Um... You Might Want to Rephrase That...

Every now and then, a song-poem becomes available that I really have to try and get, just because of the title. It could turn out to be a good or bad record (bad in this case largely meaning uninteresting), but sometimes the title itself is the show.

This moment I saw this title was one of those moments. I own a lot of religious song-poems, and have heard many more from others' collections. I'm not sure I've ever seen a more poorly considered title, though, then the one I'm offering up for this Good Friday. It just seems to me that there are certain turns of phrase that you might not want to connect with certain Holy names, images and things. And I'm guessing I'm not alone in saying that when it comes to Jesus, one phrase to avoid might be "Hanging Around". And yet, here we have it:

The song itself does not turn out to be a stellar one, but it is an interesting performance, in that the construction of the remarkably brief, even skimpy poetry of the lyric writer seems to have resulted in some rather complex arrangements by whoever set it to music. As a result the one-time-through-and-done process appears to have been a failure - the usually reliable Gene Marshall struggles through the performance, missing an entire word ("be") the first time he gets to the title phrase, and sounding over his head at a few other points, as well.

Download: Gene Marshall - Jesus Will Be Hanging Around Your Side

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Actually, the most remarkable thing about this record may be the song on the b-side, "Watching Sally Grow". Seriously, you have to listen to this record, it's a chintzy attempt on the song-poet's part to glom onto Bobby Goldsboro's big hit, the sickly sweet "Watching Scotty Grow", written by Mac Davis. The lyric is constructed in much the same way, and covers much of the same ground. 

Actually, it's more obnoxious than that: it starts with the exact same phrase "there he/she sits with a pen", the opening verses end with "well it's not too bad, 'cause she's my girl" verses "but it ain't too bad, 'cause that's my boy", and the rest of the song also parallels those of the big hit record (although this set of words might be considered an improvement; we're not informed that "BLRFQ spells mom and dad") , both end with the same phrase, "Me and God are watching (Sally/Scotty) grow".

I can imagine a lot of hit songs inspiring rip off from the song-poem community, and even posted one where the "lyricist" lifted an entire verse from the song "Nobody's Child" for her own submission to a song-poem company, but "Watching Scotty Grow", with it ripe stench of tripe emanating from every moment, would not have struck me as one worth plagiarizing. Sheesh. 

It's also worth noting that most Preview song-poems have the same publishing information as the A-side of this record, Arthur Music, while this side boasts Liberty State Music, another oddity. Upon review, I see that some copies of Bobby Goldsboro's hit have a reference to a "Liberty" company, so perhaps even the folks at Preview realized they would be in hot water if they tried to copyright this set of lyrics,and assigned them to the owner of the copyright to "Watching Scotty Grow". 

Just another weird corner of the weird, weird world of song-poems.

Download: Gene Marshall - Watching Sally Grow

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Not Every Song is Meant for a Mixed Vocal Trio...

Today, the second half of a little two week jog into the true fringes of the song-poem world, and another EP from the folks at the Film-Tone label. Clicking on the Film-Tone link at the bottom of this page will take you to the three previous EP's I've shared from the label, as well as the very little I know about the label. The key point here is that the only credits you'll typically find on a Film-Tone 45 are the director credit (usually Vincent Poli) and the fact that the performance is by a vocal trio.

This trio, and the group behind them, play and sing as if it was still the 1930's, and regardless of the lyric, it's always the same two men and a woman. Often, this works okay, but other times, I have to wonder what the song-poet thought of the results of his or her submission - more on that in a bit.

Within the limits of their chosen genre, the trio works well enough on the first song, "Butterfly at Play", although I swear I hear a phone ringing at the 1:46 point - it would be a perfect summation of the quality of song-poem industry products if that's exactly what it is, and if they kept the take anyway:

Download: Film-Tone Productions - Butterfly At Play
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Then there's the awkwardly titled "Singing the Song of the Blues", which also works, I guess, with this arrangement, although it features some truly stultifying lyrics, particularly those song in the solo section by the bass singer, who curiously only sounds like a bass when he's singing alone - the rest of the time his voice seems considerably higher.

Download: Film-Tone Productions - Singing the Song of the Blues
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Side two kicks off with "Restless", which features some more words from the creativity challanged end of the lyricist spectrum, and, unusually, some unsure moments of vocalizing from our trio, brief moments where the three part harmony seems close to going off the rails.

