He Walks a Lonely Street

Lotsa stuff going on this week, so I only have a moment to post two sides of a vintage "Rod Rogers and the Singing Strings" 45 from the Film City label, without my typically wordy further comments, aside from the fact that I sure do like that Chamberlain sound. 

First up, "I Walk a Lonely Street" (thankfully, no relation to a song with similar lyrics by Green Day): 

Download: Rod Rogers and the Singing Strings - I Walk a Lonely Street

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And the flip side, "Shadows in My Heart": 

Download: Rod Rogers and the Singing Strings - Shadows in My Heart

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Choo'n Gum with Toby

Continuing in my quest to publicize the works of the late Toby Deane, here is a recording of a song called "Choo'n Gum". I know almost nothing of this recording: it was included - very out of place, actually - on a budget (bootleg, most likely) CD of sports related songs that I purchased online. Why this song was on a CD of sports songs, I have no idea. 

A search through the internet shows that the song was a minor hit for Teresa Brewer in 1950, and that Dean Martin also recorded it. But regarding this version... well, a search of this vast internet of ours results in only one hit for any reference to Toby Deane's rendition, which appears to have been a budget label knockoff (on the Caravan label), almost undoubtedly around the time of Teresa Brewer's hit. 

I really love her voice, and this song is just ridiculous enough to hit me as "just right", too.

Download: Toby Deane - Choo'n Gum

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Coffee Break

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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My First Song-Poem

At first, today, my plan was to share this record because it seemed like the natural choice for Holy Week. And that thought still applies, but while I was making the files, I realized that if I share this EP, then I'll also want to share the story behind it. Because, you see, this was the first song-poem I ever owned, even if I didn't know that's what it was for around 20 years. The story goes back to 1976. 

It was early June, and I was almost 16. With my oldest and closest friend, John, I went to the local school fair. This was an end-of-the-year event at the grade school we had both attended, with small carnival rides, midway games, raffles and the like. It was a neighborhood tradition that we'd been going to since we were toddlers. 

That year, they had a record booth: put a ticket on a number, and when the spinner stops, the person who had their ticket on that number won a few 45's. Every few turns, the prize was an album. They had boxes and boxes of singles and albums, all of them no doubt cut-outs or radio rejects. John and I spent most of our money at this booth, then returned home to listen to some new records. 

I remember very little about this listening session, except that we thought most of our "winnings" were crappy. In particular, I remember not liking an album I had won, "Another Green World" by Brian Eno. 

(In fact, we later took at least half of these records, including "Another Green World" and conducted experiments outside, flinging them as high as we could into the air, over various substances (pavement, grass, decking) and seeing what would happen when they landed. It was a very hot day - probably around 100 degrees, and I remember that we got one record to embed itself about an inch into a tennis court.)

But this record, on the Halmark label, got my attention quickly, and held it. John was mesmerized, as well. It was so very.... weird. It wasn't very good, but it was bad in its own special way. Songs began with obvious tape slippage, or ended suddenly before fading out. There were names and addresses on the label, for each song. There were two deeply religious tracks, which was not unusual, except that there were two non-religious tracks on the flip side. The tracks sounded as if they belonged in the 78 era, and even with that thought, they were pretty damn poor in sound quality and vocal performance. This one I kept. 

Flash forward two decades, to my discovery (via Dr. Demento) of song-poems, my visits to the song-poem website, and my subsequent exchanges of e-mails and cassette tapes with Phil Milstein. Once I learned the names of the major song-poem labels, I made a beeline to the thousands of 45's in my basement, and started looking for those unique label names. My recollection is that I found I owned two: an EP on Columbine and this EP on Halmark. 

Suddenly, the record made perfect sense. Halmark, the label which took old, existing multitrack backing tracks and shoehorned their customers lyrics on top of them. Halmark, the label which, more often than not, didn't credit they're singers, but instead, listed the customers names and addresses. Halmark, the label which was notable, even among song-poem labels, for cheapness and hackwork. 

Here, in all its glory, is the first song poem I ever owned. The first track is fairly nondescript, and is titled, "Be God's Child": 

Download: Halmark Productions - Be God's Child

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The second track is "The Man Called Jesus". This was the track I had the initial impulse to share today. What I like about this one, aside from the general over-the-top nature of it, and the fact that I find it to have a particularly sad and dreary sound - not what you'd want for a song celebrating Jesus' role in your life - is that it appears that the backing track chosen for this song was quite a bit longer than the lyric, so at the end, they had the singer repeat the line "he brings me joy, joy, joy" over and over again. Have a taste: 

Download: Halmark Productions - The Man Called Jesus

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Side two of the EP leads off with another track which doesn't really do that much for me, "I See Stardust In Your Eyes": 

Download: Halmark Productions - I See Stardust In Your Eyes

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Finally, the killer tune from the EP, "Life is a Flame". This was part of the ASPMA website's MP3 downloads, so I'm sure it circulates between collectors, but I'm including it here, both for completeness, and because it is a singularly weird record. The backing track is SO thick with emotion, the words fit so poorly in places, the vocal performance is stellar, in that Halmark way, and the lyrics are flowery to the point of ridiculous. I'm fond of the following, fairly non-musical line: 

"Once again, I sit in wonderment, tormenting the ashes of what was once a glowing ember..."

