Norridge Mayhams - The Story Continues!

I have just a couple of near-absolutes here, in putting this site together. But one of those few is that ANY new and previously unshared records connected to Norridge Mayhams (aka Norris the Troubadour) will be shared immediately upon my obtaining of them. 

In this case, that means that today's record is not exactly a song-poem, but it is connected to that world due to the fact that Mayhams used the song-poem companies so often. But not, it would appear, in this case. But still, I like to think of my site as, among many other things, a one-stop-shopping spot for anyone who falls under the sway of the great - if spectacularly weird - Norridge Mayhams. 

In this case, this record, released on his own mouthful of a label, Co-Ed Sorority Fraternity Record Co, and credited to the equally lengthy billing of "Newcomb-Rayner Cannonballers (Eddie-Bill-Mac)", features a song called "Jeanie". Mayhams very likely hoped that inserting the names of then-current country and western hitmakers (along with that of the multi-genre hit machine known as Elvis Presley) might garner some interest, so he loaded up his lyric with references to more than a half dozen of them.

My thought upon hearing this record was "that's got to be from 1956", given the artists mentioned. And whattaya know, Billboard actually reviewed this record, on June 2, 1956. You can see that review here, on page 42. 

Download: Newcomb-Rayner Cannonballers (Eddie-Bill-Mac) - Jeanie

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Interestingly, just about two years later, in June of 1958, Cash Box magazine reported that the song was "clicking on the collegiate group circu't (sic)", as seen below: 

Norris B. Mayhams, Prexy & Gen. Mgr. of Co-Ed 
Records infos that the Newcomb-Rayner Cannonball- 
ers, Buddy Rayner, Jerry Newcomb, Eddie Seabody 
and Charlie & Sonny, are currently clicking on the 
collegiate group circu’t with their latest waxing of 
“Run Away Heart” and “Jeannie”, and that they’re 
starting out on a series of engagements, this month, 
made possible thru the Intercollegiate Broadcasting 
System airing of their disks. 

And two years after that, a web search finds that Cash Box again reported on the group, in a May 21st issue. I've been unable to find the actual text in that issue, but maybe someone out there wants to spend more time on it than I did. The issue can be found here. The Google search provided this partial segment of the story: Newcomb-Rayner Cannonballers, Co-Ed recording group, have changed their name to the Collegiate Cannonballers. According to Co-Ed prexy N. B. May-

And that's it. 

For the flip side, we have "Run Away Heart". Billboard, in the review linked above, was even more dismissive of this performance than of its flip, but Mayhams believed in the song, or at the very least had a soft spot for it, as he released it at least seven times during his lifetime, although some of those - including the 1961 release on the Mayhams label - credited to Georgie's C & W Collegians, and also featuring a flip side of "Jeanie" - were probably duplicate versions. 

Perhaps just reading all of this insanity helps explain why I love the Norridge Mayhams story so much. 

Anyway, this may well be the first version of a song that clearly was close to Norris the Troubadour's heart. Here it is: 

Download: Newcomb-Rayner Cannonballers (Eddie-Bill-Mac) - Run Away Heart

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More cut-ups in the near future!

They've Got English Beatle-Itis!!!

Well, what a fascinating little disc I've come across in my collection today. It's one of the earliest releases on the Film City label, and is credited to the otherwise undocumented duo of Pat and Patty. Patty is almost certainly Patty Stanton, a relative of Fable and Film City owner Sandy Stanton, and who turns up on about a half-dozen known releases on the two labels. Is Pat just Patty, overdubbing herself, or is she someone else? 

Regardless, and although it's not given away at all by the rather bland titled, "Young Hearts Can Cry", this track is actually all about the way young women of that day felt about The Beatles. Or at least I think it is. I have listened to this thing five times, and I can't quite make out the basic idea? It seems like maybe they're asking the Beatles to go away - that young women are unhappy in ways they didn't used to be, since the unattainable Beatles showed up. If so, it's sort of the female version of one of my two favorite song-poems ever, "The Beatle Boys" (also on Film City), in which a young man complains that all the girls want to do these days is pine over the Beatles. 