Download: Film-Tone Productions - Restless
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And finally, the one referenced in the title of this post, "Everybody's Girl". These lyrics fairly scream out for a solo male performance, or at least a group male performance (or, on the off chance that it was meant to reflect a gay relationship, at least a consistent performance from vocalists of a single gender). And sure enough, it starts out with the two men singing. But then, quickly, the woman of the trio comes in and takes over the melody for the remainder of the song. I have to think this was not what the lyricist had in mind, and although I suspect it was just another job for this particular singer, I do wonder, while listening to this piece, what the hell she might have been thinking, while taking on the lead part in this particular song.

Download: Film-Tone Productions - Everybody's Girl
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When I Write My Noval

If the main focus of this site is a corner of the music world that is definitely on the fringes (and it is), then today's post and record lie on the fringes of that fringe. Because today, I'm bringing you another record born of someone's decision to employ the mysterious staff of the deeply obscure Noval label.

With their simplistic background arrangements (usually distinguished only by the lovely presence of one of my favorite instruments, the vibraphone), lack of named artists (probably to protect the exceptionally bad singers from embarrassment) and downright bizarre crediting system (never more than an "arranged by" note, followed by a first name), Noval stands alone in terms of the sheer depth of their weirdness.

I'd love to know when these records were made - they sound like they were produced in the late '40's, but I'm guessing that's not the case. On the first side of this disc, we have "Now You've Gone and Left Me", which sounds very much like a reject from Tin Pan Alley (the legendary song-writing location, not the label), in structure, arrangement and performance, with a vocal performance sounding very much like a read-through demo performance from our mystery man. At least it's almost peppy, at least compared with much of Noval's output.

Download: No Artist Named - Now You've Gone and Left Me
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On the flip side is a drippy love ballad, "I Love Only You", with words that wouldn't be out of place in a 7th grade love note - so simple that they make the A-side's lyric sound like Shakespeare in comparison, although I hasten to point out that both sides were written by the same person.

Download: No Artist Named - I Love Only You
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Hooray For Mike Thomas!

I sure do enjoy Mike Thomas. Admittedly, he couldn't really sing that well, and his garage-band-lite backing band always sounded like they needed another year or so to rehearse before going into the studio. But the end results of their collaborations are often quite entertaining, although perhaps not for the reasons that the song-poets envisioned. There is often a "what the hell is going on" quality to these records that brings me back for more.

On "There Ain't No Reason", we're treated to an opening with a hi-hat break that seems to predict a vo-de-oh-do song. But no, it's more of the same three piece combo stuff Mike always seems to be singing over, and his nasally warbling quickly gives way to - of all things - a bass solo! And although the guitarist fails to cut off one of the stop-chords, they kept going anyway.

Mike sings the same verse again, and then we get the same bass solo again, with some borderline creative drumming this time (the drummer seems to be wishing for that vo-de-oh-do number). Finally we get a different verse, with a note a 1:44 which seems to have been pulled out of a different song entirely, and the whole thing quickly comes to an end, just 112 seconds after it started.

Download: Mike Thomas - There Ain't No Reason
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The flip side, "I Ain't Living, I Ain't Loving, I Don't Know", is a slow blues, a music style which would seem to be about as far outside of Mike Thomas' wheelhouse as would be Chinese Opera. The guitarist is going to town behind him, and actually manages to throw in a few passable fills, although he seems to struggle with the seemingly simpler task of staying on the beat, and I do wish he'd chosen a more aggressive tone for his guitar, rather than the weaselly, tinny sound heard here.

Download: Mike Thomas - I Ain't Living, I Ain't Loving, I Don't Know
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He Better Pull Out!

Since, by most accounts, my recent post of a Rodd Keith feature did not actually feature Rodd Keith on lead vocals, I thought I'd come back to him sooner than usual. And while the second half of today's record has been readily available for some time, I still thought this record was worthy of a feature, due to the previously overlooked A-side.

I'm not always a fan of Rodd's country stylings - I think he sometimes sounds like he's too obviously ridiculing the material - but on "Pulling Out and Pulling In", he has everything firing just about perfectly, starting with an unusually clever lyric, complete with punchline. Then Rodd attached that lyric to a perfectly suited arrangement, featuring a nice guitar solo, and effective give and take on the chorus with "The Raindrops". As nice as the flip side is, and despite that other song having been chosen for a compilation, I think this is the stronger of the two songs and performances.

