Sammy Marshall's Greatest Hits

It was five months ago, when, while writing a post about an Inner-Glo records release, I discovered, to my great surprise, that I'd never featured my favorite two Sammy Marshall recordings, which are on the two sides of the same 45. I'd like to rectify that now. The record, as you might surmise from that introduction, also came out on the Inner-Glo label, and like all Inner-Glo releases, was written (or, in the case of these two songs, co-written) by label creator and head honcho (honcha?) Edith Hopkins, my all time favorite song-poet. I've rhapsodized about her quite enough, including in the post linked above, so I'll get right to the music. 

Now, I write that these are my favorite Sammy tunes, and labeled this post "Sammy Marshall's Greatest Hits" knowing full well that many, if not most of you out there - at least those who have a favorite Sammy Marshall record - probably prefer one of his rock and roll rave-ups, or maybe even one of his all-to-few (and excellent) atmospheric numbers such as "Picture in the Fire". 

(I also recognize that he's identified here as "Sonny Marcell", but I'll go with his most common song-poem name, here and in the labels.)

But these two teen idol styled numbers are the gold standard for me, with "Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained" getting the nod as the better of the two. Both of these songs, but particularly "Nothing Ventured", sound to me like records that could easily have been hits, and which are better than most of the pimply-pop-rock offerings of the various Bobbys and Brians and other teen and post teen warblers of the 1960-63 era (except, I hasten to add, nowhere near what Gene Pitney was doing - he was phenomenal). 

As I said, I think this one is the better of the two. They're both really good, but this one has an indelible melody, excellent lyrics, a sparkling arrangements - I love that effect laden guitar at the beginning and end (shades of George Harrison's Leslie'd guitar from several years later!) - fabulous, thick harmonies on the choruses and first rate vocals - did Sammy ever sing more effectively with heart-on-his-sleeve emotion ? I'm very pleased to offer up a record I consider to be among the best song-poems ever released. 

Download: Sonny Marcell - Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

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Two other things I'll mention. First, this seems to date from around 1962, which is before the folks at Globe fell into a sort of bland sameness, which is to its advantage. And second, this is among the first song-poems I found, in 1997, less than year after I started looking for song-poems. 

The flip side, "I'll Do It For You", is no slouch, either. A loping beat, another wonderful melody, and sweet, love-struck lyrics, complete with a few humorous asides ("my canoe a-leakin'). And then there are even more close harmonies on the chorus - I swoon over those. Just another damn good song by Edith Hopkins and a record that does good by her. 

Download: Sonny Marcell - I'll Do It For You

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I rarely ask specifically for comments, but I am interested in this case to hear if other people here what I hear in these two songs, and if you also think these are among (or are) Sammy's Best. 

Thoughts on Life and Words from Adam

Before I get to my most wonderful Norm Burns offering for the week, I have forgotten, several times, to offer up thanks to the always faithful Sammy Reed for identifying that this record, on Halmark, was pressed up in 1977. I think I have this fixed point in my head that most Halmark records are from before 1974, but there's no reason for that, besides the fact that they sounds like they're from 1950 and the first time I saw a Halmark record (my very first song-poem, although I didn't know it at the time), was in 1974, when I was 14. 

Somehow, it's more jarring for me to think that a Halmark song-poem came out in 1977, the same year as major hits such albums as Little Criminals by Randy Newman, News of the World by Queen and the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, then it is to think that a Halmark song-poem came out in 1974, when the vast majority of what was topping the charts that year sucked about as much as... a Halmark record. (Your mileage may, of course, vary.)

Anyway, as always, thanks, Sammy. I was genuinely surprised by this news. 

Today's record is quite fun, on both sides. Because what is more fun than a song observing that we all grow old and become forgotten? Maybe a song sung from the point of view of Adam after being cast out of the garden? 

Song-Poet Stephen Karvec seemingly had quite a bit to get off of his chest - sounds like his friends left him behind at some point, and he was downright philosophical about it. Unfortunately, philosophy is not always expressed in phrases that fit nicely into musical patterns. As a result, we get to hear Norm Burns - one of my favorites - doing all he can to sing the following: "you'll have to face life as it is, as it was, and how it will be later on". Catchy!

