St. Patrick's Day at MY(P)WHAE!

I may be only half Irish, but don't be expectin' a half-hearted musical tribute to the Land of Saints and Scholars. No--only the best folk, semi-folk, Tin Pan Alley, and frequently-mistaken-for-authentic Irish titles in this lineup. John McCormack, Merv Girffin, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Donald Swann, Dennis Day, Fran Warren, and Don Richardson are all waiting to pay tribute to the Land of Erin.

And we start with an ancient Irish folk number that is not 1) Irish, 2) folk, or 3) ancient. Still, minus-three out of three ain't bad. In fact, the hymn Lord of the Dance was written in 1963 by Sydney Carter, who adapted the Shaker tune Simple Gifts (Joseph Brackett, Jr. , 1848) for the melody. I guess that Riverdance used the song without giving proper credit--tsk, tsk. That's something that (Little Drummer Boy, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Happy Birthday, Keep on the Sunny Side) doesn't happen very often in popular music. You'd have to look pretty hard (Angel Band; Won't You Come Home, Bill Bailey) to find other examples of songs mistaken for folk numbers and/or chronically misattributed.

Anyway, Donald Swann (a marvelous musician best known as one half of the comedy duo, Flanders and Swann) performs Dance for us in this superb 1964 performance:

Lord of the Dance (Sydney Carter), Donald Swann, 1964 , from the Argo EP Donald Swann Sings Songs of Faith and Doubt by Sydney Carter.

From faux-Irish we move to almost-Irish. This may sound like Gustav Holst's tribute to Irish Washerwoman, but it's actually The Dargason, a Renaissance dance tune. But we won't let that stop us from dancing along:

The Dargason (Holst; from St. Paul's Suite), The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Vernon Handley, cond., 1993.

And now for a song about Ireland (or St. Patrick's Day, anyway), though not (as far as I know) from Ireland. I could be wrong:

St. Patrick's Day Parade (Johnny Lange, Hy Heath), Dennis Day with Henri Rene and His Orchestra, 1951.

And I'd better get this parade moving, or I'll be up all night. Here's Merv Griffin with the 1875 hit, The Kerry Dance:

The Kerry Dance (James Lyman Molloy), Merv Griffin, 1952 .

Next, Buddy Clark croons a more modern (1913) pop number, Peg o' My Heart, whose melody was written by Fred (Chicago) Fisher:

Peg o' My Heart (Alfred Bryan, Fred Fisher), Buddy Clark, 1947.

St. Patty's day without the magnificent voice of John McCormack is downright un-Irish, in this blog's opinion--though, of course, I'm only half-qualified to say that. Anyway, here are four pre-electric recordings by the great Irish tenor, the last title catchier than anything but about as Irish as green beer. I ripped these from my 1958 mono copy of John McCormack Sings Irish Songs (RCA Camden), and I got them to sound way better than they did: besides filtering out crackle from the vinyl, I killed most of the heavy rumble that the engineers transferred, along with the music, from the original 78s. Consider your ears very lucky:

Little Town in the Auld County Down (Pascoe-Carlo-Sanders), John McCormack, 1921. From the RCA Camden LP John McCormack Sings Irish Songs, 1958.

And, at last, an Irish folk song--I think. Then again, it's credited to "Milligan-Clay." So, I guess not. Sounds "folk," though....

The Foggy Dew (Milligan-Clay), John McCormack, accompanied by Spencer Clay, 1913. From the RCA Camden LP John McCormack Sings Irish Songs, 1958.

Don't know much about Macushla, save that it was written in 1910 and published in London. And that it's a gorgeous song. And one of McCormack's best performances:

Macushla (Rowe-Macmurrough), John McCormack, 1911. From the RCA Camden LP John McCormack Sings Irish Songs, 1958.

And, finally, the best Tin Pan Alley Erin song ever written, Leethinks:

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling (Olcott-Graff-Ball, 1912), John McCormack, 1916. From the RCA Camden LP John McCormack Sings Irish Songs, 1958.

Have a great St. Patty's Day! (And it must be official--Google has a St. Patrick's Day design at its home page! Complete with the word "St." We're proud of them.)


Lee

Wake up to Ethel Smith, Rosie Clooney, George Morgan, and Merv!

Ethel Smith, Rosemary Clooney, George Morgan, and Merv. You see that line-up, and you know you're at MY(P)WHAE! That's a MY(P)WHAE line-up if there ever was one.

Let's start with Ethel Smith, whose rendition of Dmitri Kabalevsky's Comedian's Galop is kitsch, yes, but virtuoso kitsch! (Like a lot of kitsch, come to think of it.) It's entertaining as hell, and pretty "hi-fi" for 1950. From my latest thrift haul....

The Galloping Comedians (Kabalevsky), Ethel Smith, organ, with orchestra, 1950. From Decca 78.