 And my favorite of all:

"Quenched.... not by brisk breezes - Quenched by gushing waters, not by stamping feet"

Now I guess technically, "quenching a fire" doesn't have to mean water, but isn't that the way everyone uses it? Has anyone ever spoken of quenching a fire by stamping on it, or having a the breeze quench a fire?

Anyway, here's the track, and I'll dedicate this posting to my old friend John. We drifted apart very quickly after that early summer of 1976, and I've probably seen him less then five or six times since the fall of that year, and not at all since I was about 22.

Download: Halmark Productions - Life is a Flame

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ADDENDUM, 3/31/23: Sammy Reed has posted additional Halmark releases which contain the same backing music as "Life is a Flame". You can hear those here. 

Ol' Man Mose

Like many people my age, my first exposure to the wonders of Louis Prima was hearing his performance as King Louie in Disney's "The Jungle Book". I was seven years old, and smitten with the whole film (it remains my favorite Disney film), but no part more than the King Louie scene. The soundtrack to the film was undoubtably the first album I ever owned. 

Later trips through my parents records introduced me to his amazing rendition of "That Old Black Magic", with then-wife Keely Smith (she recently took part in a truly abysmal performance of the same song with Kid Rock, a man who clearly has not found something - anything - that he's good at, yet) (well, apart from proving true, yet again, an old saying often attributed to P.T. Barnum...). 

That led to his "Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody" medley, which is so great that not even David Lee Roth could screw up. 

Anyway, a series of recent events has had the side effect of giving me a reason to go through a bunch of my 45's, and one of the first I came across was a favorite Louis Prima performance. While I'm sure it's far from unknown, it's also not exactly well known. But it has a sound and an energy that I just love. 

It's a version of a Louis Armstrong tune, "Ol' Man Mose". I really enjoy the interplay with the backing group (Sam Butera and the Witnesses, as always). The typical Prima record had a lot more combo jazz on it - it's almost completely absent here, with the instrumentation being limited to bass and drums for almost the entire song, but it really works, and focuses the song on some fairly amazing lyrics. As I said, the song is attributed to Louis Armstrong, but the version I found from Armstrong doesn't even have half of these lyrics, so someone added quite a few new twists and turns to the story. Have a listen: 

Download: Louie Prima - Ol' Man Mose

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By the way, the other side of the record was a fairly lifeless reading of the number one hit, "Wonderland By Night" (actually, "Wonderland" was the record's A-Side), putting this record's release around 1961 or so.

Randy Rudolph

Here's a real doozy of a record, all the way around. It's a mid-period Preview release, performed by someone named Randy Rudolph. This name turns up from time to time in the Preview discography (and nowhere else in song-poem-land), and based on this record (as well as on the one Rudolph track released on song-poem compilations) it would seem that it was an assumed name, used for at least two different singers. 

The first side heard here, "We Are the Guys Who Win Wars", is quite the car crash. The opening few seconds, in particular, sound like an outtake. I would fully expect there to be an immediate breakdown, followed by a directive to everyone involved to "tune up". I'll let the lyrics themselves speak for themselves. 

It strikes me that this could be Dick Kent singing, but I'm just not sure - I'm not even sure I've heard this singer before. 

Download: Randy Rudolph - We Are the Guys That Win Wars

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This record is also interesting for the presence of the name Lew Tobin among the credits on the flip side. Lew was the head honcho at one of my favorite song-poem labels, Sterling, A quick look at the Preview discography shows that Lew's name pops up repeatedly, which I'd never noticed before, and which confuses the hell out of me, since Preview was one of the mainstays of the LA song-poem world, and Sterling was based in Boston. 

Ah, the mysteries of the song-poem world. However, those who are familiar with Lew Tobin's Sterling productions will likely find some similarities to that label's sound in this track, "Stop Your Wishing", by the fascinatingly named Doll H. Dorsey. 

