Moon Man

Last weekend, in addition to featuring the day I stopped being the parent of a teenager (as my younger daughter turned 20), also marked the 44th anniversary of the first moon landing. And in honor of that, today, we have Rod (Rodd Keith) Rogers, with his patented Swinging Strings, telling us all about the phenomenon of "Twisting on the Moon". This is a typically bouncy Rod Rogers Chamberlin production, with a nice solo, and an especially great little set of lyrics, filled with fun images, such as "see ya later, at the crater" and "we'll be cuttin' capers to a crazy 'bleep bleep' tune".

But the most interesting thing about this song may be that songwriter Eleanor Glass kept submitted the song to different song-poem companies. It would appear that perhaps Ms. Glass wrote the words and the music to this tune, as one of the other versions, which appeared on Cowtown, has essentially the same tune. For the time being, you can hear that one at this ebay auction (one that is, however, ended, so that link will not work at some point in the near future). And Sammy Marshall also recorded the song for Roxie!

I'm sure this is the most entertaining of the three, however, given that it's got Rodd Keith AND a Chamberlin. Here 'tis!:

Download: Rod Rogers and the Swinging Strings - Twisting On the Moon
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The flip side is no slouch either: It's another Eleanor Glass entry, this time a tribute to "Derby Downs", the famed home of the Soap Box Derby. And again, there are some fun lyrics: "We'll drink some pop, while our brows we mop". If you ask me (and you didn't), this is a hell of a single!

Download: Rod Rogers and the Swinging Strings - Derby Downs
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Back in Business!

Hi, everyone!

Well, as you may have seen on other blogs, or learned for yourself, Divshare is back up and running. Thanks to everyone who chimed in, either with confirmations that it wasn't "just me" or ideas for other sites. By the time I had an opportunity to look more in depth at some of those other sites, the divshare folks (who were remarkably responsive, this time around) had let me know they were back in business.

I've also included a bonus at the bottom for those who love the late '50's and early '60's as much as I do, and I will post again a few times in the next week in order to get caught up.

And so....

     

Today's feature comes from a guy I've been happily corresponding with for over four months now. His name is Andy, and he first contacted me regarding my posts about Merigail Moreland. This led to a sharing of a lot of late '50's and early '60's singles through e-mail (mostly - and with great appreciation) from him to me, as we discovered where our tastes overlap, and what we have that might be of interest to each other.

His interest is not really in song-poems, but as he owns some, he was nice enough to send a few my way, and so far, this is my favorite among those he's sent. It's on Tin Pan Alley, and features Gus Colletti, whose stylings would seem to be spectacularly mismatched for a song titled "At the Rock and Roll Party". He has a choked, strained quality which seems more in tune with ballad singers, or at least dramatic readings of more serious material (not that I'd like him in that material, but at least it would seem a better match).

At the same time, though, this seems to show the influence of Paul Anka, one of my least favorite singers of the era. The band is giving it their best, but the whole enterprise seems doomed to failure, due to the choice of vocalists. Still, it's fun failure! 

Download: Gus Colletti - At the Rock and Roll Party
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I cannot even pretend to drum up any enthusiasm for the flip side, the appropriately sad and dreary song "Life is Sad and Dreary". Tin Pan Alley at least tried to capture the sounds of the day, and this sounds like any number of hit songs of the era, without sounding like it would ever have been a hit, itself. And this does seem like a slightly better match for Gus Colletti's supposed skills than the rave up on the flip side.

Download: Gus Colletti - Life is Sad and Dreary
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By the way, in sending me all of these treasures, along the way, Andy sent me a record that has become easily my favorite "new-to-me" record, one that I've heard for the first time and can't get enough of, in at least the last five or six years. It's called "Love in Return" by the Nightingales.

This is close to a perfect record. I love the wild drumming, the struggle the girls have to stay on pitch and in unison several times during the song, and the bridges are particularly magical to me. Only the presence of a dumb-guy vocal at the end of each of those bridges keeps me from thinking this to be among the best things ever released.

This was a cover of a release on a larger label. I've heard that one, too, and it has absolutely none of the charm and magic of this record. The really captured lightning in a bottle here.