Download Rodd Keith and the Raindrops -  Pulling In and Pulling Out
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The flip side is "Don't Throw My Love Away", which was featured on the wonderful "I Died Today" CD of several years ago. This one is in the 1960's adult pop wheelhouse, and wouldn't have been out of place in the repetoire of a Dionne Warwick or her contemporaries. Rarefied air, indeed, and I can recognize the depth of talent and style here, without really enjoying this as much as many others do - it's not really my thing.

Again, although it has been out there and available for ages now, I'm sharing it here for completeness sake, and for those who may not already have it:

Download: Rodd Keith and the Raindrops - Don't Throw My Love Away
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Road Trip!

Today, we're going on a trip to Arkansas. I've been in 42 of the 50 states, by my count, and although I was only in Arkansas for part of a day, the land I saw there may be the most beautiful I've ever seen. Those behind this record, it appears, would heartily agree.

Here's a record on the previously undocumented Patmar records label out of Springdale, Arkansas. Springdale is in the Northwest corner of the state, about 30 miles from Decatur, Arkansas. While Springdale is a good sized city of roughly 70,000, Decatur, on the other hand, has well under 2000 residents.

I think we can reasonably guess that in one of these towns - I'm guessing Decatur, lived a couple named Pat and Marge, who threw their money into song-poem recordings as well as their own nearly eponymous record label, not even bothering to provide their last name on the songwriting credit! And for at least one side of their record, they turned to the Globe company, and stalwart Sammy Marshall, offering up a wish for those who hear him to "Give Me Decatur". Sammy gives it his typical upbeat, enthusiastic performance. By the way, the momentary fades you'll no doubt hear on this track are part of the original record, and not a flaw in the transfer to MP3:

Download: Sammy Marshall - Give Me Decatur
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On the flip side is a recording which might be a song-poem offering, or may be a commissioned performance by a local performer, or perhaps even a friend of Pat and Marge, someone named Les Anderson, nicknamed "Carrot Top" (and God help me, I hope this is the only circumstance under which I have to be entertained by someone with that nickname), along with a string band under the direction of Tex Atchison. I honestly don't know that this is a song-poem or some other animal, but I do know this: as mentioned above, I can fully understand the songwriters' point of view and love of their local land in their song "Beautiful Arkansas":

Download: Les "Carrot-Top" Anderson - Beautiful Arkansas
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A Halmark Love Letter

It's St. Valentine's Day! And I know that when we speak of love, and of song poems, there are those of you who love the Halmark label (and what better label to choose than one which is almost spelled like Hallmark, the company that bring us all of those holiday cards?).

Here's a Halmark special, featuring a superbly nasal performance - I think that's Jack Kim, but my recent singer identifications have been repeatedly called into question - on a love letter in song, titled "I'll Stand By You".



Download: Halmark Productions - I'll Stand By You
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On the flip side, we have a female Halmark singer (whose name I don't know), singing over a backing track I don't remember hearing on a Halmark disk (a real rarity in itself), in an supremely boring religious number, "Where Shall I Go?":



Download: Halmark Productions - Where Shall I Go
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It's St. Valentine's Day! For those of you who love the Halmark label (and what better label to choose than one which misp

That's Her Kissy Face - In Prison

Continuing last week's feature of songs sent to me from a long-time song-poem pal, I've got two songs from a Cinema release, featuring of course The Real Pros. As with last week's feature, because I'm getting these from outside of my collection, I don't have label scans.

The two songs contained on this record could hardly be more different. On the A-side, we've got a light-as-a-feather pop confection called "That's Her Kissy Face", featuring the unusual pairing of acoustic guitar and cheapo synth, over which the singer - who I think is Bobbi Blake - sings a wonderful sweet lyric about a mother's love for her young daughter. Despite the ridiculously low production values, it's a keeper!

Download: The Real Pros - That's Her Kissy Face
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On the flip side, we have Gene Marshall, emoting all over something called "Prison Blues", something of tone poem (a tone-song-poem?), with absolutely no beat or rhythm. Over outtakes from the Deep Purple/Iron Butterfly song-intro file, Gene does a first rate job of offering up the feeling behind the songwriter's words of woe. It's a fairly singular sound and performance from within the song-poem world, actually. Have a listen:

Download: The Real Pros - Prison Blues
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A big thank you to Michael, from me and all the readers and listeners!

