An Insurmountable Task

I've probably made it at least somewhat clear that I'm not much of a fan of MSR records, particularly not in the post-Rodd Keith era (a point that appears to begin about the time that MSR's record numbers mysteriously jumped from around 900 to 2100). And I rarely enjoy Dick Kent as much as I do many of his contemporaries in the field. Most of those MSR records I do enjoy are of the car crash variety, and this is one.

Seriously, listen to this thing. It's called Love Divine. I'm not sure if the problem lies with the construction of the lyrics - maybe they were just too hard to shoehorn into something melodic and singable - or in the job done by whoever wrote and arranged the music, but no one, not even the greatest singers on earth, could have gotten through this meandering melody line and this avalanche of non-melodious lyrics without at least a stumble.

The real meat is after about the 1:20 point - I particularly like the clunky line "we will overcome the rugged times" and then comes the final line, where Dick decides to offer up some particularly awful melisma on the word "arms", sort of stumbling over to the final notes, then completing missing the tune on the final repetition of the title, "love divine", as the pianist hits several completely random arpeggios, suggesting perhaps that the take has been ruined. But no, they went with it.

Download: Dick Kent - Love Divine
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I wish I could offer up words of encouragement for those listening to the flip side, "I Just Keep Praying For You", but it's just dull, dull, dull. And when he sings "the roses have withered away" and "our green lawn is turning to hay", it seems like "I just keep praying" should lead to the near-rhyme (and natural response to dying grass and flowers) of "for rain", but no, the rhyme scheme disappears and the title "for you" appears instead.


Download: Dick Kent - I Just Keep Praying For You
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The Inimitable Bob Storm

Virtually every record I have shared on this site has been from my own collection - the exceptions number less than a half dozen, and are among the most remarkable and wonderful of those things shared with me by other collectors. Today, I offer up a guest posting, a pair of songs sent to me a few months ago, which I sadly did not listen to until this week - I say sadly because I can't believe I did without this record for even the two months during which I could have known it intimately.

The lucky owner of this record is Darryl Bullock, whose tremendous blog about The World's Worst Records should be required reading and listening throughout the English speaking world. That he has allowed me to share this astonishingly bad record here and not on his own site is a gift for which I will long owe him.

And award winningly bad this one is. Darryl and I share a deep love for the awfulness that is found in many, if not most records by Bob Storm. He is most often identified with Halmark Records, and I assume that this performance also came from that song-poem factory, but the results actually turned up on RCI, which appears to be a vanity label - the type set up by a few dedicated songwriters for their own products, which are then taken from whichever song-poem company was employed, each time around. Other records on RCI come from the Globe and Tropical song-poem factories.

I'll start with the a-side here, because I revel a bit more in it's preposterousness than I do the flip side. "Your Love" displays the typical unctuous qualities that I know and love from Bob Storm. Not only does this sound more like prose set to music than poetry - it sounds like a love letter, and a prosaic one at that - but the real magic comes at the 2:15, when Storm starts narrating his love letter. At this point, I am reminded of the over-the-top bits that David Letterman's announcer, Alan Kalter, will often do, except that I assume that Storm was trying to sound sincere, rather than insanely pompous, which is the actual result. I have to say, those 20 seconds or so are among my favorite song-poem moments that I've heard this year. The dramatic mid-'50's backing sounds just add to the weirdness.

Download: Bob Storm - Your Love
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An interesting side note to this record is that although it fairly clearly comes from Halmark, I'm certain I've not heard either of these backing tracks before, on any other Halmark record, even though they were known to recycle their backing tracks, over and over again.

ADDENDUM, 7/11/20 - The backing track on "Your Love" has since become very familiar to me from various Halmark releases, however, I still don't recall hearing the "Song of Love" backing track on any record except this one. 

On the flip side, there is "Song of Love", four minutes of Bob Storm bleating more obvious love blather, over a track that starts with supper club combo jazz, then devolves into more dramatic string blandness. The magic moment here is that Storm AGAIN narrates part of his performance, with insincerity equal to that on the first side. How I would love to know more about this guy.

Thanks again, Darryl!

Download: Bob Storm - Song of Love
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Two Sides of Tin Pan Alley

The Tin Pan Alley label went through more different styles of music than most song-poem labels. Partly this was because it existed for a long period, a period during which musical styles changed quickly and with wild differences. But they also appear to have made an effort to keep up with the styles of the day more aggressively than many labels.

A Sterling record may sound like something from 5-10 years earlier, and a Halmark record may sound (if it sounds like anything ever released) like something from 30 years earlier. But a Tin Pan Alley record is likely to sound in the neighborhood of what might be on legitimate releases from the same year it was released, although often the quality of the music and lyrics would be several steps below those legitimate records, particularly on the records from beyond about 1962. Today, two records from perhaps eight years apart, which share nothing in common except for the label on which they appeared.