Download: The Nightingales - Love in Return
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On Hold

As you may have seen on other blogs, Divshare has had a meltdown the past ten days or so. They keep giving updates, but key parts of their site do not work at all, and if they do work, it's not fully. Last week, I was able to provide links to downloads, this week, I can't even upload (and judging from comments on facebook and other blogs, neither can anyone else. I don't have a backup site, and do not want to start paying for another one unless I can unhooked from Divshare with money back. I'll reconsider looking elsewhere if this goes on much further, and I do have tracks ready for the next two posts, which will start going up the day this problem is fixed. Bob

The SOUND of Puget Sound!

Earlier this week, I spent a wonderful day with my best pal Stu, with whom I've also shared a love of, and a passion for collecting, song-poems. We dug through my unshared s-p records, as well as the pile of records I haven't even had a chance to listen to. From this latter pile came one of our choices for an upcoming offering, and I chose to make it today's record. It's from the Pacific Northwest.

Bremerton, Washington, is just a 55 minute ferry ride from Seattle across the Puget Sound, and is the home to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. It seems at least likely that this town of 40,000 (today - it was closer to 30,000 in the '60's) was home to Henry Ward, who just as likely was the proprietor of Puget Sound Records. 

This is the only record I've ever seen on Puget Sound records, but the label number (503) leads me to believe that there were at least three others. For at least this record, Ward contracted to have Lee Hudson work  his magic with his lyrics, and this resulted in the lovely voice of Cara Stewart singing the plaintive song of frustration, "I Got Gypped In My Love". And as with most of Cara's records, it's a lovely thing to hear. 

I'd also like to point out the audible dips heard during part of the guitar solo, where it sounds like someone put a finger on the turntable, repeatedly. Those moments are part of the record - I played that section three times, on two turntables, and it played like that every time. 

Download: Cara Stewart with the Gold Coast Boys - I Got Gypped In My Love

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The flip side (actually, this is the A-side, but I liked "Gypped" a bit better), also written by Henry Ward, is a nice one, too. This has the same groove, same sound and same style of vocal - Lee Hudson's styles were somewhat limited, although they are such winning sounds that I hardly mind hearing them over and over again. I hope it's the same for you. 

Download: Cara Stewart with the Gold Coast Boys - I'm Right Back Where I Started

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A One Sided Acetate... How Noval

I'm a little late this week, due to some connectivity problems, among other things - I hope to be back on an end-of-the-week/weekend schedule in another couple of days.

Meanwhile, here's the only item in my collection that fits this particular description: It's a one-sided acetate on the Noval Records label. There's no artist named, but that's not unusual, as Noval never named the artists on their records. They did bother to credit the arranger, and as always just put his first name, in this case "Jay".

As far as the material, well, this is not a demo version of a Noval record. It sounds like a demo, but so did all of their releases, and this one is no exception. To me, the structure of the song most closely resembles that of "The 23rd Channel", with a bridge section in particular sounding like a rewrite of the bridge of that record.

The stunning thing about this record is that the "sweetest dream" of the title is, if I'm understanding them correctly, that the singer has now learned that she is to die soon, and will be seeing God soon. If you think I have that wrong, please chime in.

Download: No Artist Named - The Sweetest Dream
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When is Bob Storm NOT Bob Storm?

Or maybe the better question is, who was/is Bob Storm?

One of the most confounding things - among many - about the Halmark label is its artist credits. Much of the time this was handled simply - the artist wasn't credited. But when they DID credit a singer, more often than not, the name given was Bob Storm. When I started collecting song-poem records, I thought I had a fairly good idea who Bob Storm was - the Halmark tracks featuring a pompous, overblown, unctuous baritone, usually singing with a remarkably ridiculous amount of vibrato. That was Bob Storm. Most of the songs, sung by a male singer, that weren't sung by the trebly, somewhat tinny-voiced singer on Halmark. That was Bob Storm. 

In fact, here's a perfect example of the Bob Storm I came to know and love, on a typically turgid piece called "Wonderful Heaven Waiting for You". This one has the astounding extra benefit of having Mr. Storm offer up a spoken word introduction, which makes it just that much more special!

Download: Bob Storm - Wonderful Heaven Waiting For You

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The problem is that, while Bob Storm is the most frequently identified singer on Halmark 45's, the records bearing that name do not always actually feature the singer you just heard on one side of today's disk. I am aware of at least four singers, including one woman, who had releases on Halmark which came out credited to Bob Storm. Most frequently, this happened to the other singer I mentioned up there, Jack Kim. On the other hand, I have one record - my favorite Halmark record of all, "Lady Off Pedestal at Notre Dame", which is credited to Jack Kim, but the singer is clearly the man heard on the track I just shared, the one I always think of as Bob Storm.