If that didn't shake you awake, maybe Rosie and George can coax you to consciousness. From a thrift 78 found years ago--I forgot where. Volunteers of America? Goodwill? We'll never know:

You Love Me Just Enough to Hurt Me (Floyd Tillman), Rosemary Clooney and George Morgan, 1953. From Columbia 78.

And now for Merv Griffin and the Anita Kerr Singers (!), who charge forward with Irving Berlin's I Keep Running Away from You. This song was reused, under a different title, in Mr. President, Berlin's last musical. Believe it or not.

I Keep Running Away from You (Irving Berlin), Merv Griffin with the Anita Kerr Singers and Jack Pleis and His Orch., 1957. From Coral 45.

Merv, Anita, Rosie, George, and Ethel. Only at... MY(P)WHAE!









Dmitri Kabalevsky says, "Go, Ethel!"


Lee

The return of "Supercalafajalistickespeealadojus"!

(This is a repost from November 5, 2005)

Years before Disney made Mary Poppins, Alan Holmes and His New Tones recorded Patricia Smith and Don Fenton's Supercalafajalistickespeealadojus. You'll have to admit, that title looks (and sounds) a lot like Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (the Disney title). Remarkably so. Anyway, when Disney was sued for allegedly swiping the earlier title, it successfully defended itself by claiming that Supercalafajalistickespeealadojus (a.k.a. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious) was a common slang word. (Sure, it was.) A pretty fragilistic argument, if you ask us, but nobody did, of course. It's the opinion of MYPWHAE that Disney won because it had lots of money. That's our explan-aladojus. I mean, -alidocious. Click here for playlist which includes the track: Novelty Festival, Part 1.






















My, our cynicism is quite atrocious, isn't it?

The Volunteers of America where I found The Super Song was a super shop--until it was closed, along with three other VOA stores, a couple of years ago. I'll never forget its many rows and piles of vinyl. Or the broken 78s, the empty CD cases tossed in with the albums, and the occasional empty LP jacket. A magical thrifting experience.

Lee

In space, no one can hear stereo demonstration discs....

Here's an edited version of Side One of Sounds in Space, a 1958 RCA Victor stereo demonstration disc. This may have been the model for all such records--not sure. I'm not the first person to ever post this thing, but it showed up in my latest thrift haul (just snuck into the pile, somehow) and it's too fun not to upload. It's pretty beat-up, but I got a nice file with minimal editing. Narrator Ken Nordine, by the way, sounds a lot like the guy who narrates Line Material's The Kinds of Christmas. I wonder.

I'd post the cover, but Blogger's image-uploading feature is down (engineers have been notified). Speaking of Google, I'm wondering if their home page will feature any kind of St. Patty's Day icon on Friday. You know--"Saint." Not correct, that. Maybe they'll post a map of Ireland. We'll have to wait and see.

But the real question is--are there sounds in space? Star Trek fans might answer, "Yes. Remember the whoosing sound whenever the Enterprise zipped past the camera?" And I distinctly recall the "ziiiiiiirrrrrrorrrrp" sound made by the shuttlecraft in The Man Who Was Never Born (Outer Limits, 1963). However, in the vacuum of space, sound waves are actually SOL.

However, in the right medium, sound waves thrive. Such as in the layer of gases that surrounds our planet. And seeing as how our planet is as much a part of space as anything that resides in the vacuumous void, then Sounds in Space are not only a possibility, they are a proven fact. The title of this post is, therefore, incorrect.

However, "In the vacuum portion of space, no one can hear stereo demonstration discs" just doesn't have the same sound.

Time to sample the stereo samples. Meanwhile (images are still down), you can see the album cover here.

Sounds in Space, Narrated by Ken Nordine, 1958. From the RCA Victor LP.


Lee

Wednesday Wake-up Sounds!

Good Wednesday morning! Here in central Ohio, it's gone from 70-degree days to 40-something temps, but do I complain? Well, yes. Complaining about the weather is an American tradition. It's probably a tradition everywhere.

So, I have to gripe. Actually, my sinuses are doing all of the griping--they don't know what hit them. Allergy meds are keeping me going, though who knows how long before every last brand of antihistamine and decongestant is outlawed for the sake of national safety in my country? I'm not joking, either--on TV, they described the issue as one of homeland security.

I wish someone would do a poll to find out if Americans feel more secure now that we have to show an I.D. to get our nose unstuffed. ("Sir, you don't sound congested to me. Purchase denied.")

Speaking of stuffy, 78s can sound pretty congested, audio-wise, when played on a modern stereo. Why? Because of mismatched frequency curves--pre-RIAA curves often cause old discs to sound like all highs and lows, with little middle (or upper-middle, actually). Or, in the case of the 78 we're about to hear, all lows and middle, with no upper frequencies to speak of. But I fixed that with my 31-slide equalizer (give me bands, lots of bands....), and now we can enjoy Ray Conniff and Harry James' Easy in all of its 1946, screaming-trumpet glory. From the same thrift trip that yielded the Conniff/Shaw side:

Easy (Ray Conniff/Harry James), Harry James and His Orchestra, 1946. From Columbia 78.