First up, someone named Tony Miller, with what may be his only appearance on a Tin Pan Alley record, or any song-poem record, and it's a really good, fun one, too. "That's the Way It Goes" appears to date from about 1958, and it bounces along in the pop-rock-rockabilly hybrid feel of more than a few 1957-58 records, with a trebly guitar leading the way, and a doo-wop bass singing what sometimes seem to be almost random oom-boppa's, and a rhythm section that wouldn't have been out of place on dozens of records I can
think of. I like this a whole bunch - maybe you will, too:

Download: Tony Miller - That's the Way It Goes
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"Don't Say Goodbye" is on the flip, and this one begs for a doo-wop arrangement that never shows up. Although this is clearly the same band as on the other side, and they do their jobs well enough, I don't think this one is nearly as inspired as its partner in vinyl.

Download: Tony Miller - Don't Say Goodbye
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Let's flash forward eight years, now, to roughly 1966:

By 1966, and going forward for the next few years, Tin Pan Alley had morphed into a low-fi, lower budget house of garage rock and, for lack of a better term, garage pop. Many of these records are ridiculously minimalist, are often poorly played, and feature amateurish singing - I've shared more than a few of them. They don't sound like most of the biggest hits of the mid '60's, but they do share something with the more homemade sounding of the hits of the era, particularly the records I've posted by Mike Thomas

"Dreamy Eyes" by Cathy Mills, barely qualifies for the above description, and some listeners may disagree that it has any overlap with the pop of the era at all. But in it, I do here some of the simple-as-a-garage-band quality, and to my ears, it also has some of the Vo-De-Oh-Do feel that can be heard in some of Herman's Hermit's hits, and which was just coming into vogue in early 1966. Not to say that it's very good - it's fairly ridiculous, but at least in a fun sort of way. And like several other TPA records from this period, whoever was playing the bass seems to have only picked up the instrument for the first time a few hours earlier.

Download: Cathy Mills - Dreamy Eyes
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"Come Home to Me" is the sort of pleading ballad that could have been released at any point from the mid '50's, well into the '60's. But this record is remarkable for containing a fairly early reference to missing a soldier who is in Viet Nam. The number on this record fairly well places it as being from late '65 or early '66, well before most pop records (Barry Sadler's hit being the big exception), or indeed any other song-poem I've heard, were making lyrical reference to that conflict.

Download: Cathy Mills - Come Home to Me

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A Lutone Record... Maybe the Only Lutone Record

Like several of the larger song-poem companies, Film City would allow its products to be "released" on vanity labels, most of which tended to be tied to the individual song-poets whose materials would show up on those labels. Here we have one of the tiniest - Lutone Records, named for the writer of the songs, Luton Stinson, who interestingly, is listed as writing both the words and music of both songs, the latter being a real rarity in this world, where the tunes and arrangements were the responsibility of the song-poem companies' staff members. 

It would appear that this may be the only record to come out on the Lutone label. It's the only one listed at AS/PMA, and I can't find any reference to any record on this label, aside from this one. I'd certainly correct myself, though, if anyone knows otherwise.

Assuming that Luton Stinson did write the words and music here, he (or she - I'm not actually familiar with this name) did a decent job on the song on the b-side, "I've Been Missing Someone", and then turned it over to the right company, who gave it to the right man, Rodd Keith (aka Rod Rogers), and his one man band work on the Chamberlin.

This is a nice, slinky little number, with a sinewy tune, sung with an appropriately atmospheric tone. Rodd could easily be singing this number at a nightclub - this song would certainly pull me in, in such a setting. And the Chamberlin work here doesn't draw attention to itself here - sometimes, that's the fun in Rodd's Film City records, but on a nice song like this, its better that the backing just does it's job without becoming odd or goofy.

Sorry about the beat-to-hell sound of parts ot his record. I thought it was nice enough to share despite its condition.

Download: Rod Rogers - I've Been Missing Someone
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The flip side, "I Had a Dream", features Rodd at his most lugubrious and unctuous - not quite to Robert Goulet levels, but certainly on that spectrum. It's not a side of him (or anyone) that I enjoy much, except from an ironic standpoint, but your mileage my vary.

Download: Rod Rogers - I Had a Dream
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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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A Halmark Record Like Few Others

My inclination was actually to title today's presentation "A Halmark Record Like No Other", but since I haven't seen every Halmark record, I'm not going to make that assumption. But I know I haven't seen another one like this. What we have hear is clearly a vanity recording of a gentleman singing his own song, accompanied (very likely doing it himself) by a single guitar.