But maybe I have that wrong. I'd love to hear what others thing this sort of contrived lyric is going for. And while I'm not saying that this is the equal to "The Beatle Boys" (precious few records are), but it's a pretty fascinating little song and performance in its own right, with a weirdly meandering melody and those dang lyrics. Have a listen! 

Download: Pat and Patty - Young Hearts Can Cry

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The other side of this disc has actually been on YouTube for a few years now, but it's only been viewed twenty-some times, and bizarrely, with "Young Heart Can Cry" available, the poster only chose to feature the flip side, "Blue Heart". 

This is a deep dive into the song-poem world, but the melody that the folks at Film City chose for this song reminds me of nothing so much as the repetitive and sing-songy tunes favored by William Howard Arpaia. I haven't posted enough of his stuff here to indicate what I'm talking about (and there's a reason for that - it's bottom of the barrel stuff without being entertainingly bad), but if you listen to the piano playing the melody while Arpaia himself talks himself into a lather on this track, you might hear what I'm talking about. 

Download: Pat and Patty - Blue Heart

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And now, back to cut-ups. Not long ago at all, my best pal Stu suggested that I really needed to do something with the record "Popcorn and a Coke Please", by Acoustifone, which I posted to WFMU's blog ages ago. It is a record meant to go along with a filmstrip, the purpose of which was to assist some population of young people with spelling. You can hear the whole thing, here, and I encourage you to listen to at least part of it to get a sense of what I was working with, when I chopped it up. 

For my re-imagining, which I did while I had some unexpected time off this past spring, I ended up doing two fairly distinct segments. In the first part, I simply created silliness, and at times gibberish, out of the various things the narrator said. Then, at the 1:25 point, I took it in a more, um, carnal direction, where it stays for the last 70 seconds. 

Download: "Coke-Corn" (cut-up)

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Rodd Sings Again

Ah, yes, Beatlefest weekend! First time in three years. I will, as a result, be brief. 

But first, I want to thank friend-of-the-site and massive Rodd Keith-head Roaratorio for stopping by and catching up on several posts, leaving interesting comments on about nine of them, chiming in on a few questions, casting doubt on a few tracks I identified as being by Rodd Keith, and even passing along the lucky find, a few years ago, of that Halmark album I posted, for a buck. I'm not going to copy/paste nine comments here, but I appreciate the comments, thoughts and input!

And reviewing those commented-upon posts, I did find that I made a statement, a few months ago, to make a concerted effort to post the remaining Rodd Keith records from my collection, and that, after doing so a few times, I sort of... stopped again. So here is another one which does not previously appear to have been shared anywhere: 

"Evening Shadows" is no great shakes, I suppose. You might even call it Rodd on autopilot, but it's certainly a pleasant enough mid-tempo number. Rodd offers a just-this-side-of-unctuous vocal which is probably what the material called for. 

Oh, and at the one minute mark, I'm I the only one who hears "we've been farted" instead of "we've been parted"? 

Download: Rodd Keith - Evening Shadows

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Oddly enough, the flip side of this record contains a backing track that was also featured on the last Rodd Keith record that I shared, albeit without the sax part which is prominent on that version of the track. One thing I really like here - and enjoy any time I hear it on any record - is the sharp intake of breath before the music starts. Here's "We Kissed Goodbye":

Download: Rodd Keith - We Kissed Goodbye

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Cut-ups will return soon!
 

Phil Is a Beat Off

I have a lovely treat for all of you today. Well, at least, it's a treat for me. It looks like this: 

As frequent readers of this site know, I love Calypso - whether the authentic model from the 1930's in Trinidad or the Americanized version from the mid-1950's - more than just about any genre of music that's ever existed. And Tin Pan Alley was active right in the middle of the Calypso boom of 1956-58. And as one of the few labels who actively sought to make their releases sound like the current trends, TPA released several calypso flavored singles during that time period. 

