A Devilish Walk and Standing with Jesus

As I have written about, ad nauseum, the earliest records on the Cinema label mostly feature a single solo male singing, accompanied by one of those all-in-one console organs, complete with drum effects and chording, that were so popular in living rooms in the '60's and '70's. I certainly always wanted us to get one. They are by far the most direct, simplest and perhaps most scammy of song-poem releases, although on occasion, they were brilliant. 

Here we have one which is not so brilliant. The song-poet who submitted "Pretty Red Curl", couldn't be bothered to submit a poem of more than nine lines, resulting in our friends at Cinema needing to pad the record, with an instrumental intro and solo section, and with repeated lines, just to get to 112 seconds. Note that the lyrics start at 0:13 and end 38 seconds later - everything else is just a repeat of earlier lyrics. At least the lyrics are stunningly well composed. Oh, wait, no they aren't. 

Download: The Real Pros - Pretty Red Curl

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The flip side, "For Jesus I Will Stand", contains precisely the lyric that you would expect from a song called "For Jesus I Will Stand", and the stultifying arrangement and performance leaves me cold, with nothing else to say about it.

However, I would like to refer you to the author credit, which is to Dovie Beanblossom, which has to be one of the great names of all time. Further yet, an online search tells me her full name was "Dovie Lenguilliams Beanblossom", and all I can say is, I wish that was my name (although I wouldn't want to sign for anything). 

Download: The Real Pros - For Jesus I Will Stand

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LIVE FROM THE HOLIDAY INN LOUNGE! A REAL PRO!

It's been a busy couple of weeks here at song-poem central, and if I don't get this out today I probably won't for another week. So I'm not going to say much about these sides, in order to get y'all some music. 

Today's offering is another one of those early Cinema releases where the label's credited band, "The Real Pros" was actually one guy with one of them all-in-one home chord-and-rhythm accompaniment organs. And this is from the earliest days of Cinema, when they were also crediting each song-poet as a co-producer of his or her track, for some odd reason. 

As they have in the past, this guy's recordings on today's 45 put me in the mind of a particularly chintzy act, performing (in 1971, of course, when this record was produced) in the corner of a Holiday Inn Lounge, being ignored by roughly 90 of the 12 people present. 

And while I do adore some of the records this guy made (one of them is in my top five favorite song-poems ever), both of these sides leave something to be desired. "Where Has She Gone?" has a bit more energy and slightly less (very slightly) hackneyed lyrics, so we'll spin that one first. Have at it, dude!:

Download: The Real Pros - Where Has She Gone

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I chose the word "hackneyed" up there on purpose, because... well, let's just say that if the dictionary came with sound file links, the word "hackneyed" might come with a clip of "Be the Girl of My Dreams". Our man at the organ has chosen equally dumbed down musical backing for this masterpiece. 

Download: The Real Pros - Be the Girl of My Dreams

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The Mixed Up Life of a Real Pro

Greetings!

First, I would like to make sure everyone gets to see and download an album which was linked in the comments of a previous post. It is a full Hollywood Artists album, and it is available here. Thank you, anonymous poster!

And now, for today's main feature: 

For those who haven't read any of the 18 or so places I've written it before, I really get a kick out of the early Cinema releases, all billed as being by "The Real Pros", but largely featuring one guy with one of those early '70's console all-in-one keyboards. 

While today's two offerings will never make my "all time favorite Cinema releases" file, I think they do, in a way, offer up the quintessential song-poem experience, or at least we have the scam (or, if you prefer, the design of the business plan) boiled down to its most basic essence: A person writes a lyric and sends it in. It gets set to a superbly generic, sort of loungey arrangement and is sung by a soloist who accompanies himself on an all in one cheesy organ. The performance is one that any decent composer and musician could throw together in a quarter hour. 

No big arrangement, no band, nothing particularly professional sounding about it at all. The lyric gets written - "Mixed Up Life", in this case, happily with the sort of utterly cookie cutter lyrics found so often in the genre - and a short while later, it is a demo-level-sounding generic song. And you have a perfect record with which to explain and demonstrate the song-poem to the uninitiated. 

Oh, and the last vocal note is worth the price of admission.

Download: The Real Pros - Mixed Up Life

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I chose to write all that about "Mixed Up Life", but I could pretty much say the same things about the flip side, "Nobody's Baby Am I", which has the added feature of a mess up in the bass notes during the first seven seconds. Would have been that hard to start over, after just getting seven seconds into your performance? Undoubtedly no, but clearly that option was considered unnecessary. 

Also note the producer note at the bottom of each side of the label, which in each case falsely co-credits the song-poet herself for production work. This is one of the earliest Cinema releases (1971 - as evident by the "71" in the label number), and this bit of fiction is a feature that Cinema would eliminate by its 1972 releases. 