Download: Norm Burns and the Satellites - Life

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The flip side, "Divine Love", is, as I've alluded to, pretty clearly sung from the point of view of the legendary first man. He's deeply sorry for listening to that serpent and greatly relieved to have been the recipient of forgiveness and, as the title says, "Divine Love". The final line, repeated three times, is a masterpiece of half-assed lyric writing: "I'm so grateful, father, that you still love me, still". 

Download: Norm Burns and the Satellites - Divine Love

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Gene's Mammie

I had great hopes. 

When I saw the title of this mid-to-late period Preview record by Gene Marshall, I dared to hope that a record called "Our Mammie" might be something special. Then, I was lucky enough to win it on eBay for the princely sum of $6.00. Plus shipping. I hoped it would be worthy of presenting in this forum. 

I had no idea. 

For those of you who have heard "Green Fingernails", you know what you thought and felt when you heard the big finish of the verse, where Gene sings "You make me sick"? I think this is weird on that same level. If anyone can tell me what song-poet Edna Templeton was on about here, specifically the last line of her poem, please let all of us know. It's off the charts odd, at least to these ears. 

And I think that's all I'll say. 

Download: Gene Marshall - Our Mammie

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The flip side, "Special Feeling", isn't really much to write home about as a song, but that would be almost too much to ask for a flip side of a song like "Our Mammie". However, I will give a shout-out to the guitarist, who clearly thinks he's playing on a much better record than this one. Then again, the missed chord at 0:47 wouldn't have been left on a much better record. It's also in although interesting enough, I think, that this was also written by a woman named Edna. \

Download: Gene Marshall - Special Feeling

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Four Great Titles from Dolly-O!!

A few weeks ago, a record popped up on eBay for a very reasonable price, one which I dedicated myself to obtaining. As it turned out, I needn't have worried about cost; no one else bid. 

I'm more than a little surprised by that, although certainly pleased, given the prices that accompany a lot of song-poem sales these days. 

But maybe this one was such a niche item that the vast majority of those who look for song poems were either uninterested or didn't catch onto what this is. Because it's on the tiny, but wonderful, Dolly-O label and sung by a definite second-tier singer in the song-poem world, Frank Perry. The usual Sandy Stanton group names, such as "Singing Strings" or "Film City Orchestra" has been superseded here by the appellation "The Busy Bees Orch.", which seems almost definitely to have been the choice of the woman behind the Dolly-O label. (Technically, this 1972 release would have been made for Stanton's later label "Action", and not the soon-to-be mothballed "Film City", but he was still using the Chamberlin for the "Action" label, as well.)

For that person was the one and only Dolly-O Curren, who sent out her masterwork lyrics to various song-poem concerns, initially allowing them to come out on those various labels (including the great "I'm the Wife" on Preview) and then later, with her husband Jack Curran, set up the Dolly-O label in order to share them with the world in a more Dolly-O-Centric manner (including re-releasing, on her label, some of the previously released Preview/MSR/other tracks, such as "I'm the Wife"). 

Several of Dolly-O's lyrics are concerned with Indiana-related themes, and she just seems to have been an interesting person with a cockeyed way of expressing things at times. Her magnum opus, from where I sit, is "Lady Off Pedestal at Notre Dame", which she commissioned with the folks at Halmark, and which resulted in fairly insane mashup of idiosyncratic lyrics, marching band music and Bob Storm ridiculousness. (I should mention that the song is credited, on the record label, to Halmark's resident tenor, Jack Kim, but it's very clearly NOT him.) For a time, early in my life collecting song-poems, "Lady Off Pedestal at Notre Dame" was my favorite song-poem of all, and it's still way up there on my list. You can hear that song, and 26 other song-poems (including a whopping 15 from my own collection) in this post. 

Okay, so that's a long way around explaning, for perhaps the third time, why I would be jazzed to buy a Dolly-O 45 EP. But in this case, there was even more about this record that had me jumping up and down in front of the eBay screen. Four - COUNT 'EM FOUR - good to great song titles. Now, it's a song-poem truism that a great title often reveals itself to be attached to an average or even flat out sucky song. But what were the chances that all four of these titles, particularly the two on the A side, were going to let me down. 

As it turns out, they didn't. To my ears, Dolly-O goes three for four here, with the double play A side hitting it out of the park twice, to mix my baseball metaphors. Let's dig in. 

