Howden Records, Part Three

Five years ago, and again 2 1/2 years ago, I shared two of four records I had acquired on the previously unknown Howden records label. As I wrote at the time, this appears to have been one of the dozens of vanity labels that Tropical Records set up, in this case for one HOWard DENington. 

The first two items I shared featured the equally previously unknown Ella Howard and Bill Clifford. Today, I'm going to offer up the third of the four items, which starts with this song: 

Betty Bond is not totally unknown. She is documented to have appeared on Tropical and a few of its spin-off vanity labels, and I featured her here once before. 

Anyway, here she is again with "Face of an Angel". I enjoy the warm band sound here, and both that sound and the chord changes strike me as a bargain basement version of some of the late 1950's and early 1960's country arrangements that I just love. I could do without the chirpy backup singers, but several moments of Betty Bond's aching vocal appeal to me. 

Download: Betty Bond - Face of an Angel

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The flip side of this record is Betty Bond's take on "It's the Natural Thing", which was also on the first Howden record I shared, sung there by Ella Howard. I'm quite partial to the Ella Howard version, entirely because the arrangement is better. I think I like Betty's vocal better, but the backing here is tinny, the backing vocalists are chirpier and less appealing here, and the track is not as interesting as  is Ella's version. You're mileage may vary. 

Download: Betty Bond - It's the Natural Thing

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Bonnie Graham on Preview

First, I was alerted to the fact that this site was recently added to a site called "The 35 Best Obscure Music Blogs and Websites". This is part of a larger website called Feedspot. I'm hoping - and pretty sure - that they mean the music I share here is obscure, and not that the site is obscure. Both statements are probably true, however. In looking around the internet, I've found multiple references to Feedspot, a couple of which say it is a scam of some sort. If anyone out there has information about this, please let me know and I will remove this section of the post and the link. 

Anyway....

I am surprised to find that I have gotten through 14 years of this song-poem project without ever featuring Bonnie Graham. I know I own a least a few of her two dozen or more releases on Preview, but perhaps I've found, over the years, that those have been shared elsewhere (I try not to feature music that's already been posted). I'm really not sure. I posted one record which an online site claimed featured her, but a quick listen to that record proved that it wasn't her, and, in fact, that it was likely a different singer on each side of the record! You can read about Bonnie Graham (aka Charlotte O'Hara) here. 

Anyway, here's today's offering: 

I really enjoy both of today's sides, for different reasons, and had a hard time deciding which one was stronger. I ended up with "The Future of My Heart". I don't want to overlook the stellar vocals, although that's pretty much a given on a Bonnie Graham record. But yeah, this is really great singing. But I also love what's going on behind her - particularly the flute part, and that loose snare sound that recurs on many of the better Preview records of this period. This has Rodd Keith written all over it. Plus, if you listen closely - in headphones - you will hear a few moments where members (or perhaps one member) of the band call out, perhaps in excitement, perhaps for other reasons. I hear three shouts between 0:40 and 0:53. Then there's a shout at 2:03, followed by another a few seconds later, and they continue here and there for the rest of the track. Those moments add a feeling of being in the studio, at least for me. Last, but hardly least, these are better lyrics than you're going to find on most song-poems, and whoever set them to a melody did a damn fine job. 

Download: Bonnie Graham - The Future of My Heart

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The flip side appealed to me immediately because of the backing track used. Those who have the song-poems compilations (released some 20-25 years ago now) will recognize this track immediately, and I'm going to guess many of those who do have greatly fond memories of the Rodd Keith records in which it was previously used. Aside from that, Bonnie Graham's most excellent vocal performances are again the star of the show here. 

Download: Bonnie Graham - I Need You

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A Mother's Poem.... From Hallmark Cards.... err, no, From Halmark Records

Happy Mother's Day!

The Hallmark people have certainly made a mint off of mother's day, but the Halmark label didn't do to shabbily in separating folks from their money, when it came to songs about Mother, either. Or songs about Christianity. Or songs about mother AND Christianity. 

I actually don't think I know of two song-poems that veer into both mother and Christianity, but I do know of one, and it's a humdinger of a bizarre entry. 

The song is titled "Mother's Poem", although the first time listening, I was absolutely certain that the piece was mislabeled, because there is precious little in it about being a mother, and a whole lot about being (apparently) happily free of a late husband who never gave her a wedding ring, but in whose memory she refuses to re-marry, as well as being about the world going to hell (quite literally - she clearly thinks Armageddon is approaching, or, as one of my favorite song-poems says "The old world will end in a fire". 