Download: The Real Pros - Nobody's Baby Am I

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And now, let's return to our Cut-Up / Mash-Up feature, after a one week break. 

I'm sticking with the Mash-Up theme of the last few posts, and returning to circa 2005, when I was doing a bunch of these sorts of things. I focused on one of my favorite Beatles' tracks, "Julia". As you may know, this is the only song to ever come out under the Beatles name to feature a solo John Lennon performance. It's also one of the fairly few Beatles songs not to feature any percussion. 

I thought maybe I'd like to hear how it sounded with some rhythm behind it. And I'd like to break down what I did. In order to understand where, exactly, I took some of those rhythms from, you have to hear two of my beloved Star Ads. In case you aren't familiar with Star Ads, I wrote about them here and here, and quite recently, I was featured on a podcast talking all about them and sharing a bunch of them. 

Anyway, I thought of two of them which featured significant and interesting percussion in spots, and in which that percussion was heard, by itself, at times. 

First, I thought about this bizarre little ad, specifically the two bars of percussion at about the 0:03 point, which I would loop and slow down for the first verse of "Julia", then return to it more and more as the song continues: 

Download: Star Ads - Speedway's Guided Tour

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Then I thought of this high powered car ad, specifically, the drums heard between the sales pitches and at the end, which I would slow down to an extreme degree, and use on the bridge and, again, more and more, near and at the end of "Julia".

Download: Star Ads - New Tiger in Town

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Finally, I swiped the opening drum intro from "Why Don't We Do It In the Road", which I'm guessing nearly all of you are familiar with, and which occurs a few moments before "Julia" on The White Album. I used that bit of drumming extensively, too. 

I called the resulting creation, "Rhythm of the Ocean Child", and it sounds like this: 

Download: The Beatles with Star Ads - Rhythm of the Ocean Child

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The Earnestness and Directness of Early Cinema Records

Howdy!

First up, I'd like to refer back to last week's post. For those who saw it before my friend Stu did, it's worth a look in the comments, as there is a link to a photo of the actual address where the song-poet for the second shared song lived. A second commenter has added details about the property. And what's more, my pal Darryl Bullock (of World's Worst Records fame) has commented on the publishing dates for the two songs, which are, remarkably, from 12 years apart. 

Also, a frequent e-mail correspondent, Tyler, pointed out that I was wrong when I said I'd never heard the backing track on the second track before. It is featured in this post, from 2015, as well. Thanks, everyone!

~~

As mentioned last time around, I am now gainfully employed again, and as such, it has been an enormously busy few weeks, and looks to remain so for the near future. I will likely not have the time to be as verbose about what I'm sharing for awhile, which might well be a relief to some readers. So I may be sort of brief at times. 

~~

A caveat right up front: this record is beat to hell, and sounds it. 

 As I've mentioned - probably too many times - I am a big fan of the brief period of the Cinema label (roughly 1971 to some point in 1973) before the standard Preview/MSR people took over as the house band, always credited as "The Real Pros". During that early 24 months or so, many of the releases featured a solo male (whose voice I love) with one of those do it yourself console organs. A few others feature a female singer with an appealing ache in her voice, often with a bit more varied backing than the solo male. 

I often find those releases captivating in a particular way that most other song poems and song poem label's work are not. The two singers I refer to have an honesty, earnestness and directness (no doubt amplified by the simple arrangements of the songs) that stands out for me. Like few other song-poem singers, aside from Rodd Keith, they each have the ability to make the song sound like they are singing about their own lives, and that they mean every word. 

Today, we have the female singer I've just mentioned. And while I am surely not claiming greatness  here (or anything near it), for even the better of the two tracks - "I Cried and Cried" - I am saying that the singing connects with me, and the homeliness of it, in all of its girl-singing-in-her-living-room-in-1972 glory is very appealing to me. If you're not with me, at the very least, imagine what early '70's Tin Pan Alley, or God help us, what Halmark would have done with this lyric. Cinema did right by this song-poet and her direct, deeply felt lyric. 

Download: The Real Pros - I Cried and Cried

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~~

The flip side, "To My Love", also features the warm vocals of the female singer heard above, to considerably less effect, although she still sounds like she means it. The whole thing is padded by about 45 seconds of a tremendously dull instrumental section. Also, while the lyrics are just as earnest as those on the flip, they are also considerably less interesting (to me, at least - maybe amateur lyrics of heartache are just more interesting to me amateur lyrics expressing being happily in love).

Download: The Real Pros - To My Love

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~~

And now, yet another cut-up. Please see previous posts, going back to late January, for more information as to what I'm talking about. 

