Once in a Blue Hill

I'm back after yet another too-long-of-a-break, but again this week, I have a bonus posting, with four song-poems instead of the usual two. 

 But first, it's time for more updates! I've traveled all the way back to February of 2009, just one month into the song-poem project that is continuing to this day. Keep in mind that, in those days, I was not always sharing label scans, and I was also regularly sharing things which were not song-poem related. 

In that month, I posted a Halmark release that someone actually took the time to label as "Horrible", a set of two full singles and a fifth track from Rodd Keith, one pair of oddly named tracks from two different labels, and another pair of favorite - and ridiculous - song poems about a.) squabbling spouses and b.) Nancy Reagan

Also that month, I shared both sides of a truly awful vanity single by one Cal Andrews - a magnificently terrible pair of sides, and a cover version of The Box Tops' classic, "The Letter", which I found on a three inch reel of tape. 

Today's double feature is not two separate singles, as it was a few weeks ago, but four tracks from an EP. And today's EP is from the teeny tiny Blue Hill Records label of Union City, New Jersey, which was likely under the ownership of people named Irving Decker and Mina Zeigler, perhaps among others, including someone with the last name Ambrose. Mr. Decker's name shows up as the song-poet for five of the six known songs on the label, and Ms. Zeigler and the person named Ambrose each co-wrote two of the same six songs.

The other documented Blue Hill release features songs from both the Globe song-poem factory and Lee Hudson's company, but for this EP, all four tracks come from Globe. I'm only really enamored of one of the foursome, but I liked it enough to share the EP, under the theory that I often share singles where there is only one good song, so why not do the same with an EP which has a single good track. 

The single kicks off with Globe's most frequent artist, Sammy Marshall. "New Baby", has some things going for it, mostly the goofy take on the old cliché of a father preventing a girl from dating because she's too young, what with the references to "her pappy", and, in the first line, "an apple green suit". On the other hand, the Globe band is on autopilot, and there's nothing remotely interesting about the melody or vocal performance. The dip in the speed and key in the last seconds of this track are on the record - perhaps a moment of tape stretch? 

Download: Sammy Marshall - New Baby 

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The aforementioned really good track - to my ears, at least - comes next, and it's from the rarely heard from Globe singer who's work was released under the name "The Mystery Girl", or, as in this case, "Mystery Girl". "How I Wish You Knew" grabs me immediately, with a timeless chord progression, straight out of a vaudeville number, bouncy and ingratiating in the best ways possible. The singer offers an appealingly pleading vocal, in a manner I'd enjoy regardless of what she was singing. Then there's a ragtimey piano solo and that suitably vaudevillian ending... ah, what's not to love!

Download: Mystery Girl - How I Wish You Knew

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The flip side of this record is beat to hell, as you'll hear. And I'd prefer to think that maybe it was stored somewhere where that side got damaged, because the concept that the flip side got more play than the Mystery Girl song - indeed, that the flip side got much play at all, given it's fairly wretched contents - is hard to fathom. 

Both tunes on this side are sung by Kris Arden, a fine singer on many Globe releases, who can't help but sputter, given the material she was given to work with. The worst of the two is surely the first one, "It's My Turn". It would seem to me a challenge to create a song with that title worse than the Diana Ross track that carries the same title, but the folks at Globe succeeded. I defy anyone to follow these chords or this melody from start to finish - different members of the band appear to be on different chords at the same moment at least a couple of times. 

I'll guess that Kris Arden was sight reading, and hats off to her for staying on pitch, as there are moments when the notes seem to be thrown her way at random, and with little relation to the chords being played. 

Download: Kris Arden - It's My Turn

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In comparison, the final track, "I'm Always Yearning For You" is just deadly dull, in a stultifying arrangement, and the surface noise here really becomes distracting, too. 

Download: Kris Arden - I'm Always Yearning For You

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A Brosh-Tastic EP

It's four for the price of two today, here at song-poem central, and what's more, today's EP, on the tiny Brosh label, features four different singers, all but one from the Globe song-poem empire.