To hear any "real live musician" on a Halmark track - Halmark being the home of the canned, discarded backing track over which the house singers would sing the lyricists' offering - is startling. It's also jolly fun to see this solo performance carry the credit "High Fidelity Vocal and Orchestra directed by Ted Rosen".

As to the fun to be had listening to Daniel L. Johnson singing and playing his song "Backing Up in Boston", well, that fun is certainly there to be had, but I'll leave the discovery thereof to the listener!

Download: Daniel Johnson - Backing Up in Boston
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For the flip side, it's back to the Halmark salt mines, for a tried and true backing track, one I've heard on at least a dozen of the label's releases, over which we have the typically shrill stylings of house tenor Jack Kim. I will admit that I have listened to "Time That I Take Out" three times today, and while I recognize that the lyricist (the wonderfully named Preston Prescott) is expressing his reasons for leaving his relationship, his wordy expressiveness leaves me gasping at times, unable to quite figure out the specific meaning of some of his phrases, including the one in the title.

Oh, and technically speaking, Ted Rosen didn't direct the High Fidelity Orchestra heard on this side, either.

Download: Jack Kim - Time That I Take Out
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Space Age Babes I Have Known

Some days, it must have been downright fun to be working at a song-poem company. Imagine Gene Merlino (AKA Marshall) picking up the music for today's offering, and seeing the title, "Minnie the Space Age Babe". Listening to the arrangement and performance, it's clear to me that this was a title that inspired the creative people behind the scenes to do something worthy of that title. The composition and arrangement here fairly scream out "Rodd Keith" to me, and everyone involved sounds happy to be there.

Download: Gene Marshall - Minnie the Space Age Babe
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I can say exactly none of the same things I just wrote about "Minnie" with regard to the flip side, "What is a Man?", one of those painfully earnest, ridiculously ponderous lyrics, and one which got the setting and performance that those lyrics required. The results are, in my opinion, just deadly.

Download: Gene Marshall - What Is a Man?
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Red Hot Mama

Okay, right off the bat, let me acknowledge that today's record is beat to hell, and that you'll have to listen past some righteously awful surface noise. But c'mon, it's Norm! With a couple of winning tracks, ones I find quite worthy of suffering through the crackle and pop of an either over-loved or criminally mistreated and neglected 45.

First up, "Red Hot Mama". This one has slow, soulful beat, some really nice piano, and a typically wonderful vocal from Norm. There's even an actual guitar solo, something I don't remember hearing on many Sterling records. And another thing that makes this one unusual: I would also argue that this is the rare Sterling song-poem where the music reflects then-current (1971 or so) trends in music - elements of the backing track here reminds me of more than a few soul-pop records of the 1970-71 period. Stick around for the ridiculous repeating lyrics at the end of the record.

Download: Norm Burns and the Five Stars - Red Hot Mama
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On to side two, "Love Ya Honey". After a catchy, off-kilter instrumental introduction, we are treated to another superb vocal from Norm (who is probably one of my two favorite song-poem singers, along with Cara Stewart). Here, he makes magic with a really corny and repetitive lyric, and the arrangement also works wonders with what could have easily (in the hands of lesser companies by a stale performers) been rote and dull - I'm especially fond of the section from 1:50  to 2:05, where it sure sounds like there's been an extra beat or two thrown in, yet a careful counting shows that it never goes out of 4/4 time.

Download: Norm Burns and the Five Stars - Love Ya Honey
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Sonny and the Stones

Ah, yes, "It's All Over Now". Is there a better record from the Stones' earliest period? Keith's guitar break - well, I guess you some love it and some hate it, but Charlie's drumming is propulsive and the whole band just cooks. And Sonny Marcell's lead vocal is.... wait, Sonny Marcell? One of the many names of song-poem Zelig Sammy Marshall? Are we talking about the same song? The same band? Er... I guess not. This "It's All Over Now" is another early '60's Globe factory special, in this case a performance that wouldn't sound out of place on the stage of a Holiday Inn lounge, released on the tiny Jabar imprint. Let's listen in!

Download: Sonny Marcell - It's All Over Now
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And what do you have left when "It's All Over"? Well, leftovers, and to sing the excessively goopy song, "Left Over Love", again we have Sammy "Sonny Marcell" Marshall:

Download: Sonny Marcell - Left Over Love
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In the Garage with Tin Pan Alley

First, I want to mention that I recently wrote a post at WFMU's blog about a record which appears to have some song-poem connections, although it may or may not be a song-poem. It can be found here. And now, on with the countdown!