That includes today's 1957 model, which not only lifts the Calypso feel, but also makes reference to one of the biggest hits of the previous year, "Blue Suede Shoes". The track is "Off Beat Blues", and it features frequent label warbler Phil Celia doing his best (or perhaps worst) Caribbean accent. Please note that the lyricist for this number - I think it's Francis M. Kadolph - inscribed this copy with a signature and gave it to someone named Jack. I hope Jack enjoyed it as much as I do, as I think it's is wholly wonderful. 

Download: Phil Celia - Off Beat Blues. 

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The flip side is no slouch, either. In this case, Phil is joined by The Silver Tones, who only turn up on one other documented TPA release (and who are not to be confused with The Silva-Tones). The Silver Tones, presumably, are the chirpy singers who back Phil up here, and who clearly only knew how to sing one wordless phrase. The other TPA release featuring the Silver Tones - titled "Keep On Smiling! Pay Your Taxes!" can be heard here, and as you'll hear, they sing nearly the exact same part on that record! In this case, the guitarist and the pianist play the same chirpy pattern, when the girls aren't singing. Anyway, this is a fun side, as well, even though Phil sometimes seems to be imitating Paul Anka here, something that no one, should ever, ever do. . 

Download: Phil Celia and the Silver Tones - Too Late! 

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 Okay, today, I also have what I think is the last of the mash-ups I made in 2005 - at least the last one which will make sense to those of you out there (I also made a few using parts of Star Ads on top of each other, and using other private recordings that I own). 

Anyway, this one was pretty easy. I just took the entirity of The Beatles' "Wild Honey Pie" (well, it's actually Paul McCartney by himself), and added a looping of the drum intro from Adam Ant's "Goody Good Shoes", and labeled it "Two Shoe Pie". 

I'm not claiming any greatness or even anything special for this one, but as long as I was digging into the mash-ups, I thought I'd share what I had left. 

Download: The Beatles and Adam Ant - Two Shoe Pie (mash-up)

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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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Scotty or Sandy?

Today, I'm going to take a bit of a deep dive into one corner of the song-poem world, the world of Sandy Stanton's Fable & Film City career. This might be a bit "in the weeds" for the casual listener, but I'm going to try and be brief and hopefully you'll find this interesting. The record in question looks like this: 

As many of you probably know, Sandy Stanton owned both the Fable and Film City labels, largely having wound down Fable around the time that Film City started up, although he released at least a handful of Fable records many years after the last year of bulk releases. And if you know that, you'll know that Sandy Stanton recorded under his own name from time to time, primarily during the Fable years, but also at a handful of times on Film City. 

Which brings me to this record, "As Long As I Have You" by Scotty (Sandy) Scott and the Rockin' Country Band. My first thought here was that Sandy Stanton decided, for whatever reason, to appear on his label under an assumed name. You can listen to Sandy sing here, here and here or simply click on the link for posts labeled "Sandy Stanton", and then listen to this song. 

Download: Scotty (Sandy) Scott and the Rockin' Country Band - As Long As I Have You

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It's also worth noting that, while Stanton used full bands on his Fable releases, and relied on the limited, but fascinatingly sounded Chamberlin on his Film City tracks, for this one, he seems to have dumbed things down quite a bit, and I believe he's using one of those early basic home synthesizers, of the sort that Leonard Cohen sometimes used (to his detriment, in my opinion) and the use of which always remind me of this song by Robin Gibb.  

Okay, so maybe you're with me now, and agree that Scotty (Sandy) Scott is Sandy Stanton. Or maybe you don't agree. But the thing is, I suddenly remembered that I have another record by Scotty Scott, a completely ridiculous and terrifically entertainingly awful vanity record on Film City. I posted it to WFMU seven years ago. 

As you'll see, there's no "Sandy" mentioned, and Scotty Scott is listed as the co-writer on both sides. And if you listen, I think you'll agree it could be the same singer, yet again, or this record and the one on WFMU could be one and the same, and the voice on Sandy Stanton's records could be a different one. Or Scotty Scott could be one singer, and Scotty (Sandy) Scott another. The writing credit under the name Scott really throws me off - did Sandy Stanton co-write those two awful songs under an assumed name and then sing them under that name?  

In brief - were Scotty Scott and Sandy Stanton the same person? If so, why use the other name, and why give a hint to who he was on one release and not the other. 

