A look at some of the more remarkable items found during 40 years of collecting all manner of recordings. For information on saving these files, see the top box on the right.
Well, this is the eleventh "Song Poem of the Week" post. By my count, I've offered up 23 song poem records, a fairly good spectrum of the records in my collection. There are some I haven't featured, such as recent song-poems which have appeared on CD's from the companies still in business, and anything from Columbine - those being two categories of song-poem which very rarely hold my interest - but I've represented a bunch of different labels and styles.
What I'd really like now is some feedback. Those of you who have been stopping by regularly or on occasion: is this what you hoped it would be when I started the project? Is there a certain area or areas - labels, styles or artists - you'd like to see more of (or, for that matter, less of). Do you want it to continue? Do you have any other suggestions? Let me know!
In the meantime, here are three records from the Cinema label, performed by the group that was always credited on that label, "The Real Pros". The first one is by the One-Man-Band who appears on the earliest Cinema releases, but for the other two, see if you recognize some of the familiar MSR/Preview voices masquerading as "The Real Pros".
First up, from the same EP which brought us "Deep Freeze Mama" (shared here a few weeks ago) and "Teenage Queen", here's "Disneyland":
Today, I'm sharing my latest song-poem acquisition, an eBay special which just arrived in the mail a couple of days ago, by that up and coming group, "The Enchantments". It doesn't sound quite like anything I've shared up to this point, and it doesn't really sound like anything else I've heard on the Brite-Star and Bryte family of labels.
Given that it appeared on Brite-Star, it's possible that this was a vanity release, but I'm guessing it's a song-poem. And I really enjoy the A-side, in which the Enchantments, driving home the point of their group name, sing about the "Enchanted Mountains". I really enjoy this bouncy tune, arrangement and performance, all of which sort of remind me of a more sedate version of Mitchell Torok's great 1950's hit, "Caribbean". I particularly like the guitar that's rambling around behind most of the vocal, and also the descending melody at the end of the chorus.
And of course, there is the genius of the song-poet, the incomparable Lad Senec. Here 'tis:
The flip side, "All My Love" is not a primordial version of the Led Zeppelin hit, but rather another song in the style heard on the A-side. I don't find this one quite as enjoyable, but it's still a fun listen.
One of the most peculiar records in my collection is an EP on the Film-Tone label. I don't remember where I bought it, but I do remember being pretty sure, upon looking at it, that it was a song-poem record. And I was correct. If you're familiar with the Star-Crest label, and their rather old-fashioned style of song-poemetry (and example of which I posted here, some time ago), you probably won't be surprised by the sound of Film-Tone records, an associated label. Supposedly, within the industry, Star-Crest was known as Star-Crust, due to their outdated style.
On the other hand, as moldy as this style is, the song lyrics are more clever than those of most song poems, and the vocal arrangement actually shows that some thought went into it. No artist was named on this record. Please enjoy Film-Tone's "Flying Saucers":
The second song today is linked with the first song only in that the subject of the song, Nancy Reagan, may have believed in another type of flying saucers, or perhaps in that she sometimes seemed to have originated from outer space. And also, of course, the subject of the first song - marriage - was the biggest reason why Nancy remained famous, after her retirement from acting.
Michael Kasberg, the author of this song, probably deserves a page dedicated to his singularly bizarre song-poem output, of which this is barely a taste. Still, the twists and turns in this lyric, including Gene Marshall's final comment, are worth the price of admission.
This track is taken from a private compilation made by a friend of mine, several years ago, and the beginning of the song is cross-faded with another track by a non song-poem artist. Here's Gene Marshall with "Lovely Nancy":
I'm slowly plowing through a large mountain of reel to reel tapes, which I've bought here and there and everywhere, over the years. The pile actually tends to get bigger before I can make it smaller, if you know what I mean.
I was quite taken with this performance, which was the only thing notable on a three inch reel that I recently listened to. Everything I know about can be seen in the copy of the tape package, above. I would assume this was a vanity recording, or at least at the edge of such a definition - perhaps a band who was making a professional quality tape in the hopes of securing some sort of contract.