The song is sung by Mary Kimmel, Halmark's resident thrush, with pointless repetition of some of the phrases, like someone suffering from echolalia, by her husband Jack, who was often credited (if at all) as Jack Kim. What I missed the first time is that one of Jack's responses is, in fact, to label the song (such as it is, most of it is spoken) as "Mother's Poem". 

So let's just guess this was a poem written by the mother of song-poet Etta Coon and enjoy it for its lugubriousness and downright otherworldly lyrics. 

Download: Halmark Productions - Mother's Poem

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If Mrs. Coon's mother went to the ends of the earth (and literally described the end of the earth) for some of her images and thoughts in "A Mother's Poem", the "lyricist" of the next song, "In the Beginning" went to the other extreme, as she seems to have simply opened her bible to various verses and strung them together, with a few passing phrases in between. 

This is not as obnoxious, I guess, as the "writer" who submitted The Lord's Prayer, verbatim, and called it his own work, but it's not a lot different, either. And yes, I know that Pete Seeger took the same opening biblical words that start this song, and many more lines from that chapter of the bible, and made his own song out of it, and the subsequent biblical verses, but at least he wrote the music to his song and added a refrain of his own. This person submitted lyrics to Halmark, which always provided the music and tune. So, as in the case of that Lord's Prayer submission, what, exactly is this person claiming to have written? 

Download: Halmark Productions - In the Beginning

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The remaining two songs from this EP are also religious in nature, and to my ears, don't contain much worth commenting on, or even worth sharing, but for the fact that I've always promised to share the entirety of each record. The first one is "Turn On Your Light"

Download: Halmark Productions - Turn On Your Light

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Finally, we have "The Parade of Miracles", which I was hoping was going to be about Smokey Robinson's singing companions, but it's not. This doesn't sound like Mary Kimmel to me, but maybe it is. I haven't honestly spent enough time listening to Halmark's female singers to recognize who it might be if it's not Mary, and what else she might have sung. 

Download: Halmark Productions - The Parade of Miracles

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A Little Latin Supper Club Music From Tin Pan Alley

Howdee, 

As the name of the post indicates, today, we have the good folks at Tin Pan Alley, providing a Latin-esque track which actually reminds me much more of the sort of supper club track that Sterling might have turned out (although the instrumental lineup there would have been a bit different), perhaps one backing up Norm Burns. At least it sounds more similar to that than it does to what I'm used to from this period (or any period) of TPA. 

Anyway, here we have Cathy Mills, with a rather winning vocal, singing "That Flower", which features some lyrics which, in my hearing, are just a few steps on this side of Risqué, what with the singer referring to a flower which is opening her buds and references to "what we're doing". I also find the lyrics confusing: oddly, at times she seems to be referring to herself as the flower, but then repeatedly says that the flower is her beloved. 

Then there is this exceptionally poorly constructed lyric: 

"And if you know why

If you're still wondering why" 

Huh? Maybe someone out there will parse this for me for effectively. 

Download: Cathy Mills - That Flower

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On the flip side, we have yet another song title which would vie for the title of "The Quintessential Song-Poem Title", specifically, "My Sad Heart". I don't find there to be anything here to interest me, unfortunately. Perhaps you'll find it more entertaining. 

DownloadL Cathy Mills - My Sad Heart

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W. L. Horning Strikes Again!!

Today, I have a find which will no doubt be considered a very important find by a handful of collectors. And it will no doubt be considered extremely esoteric by everyone else. 

For those not in the know, I wish to introduce you to W. L. Horning, maker of some of the most astonishingly bad records in the history of bad records. 

If, indeed, you are not familiar with Mr. Horning, please know that he made two confirmed records under his own name, an EP of four songs, and an EP of six songs. One of the songs, Kiss Me, Kiss Me Baby, can be heard here, and has to be heard to be believed. 

But then, Mr. Horning took the backing track for "Kiss Me, Kiss Me Baby", sped it up, and made up a new song by expressing himself ("singing" seems like the wrong word") over the sped up track. Unfortunately, "Kiss Me Kiss Me Baby" is only 63 seconds long, and the new song, "Rockin' and Rollin'", is almost three minutes long, so he kept moving the needle back in order to emote over it so more. The results are truly one of the oddest things ever pressed into plastic - and off center, to boot. 