While you're thinking about that, here's the flip side of the record, 'You Shot Me Down". 

Download: Scotty (Sandy) Scott and the Rockin' Country Band - You Shot Me Down

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 You may have noticed that I was way overdue for a post - other responsibilities got in the way. That's the same reason that the cut-up / mash-up feature is taking the week off. 

Gold Stars and Changing Hearts

 

Today, I have a Rodd Keith record that may resonate more with me than it does for others. And that's because the backing track is nostalgic for me - the track heard here is the exact same track heard on the very first Rodd Keith record I ever found, when I started looking for song-poem records way back in 1996. That was a song titled "Where Is the One?", which, oddly, I've never actually featured here, and I'll have to rectify that. 

Anyway, this is Rodd in country-pop mode, with a bit of a twang, over that loping backing track, with "Gold Star", a bit of a story song that perhaps contains one verse too many - it's that rare song poem that lasts nearly three minutes and twenty seconds. 

Download: Rodd Keith - Gold Star

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The flip side is "The Changing Heart", and I find this record positively weird. The song itself is straightforward enough, with a backing track this is mostly notable for some really nice drum fills, as I find to be the case on Preview records of this era. 

But then, at the one minute point, and throughout the rest of the record, Rodd made a production choice what is one of his very rare misfires, as his production and arrangement was usually stellar. But in this case, he added some very ineffectual backing vocals, and more to the point, mixed them at the same volume as the lead vocal. The first time I heard the record, they seemed so ham-fisted, I thought maybe someone had turned the TV on - that's how out of place I found them. See what you think! 

Download: Rodd Keith - The Changing Heart

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And now, rather than another one of my cut-ups, I have another one of the Mash-Ups I did, while briefly feeling inspired to work in that area, back around 2005. 

In this case, I noticed a very similar rhythm that "Getting Better" from the Sgt. Pepper album, had to a big hit from the summer of 1966, and decided to put them together. I think it turned out quite nicely, and I also managed to get this one onto our local Breakfast With the Beatles program a few years later. 

Download: Better Take Me Away (mash-up)

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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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My Song & My Tears

Today, we have a song-poem singer that I've only featured once before, and in that case, only one side of a 45. Her name is Nancy Sherman. The Air label didn't have its own studio, and relied on several of the other song-poem companies for the recordings released under its label. I believe this one comes from the Globe song-poem factory, very early in the existence of both Air and Globe (this record is from 1960). 

As he did on most of the earliest Air releases (but rarely after 1960), label head Jack Curry attached his name as a songwriter on both sides of this single. 

The better of the two songs and performances, by a wide margin, is "My Song". I find this track slinky and fairly sexy, veering almost into Lee Hudson territory at a few points. I particularly enjoy an excellent, Les Paul influenced solo. Nancy Sherman is no great shakes, missing a few notes here and there and hanging onto a few others fairly shakily. But the overall effect is pretty nice. 

Download: Nancy Sherman with Orchestra - My Song

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"Tears of Fate" on the flip side, is a ballad, with lyrics which seem to be quite heartfelt and personal to the writer. However, I have listened to it four times today, and I can't make head or tail out of them. Would someone out there like to decipher the story here?  

Nothing much happens here, musically, and Nancy Sherman's performance indicates that, whatever her abilities on the mid-tempo "My Song", she was not suited for this sort of slow material at all. The pitch problems hinted at on the flip side are all over the place here, and she shows a significant lack of ability when holding longer notes. 

Download: Nancy Sherman with Orchestra - Tears of Fate

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And now, a few more cut-ups. First up, a very short one-off joke, but a very good one, I think. My friend Stu thinks this may be the funniest thing I ever did in a cut-up. 

The song is "Teenage Brain Surgeon" by Spike Jones, featuring a vocal by the incomparable Thurl Ravenscroft. It's not necessary to know the song - although I'd encourage it, as it's great - but just know that I took the first four words, and then cut out everything except the last word of the song, making a complete sentence (and statement), and, in effect, a very, very short, but complete song. 