I'm not sure I'd call this good, but I do find it fairly compelling and very interesting:
I'm at the bottom point of a really bad cold, which is really affecting my eyes this time around, so that I'm trying to avoid computer time. But I did want to keep the project going, so I've grabbed five - count 'em five - MP3's which I made at a point when I was trying to make copies of all of my song-poem holdings (a project that was very short lived), and am going to upload them without much further comment for all of those of you who are particularly fond of Rodd Keith.
I'm not really part of the Rodd cult - I enjoy his records about on a par with any other song-poem artist or label, loving some and finding others deadly dull, and everything in between - but I know I'm in the minority with that viewpoint.
Here are both sides of a rather drippy Film City 45. First, "My Dream":
The Halmark label (or, as it the logo sometimes appeared, "Hallmark") is unique among the song-poem companies in a few different ways.
First was their tendancy, on most of their releases, to not name the performer of the songs they released, and instead, to print the names and addresses of the authors of the songs. While that's not the case with the record pictured above, and shared today, it was usually the case.
Second, they bought existing multi-track tapes, stripped off the vocals, and had the Halmark singers sing the lyrics to the song-poems over these tracks. And they often used the same tracks over and over and over again. Often, it appears that the singers are shoe-horning the lyrics into the existing track, with virtually no attempt to either make the words scan correctly or to have the tune sound remotely good.
The whole story of Halmark, for those unfamiliar with it, is explained here, far better than I could ever hope to describe it.
I was lucky enough to find a Halmark 45 which had been sent to radio station, one which came complete with a note from Ted Rosen, the head of Halmark Records. Whoever listened to this record had excellent taste, as he or she made a point of attaching a label (as you can see above) marked "Horrible!!" to each side of the 45. And yet someone kept it.
Here is the letter from Ted Rosen:
Another interesting thing about this record is that both sides are credited to Bob Storm, one of the three singers whose work makes up the bulk of the vocals on Halmark's 1970's 45's. A quick listen to "The Tall Grass and Wild Wild Weeds" will immediately throw doubt on the notion that Mr. Storm is the vocalist:
However, I've no doubt he is the vocalist on the flip side, which is called "Their Destiny", and which is easily my favorite of the two. I just wish I could be with each of you, in front of your respective computers, as you hear the first notes of Bob Storm's vocal, and as you hear his stirring tribute to "great men, of various hues":
Just a few words today, due to lack of time to say something more profound (or perhaps just more wordy).
Today, two recent song-poem acquisitions, one that I like a whole bunch, and one that doesn't do much for me musically, but has an great '70's title and lyric. The only thing that ties them is that they both have really great out-of-left-field titles.
Here's a space-age related song-poem by one of my favorites, Gene Marshall. Bounce along with Gene and the gang as he sings "My New Mar-Rai-An Home":
...but it's fairly close. Here are both sides of a record by Mr. Cal Andrews. I know virtually nothing about this, aside from the fact that it was released on Ink Records. I assume it was a vanity project, but I could be wrong. This was floating around in cyberspace one recent day, and I reached out and grabbed it. I got it just in time: the next day, the download was gone.
The A side is titled "Sundown at Sea". I'm particularly fascinated by the drumming on this track:
The B side, my personal favorite of the two, is "O Sing to Me". On this track, what most catches my ear, even beyond the mind numbing singing, is the bass player, who appears to be under the impression that he is in a different song altogether:
My younger daughter shares my tastes. She was in the room when I opened and played "O Sing to Me" for the first time. She asked if she could have it on her iPod....
If you're at all familiar with the world of song-poems and the people who made (and make) them, you know that it, and they, exist for little more than one reason - that being: to separate people from their money, often through barely legal methods, which often cross a line into a rather elaborate scam.
That's not to say that there weren't people in the business who chose to try and do something original, or which reflected the actual talent of the musicians involved (and, when it occured, the actual talent of the lyric writers). Certainly, men like Rodd Keith, Norm Burns and Lee Hudson, among many others, made it clear by many of their arrangements and performances that they were, at least at times, trying to do something decent, even good.