I have mostly been sharing things I did with a cassette recorder and multiple inputs, back in the period 1981-85, when I was in my early to mid 20's, but today, I have a cut-up I did with considerably better equipment, some twenty years later, in the mid 2000's. It's a nicely reworked version of Buzz-Buzz-Buzz, a terrific - no, absolutely essential - rock and roll record by The Hollywood Flames, from my single favorite year for popular music, 1957. If you haven't heard the song, it would help to know how it sounds before experiencing this cut-up. You can hear it here. 

There are a couple of mildly off-color words here but mostly, it's just silly. 

Download: The Hollywood Flames - Buzz-Buzz-Buzz (cut-up)

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Dick is a Real Pro

Howdy, everyone,

 

First, I wanted to thank everyone for their recent comments. I would like to point you to Darryl Bullock's suggestion that on the "Carof on the Boys" post from last month, the singer might be Rodd Keith (who did record on that label). I'm not sure I'm hearing it, but I'm not sure I'm not, either. Thanks to Stu Shea for more information about Mando Guitars, too - it seems the group chose its name completely separate from the actual instrument of that name, which didn't exist at the time.

 

I particularly want to acknowledge Sammy Reed, who has identified the release date and some other information regarding my last few posts. But even more so, I want to point to you Sammy's own site, where he has posted nearly three dozen song-poems, primarily ones from this site which were lost in the Divshare meltdown a few years ago.

 

I do intend to fix those posts - and maybe this will push me to do so (I took several down about a year ago, intending to fix them) - but in the meantime, and that may be a long meantime, you can find a bunch of them here.

 

And now, back to the countdown:

 

From 1975 comes a set of two soul-pop entries, featuring the unmistakable voice of Dick Kent. It is a song-poem truism - to use the phrase of another collector - that for those labels that did try to copy trends in pop music, they always seemed to be 2-4 years behind those trends. So it is with this record, both sides of which feature musical sounds which strike me as being very 1971-72 in nature.

"Springtime Blues" is pressed a little bit off center, giving it a minutely wobbly effect, a fun feature for a song which literally mentions singing out of tune. The song-poet did not provide anywhere near enough lyrics for a 150 second single, so we are treated to a lengthy band instrumental (over 50 of those seconds), featuring electric piano and (buried) wailing guitar, and then a repeat of the first verse!

Download: The Real Pros - Springtime Blues
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On the flipside is another midtempo shuffle, one which even more strongly sounds like 1971 to me, especially in the drumming and piano playing. This side is generally put together better than "Springtime Blues", and the lyrics certainly have more meat. If it wasn't for the ultra-cheesy synths, I could absolutely believe someone could find this record, and believe it was a failed attempt to make a hit record in the early '70's. Not a very good one, but it does have that sound, which is not really something I find myself saying, all that often.

Download: The Real Pros - Don't You Know I Love You
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Northeast of HELL!

First, I want to send a message to David S, who wrote to me recently about a Fable record I'd posted. He indicated that he wanted to share more information, but in e-mail. I'd rather not post my e-mail here, because I've found that leads to massive amounts of spam, but if you go to this post from a project I was involved in, in 2003, you'll find my e-mail address there, at the end.

(Also, thanks to Dan for a recent comment containing a strange sidelight to the Tin Pan Alley story!)

~~

Every now and then, I find a song-poem listing - in recent years, usually on eBay, but in many places, over the years - which has a title that I just can't refuse (providing the price is right). The sort of title that draws me in even if the performer or label or era is one that I don't normally collect. Such would be the case with a 1976 Real Pros single on Cinema. The chances that a record from that troupe (whoever was singing), in that time period, would appeal to me are roughly one in fifty. Maybe less.

But then came "Northeast of Hell". I decided I really wanted to hear a song-poem called "Northeast of Hell", and the price came down just enough to make it a worthy risk.

So here it is, and in this case, The Real Pros are fronted by Dick Kent. And I will not make the argument that it's a world wide winner - for one thing, it has the typical, soulless, going through the motions band sound of 90% of the song poems I've heard from after about 1974 (from this and every other label), with that awful early synthesizer sound, to boot.

But it does have a remarkable lyric - a plaintive cry of a lyric from a soldier who is deeply regretting having joined the U.S. army, due mostly to where Uncle Sam has decided to have him live. He is so disillusioned he even advises others to.... well, I'll let you hear for yourself, but it is a truly startling line.

Download: The Real Pros - Northeast of Hell
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If there's a pleasure to be found in the flip side, "My Last Care", it's escaping me. Perhaps those of you who enjoy the style of music being aped here will like it more than I do. Dick Kent injects some feel into the lyrics, I guess, but I have no use for this sound whatsoever.

Download: The Real Pros - My Last Care
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Kitchen Table Boogie

Howdy, everyone!

