullock, in a post featuring several TPA releases (although not this one), has a nice quote from an interview with a relative of label honcho Jack Covais, which includes some comments about this record. You can read that here. And glory be, Billboard even reviewed the thing! They got the copy with "Are You Willing" on the flip, but they still offered up thoughts on this one, opining dryly that "The singer's R & B efforts seem misplaced", and giving it the equivalent of a "D".

Well, I like it just fine. Judge for yourself! Without further ado, here is Teacho Wiltshire, His Piano and Orchestra, with "Working Overtime"

Download: Teacho Wiltshire, His Piano and Orchestra - Working Overtime
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On the flip side, the same combo performs a truly overwrought rendition of something called "Waters of Telufa". A quick web search does not immediately indicate exactly where this concentrated dampness can be encountered, but Teacho's mannered performance doesn't lead me to want to go there, anyway.

Download: Teacho Wiltshire, His Piano and Orchestra - Waters of Telufa
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Coffee Break

First, a moment to acknowledge that today would have been my mother's 86th birthday. Happy Birthday to all who share it. And now, on with the countdown. It's back to Tin Pan Alley today. While other Song-Poem lovers concentrate on Preview, MSR and maybe Columbine, I find myself drawn to the likes of Tin Pan Alley, Film City, Halmark and Fable. 

One of the early stars of the Tin Pan Alley label was Teacho Wiltshire. Unlike most of his peers in the song-poem world, Wiltshire not only had a really, really cool name, but he also went on to mainstream success, arranging, conducting, producing and/or performing on dozens if not hundreds of hit records in the '60's and perhaps beyond. 

But here we have him on one of the early Tin Pan Alley records, from when they were still largely a doo-wop concern. As you can read about here, the label's 1950's output tends to sound a bit more legit than other song-poem factories, but even with that, there's still something a bit "off" about them. I think that's more true regarding the a-side of today's choice more than the b-side, and I also prefer that a-side. 

It would appear, based on the sticker from "Danny Engel", of the publishing company Chappell & Co., Inc., that this record was sent to a radio station in the hopes of a few spins (or, more likely, to fulfill a contractual obligation with the song-poet). 

There's a lot going on, musically, on this a-side. I love the backing vocal and that guitar noodling, in particular. Please enjoy Teacho Wiltshire and the Tin Pan Alley Trio with "Coffee Break": 

Download: Teacho Wiltshire and the Tin Pan Alley Trio - Coffee Break

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And here's the same combo on the flip side with "Shut-Eye": 

Download: Teacho Wiltshire and the Tin Pan Alley Trio - Shut-Eye

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