Download: Spike Jones Featuring Thurl Ravenscroft - Teenage Brain Surgeon (cut-up)

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And here's the main dish. If you've read certain of my posts, here or on WFMU, you'll know that I revere Pete Seeger, considering him to be both the most important American musician of the 20th century (musically and politically), and the greatest singer ever recorded. 

On his 1955 album of Union songs, he sang the anthem "We Shall Not Be Moved", along with a chorus of friends, including a not-yet-famous Mary Travers. It's one of my favorites of his recordings. 

While doing cut-ups, I realized that I had a tape I could excerpt featuring a friend of mine saying the word "bowel", and that this was too great an opportunity to pass up. I also stuck in a bit from a tape where another friend read of the name of an album that was sitting on my piano, the classic comedy album, "Inside Shelley Berman", and used some other creative drops-in throughout the rest of the track. Here's the result. 

Download: Pete Seeger - We Shall Not Be Moved (cut-up)

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Hey, and both of these are G-rated! 

That Was Quite a Conversation!

(A side note right off the bat. I know this label says "Hallmark", but the company primarily used the spelling "Halmark", and to keep things easier with references and with post labels, I'm staying with "Halmark".)

Today, I'm sharing a Halmark EP (one of the relatively few that credits the man known as Bob Storm on the label), entirely because of the first song on the disc.

This song, "Our Anniversary" involves looking back at a first conversation (a "meet cute" as they say) between a now long-lasting couple. The relating of this conversation - well, the actual "lines" which are reported), is so ham-fisted and ridiculous that I laughed out loud the first time I heard a particular line from it, and I couldn't want to share it with you. 

The song lasts about three minutes, but the key section is from 0:36 to 1:27. I somehow hope this was a first person report, except that I can't fathom that the conversation related actually happened. 

Download: Bob Storm - Our Anniversary

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The rest of the disc does not meet the standard set by the opener, and I don't have much to say about them. "Pretty Little Girl" comes next, and like "Anniversary" it is based on one of the most common Halmark backing tracks. I will say that, had I come across this track on a early 1950's 78, I would have believed it was a (poor) attempt at making a hit record, which is something that I can't say about most Halmark records (or most song-poems, but particularly not most Halmark records). The melody, for one thing, holds together pretty dang well, comparatively speaking. The problem (well, one problem) is that this record probably came out some time in the mid 1970's. 

Oh, and I literally just heard in my head that this backing track might well have been created for a version of "Who's Sorry Now". Have a listen, and see what you think!

Download: Bob Storm - Pretty Little Girl

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~~

Flipping this precious disc over, we hear yet a THIRD of the most common Halmark backing tracks, this time accompanying the song "One and Only"

Download: Bob Storm - One and Only

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The EP finishes up with "My Mother's Lullaby". Here we have a slightly less frequently used backing track, one which approximately no one would associate with the word "Lullaby". This is one of those songs that uses all the letters in the song to offer words that spell out "Mother", and how they apply to mother. This is not, in my opinion, handled well by the lyricists, nor is it a song-style that suggest a "lullaby" any more than the jazzy backing track does. 

The melody chosen here puts a real strain on ol' Bob's pipes here, too, especially as he sings the words "the ease with which you show your love", a phrase which just rolls of the tongue, and which is, of course, exceptionally well suited for use in a melodic song. 

Download: Bob Storm - My Mother's Lullaby

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 And now, a couple of cut-ups. Just so you know, whether you like these, hate 'em or are somewhere in between, I think I'm getting to the end of those which are presentable. Although I have about seven 90 minute cassettes full of these things, most of them are not worth hearing all the way through. I've been trying to give you the cream of the crop. Not sure how many more from that category are left. 

Anyway, first up, I have another appetizer. What you'll hear below is me fooling around with an American Top 40 broadcast in which Duran Duran had the number one song with "The Reflex". "The Reflex" is one of only two Duran Duran songs that I really enjoy, and by far my favorite. I really love the work with edited within the track, and the wild melody of the bridge. And that's what I played with here. There are two sections, the first making fun of all that editing that's within the song, and the second, playing with the band's name: 

Download: Fooling Around with Casey Kasem and "The Reflex"

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And here's something a bit more substantial. I've already shared one cut up of Walter Brennan's "Old Rivers" - not even a month ago - but I made at least a half-dozen attempts to do something funny with that record, as a story song, particularly one which is spoken, lends itself to what I was doing about a perfectly as anything can. Plus, "Old Rivers" is a wonderful record, and it's fun to play around with records I love. So this is a different cut-up of "Old Rivers than the one I previous shared here. 