The great Darryl Bullock, in his book on the World's Worst Records, has written about Mr. Horning, and while this segment can be found online, I encourage you to buy his books, which are wonderful. 

In the late 1970's, probably after those records were made, W. L. Horning began utilizing the facilities of Sandy Stanton's song-poem factory, and sent his "songs" to Stanton for a more professional result, pressed up on the custom (vanity) Wesley Records label (Wesley being the W in W. L. Horning's name). When the song-poem website was mothballed, only three singles (and six songs) from Mr. Horning's pen were known to have been recorded, and a fourth record turned up as an entry on the 45Cat website some time later. 

Well now, all of you get to hear that record, as recorded by Stanton favorite Frank Perry, and the ever-present "Swinging Strings":

We'll start with a previously unrecorded song from the maestro (several of his Wesley releases were remakes of songs he himself had already recorded). This one is called "Sweet Wine and Women", and like everything he wrote, it has lyrics which are simplistic to the point of ridiculousness. 

Download: Frank Perry and the "Swinging Strings" - Sweet Wine and Women

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On the flip side is one of those recordings where Mr. Horning had Stanton's crew remake one of the songs he had already recorded. The Horning version used to be available online, but I've been unable to find it now. The song is "Summer is Gone". 

Download: Frank Perry and the "Swinging Strings" - Summer is Gone

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There's Nothing Better Than Salt!

Greetings, y'all, 

I am desperately late in posting something called Song-Poem of the Week. but in my defense, I spent nearly all of my free time in the past month writing a massive post (for my other blog) to honor the 100th anniversary of my mother's birth, which occurred last Sunday. The post is indeed massive - several thousand words, about 18 images and 24 sound files - and I understand if those reading this site choose not to dive in. But if you're at all interested, I'd be honored if you'd read it. It's a good story. You can find that post here. 

To make up for the delay, I have a record today which is most certainly my favorite new-to-me song poem in a long, long time, at least since I posted "That's the Life For Me", last May. It's a song by Sammy Marshall and it's all about that most important of subjects, SALT. And if you don't think that I consider SALT to be important, than you don't know me very well. 

What's more, "Salt, Salt, Salt" has a bouncy, fun, early '60's arrangement, a wonderful, ragtime style piano break (I am reminded, just a bit, of "Green Door" by Jim Lowe, one of my favorite records ever) . It also has really clever lyrics. In the early lines, the song-poem team that put this lyric together quite accurately identify many of the things that make salt essential, and accurately identify that one cannot live without a lot of salt. I know I can't. By the middle and last verses of the song, they are ascribing all manner of amazing things that salt will allow you to do, including making you rich and allowing you to patch up arguments. I don't know that this is true, but given how wonderful salt is, I wouldn't rule it out. 

Just an all around wonderful record. 

Download: Sammy Marshall - Salt, Salt, Salt

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The flip side, "If You Should Ever Say Goodbye", is what Billboard would have probably called a "rock-a-ballad" in 1961, which is apparently when this record is from. Sammy seems a little shakier on this vocal than I'm used to from him, and it's okay all the way around, I suppose, without being anything special. 

Download: Sammy Marshall - If You Should Ever Say Goodbye

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Please also note that this is the only known song-poem release on the Carol label. There is one more Carol release listed on Discogs, but that one is clearly not a song poem, and has enough things different about it that, despite the label logo being the same, I suspect the two records are unrelated. 

 

A Tale of Two Demos

 Greetings, song-poem fans!

First up, I would like to acknowledge by best friend Stu, who is the most frequent poster here, I do believe, and who, earlier this week, had one of those big round birthday numbers. Happy Birthday, Stu!!!

And then, I want to mention Sammy Reed, perhaps the second (if not the first) most frequent poster here. Sammy recently discontinued his blogspot site, meaning that a whole lot of comments on my posts had links which went nowhere. I have changed several of those today, to go to his new site. Most of those links now go to a massive post where he has included virtually everything that he previously uploaded in response to, or in anyway related to, this site. I could direct you to all those individual posts, but most of them link to this page. 

But in addition to that, Sammy remembered a post I wrote nearly a year ago, in which I commented that I'd found a copyright entry for a song called "HOOPA LOOPA HOOPA LOOPA DOOPA", and I commented that I'd pay to hear that song.

Well, sure enough, Sammy has found that song on YouTube, with a somewhat simplified title. I can't say it lived up to my hopes, but should also note that the chorus did repeat in my head for hours afterward. On a side note, if that's Ruth Brown I'll eat my hat. "Venus" can't even stay on pitch.  Thanks, Sammy - where do I send the check?   