Well, problems getting Opendrive to accept my uploads, and some truly busy job and home requirements have  left me nearly a week behind. Hopefully, today's offering makes up for the delay.

As I've documented several times, Prior to mid-1972, the Cinema label's releases (always labeled as having been performed by "The Real Pros") usually featured a  one-man-band operation, and then, during 1972, the label slowly transitioned over to the MSR gang (which would soon take over the label's product almost entirely).  And I've also probably made it clear that my tastes run to the former over the latter by a wide margin. So it is that I have another one of those early Cinema releases today, albeit one with a significant difference from the others I've shared.

On the side of the record featuring the remarkable and ridiculous "Kitchen Table Boogie", we have the early Cinema label vocalist I've come to know and love, and he's got a doozy for us. Here we have another lyricist who seemingly grabbed any word that rhymed with the end of the previous line, then created a line that could end with that rhyming word. Man, Combine that with a wah-wah styled keyboard setting, a swinging beat, and some wild soloing at the end, and it's a complete packing. In Fact, That's Country Style!

Download: The Real Pros - Kitchen Table Boogie
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The difference comes up with the rather bland flip side, a song with the clunky title "Wondering Memories". Here we still have the same home-organ console, played very likely by the same person who is on most or all of the other Real Pros records from this period. But the singer in this case is a woman, a vocalist I don't recognize, and who does not have much vocal personality (or talent). Perhaps I've heard others from this label/era with this or another female vocalist (perhaps I've even shared one), but if so, I don't remember it. The song is very forgettable, the only thing that stands out me being this exceptionally poorly written couplet: "More Heartbreak Could Be Fatal / Especially For Me".

Download: The Real Pros - Wondering Memories
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Otherworldly Sounds

Okay, this one is weird on several levels. As I've documented here (in posts which are, unfortunately, not currently able to play sound), the Cinema label and it's generic band "The Real Pros", started off as what appears to have been a one man band with one of those early '70's living room organs which would play the rhythm and chords for you, while you soloed (whoever this person was, he made some of my all time favorite song-poems - thanks, dude!).

Then, early in the label's existence, they transitioned over to the crew that were also making records for MSR - Rodd Keith, Dick Kent, Bobbi Blake, etc. The first of these records appear perhaps halfway through the 1972 run of records (Cinema's record numbers indicate the year they were made). Some feature the one man band on one side and the MSR crew on the other.

This one falls within that time period, but I have no idea who is singing - perhaps someone out there does. That's one element of the weirdness. The much bigger element is the sound of the thing.

The first song, "The Daydream of a Girl", is fairly straightforward, with lyrics full of pain, not unlike a hundred others, although they are, to my ears, a bit more effective than a lot of "you hurt me" song-poems. But what's with this arrangement? The guitar starts us off, but the track is dominated by a wah-wah'd organ - probably the same one the one man band used, based on the other settings used for coloring of the piece. But I find the whole thing has just a strange feel.

Download: The Real Pros: The Daydream of a Girl
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But "Daydream" is downright mainstream compared to its flip side. "Lonesome Sad and Blue", features more of that wah-wah organ, a badly strummed guitar and otherworldly production. I picture this being recorded in a cave, a mile from anyone other living souls. It has an acutely lonely sound, and this is one of those sessions I would LOVE to have been at. It's creepy and amazing at the same time.

That said, the performance is half-assed on virtually everyone's part (sort of like if those on "The Basement Tapes" were just learning to play their instruments and to sing), and the lyrics are painfully direct and tell a sad story with little style. With all of that said, the melody and chord changes resonate with me. And I think that's because a significant parts of the melody are lifted almost directly from "Spanish is the Loving Tongue", at least in the tune sung in my favorite version, by Ronnie Gilbert, which you can hear here.

Download: The Real Pros: Lonesome Sad and Blue
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Real Pros Bonanza

Before offering up today's super-deluxe posting, I need to offer a giant thank you and an acknowledgement.

First off, thanks go to a man named George Galvas, who wrote me out of the blue last year to offer me this record essentially free, only suggesting that I post it if I felt it lived up to his billing, which it most certainly does. Thanks, George - I can only apologize for the more than half-a-year it took for me to post the record, which has nothing to do with the quality of the material, which is, in a couple of cases, just amazing.

Then, in the meantime, between getting the offer from George and actually receiving the record, something else happened, which is that the fine folks at Roaratorio Records released their newest Rodd Keith collection, which not only includes the song that George thought made this record so special (I would argue that there are actually two special cuts here), but actually made that track - Black Phoenix Blues - the title track of that compilation, which can be found here and elsewhere. Quite a weird coincidence! (NOTE: See correction regarding this track, below.) Take a trip over to Roaratoria and look around - they have some interesting things to offer.