This song is credited to Randy Rudolph. In this case, the singer sounds (to me, anyway) nothing like the performer on the A-side. In fact, this singer sounds very much like Rodd Keith. The "hello" in the lyric at about the 1:20 point cracks me up. On the whole, this side of the record sounds, to me, more than a bit like Rodd Keith replacing Norm Burns on a Lew Tobin arrangement. 

Download: Randy Rudolph - Stop Your Wishing

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Song Poem or Not?

This week's posting is a bit delayed, due to having been out of town and missing the usual Wednesday/Thursday posting. I plan to be back on schedule next week. 

And the more I listen to and research today's song, the more I doubt it's a song poem. I bought it because it was advertised as such, and because it was listed on ASPMA, which showed the "Clinton" label, with its two known singles, to have been part of the giant Globe family of labels. 

However, ever since hearing this record, I've wondered about its pedigree. The songs are very good, and the A-side is nothing short of excellent, in my opinion. That could also be said about many of my favorite song-poems, but with a few exceptions, even the greatest song-poems seem to have something "off" about them. And while the vocalizing on the b-side of this single might not be to everyone's taste, it's not all that unusual in comparison with many of the 45's released in the early '60's. 

On the other hand, there is precious little information on this platter's label, a song-poem hallmark (if you'll pardon the pun). And it is listed on ASPMA, and there's no way for me to know what sort of other information that organization might have had in determining that the Clinton label belonged there. 

But then, among that minimal information, there is this: "Don Ralke Orchestra". I learn from Wikipedia that Ralke was a well known Hollywood music insider, who was involved in everything from well received films to the musical endevours of William Shatner and Murry Wilson. That could point to this being a novelty record or a legit release, but seems to make it less likely that its a song poem. 

But what do I know? I do know this - the A-Side is a hell of a tune, and an equally great performance by both the band and the singer. And the B-Side, while perhaps not as great a song or performance, has an instrumental track that I really enjoy. 

See what you think, and by all means, offer up a thought or two!

Here's Bob Newkirk with "Rhythm Or Blues": 

Download: Bob Newkirk - Rhythm Or Blues

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And here's Bob Newkirk with "Dance of Love": 

Download: Bob Newkirk - Dance of Love

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Oh, and Happy Birthday to Stu!

How to Save These Files

This post formerly gave instructions on using Divshare files as downloads. Divshare has since gone belly-up, and anything posted using Divshare will not be usable, either to listen or download.

I am now using Opendrive, and posting a downloadable link followed by a play-only link. Please let me know if you have any problems with these.

Phil Carroll

Phil Carroll was one of the more productive song-poets of the golden age of the genre. He even appears to have had an entire label-number series dedicated to his works, on the MSR label. 

In addition, in the eyes of at least a few people that I know - and probably many more - he was one of the best. Many of his compositions call them his "hits" - have appeared on the various compilations which have been released, or are part of the many tapes which circulate among song-poem collectors. These include "Yippee Hippee", "Dreams of Love", "Watch Johnny Carson", "I Take a Fancy to Nancy", and my personal favorite, "Dreams of Love".

I've found several Phil Carroll records over the years, perhaps because he was from Chicago, and that's where I've done the majority of my song-poem digging (well, my non-online song-poem digging, anyway). Here, as a sort of indirect suggestion by my friend Stu, a big fan of Phil Carroll's "hits", and who said he wasn't familiar with this one, is a Phil Carroll record from my collection, Dick Lee (AKA Dick Kent) and the Swinging Strings, on the Action Label, with "When They All Go to Chicago":

Download: Dick Lee and the Swinging Strings - When They All Go to Chicago

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The other person I know, who has had a "thing" for Phil Carroll, is Phil Milstein, creator and former master of the American Song-Poem Music Archives. As a way of making a vague connection with the above song, here's a song that Phil found particularly "out there" (my words, not his - I believe his word was "wack") upon his first hearing it - it's Bobby Boyle's Nu-Sound Label recording of "Daisies On the Land":

Download: Bobby Boyle - Daisies On the Land

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By the way, although the singer better known as Bobbi Blake released some records under the name "Bobbi Boyle", this record is not by Bobbi Blake. 

Eleven Weeks In...

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": 

Download: The Real Pros - Disneyland

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Next up, the curiously titled "Hurricane Myth": 

Download: The Real Pros - Hurricane Myth

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Finally, "The Legend of Sam" 

Download: The Real Pros - The Legend of Sam

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Looking forward to your comments!

Enchanting!

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:

Download: The Enchantments - Enchanted Mountains

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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.

Download: The Enchantments - All My Love

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Great Moments In Marriage

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": 

Download: Film-Tone Productions - Flying Saucers

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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": 

Download: Gene Marshall - Lovely Nancy

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