The flip side of this record, a rather pedestrian tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, titled "Sleep On, Dr. King", is also credited to Bob Storm. And while this isn't Jack Kim (or the female singer I mentioned), I just don't think this is the usual Bob Storm, either (unless he was capable of MUCH more vocal manipulation than most singers. The range, the style and the overall performance quality are not really in the same ballpark. I'm not sure I even recognize this vocalist from other Halmark records!

Download: Labeled as 'Bob Storm" - Sleep On, Dr. King
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So who is/was Bob Storm? Was there actually a singer by that name (as there was for Jack Kim - real name Jack Kimmel)? Or was that just a catchall artist credit that Halmark used on those releasees where they named a singer, with no actual person by that name or even assumed name. Will we ever know?

His Carolina Woman

Here's a record I was quite pleased to be able to pick up, a few months ago. I've known this side of the record for years - it was shared with me on a best-of-his-collection CD by an internet friend of mine... oh, I'd guess it was nearly a decade ago. The song - "My Carolina Woman" - is a good one. It's strong, without crossing over into the rarified air of something really special, as a tune, but what really grabs me about it are the places where Rodd Keith goes into triple harmony with himself. More than a few of my favorite Rodd discs contain this feature, although he didn't do it all that often.

The section from 1:10 to 1:20, and a similar moment about a minute later, have often rung throuigh my brain, in the decade since I first heard it, and the whole soulful production makes for a nice little record.

Download: Rodd Keith - My Carolina Woman
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The flip side is titled "The Singing Hills", and I was initially underwhelmed by it. That didn't last, however - I listened a bit more deeply, and was quite taken with the borderline gorgeous backing track. For half of the track, it seems to be made up entirely of stringed instruments - bass and guitars. If there is a drummer there, he's playing very subdued brushes. About half way through, the piano makes itself known, again, buried in the mix, gradually playing more of a role, while remaining well in the background.

It's just a lovely track, and it matches the sweet, lovely lyrics (written by the same song-poet as the a-side, by the way) extremely well. One of the most laid-back tracks I've heard from Rodd Keith, and a real winner.

Download: Rodd Keith - The Singing Hills
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Eddie Eltman's Greatest Hit

Here's some sweet relief for all of you who have been patiently waiting for a bit of song-poem sharing featuring the fantastic sounds of Eddie Eltman! There may not actually be anyone out there who has actually been waiting for this, because Mr. Eltman is only documented (on the AS/PMA site) to have appeared on one song-poem record, and this is that record, all 206 seconds of it (that's the total of BOTH sides, not of one song!).

And a sweet little record it is, too. "Honey Bee Bug" came out some time in 1959, and it sounds much like any number of hits and near hits from 1958-59, with the exception of some hamfistedness on the part of the band, particularly the bass player. With a little sanding on the edges of this one, and a better producer, I imagine this could actually have made the charts in that era.

Download: Eddie Eltman - Honey Bee Bug
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The first thing you may notice about the flip side, "God, You and Me", is that it sounds a whole lot like "Honey Bee Bug". This track has the same strengths and weaknesses as its flip, and while I'm partial to that flip, I could see this one being just as enjoyable to others, and again, this sound could easily have been molded into something chartworthy, during the time it was recorded.

Download: Eddie Eltman - God, You and Me
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I wonder sometimes about these singers who show up just once or twice on a song-poem label - what's the story there. Sometimes they are vanity recordings, made by the writer of the songs, but that's clearly not the case here, and in other ways, this record doesn't differ much from the TPA style of the day, which was to recreate what was selling (and much more effectively than some other labels did). Anyone with insight into this is most welcome to chime in!

Born Loser

It's always a nice day around here when I get to spin a Norm Burns record. And today's selection even goes for a bit of comedy, and while it's hit-and-miss on that score at least, it's fun to hear Norm fooling around with a country bumpkin accent and singing goofy lyrics. This song seems to be at least a cousin, of sorts, with another Norm favorite, "I Ain't Got No Nothing", a song which actually ends with the lines "when the time arrives, I just know that I will be shot". This one doesn't go quite that far, but it's also perhaps a slightly better constructed lyrics, without some of the rhyming reaches of "No Nothing". 

And plenty of moments here work as Jackie Vernon-esque self-depreciating comedy, from the singer's mother's comments when he was dropped on his head, to the meaning of the principal's statement that he was "the most responsible kid in school", to where he went to find a wife.  Other moments are clunky in terms of writing, fitting the words to the backing, or both. 