So I called this a bonanza, and it certainly is - SIX song poems on one 45. You probably know that, after a brief period releasing records by a one-man-band, Cinema turned the "Real Pros" name over to the same group of freelance musicians that were appearing on all the larger name song-poem outfits in the Los Angeles of the day.

And so we find the first two songs, both rather pedestrian to my ears, sung by a vocalist I'm pretty sure is Bobbi Blake. First up is "The Dancer". While the line "fall in love and your heart gets bent" shows some promise, much of the lyric is just not that musical: you know that the singer and the producers have thrown in the towel when they have the singer start talking the lyrics half-way through, as happens here:

Download: The Real Pros - The Dancer
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The same singer returns for track two, a number called "Liberated Woman", an uninspired lyrical put down of one of the many women who would have fit that description in 1973 (and since):

Download: The Real Pros - Liberated Woman
Play:

The real (pro) fun, for me, begins with track three, "Lady Lady", with its repeated references to the title lady being "dressed in plastic" and how she has a "plastic mind", all set to an oh-so-sensitive backing and with vocal stylings to match. This one really grabs me - it's pleasingly ridiculous. But speaking of the vocals, this singer is on three of the four remaining tracks. I'm assuming that the folks at Roaratoria believe this to be Rodd Keith.

Maybe my ol' song-poem ears are playing tricks on me, but I can't tell WHO this is - some of the inflections sound like a thicker-throated Dick Kent, other lines have the timbre and phrasing of Gene Marshall, and at moments, I could believe this is Rodd Keith. But in general, the singer doesn't sound like ANY of them to me - Gene Marshall is the closest, to my ears. What say y'all?

Download: The Real Pros - Lady Lady
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Moving on to side two, we're back to Bobbi Blake, with another song which is no match for her abilities, the stilted, obvious lyrics of "Come Back". The only thing that catches my ear here is the poorly chosen line "we built our love on concrete blocks...". I'm sorry, but when I think of concrete blocks, I think of a broken down car outside of someone's garage propped up by blocks (I probably got this from Archie comics) - this is certainly not the image the writer was going for.

Download: The Real Pros - Come Back 
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For the fifth track, we're back to the Gene Marshall-esque singer from track three, heard here singing the requisite "you done me wrong" songs which certainly seem to crop up at least once among any random sampling of six song-poems. In this case, it has the prosaic title "Girl, You Hurt Me So". This is about as stereotypical in lyric and sound as a song-poem can get.

Download: The Real Pros - Girl You Hurt Me So
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None of the above will have effectively prepared you for the final track, "Black Phoenix Blues". Here we have the same singer as the previous track - and please, feel free to tell me who you think this is - in a nightclubby blues sort of setting, singing words that I'll not quote - you should be allowed to experience them for yourself. I would love to know what this lyricist was rambling about.

UPDATE: I had not yet heard the Roarotorio release when I posted this item. As it turns out, The Real Pros recorded this song twice. This is NOT the version on the Roarotorio album, nor is anyone at that label claiming this is Rodd Keith. My error. 

Here it goes!:

Download: The Real Pros - Black Phoenix Blues
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A Real Pro in Napoli

Our trip to locations around the world continues today with a delightful trip to Italy with our one-man-band friend who for a time was known as "The Real Pros". I've no doubt that, when this conglomeration is mentioned, most song-poem collectors think of the glory days of the MSR crew, who, on their days off from MSR, took over the anonymous role of Cinema's "Real Pros" by about 1973.

But as I've said before, I'm much partial to the nameless man who's work is featured on the earliest Cinema sides. He sounds a bit like Gene Marshall at times (and, as friends have noted, he sometimes sounds like your humble blogger my own self), and he's usually accompanied solely by one of those all-in-one keyboards which were so common 40 years ago (although not, as you'll hear, on this record, where there is a guitarist present).

This record also has the distinction of having the lowest label number of any Cinema release yet documented, even lower than this truly atrocious release.

All that is sort of besides the point, but I guess I like to type. The real news is that this record, "Fun in Napoli", is a truly enjoyable little ditty, with corny but good natured lyrics, sung in a stereotypical accent which might be obnoxious, were the entire enterprise not so fun and lighthearted. With Lou Monte, I tend to find this sort of thing unlistenable, but the lo-fi and low-tech nature of this record makes it irresistible to me.

Download: The Real Pros - Fun in Napoli
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The flip side of this record is called "The Magic of a Song", and while I can heartily agree that there is magic in many, many songs, including the one I just featured before this paragraph, I find none of that magic, or even interest, in this record, behind a minor bit of enjoyment in some of the guitar playing. Ah, well - it's probably asking too much to routinely find two songs to enjoy on one song-poem record.