The record starts out strongly, with a song dealing with a subject which is not the focus of musical forms nearly often enough: Bowling. I find "A Bowler's Glee" delightful. In just over two quick minutes, Dolly-O explores the reasons to join a bowling team, the movement of the bowler, the preferred results of any given frame, the reaction of the crowd, the amount of pins found in a decent score, and the need for a team to avoid "washout" players, among many other points. Being that I am someone who watches televised bowling whenever it's on - All Hail Jason Belmonte! - this was, like I said, a delight. 

Download: Frank Perry and the Busy Bees Orch - A Bowler's Glee

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But as much as I love bowling, and that song, the killer track here has got to be the second one, "The Nose". This one goes on quite a bit longer, because Dolly-O had a lot to say. It starts off as a tribute to the nose owned by the protagonist's beloved, but quickly turns into a treatise on the larger subject of noses, everything from famous noses of the day to the importance of smelling, and all the ways that the nose and its functions enhance our daily lives. Then we are told: 

"Each Nose is Special to the Face it Grows On"

The rhyming phrase that comes after that line is worth the price of admission to this entire record. 

As with all of the other songs on this weird little record, the odd... no, that's not a strong enough  word... the fairly bizarre backing provided by the Chamberlin adds a certain "Je ne sais quoi" to the proceedings

Download: Frank Perry and the Busy Bees Orch - The Nose

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~~

For my money, the song that leads of side two of the EP is easily the weakest of the four, a bit of pathos that doesn't really move me (but your mileage may vary) called "Two Little Glasses". 

Download: Frank Perry and the Busy Bees Orch - Two Little Glasses

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The last of the four songs is the one I find genuinely intriguing. First, we again have the downright weird Chamberlin arrangement, with unusual voicings chosen and some clattery percussion that I've rarely heard out of that contraption. 

But more than that, it seems like a song such as this - in which the narrator is extoling the unusual virtues of a person - typically identifies the person being described by the end of the song. And particularly in the song-poem world, a song of praise of this style is about someone famous, and again, somewhere along the way, that someone is identified by name. 

In this song, that's not the case. This engaging, friendly and happiness-providing man is never identified by Dolly-O, beyond a list of very specific descriptions. an interesting choice, and fairly far off the beaten path. 

Download: Frank Perry and the Busy Bees Orch - The Man of a Million Smiles

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By the way, you can see a trade paper advertisement for this 1972 release on the AS/PMA Dolly-O page. 

BANG! BANG! MR. BADMAN!!

I have a single for you today on which I find both sides highly enjoyable. I bought it because of the ridiculous title on one of the sides, and I think the song lives up to the title, but I found that I enjoyed the flip side just as much. Oddly enough, this record popped up twice on eBay a few weeks ago, from two different sellers. I thought its title would make its price zoom upwards, but mine was the only bid for either of the copies. 

As you can see above, it's called "Bang! Bang! Mr. Badman" and it is sung by the inimitable Sammy Marshall on the impossibly tiny "Cape Cod" label. This may well be the only record released on the label, a label which encourages us to "March and Dance". 

And what of the song? It is, as the title might suggest, a song that tells a story. After I've listened to it a handful of times, however, I'm really not sure what that story is. Perhaps he's living out the life of a child pretending to be a cowboy, but that's only a guess. The music is about as far from cowboy or western music as you're going to get, but that said, it's surely peppy and infectious music, and as he almost always does, Sammy gives it his all. 

Download: Sammy Marshall - Bang! Bang! Mr. Badman

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The flip side has the bland title "Be My Girl", and both musically and lyrically, it reminds me of one of my favorite Sammy Marshall sides, "I'll Do It For You", which I'm just now discovering I have never shared - horrors! - I'll have to rectify that, and soon. 

Anyway, in "I'll Do It For You", Sammy promises to do such things as "Work in the Rain", "Outrun a Train", and most spectacularly, "Buy you the Balloon with a Gold Star In It". Two of those three promises don't seem to me to be the sort of thing that will inspire life long devotion 

"Be My Girl" is much the same, right down to the same beat, and even similar chord structure at times. In this case, Sammy's promises include trying to stay freshly bathed, wearing clean socks (that are fully intact!), trying to wear a tie and working odd jobs, among many other behaviors which would probably be the base expectation from just about any woman out there. I hope this was written to be humorous, and if so, it succeeds, and Sammy and the band make it work by not doing a thing to indicate how ridiculous the material they're performing is. I love it.    

Download: Sammy Marshall - Be My Girl

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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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