The Roots of Elvis, Part 7: Valli inter-es-tink

June Valli is more than a little inter-es-tink, I tink (er, think). She wasn't the only female pop vocalist who was singing with Elvis-style intensity and/or recording Elvis-like tunes in the Years Before Elvis, but she was doing it on RCA--which raises the possibility that RCA had a specific sound in mind when they procured Presley. A specific singing and/or production sound. As in, hers.

But valli interestink, also, is songwriter Bob Merrill, whom people know (if at all) as the writer of The Doggie in the Window; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; My Truly, Truly Fair; and the immortal Feet Up (Pat Him on the Po-Po). (What? That isn't one of your favorites?) He also wrote Honeycomb (originally recorded by Georgie Shaw), though Merrill-maligners always forget about that one.

Merrill's remarkable Tell Me, Tell Me, recorded by Valli in 1954, never seems to get mentioned, either. Yet, the A sections of this AABA number are in the same gospel mode as Leiber and Stoller's Love Me, clinking triplets and all. And the slow, coyly-rising melody makes Love Me sound like a warm-up for racier things. Ignore at your own risk.

Did someone order Merrill to write in L&S style? Was he consciously copying R&B? If so, he did a great job of both, and Valli's singing is torchy enough to set the needle on fire (she sounds more than a little under the influence of Mae West, here).

http://www.box.net/public/lee/files/183537.html
Tell Me, Tell Me (Bob Merrill), June Valli, 1954. Tell us, June! Yeah! (Where did I put that fire extinguisher?)

O.K., it's a little bit dated. But Rock History has convinced us that pre-Elvis pop was bland and kiddie-like. Asexual, even. Well, June and Bob have de-convinced me.

(Please save, rather than open, files for best results. Thanks!)

Lee

Pfft! I Was Wrong.

I thought the classic "You met another, and--pffthhh!--you was gone" song was written for Hee-Haw, the show that featured it every week. Not so. Hee-Haw debuted in 1969, but the song was around at least three years earlier. Here is Archie Campbell's Pfft! You Were Gone (notice the spelling of "Pfft"! and the correct grammar), from 1966. I ripped this from a "live" LP that, judging by the very obviously dubbed-in crowd noise, was anything but live. (Think Ray Stevens). I had to splice out a number of pops, but no effort is too much for an important cultural document like Pfft!

http://www.box.net/public/lee/files/226016.html Pfft! You Were Gone--Archie Campbell (who thought he'd found true love), 1966.

Sad to say, I got rid of my square-dance version of this number. (What on earth was I thinking??)

And here's another novelty classic: Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart, performed with a-plumb by Archie, who really has a handle on the words. The hilarious ending gives new meaning to the phrase "piped-in effects" and earns the track a permanent seat in the Potty Song Hall of Fame, along with Billy Edd Wheeler's The Little Brown Shack Out Back and Leroy Pullins' The Interstate Is Coming Through My Outhouse.

http://www.box.net/public/lee/files/226015.html Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart, Archie Campbell (sounding a lot like Willie Nelson), 1966.

Enjoy! (Please save, rather than open, files for best results.)

Lee

The Roots of Elvis, Part 6: Elvis had help

Some of the most idiotic things written about rock and roll have been about Elvis and rockabilly. The original Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll hilariously described Elvis as the giant who "bestrode" rockabilly during its brief and glorious visit to our mortal sphere--something that overblown. Can't remember the exact words, though I remember their author, whom (as a favor to him) I won't cite. Hopefully, the Hyperbole Police cited him long ago.

("Bestrode" and "rockabilly" will bring him up, btw.)

Anyway, seeing as how the Carlisles' 1952 hit No Help Wanted sounds, for all the world, like Elvis/Sun rockabilly, shouldn't Bill Carlisle be hyped as the giant who towered over rockabilly music two years before Elvzilla? Or Chet Atkins, who plays lead guitar on this? (Dig the closing I6/9 chord!) Or maybe the company that manufactured the piece of paper Bill stuck behind his guitar strings to get that scratchy, Folsom Prison-ish sound?

These questions are important, and they deserve to be answered. Meanwhile, we'll enjoy this great track: http://www.box.net/public/lee/files/222661.html
No Help Wanted (Bill Carlisle), The Carlisles (w. Chet Atkins), 1952. From Mercury 45.

Second item submitted for your approval is Rosemary Clooney's 1951 version of Tennessee Ernie Ford's Shotgun Boogie, with music "under the direction of Mitch Miller"--that guy who, according to Rock History, kept rock and roll away from Columbia during his time as the label's A&R person. Here, Mitch provides a background complete with a near-rockabilly guitar solo and a jazzy R&B-style sax break. Mitch must have hated rock and roll with a passion, to give 1951 audiences the latest in country and R&B on one tightly-produced pop record. Rosemary probably didn't like this number, but she's terrific, anyway....

http://www.box.net/public/lee/files/222662.html
Shot Gun Boogie ("E. Ford"!), Rosemary Clooney, w. music under the direction of Mitch Miller, 1951. From Columbia 45.

Enjoy! For best results, please save (rather than open) the music files.


Lee

The Roots of Elvis, Part 5: Another mystery strain

How to categorize Don Cornell's But Love Me (Love But Me), the non-plug side of a single released in April, 1956? The tune sounds very much like a rewrite of the Elvis hit I Want You, I Need You. And the performance, while crooner-smooth and emotionally contained, is recognizably Elvis in style. So, it must have been released after I Want You. Right?

No, of course not. It was released one month before I Want You (and not four months, as I claimed last time. Misread my own notes. D'oh!).

But Love Me was co-written by Tom Glazer, the well-known folk singer who also gave us On Top of Spaghetti, Skokiaan, A Worried Man, and Old Soldiers Never Die (They Just Fade Away).

Singer Don Cornell (Luigi Francisco Varlaro) began his singing career with Sammy Kaye in the 1940s. His '50s style was a cross between Frankie Laine and Perry Como--though, here, he sounds like a smoother, croonier version of Elvis. A lot like Elvis, in fact!

Maybe, when Elvis named Dean Martin as his favorite singer, he really meant Don Cornell. (Similar first names, both Italian-American, both hit-makers of the 1950s.) It's possible, at least.
http://www.box.net/public/lee/files/190085.html
But Love Me (Love But Me), Don Cornell, April, 1956 (from Coral label 45).

Lee