AND an addendum, all these years later - it appears I was wrong about both singers here. I'm not convinced that it is not Bobbi Blake on the first cut and it is not Gene Marshall on the flip. I don't know the female singer, and the male singer is the same one who was on most of the earliest Cinema releases. 

And in the Role of "Fred Hamilton".... RODD KEITH!

Over the past few months, one of my longest standing song-poem pals, who I believe I've been corresponding with for the better part of a decade, has sent me some favorites from his collection. With his permission, I'm going to share a few of these over the next few months, interspersed with many more from my collection. Most of these do not have scans of the labels, but on the other hand, given that they are among his favorites, they are quite excellent and shareable, and I didn't want the lack of label scans to prevent me from letting them be heard here.

Today's example comes from the Preview label, and that charming man-about-Preview, Rodd Keith. For whatever reason, on this side of the record, he is billed as "Fred Hamilton", a name not documented on any other Preview record in the AS/PMA database. Be that as it may, it's certainly Rodd singing, and the fantastic production could hardly have been anyone else.

As heard here, Rodd reminds me of no one so much as late period (i.e. the last two decades) Leonard Cohen. And the otherworldly sounds on this track - the overall wooziness, the plucking guitar, the spacy sounds in the background - this is a keeper which should have been anthologized a long time ago. First rate stuff!

ADDENDUM, 1/30/13: A couple of my closest song-poem pals, including the person who supplied these tracks, have written to say that they don't think this is Rodd singing (see comments). I believe that it is, and have other records of his where his singing sounds much like this, but can see their point that it might be someone else. I'd be interested to hear what others think!

Download: Fred Hamilton - A Star Alone
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On the flip side is a song credited to "The Downtowners", titled "Among My Memories". That group name usually means Rodd and some of his cohorts, and this is no exception. But this side seems like a missed chance - the chorus at the start is absolutely fabulous, but then he does that damn talky-talk thing that rarely works (on a song-poem or elsewhere). Then nearer the end, they kind of mix up the singing and talking, and that doesn't do it for me, either. Throughout, the backing track holds the promise of what might have been. Obviously, dear listener, your mileage may vary. Here 'tis!

Download: The Downtowners - Among My Memories
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Faces I Would Like to Know

When I first discovered song-poems, among the initial things I did was check out the American Song-Poem Music Archives, which was then (1996) a vibrant, growing database, with new items added virtually every week or more, and not the mothballed site it is now. That allowed me to know what I would like to search for, and after making the rounds of my favorite stores, and buying a few handfuls of the song-poems those stores unwittingly had in their holdings, I contacted Phil Milstein, head honcho of the AS/PMA.

Thus began an ongoing e-mail exchange, and quickly, to a cassette exchange - all of my latest findings, as I continued to collect 45's, for cassettes of the finest as-yet un-comped song-poems from Phil's growing collection, sent to him from all parts of the collecting universe.

The very first tape I received from him was a cornucopia of fantastic material, starting with a double shot of Halmark ("My Hamburger Baby" and "My Daddy, He Died in 1969") and continuing through the labels and styles. I tell you all this because just last week, some 15 years after that cassette exchange, I managed to snag a vinyl copy of one of my favorite songs from that initial tape exchange, a marvelous little piece of Film City weirdness with the unwieldy title of "You Have a Face (I Would Like to Know)".

On this otherworldly sounding record, the Chamberlin (played almost undoubtedly by Rodd Keith) sets a smoky, night-club-esque mood, with one of the greatest sounds known to man, the marimba, front and center at times, as Patty Stanton sings in a "come-hither" style and lets the listener know how well she'd like to know the face to which she is singing. If the words chosen are a little less than masterful, well, that's one of the charms of the song-poem world in general, and this record specifically.

Download: Patty Stanton and the Singing Strings - You Have a Face (I Would Like to Know)
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The oddest thing about this record may be that both sides contain versions of the same song, with the flip side (actually identified as the a-side, despite being by far the weaker of the two renditions) being offered without its parenthetical title, and performed in a rather bland, blase manner by label head Sandy Stanton. This really plays up how important arrangement and vocal performance are to a song, as this is essentially the same material, but it holds almost no interest, lacking that wonderful smoky arrangement and that sexy performance from the flip side. Here's Sandy Stanton with "You Have a Face":

Download: Sandy Stanton and the Singing Strings - You Have a Face
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Dinner at the United Nations

It seems like quite a while since Gene Marshall was featured here, and it's time to rectify that. The lyrics to today's song, "United Nations", are a minefield of weirdness, to my ears, anyway. Essentially, the songwriter went to a dinner where there were people of every shade, continent, religion, ethnicity, etc. On the one hand, it sounds like she intended to share how impressed and deeply moved she was to be at this cultural gumbo of a dinner party, and how wonderful the family of man is, and maybe that's how it really was.