And now: 

Over two months ago, I wrote, rather excitedly, about having found two Cara Stewart acetates that I'd bought somewhere along the line and had completely forgotten about. I shared a two sided acetate at that time, including a wonderful tune called "I Just Dropped In to Say 'Hello'"

Today, I have the other acetate. This one is one-sided, and it is written by the same team that wrote both of the songs on the other acetate. Like the other disk, this one came with sheet music, seen here: 

The song, "Don't You Think We Better Dance", isn't much musically, but the lyrics hint at something considerably more steamy than the typical song of the era, without getting into details. And of course, Lee Hudson's arrangement and Cara's warm, inviting singing make it something well worth hearing. 

Download: Cara Stewart - Don't You Think We Better Dance

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The label on that record makes it clear that the recording is a demo, rather than a completed product sent to the song-poets (or in this case, songwriting team). But the care and effort evident in the performance take it well beyond the average demo. 

I didn't want to just share one track, so I pulled out another one sided song-poem demo 78, not only to give you a good deal in reward for stopping by, but also to contrast what a demo from most song-poem outfits sounded like: Dull as dishwater. 

Here's a record on the previously unrepresented (here) Hollywood Tunesmiths label. The song is "Laura Lee", and it features a nondescript male singer accompanied, boringly so, by piano backing. I find everything about this record bland, and it makes it just that much more impressive to hear what Lee Hudson was doing for his customers, most likely just a few years after this record was made. 

Download: No Artist Named (Hollywood Tunesmiths) - Laura Lee

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It's So Easy To Be Breezy!

 

It's been way too long since I posted here- I've been sick the last several days. And there are updates I need to do to some previous posts, as well, but they will wait until next time, as I'm still not doing great. In fact, I'm going to quote from myself in presenting this duo of Fable sides. But first, it's worth noting that the AS/PMA page shows that Fable records numbering started with the 500's, and one other online repository shows a single additional record from the 200 series. So I'm not sure when this is from - it's either just about the first Fable release or some sort of outlier. 

Anyway, here's what I wrote about the label, and this particular lyricist and perhaps songwriter, just about five years ago: 

As I've written before, posting songs from the Fable Label poses an interesting dilemma. Most of the songs on the label were probably not song-poems, but a good percentage of them seem to have been vanity releases. And when a likely vanity release is sung by someone other than the song-writer, that seems like at the very least a hybrid vanity/song-poem release.

Such is the case - and I'm guessing here - with today's feature. Lysle Tomerlin had several songs released on Fable, and wrote at least one South-Pacific-Themed song which was recorded and released by an established artist. Aside from that song, though, everything seems to have been on Fable, making me suspect these as vanity records.

I wrote those words about a record of two Western Swing numbers, by Little Jeannie Greer, and this record, featuring two different female singers, also falls under that genre. The better of the two, and quite catchy, to my ears, is "It's Easy to Be Breezy", sung by Joan Allen (presumably not the Oscar nominated actress of the same name, who was not yet born when this record is likely to have come out), accompanied by a real mouthful of a band, Sandy Stanton and his Rhythm Ranchhands. 

Download: Joan Allen, Music by Sandy Stanton and his Rhythm Ranchhands - It's Easy to Be Breezy

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The flip side is by Lee Esmont (presumably not the Oscar nominated actress of the same name, because there isn't one),with a slower, and less interesting number, titled Stepping Stones. Here and there, the guitarist (at least when he's playing while Lee sings), seems to have thought he had the chops and style of Les Paul. He didn't. No one did except Les. 

Download: Lee Esmont, Music By Sandy Stanton and his Rhythm Ranchhands - Stepping Stones 

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So are these song-poems? Vanity recordings? Something else? I'm really not sure, but in the case of Fable, my goal is simply to share whatever previously unavailable finds I make. And this one seems to have been unknown, before this point. 

Dora Foley Has Something to Say

Today, I have one of Rodd Keith's earliest song-poem releases, just the 41st (or so) entry on his first label, Film City (and, of course, not all of those 41 (or so) were even Rodd Keith records. That was what I initial found to be most interesting about this record. But once I listened closer to it, I found something else of even more interest. 