Actually, one of the more interesting things about this record is the production credit, a rarity in itself on a song-poem record, but especially here, in that each side lists "the author" as a co-producer. A similar credit appears on that other early Cinema release I linked, above. That seems unlikely to begin with, but since the two songs were written by two different song-poets, it seems virtually impossible. I'm also intrigued by the credit to "Action Music" publishers, and wonder if that doesn't indicate a previously unknown link to the Fable/Film City family of labels, which had a subsidiary called "Action Records".

All of that speculation interests me considerably more than does "The Magic of a Song", but here it is, anyway:


Download: The Real Pros - The Magic of a Song
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That's Her Kissy Face - In Prison

Continuing last week's feature of songs sent to me from a long-time song-poem pal, I've got two songs from a Cinema release, featuring of course The Real Pros. As with last week's feature, because I'm getting these from outside of my collection, I don't have label scans.

The two songs contained on this record could hardly be more different. On the A-side, we've got a light-as-a-feather pop confection called "That's Her Kissy Face", featuring the unusual pairing of acoustic guitar and cheapo synth, over which the singer - who I think is Bobbi Blake - sings a wonderful sweet lyric about a mother's love for her young daughter. Despite the ridiculously low production values, it's a keeper!

Download: The Real Pros - That's Her Kissy Face
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On the flip side, we have Gene Marshall, emoting all over something called "Prison Blues", something of tone poem (a tone-song-poem?), with absolutely no beat or rhythm. Over outtakes from the Deep Purple/Iron Butterfly song-intro file, Gene does a first rate job of offering up the feeling behind the songwriter's words of woe. It's a fairly singular sound and performance from within the song-poem world, actually. Have a listen:

Download: The Real Pros - Prison Blues
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A big thank you to Michael, from me and all the readers and listeners!

AND an addendum, all these years later - it appears I was wrong about both singers here. I'm not convinced that it is not Bobbi Blake on the first cut and it is not Gene Marshall on the flip. I don't know the female singer, and the male singer is the same one who was on most of the earliest Cinema releases. 

Run That By Me Again???

Before beginning today's post, I wanted to share that I have offered up (at WFMU), an essay I wrote some time ago that I'm very pleased with, about some of the reasons behind my collecting passion. Those interested can find it here.

Today, let's hear it for The Real Pros, that anonymous gathering of song-poem professionals pulled from whoever happened to be available for the sessions that week. And this week's feature actually pairs up two very different sides of the "group". On the A-side, we have that earliest of Cinema/Real Pros sound, the one-man-band with the home studio, play-it-yourself rhythm and chord organ, on a number called "Roses of Love".

The lyrics here strike me as staggeringly unmusical and stupifyingly non-sensensical at times. Is there a way to fit "If I'm only a poet, every poem I compose will be from your name" into a melody, ANY melody, and make it work? Also notice that the statements are "if I'm only a king" and "if I'm only a poet", and not "if I was...", which would be the correct opening, given that the writer is contrasting these things with what he is, which is, wait for it "only me".

And here's where it really falls apart for me, because being 'only him', he is telling his love that the only thing he can offer is something free, which he then identifies as.... Roses? I've bought Roses - I even once worked in a flower store. And I know this: Roses aren't free. And I haven't even gotten to the moment when the singer - who sort of reminds me of Dick Kent, although that's not who it is - starts talking, something that's usually the sign of lyrics that were too clunky to fit to music at all.

Download: The Real Pros - Roses of Love
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Curiously, the flip side, "Broken Hearted" clearly features a different song-poem factory sound, that of the Preview label, specifically the Preview of Rodd Keith. This is a VERY late-era Rodd offering, dated 1973, and as my friend Stu has pointed out, it seems likely that Rodd took some of his Preview backing tracks with him, as he would certainly have been at MSR by this point.

This is Rodd in his C and W guise, with the hick edge to his voice, and certainly the better of the two songs and performances.

Download: The Real Pros - Broken Hearted
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Uncatchy Song Title Day

Time is short this week, but as always, I have at least enough of it to offer up two more slices of song-poemery. Today we have two songs featuring clunky, wordy titles, of a type unlikely to catch on with anyone. This 1974 release is on Cinema, which means that the credited artist is The Real Pros, which in this case means the same old anonymous backing band, fronted by two stalwarts of the field. First up, Bobbi Blake singing the "Let's Shake Hands With Our Neighbors":

Download: The Real Pros - Let's Shake Hands With Our Neighbors

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The flip side has Dick Kent taking over lead vocal duties, on a charming number whose title also could definitely have used some editing, "In the Deepest Depths of Lonesome":

Download: The Real Pros - In the Deepest Depths of Lonesome

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How Are You Defining "Success"?