First up is frequently used Globe female vocalist Kris Arden, with a song not written by Smokey Robinson, nor sung by Mary Wells, yet still titled "My Guy". The backing track is Globe 101 - if not for the lyrics, I'm sure Sammy Marshall would have been singing this. But just listen to these lyrics - her guy sounds like a dreamboat; he's swell.

Download: Kris Arden - My Guy
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Speaking of Sammy Marshall, he's up next, with a number titled "Just a Few". This is also paint-by-numbers Globe stuff, and Sammy sounds (to me, anyway) pretty darned wistful, as if he believes the songwriter doesn't expect to win the girl. The ache in his voice here doesn't match the promise of the lyrics.

By the way, I'm going to make another file of this record tonight and see if it gets rid of some of the harshness of the sax portions (I didn't notice at the time of making this file that there was so much distortion, and the other tracks seem to be fine, so it might just be the track).

Download: Sammy Marshall and the Keynoters - Just a Few
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Best of the batch by a wide margin is "Makes My Heart Start Flopping Around", sung by everyone's favorite, The Mystery Girl. Here we have a swingin' little track, with a winning vocal, a nice band sound, and a lyric that, with a few improvements, could have sounded like someone's attempt at a hit record, at least during the late '50's (although I'm pretty sure this record is not from the late '50's). I could do without the honking sax, but that's a minor complaint - this is a fun song and record.

Download: The Mystery Girl - Makes My Heart Start Flopping Around
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The final track, on the other hand, is as vapid as they come. It's called "I Love 'Em So", and it does NOT sound like it comes from the Globe world (so to speak). The lyrics here are literally as stupid as I've ever heard on a song-poem 45, and there are so few of them that some sections have to be repeated three times (almost everything is sung at least twice) in the 110 seconds it takes for the record to mercifully end. The bridge is especially inspired:

Nothing but girls
Lots of girls
Nothing but girls
I'm in a whirl

I don't believe I've come across the song stylings of Ronnie May before, and I'm not sure what casa-de-song-poems put this masterpiece together, but I'm sort of interested in hearing more.

Download: Ronnie May - I Love 'Em So
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The Mystery Girl

Today's record is downright peculiar, in many ways. Released on the tiny Dial label, a small and rather unusual label which seems to have released the works of a variety of song-poem factories (it's unclear to me whether they produced any material of their own). While most of these "third party" labels seem to have something which ties them together - a common lyricist or group of writers, one performer, etc. - nothing seems to tie this label together, as far as I can tell.

And this may be the oddest of the Dial records I've heard (although that vote may have to go to "Our Hearts Were Meant to Beat As One" by Bob Lloyd, a record which bears a similar setting and style to this record). It's credited to "The Mystery Girl", and although the title is sung in Spanish (and well enough so), the title, as printed on the label (admittedly very difficult to read), renders that Spanish title into gobbledegook.

The correct phrase would be "Las praderas me están llamando", which is then translated, on the label and in the song, as "The Meadows are Calling Me". Someone, presumably at Dial Records, decided to throw in some spaces, rendering the title as Las Prade Ras Me Están Llaman Do, which translates as "The Ras Prade Are Knock I Do". While that phrase coincidentally has a goofy little in joke for me (as anyone who has corresponded with me would recognize), and while I'd LOVE to hear a song poem with that lyric, I don't think that it actually means anything.

So who is this Mystery Girl? Damned if I know - I certainly don't recognize her from any other song-poem, or anyone else. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the same pianist, and slightly out of tune piano, on that legendary Bob Lloyd record, and the whole thing seems just a little bit off - I particularly like the splice, edit or whatever it is at the 1:34 point, and the little flubbed piano flourish at 1:57.

Download: The Mystery Girl - Las Prade Ras Me Están Llaman Do
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The flip side of this record is no slouch either, but from a completely different perspective - it's another wonderful offering from Cara Stewart, with music, of course, from Lee Hudson. There's a religious point of view this time, and it's the same old sound, but I sure do adore that sound of theirs. Here's "Dream a Dream of Heaven":

Download: Cara Stewart - Dream a Dream of Heaven
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