However, the underlying money-making remained the reason for the business, and a few labels, notably Preview, MSR and Halmark, were not opposed to using the same backing tracks, slightly altered (or not altered at all), for multiple releases. But today's example may be unique - I'm certainly unaware of any other song-poem 45 or EP which makes the scam quite as clear as this one does.
Imagine if you will, that you are the writer of the lyrics of Rodd Keith's release, "Playboy's Paradise", an indictment of a certain type of lifestyle. You receive the 100 or 200 copies of the record, as paid for and promised, and listen to the music that Preview records has built around your record, featuring the country stylings of Mr. Keith. It sounds like this:
You, the writer, are very happy with the product, play it for your family and everyone you know, and give out the copies you've received to your friends. The folks at Preview recorded a track, based on your lyrics and your request for a country setting, and made a unique record from your poem.
One day, you think, "Hey, I wonder what the song on the other side of the label sounds like". Flipping the 45 over, you see that it's called "Take Two Lips", and you plop it on the turntable. Being, by this point, quite familiar with "Playboy's Paradise", from the A side, you immediately notice that the "Take Two Lips" is set to THE EXACT SAME BACKING TRACK as your song.
Today's song-poem offerings come from two labels which are not featured as often as others, when song-poems are a compiled, shared or discussed. In the case of both these labels, it appears they released song-poems, legit singles and vanity recordings. I am sure today's first offering is a song poem, and am not quite as sure to which world the second one begins.
First is a record on the Tin Pan Alley label. Tin Pan Alley dated back earlier than most of the song-poem labels which get more attention, and released enough legit or borderline legit records to have been the subject of an anthology of their "best doo-wop records", although whether that CD is, itself, legit, is anyone's guess. They soon moved into the song-poem game full time, and produced some of the weirdest records I've heard from the genre, including "It's Spring", which I recently featured here. Today's featured record comes from the earlier years of the label, however.
And this one seems made just for me, as it combines the song-poem concept with perhaps my favorite genre of music, Calypso. Phil Celia, previously heard on this site performing the classic "Atom Dynomic Dance", here tries his hand at "If Mama's and Papa's Would Stay At Home". Views reflected in this song-poem do not necessarily reflect those of the management:
Next up is a favorite from the Fable label. This label seems to have been all over the map. I have vanity pressings, novelty records, and song-poems on Fable, and I've seen early rock and roll and doo-wop from the label go for hundreds of dollars on eBay. Whether today's feature was an attempt at an actual country hit or a song-poem is a mystery to me. It does feature label head Sandy Stanton doing the music, but so do some of the label's legit releases. Whatever it is, you're not likely to hear anything else quite like it today. Enjoy Little Donnie Lane with "Go Away":
Please excuse the interruption to this music blog.
It has become necessary to reboot the system titled "United States of America".
The problem has been present at length and has become chronic. It appears to date back to the instillation of defective software eight years ago. That this software was likely invalid was known at the time, but it was installed anyway, and the result has been a system rendered almost unusable, due to erratic behavior, unpredictable actions, and on several occasions, illegal operations.
An uninstall, attempted four years ago, failed, but it is hoped that today's reboot will be successful, and that the system has not already been permanently corrupted.
As promised in a previous post, today I'm writing a tribute to a woman whose name I'd never heard six months ago, but whose records I've been collecting ever since finding out who she was, back around August.
It was some time last year, I think, that I posted a recording of an obscure 78 that I've loved since childhood, a version of The Three Little Pigs, which I only had on a reel to reel tape. I have long been head over heels in love with the singer on that 78. When I asked the readers of this blog who the singer might be, I got no answers, so I turned to the readers of the WFMU blog.
I was quickly informed to seek out an online children's record expert, who just as quickly told me that the woman's name was Toby Deane. After further contact with Irwan Chusid of WFMU, I learned that she had died earlier this decade, and that she had made at least one other amazing record, "Alice in Christmas Wonderland", which I shared a few weeks ago.