Here's another one of those very early period Cinema singles, from the period in which house band "The Real Pros" was nothing but one guy with one of those cheap home-model rhythm-chord keyboards. The featured song is "If At First I Don't Succeed", and calls into question for me what the songwriter (and performer) considered "success". Certainly they failed at creating a catchy song or performance. But on the other hand, maybe the intent was to set succeed in setting a record for the number of cliches shoved into one song poem lyric. By the end of the first verse and chorus, we've had "climb the highest mountain" "swim the sea" "prove my love", "give it one more try" and "do or die" as well as the title phrase, and several more follow. See how many you can count!

Download: The Real Pros - If At First I Don't Succeed
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And here's something keen that I never noticed, but which is true of ALL of these earliest Cinema records. The songwriters not only get the standard songwriting credit (despite usually having had nothing to do with the music part of the song, they typically were the only person listed as the writer), but on these records, each of the writers also get a CO-PRODUCER credit. Click on the link for all of the Cinema postings, and see what I mean. Once they got out of their one-man-band period, they seem to have stopped doing this, but what a weird feature!

The flip side "Dancing in the Wine" is yet another one of those "I let you slip away and now I'm at your wedding, watching you with him" songs that I'm sure we've all had quite enough of.

Download: The Real Pros - Dancing in the Wine
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A Real Pro

While every record I've ever seen on the Cinema label features a generic group called "The Real Pros", most of these records actually feature the usual suspects from the Los Angeles song-poem world - Rodd Keith, Dick Kent, Bobbi Blake and the rest. Actual, REAL pros. But it's the earliest Cinema releases that fascinate me. While containing that same group name, these actually feature what appears to be a one-man-band, or at least a single keyboardist and a singer. The keyboard is one of those ubiquitous early '70's models that the family down the street always had in their living room. They had pre-programmed drum tracks, and if you pushed down a couple of keys at the left end, you had a chord background for your song. More talented pianists could actually use the drumbeats and play an entire left-and-right handed song. For a moment, anyway, these keyboards seem to have been acceptable for use on major label record releases - at least if the sparkling review that Billboard gave to Robin Gibb's embarrassingly amateur first album (which has this sort of keyboard all over it), in 1970, can be believed. I've even noted what I believe to be one of these keyboards on a Leonard Cohen album or two. Whoever played on these early Cinema releases knew how to get the most out of the limited machinery, as evidenced by the uniquely weird "Deep Freeze Mama", and the downright wonderful "I'm Having My First Heartbreak". But my real question is: who was the singer on these records? It appears to be the same guy on all of them, or at least a few guys with the same vocal qualities. I don't think I've ever heard it on any other label's song poems. Despite his sort of loungy qualities, I tend to enjoy this singer. All that is a long set up to yet another Astronaut record, "Handful of Moon Dust", one whose lyrics are unusual in that they are from the point of view of a homesick Astronaut, who is glad to be back on Mother Earth. 

Download: The Real Pros - Handful of Moon Dust

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The opening to the flip side "Until You Change Your Ways" sounds particularly like a few tracks on that Robin Gibb record I referenced. I don't have much more to say about this offering, aside from noting that both of these sides bear a production credit to "Quimby, Jr.", which I don't think I've noticed on Cinema records before, although I now see that it's on at least a few other early records from the label. Does this mean that the label was initially linked to the legendary Tropical label, run by Robert Quimby? There's nothing on the song-poem website to suggest this, but still, ooh, it makes me wonder.... 

Download: The Real Pros: Until You Change Your Ways

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In Elvis' Memory

Another "Elvis Week" in Memphis (marking the anniversary of his death) is upon us, and what better way to pay tribute than with a Song-Poem. And like the last Elvis tribute record shared here (early last year), this one is by those Cinema Record stalwarts, The Real Pros. The title of this record "The Memory of Elvis Presley", seems to me to indicate that Elvis had a heretofore unmentioned talent for remembering things, and the first line of the song "Elvis did so much to help the poor", is unproven, as far as I know, and pretty much leaves me baffled. And that last rhyme, as the song is fading out, has to be heard to be believed. Try it out for a spin! 