Download: Norm Burns & Singers - Born Loser

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I don't have much to say about the flip side "Dreamer of Dreams" (perhaps it was the lead track on Norms "Speaker of Speech" album, or maybe it was to be called "Hummer of Hums"). It's not very good, as a song or a performance, and it's not bad enough to be interesting. The only thing marginally curious about this song is the repeated reference to the belief that we'll reach the moon at some point in the future. The thing is, that that AS/PMA discography for Sterling does a decent job of indicating when which records came out, and based on this one's label number, it's fairly clear that this record was made in late 1970, nearly 18 months after the first moon landing. Ah, well, the mysteries of the song-poets, and of the song poem industry in general.

Download: Norm Burns & Singers - Dreamer of Dreams

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Hummin' and a Strummin'

Time is fleeting this week for various reasons, and I'm way behind in sharing this week's tracks. So just a few words on the Gene Marshall numbers I've chosen for this week. Although "Hummin' and a Strummin'" is written in the first person, I sense a strong feeling of disdain for the singer, on the part of the lyric writer, who was perhaps lumping all of those hippies together in writing this song about one of the laziest people ever described. Her ability to construct and portray a realistic person while simultaneously showing his foibles does not exactly rival the talents in this area of Randy Newman - an unfair comparison, I suppose, but if you're going to shoot for this sort of thing, you need to hit the target without being as obvious about it as the lyrics are here, doncha think?  

Download: Gene Marshall - Hummin' and a Strummin'
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The flip side, "Shifting Sand", is an average level lyric containing a common sentiment and experiment. I've heard better, and in listening to song-poems, I've heard a lot worse, MANY times. This writer, at least, manages to hold my attention and put together some moderately affecting words. And it helps that Gene Marshall turns in another masterful vocal.


Download: Gene Marshall - Shifting Sand
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A Song-Poem For Your Mother

Ah, Mother's Day. A day for flowers, gifts, an outpouring of thanks, a nice dinner, perhaps at the fanciest place in town, a phone call if you can't be together and, of course, Frank Perry and the "Big Sound" of the Film City Chamberlin. For those who struggle to express a single original thought, and for whom even Hallmark's cards seem a bit too edgy, I offer here, free of charge, a song to give to your mother, containing the blandest of mother's day wishes imaginable: 

Download: Frank Perry and the "Big Sound" - Happy Mother's Day
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That sound sure is big, huh? Of the flip side, the seemingly endless "I Thought You Knew", the less said, the better:


Download: Frank Perry and the "Big Sound" - I Thought You Knew
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Caveman Music!

I've seen very few records on the Caveman label. There are only two in my collection, I've seen two others on other blogs, and there are only four listed at the AS/PMA site. It seems to have been one of these catch-all labels, putting out the products of a variety of other song-poem factories, producers of vanity recordings and who knows what else. Based on the records I've seen or which are listed, I can't see any direct connection between the various Caveman records (i.e. the same company, the same writers, etc.) that are often so evident on the smaller song-poem offshoot labels.

Of those Caveman records I've heard, one is far and away the best, and it's also the one which actually sounds like it could be caveman music. That record - one of my favorites ever - can be found at another wonderful blog, here. I'm partial to "White Rose Gal" but both tracks are a hell of a lot of fun. Have a listen, and thank me later!

Today's item on Caveman Record features the very un-caveman like Cara Stewart, doing what Cara Stewart did best, singing in a lovely voice over a slinky Lee Hudson backing track. The words of "Sugar" could stand to be improved quite a bit - I'm fairly certain, for example, that "much" doesn't rhyme with "church", and the phrase "I just idolize your charms" is not one which rolls musically off the tongue. But if you just lean back and let Cara's voice work it's magic, none of that will matter by the time the record is over.

Download: Cara Stewart - Sugar
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As much as I wish this was a two sider for Cara, the reality is that the flip contains another typical performance, in this case, Sammy Marshall, Samming it up on a forgettable Globe entry titled "Dewdrops":

Download: Sonny Marshall - Dewdrops
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Interestingly, although the Caveman numbering system seems to be virtually at-random (various releases have  three digits, four digits and five digits), AS/PMA shows a record with the exact same label number as this one (81462), but minus the C/D following the number, having been released as an EP, with both of these songs on one side (and both identified as being sung by Sammy Marshall) with two Joan Auborn songs on the other side.