This set me off searching for more Toby Deane records. I immediately found out that another of my childhood 78's, one greatly loved by my mother and sister, of the story of Peter Pan, also featured Toby Deane, and then I started buying records.
Just recently, after I wrote about her, a fellow named Thomas contacted me, and has sent me a photo of Toby Deane, with Benny Goodman, which appears above. Many thanks to him.
The following is the story in sound. While I think most of these are great, I will also admit that not all of these are good - in fact, I'd say a couple of them are downright bland, and one really grates on me. But I'll get to that, later. First, the record I grew up with, which I've always adored. Even if you've heard this before, when I've posted it, have a listen - I've found a 10" 78 of the record, which not only doesn't stop in the middle, but also is in MUCH better shape. Toby Deane, with Bob Mallit, sing about The Three Little Pigs:
Next, although I just posted it a few weeks ago, for the sake of completeness, here is Toby Deane and the Hummingbirds, with "Alice in Christmas Wonderland":
Here's a remarkable record, which I mentioned above. Victor Jory narrates the story of Peter Pan, while Toby Deane performs as both Peter and Wendy, using completely different voices for each. This is a fairly scratchy, much loved record:
For a change of pace, here she is, singing a major hit from the early 1950's, on one of those budget label EP 78's which contained the hits of the day, sung by people no one had heard of, in this case, a fairly complete reworking of Rosemary Clooney's Come On-a My House. I would assume that this was her "normal" singing voice:
Moving into a somewhat less-than-great category, here's a Toby Deane record from a little 7" picture disc from the Voco label (the same label which supplied the first three tracks posted above). "'Round and Round the Village" is no great shakes, but there remains something quite magical about her voice, which gives this record a sweetness and pull on me that most other vocalists would have been unable to provide with such material:
Another record which might be consider more than a little cloying is "Jingle Dingle", another 7" 78, in this case on both sides of the record. There are moments here, again, where Toby Deane's vocal magic lifts this above the mundane material. She's actually credited as "Toby Dean" on this record:
Moving another step down, the following track, "Songs of the Farm", is the B-Side of "The Three Little Pigs". It's really nothing special, except again, the voice draws me in here and there:
Next up is a track from an apparently much beloved 1950's children's Christmas album, "Christmas is For Children". Toby Deane is credited on the cover, and this is the only track where it sounds remotely like she might be involved. Curiously, this is a much sought-out track among those of a certain age - repeatedly asked for and posted on blogs, and the album sells for many dollars on eBay.
I say "curiously" because, to be honest, I found the album wholly wretched, and the best things I can say about this track is that it isn't as bad as most of the others, and more than that, that it plays up her strengths as a voice actress - in this case, portraying a boy of about eight, yet another characterization! It's called "I've Got 18 Cents":
Finally, a change of pace. A decade or more after all of these records were made, Toby Deane took part in a sort of "answer record" to the massive hit album "The First Family". This was called "The Other Family", and she appeared on about half the tracks, playing Mrs. Kruschev to Larry Foster's Nikita. While I didn't find this album funny, perhaps you hadda be there, and it's worth hearing her do a version of the original "First Family" album's Jackie, reimagined as a Russian Woman. This is called "Another Saturday Night":
And here is a picture and some text about Toby Deane, from the back of that album:
I sure wish I'd known of Toby Deane and her work earlier. I'd have loved to be able to contact her, as I have with some of the other wonderful singers I've been able to reach via my posts - I'd like nothing more than to tell her home amazing and wonderful I think her work is. Anyone having more knowledge of and/or recordings by Toby Deane is welcome to contact me either by posting to this blog or by writing me at Rasmaster@aol.com or Bobpurse@gmail.com
I'm the father of two amazing young adults, married to the most wonderful woman in the world, and I work in the mental health field. I play several instruments and record my own music. I'm a long time record collector, hoarder of unusual, rare or unique recorded sound, musical, spoken word or other, and am glad to have found this outlet to share some of my favorite parts of it with others.