For this record's lyricist, Dora Foley, clearly knew hew way around writing. The lyrics to "Don't Cry Too Loud" are an extremely effective character study AND a put down of a former lover. Now, I will add that I don't necessarily think that the words to "Don't Cry Too Loud" were all that great of a match for a musical backing. Consider this couplet, probably the one really ill conceived line in the piece: 

You're so blasé now 

with all your drinking

There's only so much that even Rodd Keith could do with that. And he did attach it to a pretty durn turgid setting (one thing the "strings" on this track are not doing is "swinging"). But as a piece of poetry and a put down, I quite enjoyed Ms. Foley's composition. 

Download: Rod Rogers with the Swinging Strings - Don't Cry Too Loud

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The flip side, also written by Ms. Foley, contains a lyric which is much more suited to a musical backing, at lteast to these ears. And again, I think this is a fairly good little set of lyrics. Fleshed out with a few more verses, I think one would be hard pressed to discern these words as being those of a song-poem submission, as opposed to those from a record meant to be plugged as a potential hit. Note that I'm speaking of the lyrics here, and not the fairly cookie-cutter (and mechanized) supper club backing that Rodd provided for it. 

And hey, here's another one of those records which fades out, but then ends before the fade out is complete!

Download: Rod Rogers with the Swinging Strings - Mine to Forget

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More Old Time Religion

Wow, can it really be four months (to the day!) that I featured Sammy Marshall? I'm gonna guess there's never been that much of a gap between Sammy records before, on this site. 

And this also gives me a chance to revisit, once again, song-poet extraordinaire Edith Hopkins. As I've written before, Edith Hopkins wrote several songs which appeared on the "Carellen" label, an outfit that appears to have provided vanity pressings and semi-legit releases for a number of songwriters and performers. But she then created her own label, "Inner-Glo", and utilized the folks at Globe and at Film City, as well as other performers, to perform her songs on that label. 

I have heard from members of her family over the years, and they have confirmed my suspicion she was the composer of her songs; that is, that she wrote the words AND the music for the songs which carried her name, unlike a 100% song-poem where someone at the song-poem factory wrote the music. So her releases sort of cross the song-poem/vanity line, at least on those records where someone like Sammy Marshall (or, as he's identified here, Sonny Marcell) is performing her work. Other releases were likely attempts to market actual potential hit records. 

For my money, Edith Hopkins was one of the best writers working within the environs of song-poems. Examples abound, but here are two: one from my site, and one which is available on YouTube. Oh, and there is the little matter about how she wrote my favorite record - by a country mile - that ever came out of anything even adjacent to the song-poem/vanity world. The first bridge of that record is quite likely my favorite 15 seconds ever record. Ever.

Anyway....

Today it's another religious song from the pen of Ms. Hopkins, appropriate, as it turns out, for the first week of Lent, I suppose, but that's a coincidence - the appeal to me here is the bouncy track and the engaging and warm vocals, not the lyrics (although they're quite effective, too). It's got the clunky title "Hurry Lord God, Reach Down For Me", and I'm guessing that no song-poem ever had more commas in a title. Something dreary could easily have been made out of this, and if so, I wouldn't be featuring it. But happily, it's a country pop groove, which becomes more and more gospelly as it goes along, what with the handclaps and the wailing soprano in the final minute. And, like so many of her songs, it's a capably written song, with effect lyrics and a really good melody (although I must admit that the words of the last verse, which touch on the crucifixion, sound more than a bit weird  when combined with this peppy, upbeat music. 

Download: Sonny Marcell - Hurry Lord God, Reach Down For Me

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~~

Well, they can't all be winners. On the flip side we find "Just a Whisper". Musically, this is professionally done, and Sammy Marshall rather gave anything less than his all. But aside from a few minor pleasures (I like the harmonies), it's a pretty dang dull effort. 

By the way, for those who might be interested, this record is from 1962. 

Download: Sonny Marcell - Just a Whisper

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Norris Minus Norris

I am taking a bit of a road trip down what might be an off-ramp from the song-poem world today (or might not be). Because I can't confirm that today's offering is a song-poem. It probably isn't. But it's connected to that world. 

And what's more important to me, in this case, is to further the sharing of the wild, wonderful, odd world of Norridge Mayhams (aka "Norris the Troubadour). I assure you, every time I get a chance to share something previously unknown that Norridge touched, I'm going to share it. 