How do YOU spell the words that make up the first line of a classic children's rhyme, the ones which come before "catch a tiger by the toe"? A quick web search finds only a few minor disagreements - Virtually everyone agrees on a combination of some of the following "Eeny/Eenie, Meeny/Meenie, Miny/Miney/Minie, Mo/Moe". For Joyce and Lawrence Herren, however (and virtually no one else in the world, as far as Yahoo and Google appear to be concerned), the phrase is spelled "Enny Minnie Mighty Moe". Fascinatingly, at one point Joyce recorded the song herself, and it has shown up on at least one compilation, and can be heard in the middle of this youtube posting. 

The song isn't much, but that's a winning performance in my book. For some reason, the authors then handed off their composition to Mike Thomas, of Tin Pan Alley, who recorded it with the same collection of Garage Rock wannabes that show up on many of his records. The results were as predictable as every other TPA record of the era - minimalist backing and a lightweight vocal from Mike, which gives way to a barely competent (or perhaps you favor the phrase "borderline incompetent") garage style solo section.

The question remains - is this a song-poem as strictly defined or a vanity recording. Did the Herren's write this song, words and music, and then commission Tin Pan Alley to record it, or did Tin Pan Alley put music to their words, and only then, perhaps not satisfied with TPA's performance, Joyce recorded it herself. I would like to think that's more likely than them not liking Joyce's own inspired rendition, and seeking to improve it via TPA....

Download: Mike Thomas - Enny Minnie Mighty Moe

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On the flip side, we have a tragic story. It's of a young person who seemingly threw away everything in life, and took a plane to San Francisco, on the hopes on connecting with the sweetheart who lived there. As you'll hear, if you can stomach the rather tuneless song that long (and get through lines like "I dreamed that waiting at airport"), it didn't quite work out as planned. Stick around after he tells his story for more Guitar God in training moments.

Download: Mike Thomas - San Francisco Dream

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Rodd Keith - Country Bumpkin

I always get a kick out of Rodd Keith trying to sound like a hick, on the most countrified of his releases. And here's a prime example, a rather wonderful piece of ridiculous backwoods-speak set to music, titled "Rope Me a Good Looker". 

Download: Rodd Keith and the Raindrops - Rope Me a Good Looker

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I always wonder what the writer would think, upon hearing Rodd in hayseed mode, then putting on the other side, and hearing what was clearly the same singer (and billed as such) demonstrating, via a straightforward MOR performance, that his singing on the country number was less than honest. Such would probably have been the case here, as the flip side is the completely mainstream (and desperately dull) "It Only Takes a Moment to Fall in Love", with Rodd in unctuous, lounge-singer mode:

Download; Rodd Keith and the Raindrops - It Only Takes a Moment to Fall in Love

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Norridge Mayhams Last Gasp

Within the greater song-poem world, Norridge Mayhams has always been something of a hero to me. Not only did he do it all himself, he often did it quite well. In a career lasting over 40 years, he went from Gospel to Raunchy Blues, from Latin-tinged idiosyncratic records to straight ahead pop and rock and roll. He wrote both the words and music for most of his songs, and in the early days (through at least the late '50's) even sang on several of his records, in addition to releasing them on at least three of his own record labels. He even wrote a hit song, "We'll Build a Bungalow". One of his records, the earlier of at least two versions of his song "Mary Ann McCarthy", remains one of my three or four favorite song-poem records.

So it was with considerable sadness that I listened for the first time to today's record, which is among the last that Mayhams produced. As described at the AS/PMA site linked above, shortly after his final triumph, the 1976 double album capturing a good 15 years worth of his best material, Mayham's life began to fall apart. As heard here, just three years later (in 1979), not only has he moved on from some truly wonderful styles of music, and into the most mindless version of disco possible, but he is also expressing his grief at the death of his dear wife, Shirley. The words are actually touchingly sweet, but when paired with the stupid beat, the obnoxious synth, the out of town guitar and single trumpet notes (not to mention the crappy production), the effect is fairly depressing. My guess is that it is Norridge Mayhams himself singing here. If so, it's with (in what was probably his 70's) a shadow of the life-affirming voice from his records of two and three decades earlier.

Download: Seaboard Coastliners - Sweet Shirley 
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"Sweet Shirley" was actually the b-side. The less said about the truly mindless a-side, "Dance Dance All Night Long", the better, but here it is:

Download: Seaboard Coastliners - Dance Dance All Night Long
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By the way, at least one further Mayhams record may have been released, if the order suggested at AS/PMA is accurate, that one featuring what may be this same recording of "Dance Dance" along with a disco remake of "We'll Build a Bungalow"