As you'll hear, near the end of this track, I made great use of a Jack Brickhouse "History of the Chicago Cubs" record. 

Oh, and this one is free of four letter words (well, unless you count "fart"), although there are still at least one phrase here which might not be safe for work. 

Download: Walter Brennan - Old Rivers
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Sammy Rocks Again!

Two Sammy Marshall songs and two cut-ups! What more could you ask for?!?!?!

It's Rockin' Sammy Time! Although Sammy Marshall's career in the song-poem world was dominated by ballads, I think he really shines on upbeat tunes, and most of the relatively few early '60's rockers he sang on I find very enjoyable. 

This one is no exception. It's called "See Watcha Do To Me", and definitely shows a twist influence, as do many of Sammy's rock-and-roll numbers. I also discern the influence of the earliest soul records on the introductory instrumental, although this doesn't last. (Billboard magazine gave this record three stars (under the heading "moderate sales potential") in November of 1962, nicely dating this release for us.)

I really dig Sammy's vocal performance here, and on similar releases. He had a deeply appealing pleading tone, which he put to excellent use in singing these lyrics, attaining that quality of sounding like he was fully experiencing the feelings of the fabulously named song-poet, Dusty Tribble (as seen here, his name was actually Fredric Tribble, and he composed the song "Hoop Tee Doopsie", which I desperately want to hear).

This is a really fun one...

Download: Sammy Marshall - See Watcha Do To Me

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(Please also note the two songs in that copyright book just after "Hoop Tee Doopsie", a double entry for something called "HOOPA LOOPA HOOPA LOOPA DOOPA". I'd pay to hear that song.)

The flip side is Sammy and the Globe band (for that is where the tracks on this Roxie release came from) in bland ballad titled "My House is Your House". Sammy offers a typically strong vocal, but there is not much here for him (or the rest of the band) to hang his hat on, just a sentimental love song, again offered up by that most Dusty of Tribbles. 

Download: Sammy Marshall - My House is Your House

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It's cut-up time again, and today I have a very brief appetizer and then a mangling of one of my favorite tracks ever. 

First, a tiny little bit of fun with the Bee Gees song "Spirits (Having Flown)", the title track of their 1979 hit album. I don't think it's necessary to know this song to enjoy the brief joke that I played with it, but I will encourage anyone who hasn't heard it to go to YouTube (or whatever) and listen, as I consider it far and away the best track they ever recorded. Gorgeous nearly beyond belief. 

Here's that 10 second cut-up. 

Download: The Bee Gees - Spirits (Having Flown) (cut-up)

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Now for the main course (see what I did there, Bee Gees fans?). The Limeliters released an album in 1962, containing a concert that they did with a chorus of junior high kids, titled "Through Children's Eyes". I consider it to be one of the three best albums ever made, by anyone. My favorite track from the album - and, in fact, one of my half-dozen favorite individual tracks ever, is on that album, a version of Malvina Reynolds' "Morningtown Ride". The simple chorus of that song may be my favorite melody ever written. Nearly 60 years since I first heard it as a preschooler, the track still usually makes me a bit teary. 

Anyway, it was only a matter of time before I chopped that recording up. You should really hear this song, anyway, but it probably is also helpful to hear it before listening to the cut-up. You can find a posting of the track here. 

And here is what I did with it (this is a composite of two cut-ups I did with the track, circa 1984 or so). This has a single four letter word in there somewhere, and a body part reference, so perhaps it's not safe for work. 

Download: The Limeliters - Morningtown Ride (cut-up)

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Clean Living, with Gary Roberts

You have my solid vow, oh song-poem fans, that any time I come to be in possession of a Gary Roberts record, I will share it with you. His vacuous, artless style remains a fascination to me, and I'll get to the newest acquisition in The Gary Roberts Story (as well as some more cut-up material) in just a moment. 