But I keep getting stopped short by her choice of words: she was "so shocked to see" this group, and how they were all "sitting comfortably", while they were all "staring at me". Does this sound to anyone else like the description of someone who is observing the natives, like a sociologist, or even an anthropologist. The lyrics from there on really do sell the point of interacting with those different than ourselves, but that first verse just has the feel of the society lady having an exotic day out with the natives.

Download: Gene Marshall - United Nations
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The flip side, "Jumbo Dreams", is weird in its own way, starting with that momentary disco guitar noise that leads it off. Am I hearing this right: that the writer's "Jumbo" plans and dreams of the title, are nothing more or less than the day when women would be throwing themselves at him? That's what I'm hearing - he doesn't even explain how those dreams came true. And has anyone ever actually spoken of having "Jumbo Dreams"?

Download: Gene Marshall - Jumbo Dreams
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A Little Bell Told Me

Today's EP is one that I snapped up recently, extremely happy and excited to have been able to buy a copy of a record containing one of the singularly greatest song-poems I've ever heard, one which will likely be familiar to most people reading this post. And while it's still the best reason to have bought the record, I am also extremely glad to have made the acquaintence of a song heard on the flip side of the same EP, one with a bit of mystery to it, as well. 

The Air label seems to have been a catch-all label. I have very little understanding of how this worked, but records on Air can contain the product of as many different song-poem factories as their are tracks on the record. I have no idea if whoever was behind "Air" made any recordings at all. In this case, we have two songs from the Lee Hudson production facility, one from Globe and one that I'm guessing came from Tin Pan Alley. 

First up, one of the two Lee Hudson numbers, a passable, but less than intriguing number called "You're My Lucky Number", most interesting in that it is performed by Bob Brown, last heard here on a somewhat mysterious little record which had a Lee Hudson instrumental on the flip side. Here's Bob Brown with "You're My Lucky Number": 

Download: Bob Brown - You're My Lucky Number
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And now we come to the song which led to this posting, one that sort of fascinates me. It's called "Little Bell", and it's credited to Lang Crosby. First of all, this recording features the melding of two of my passions, Calypso and song poems, so it's already got that going for it. Secondly, there is the mystery here. "Lang Crosby" does not appear anywhere else in the song-poem database at AS/PMA, and what's more, searching for him online shows that his name is the same as 2/3rds of that of one of Bing Crosby's songs, Philip Lang Crosby. Probably a coincidence, or perhaps a ruse to make the song-poet think that the song was being sung by someone who was sort of famous? Who knows. Finally, which song poem factory produced this number? My guess is late 1950's Tin Pan Alley, based on the sound, but I'm not at all sure.

Regardless of all of that, this has been my favorite new song-poem discovery for the last month or more, with the lilting beat, intoxicating, echoey production, sweet vocal and first-rate lyrics. I hope you like it at least half as much. Here's "Little Bell", by Lang Crosby:

Download: Lang Crosby - Little Bell
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In many ways, the next track, by Sammy Marshall, or in this case, Sonny Marshall, is the typical Sammy release from the people at Globe, but the one fascinating aspect to it is its title, and by extension, its lyrics. It's called "Ben Sira in the Garden", and doing a websearch for "Ben Sira" took me down a rabbit hole of information about an ancient Jewish text, left out of the Bible, but still considered very important to many people of varying religious inclinations. I'll not go into any more detail, to keep readers from seeing how very little I know about this, but there is more in this title and lyric than in your everyday song-poem, that's for sure. Here it is:

Download: Sonny Marshall - Ben Sira in the Garden
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And finally, the song which led me to pursue this record in the first place. This one is already ensconsed at the top of the song-poem heap, having been included in one of the great compilations of many years ago. But there's never a bad moment to experience Cara Stewart's classic "Song of the Burmese Land":

Download: Cara Stewart - Song of the Burmese Land

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