Download: The Real Pros - The Memory of Elvis Presley

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About that B-Side, “We Got the Blues”... Well, I find it pretty much unlistenable. Oh, and if you’re going to make a song with “Blues” in the title, it would nice to set it to a musical style that at least has some semblance of the blues, rather than a generic, badly recorded dance track with a predictable major/minor progression, and a solo section that doesn't really bother to include a solo. However, your mileage may vary:

Download: The Real Pros - We Got the Blues

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Ultra Creepy

Today's record is another winner by The Real Pros, that catchall name that was used to capture whoever happened to be recording for Cinema records that day. And okay, it's true that I have an idea of what the songwriter here was going for - probably some sort of young-adult sexy joke on the concept of "baby sitting", directed at a similarly aged comely young woman. On my hearing, though, that's not how it comes off. Not at all, particularly when the lyric makes sure to mention getting the mother of the object of his affection out of the house so that he can baby sit. Add Dick Kent, singing at his absolutely most unctuous (which is saying something - he's second only to Ralph Lowe in that dubious quality), and the result is truly icky. Perhaps you'll disagree. Have a listen!: 

Download: The Real Pros - Baby Sitter

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The flip side, "Great Riches", has very little to distinguish itself, at least to me. I admit (as I have in the past) to being much less of an expert on the female singers of the LA song-poem world than I am on many other aspects of the song-poem field, but I think this is Bobbi Blake - I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong.

Download: The Real Pros - Great Riches

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Woe Is He

I was surprised to find that it has been just about exactly a year since I featured that most inaccurately named of song-poem groups, "The Real Pros", or their home label, Cinema. Today's offering comes from my favorite era for the group and label - their earliest releases, most of which feature what appears to be a one man band, playing one of those cheesy 1970's home keyboard/organ things that had preprogrammed beats and accompaniments. A few of my all time favorite song-poems come from this fairly tiny subset of records, and while today's offering doesn't reach the heights of "I'm Having My First Heartbreak" or "Deep Freeze Mama", it has some of the same qualities that make both of those records so special. The better of the two, I think, is the song identified as the B-side, "Woe-Men", with it's mechanical swinging keyboard beat, heartfelt vocal, and fairly non-musical lyrical choices. Plus there's the way the way he sings "Divorce!". Oh, and the whole misbegotten concept on which the lyrics are built, of course... 

Download: The Real Pros - Woe-Men

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The flip side, "What Good is the Moon?", has an equally artificial beat - a samba this time - and a more standard (and therefore less unusual/interesting) set of lyrics. The singer on these songs is the same person who sings on those much beloved records I mentioned earlier, and while he sometimes sounds like Gene Marshall, I don't think that's who this is, and I'm not sure I've ever heard this singer on any other (non Real Pros) song-poem records. What do you think?

Download: The Real Pros - What Good is the Moon?

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Ole Dirty Face

Who among the song-poem faithful could resist taking the chance to hear a song-poem called "Here Comes Ole Dirty Face"? Not me! And so I won the record at an eBay auction, and gave it a spin not long after. Although such dedication often ends in a letdown - more song-poems are dull at best, even those with promising titles - I think this one was worth it. This is hardly a new subject for a song, but the use of "Ole Dirty Face" as the name of the lead character is a more creative move by the lyricist than you'd find in most song-poems. As with all Cinema records, this one is credited to "The Real Pros", and in this case, I'm certain it's Dick Kent on the vocal. I don't exactly believe Mr. Kent singing this, but he's very rarely my choice to sing anything, but maybe you, the listener, will enjoy his performance more. 

Download: The Real Pros - Here Comes Ole Dirty Face

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The flip side, "A Smouldering Fire", is more of the standard issue song-poem for the era. This fits Dick Kent's style much better than the A-side, in my opinion, but it ends with one of those maddening spoken word things that are so common to song-poems. It's also interesting to note that this record is in such complete stereo, with a great deal of separation between what's going on, on each side of the mix. That's not exactly standard practice for most song-poem records.

Download: The Real Pros - A Smouldering Fire

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Ecch....

It's not my intent to make this into a parade of terrible records, but on the other hand, I've come into contact with such a glut of them lately, among which have been records so spectacularly bad that I can't hold back! And it's not hyperbole to say that today's feature may well be the worst song poem record I've ever heard. At this moment, I can't think of one which is more misbegotten in lyrical construct, musical arrangement or vocal performance. It's called "I Went A-Runnin'", by the Real Pros (on, of course, the Cinema label). This is a unique Cinema record within my collection, with a different style label than I've ever seen, and the lowest number in sequence (lower than anything listed at ASPMA). This is clearly a one man band ("The Real Pro"?), and perhaps the same performer heard on the classic "Deep Freeze Mama" from the same era. But oh what a difference a lyricist and arrangement makes. A repetitive keyboard figure leads to an equally repetitive melody, and some truly mindnumbing lyrics, performed by someone who appears to have no interest in either the song or his own performance of it. Have a listen for yourself:

Download: The Real Pros - I Went A-Runnin'

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The flip side, "Our Flag", if anything, features an even less competent performance. Some may actually consider this to be the worst of the two songs, and I think that argument can be made, but "Runnin'" gets my nod. The sound quality here is also marred by a fairly beaten up 45 (which I've tried to make listenable), meaning that someone either actually played this one a lot, or deliberately scratched the hell out of it.

Download: The Real Pros - Our Flag

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