And the Co-Ed label of the 1940's was Norridge Mayhams' label. So, stepping away, possibly, from the song-poem realm into the vanity realm, here's today's offering, which I just took ownership of this week: 

"Light Up" is the feature here, and it's a jazzy, big band thing with a instrumental dance run-through leading to a vocal refrain, then back to another instrumental passage, just like a good percentage of the records from this era (ads for this song - albeit with a different flip side - appeared in multiple issues of Billboard in 1944). 

The vocal chorus is very likely the band members themselves, and they sing it in unison. It is, as you might imagine, a paean to the joys of smoking. The nature of the benefits of smoking listed here indicate to this listener that the songwriter did not have tobacco in mind. 

The performers are The Ministers of Melody, who appeared on at least a few other Co-Ed releases, including one I featured before. 

Download: The Ministers of Melody - Light Up

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In fact, that aforementioned previous Co-Ed release I just mentioned, the one which also carried the name of The Ministers of Melody, contained the exact same song and performance (same label number, too) and that which appears on the flip side of this 78. This also happened with "Light Up", which showed up on the flip side of something called "Induction Blues" in a different release, and on the flip side of a version of "From Hopewell Junction", which is the song I shared in that other long ago post I just referred to. 

Anyway, although I shared this once before, 14 years ago, here's "Married Man Blues". I think this record of it is actually in slightly better quality than the one I shared in 2009. 

Trying to figure out the where's, what's and why's of Norris the Troubadours career and making sense of his label releases is quite a challenge. So what's the Norris connection here? Damned if I know - could be that he just knew whoever was behind this band, and it could be that he knew the composer (Lowe) of both songs, making it, as I posited, a vanity record. Could be none of the above. Just one more piece of the puzzle, which I'm happy to provide today. 

Download: The Ministers of Melody - Married Man Blues

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Bobbin', Rockin' and Beboppin'

 Hello, 

Before we get to today's feature, a bit of housekeeping. Regarding my last post, about Lt. Calley, I received a nice note back from Jason Brummer, of The Vietnam War Song Project, who offered up a correction. I had directed folks to see # 36 on that list, for a posting about the Gene Marshall record I was featuring. However, it turns out that the song-poet submitted both songs on that record twice, with the Calley song actually having different lyrics each time. The song I posted is on Jason's list, but it is at # 77. 

Also, I encourage you to visit that same post, and read the comments from "Doctor Future", who linked to yet another Calley record (as well as to a song about sewers exploding). 

Finally, Sammy Reed dropped by to explain that he has closed down his blogspot site, which I have linked to many times, and which is in my feebly small links box. He has opened a new site, and has promised to re-populate it with many of the records from the old site, but, sadly, none of the links in my previous posts will now work. I have changed the link in the links box to his current site, and encourage everyone to check it out!

And now, on with the countdown:

~~

I think today's first tune is a lot of fun, and hope you do, too. 

But first, to understand today's record, you must first be familiar with a 1920's hit song called "When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along". It was a hit in 1926, and again in 1953. A knock of of the 1953 hit was produced for Little Golden Records, and that's the version I grew up being familiar with. 

Well, in 1961, a song-poet decided to update the story, spelling the word "Robin" wrong in the process (unless that was the fault of the person who put the label together), and giving us "The Red Robbin Ain't Bobbin' No Mo'" And lucky us, it was assigned to Tin Pan Alley's Phil Celia, who made far more than his share of oddities during his time with the label. 

For exactly 90 seconds, our song-poet friend lets us know that the robin (sorry, the robbin) has moved on from his "Bobbin'" style and has embraced both Rock and Roll and Bebop - a dual move into two styles which had absolutely nothing in common, and which seems highly unlikely. But maybe birds (sorry, birrds) are more flexible in their musical genres than humans. 

Helpfully, the folks in the Tin Pan Alley band put together a backing track which contains no elements of Rock and Roll or Bebop. Or Bebbop 

Download: Phil Celia: The Red Robbin Ain't Bobbin' No Mo'

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I have nothing even remotely good to say about the tedium found on the flip side, "My Love Never Changes". This inexecrable slab is exactly one minute longer than "Bobbin", but seems about two years longer. Phil appears to be channeling the most unctuous and smarmy of Paul Anka then-contemporary performances, and that's really saying something. 

The opening two lines should give you an idea of the quality of the lyrics: 

My love never changes

My love stays the same

Well, as this seems to have been created as a sort of performance/proposal, I hope the writer's intended said yes. Or maybe "Yes, if you promise to never play that record again". 

Download: Phil Celia - My Love Never Changes

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