But first, I want to bring your attention to a previously unknown song-poem label and Rodd Keith release on that label, discovered by my pal Stu, who comments here often, and who frequents various websites dedicated to documenting the world of the 45 RPM record. He has found a posting for a song by one "Ward Lowe" on the Empala label. Both sides are on youtube, but the posting on 45cat.com helpfully has both of those postings embedded in with the rest of the 45's information, and the first one posted, at least, is quite nice. You can find that posting, and those songs, here. Thanks, Stu!

And now, without further ado: 

Both sides of today's Gary Roberts feature were written by the same song-poet, but "Because of You" is by far the stronger of the two. This is a paean to clean living, from someone who apparently partook in just about every drug-related vice, up until today. The best thing is that we get a rundown of all of the temptations he might face, and what he's going to do, instead, now. 

No, I take that back. The best thing might be the peppy, oompah based backing track, featuring the simplest of piano, bass and drums, accompanied by a guitarist who seems to think he's in a different song, one that perhaps is being played in double time. Then, of course, there is Gary's homely vocal, lacking in anything one might call "style" or "polish", as usual. 

Download: Gary Roberts - Because of You

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I cannot, alas, work up the same enthusiasm for the flip side, "Memory Lane". Given that the same song-poet wrote both of these songs, and that they both have the ring of first-person authenticity about them, there's at least a chance that the writer was expressing things from his own life. And if that's the case, it would appear that his newfound sobriety was not enough to keep his gal by his side, based on the lyrics of this song. 

All that said, this is a tedious song and performance. It goes on nearly four minutes, and seems even longer. Unlike Gary's late predecessor, Norm Burns, and others, such as Rodd Keith and Cara Stewart, I get no sense of any connection between Gary's vocals and the meaning of what he's singing. I sort of doubt that improvement in that area would help in a song as bland as this, but it couldn't hurt, and it just isn't there. 

Download: Gary Roberts - Memory Lane

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~~~

And now for my cut-up of the week. 

This time around, it's not exactly a cut-up, but rather a deliberate butchering and reworking. And therein lies a short story. 

When I was little, my parents were wise enough to buy me (and my brother - six years older), the complete set of Science related albums, titled "Ballads for the Age of Science", which had been released in 1959, and features such performers as Marais and Miranda and Tom Glazer, among others. 

These albums are pretty darn wonderful, but just about completely forgotten today. If you are familiar with this collection at all, it may be because of a thoroughly unnecessary cover version of "Why Does the Sun Shine" (originally done by Tom Glazer) by They Might Be Giants (my advice - go listen to the original). 

Anyway, there were two tracks I was particularly fond of, one from an album of Experiment Songs by Dorothy Collins, which was about rainbows, and one by Tom Glazer from an album of Weather Songs, titled "What is Climate". Like many, if not most of the tracks on these albums, there is both a spoken section and a song. I'm only concerned with the spoken section today. Here is a link to that track, which you'll want to hear before I share anything else. 

My brother and I discovered that, if we played with the needle while this track was playing, pulling it back across the grooves (and damaging the record in the process) we could make Tom Glazer say: 

"What causes a desert climate? Hot Dry Air! What causes the Hot Dry Air? Hot Dry Air! What causes the Hot Dry Air? Hot Dry Air! What causes the Hot Dry Air? Hot Dry Air!"

ad infinitum. Great fun. 

When I was frequently doing cut-ups, back in the '80's, I thought I'd recreate this moment, and play with the track some more. I made this little bit (using my beat up version of the album): 

Download: Hot Dry Air (cut-up)

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Then, over last Christmas break, I decided to spend some time doing something I'd had it in mind to do for at least ten years. That is, make a version of this material with a dance beat, again playing around with the spoken word section (this time taken from the pristine version of the track found online). The result, while not quite a "cut-up" as I've been defining them is, I hope quite enjoyable: 

Download: Tom Glazer - What is Climate? (rearranged by Bob)

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