Also easy to love is Zez Confrey's classic 1921 rag Greenwich Witch, here in a fabulous 1922 performance by the composer (this man could play the piano!!). If it sounds a bit like Kitten on the Keys, that's because it's from the same period and by the same guy. As far as I know, Confrey never took himself to court. The record has been played a lot, but I got a decent file out of it. I even replaced a ruined section with a repeat of same, though the flip side, Coaxing the Piano (which jumps in three spots) is hopeless. Dang.

Greenwich Witch (Confrey), Zez Confrey, piano, 1922. From Brunswick 78.

Was that some amazing ragtime, or what?

Over the past few days, I've been getting better at combining the virtues of my MAGIX software and my mega-slide equalizer. In fact, I did a second MP3 of the Ray Conniff/Artie Shaw record Kasbah. Here it is. I think it sounds a little better than the first:

Kasbah (Conniff), Artie Shaw and His Orch., 1946. From RCA Victor 78. Second MP3 thereof.

The bass isn't as boomy, but I think the highs fare better. Not sure. What do you think?

I know what my sinuses think. They think I should take some Benadryl. Oh, sure, just what I need--Benadryl dreams. The weirdest kind. (I hope I don't get in trouble with the Benadryl folks....)

Enjoy the music!














Lee

Some comedy classics for your Tuesday morning

We start out the early-morning laughter with Ben Colder's 1968 version of Gordon Jenkins and Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues:

Folsom Prison Blues #1 1/2, Ben Colder (a.k.a. Sheb Wooley) (1968). From MGM LP.

Then we rewind fourteen years to 1954, where we encounter two masterful TV-show parodies by Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding (an American comedy team, says Wikipedia)--the victims being This Is Your Life and Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts:

This Is Your Bed (You Made It, Now Lie in It), Bob and Ray, 1954. From Coral LP Fun Time.

No Talent Hunt, Bob and Ray, 1954. From Coral LP Fun Time.

MY(P)WHAE's Project for Tuesday:


















Lee

Ray Conniff and Jandek for your Sunday morning!

We begin with Ray Conniff, back when the future choral director was writing big band charts for Harry James, Glen Gray, and Artie Shaw. Two 1945 Conniff originals showed up for me at the Ohio Thrift store I visited last week, and I was happy to find them. I wasn't too happy about the 78 itself, though:















Worn, and cracked down the middle--just look at the thing. A less courageous blogger might have stuffed the record back into the album, but not me. "I can save this," I said to myself. Besides, no way was I going to pass up a Ray Conniff original called Kasbah.

So, home it came with nineteen other 10" shellac thrift discards (my new band--The Shellac Thrift Discards), where I cleaned it, secured the edge of the crack with Magic Tape, and ripped it to my hard drive. To my surprise, the split didn't generated all that much noise, and only nine or two edits were required after applying noise reduction. Well, fifteen, maybe. Whatever.

Actually, it took three files to get it right. The first was made while I had that little piece of tape at the edge. The second was made after I stuck a longer piece on the flip side to force the crack together more tightly (didn't seem to work). The third was made with an assist from my 31-band equalizer, with boosts in the 4-12.5 KHz range that were readjusted after the rip. Sort of a Dolby tactic, really. The idea was to restore the upper range and then apply hiss filtering to bring it back down a bit. It worked, and the third try was, by far, the best-sounding.

Hopefully, now you see why I don't usually talk about the technical details of restoration. Borrrrr-ing.

Still, you say to yourself, "No way Lee could have gotten decent sound out of that beat-up piece of shellac!" Ha! Listen to this:

Kasbah (Ray Conniff), Artie Shaw and His Orchestra, 1945. From the gramophone-worn disc pictured above.

And I got the flip to sound just as good, except for at the end, where Shaw plays his clarinet in something close to deer-whistle territory. I did what I could:

Lament (Ray Conniff), Artie Shaw and His Orchestra, 1945. From the same worn record.

Great stuff, Leethinks. And I'm assuming that Conniff did the arranging as well as the composing, though I'm not 100 percent sure. Sounds like his work.

And here are two tracks by "outsider" artist Jandek, from his 1988 You Walk Alone, a copy of which I found in a (guess where?) thrift store a few years ago. I'd been wanting to sample the guy, because I wanted to hear just what was so doggone strange about his stuff. Answer: nothing much. But I like him, anyway. Very arty material, though the other two Jandek collections I own are too much of the same thing over and over. One of them, in fact, features a single chord (or, I guess, mode) for all but the last track, which I loved (the track, not the chord). After a couple titles, I'm like, "Please." I've read that some people are that way with Jandek after a couple of notes.

But You Walk Alone is highly musical and anything but monotonous. War Dance, my favorite Jandek track (everyone should have one), seems to be making fun of rock and roll dance crazes in general--just the "have a war dance with me" theme alone is classic enough, but there are priceless lyrics besides. Do NOT play this while driving--you'll be laughing too hard to concentrate on the road:

War Dance, Jandek, 1988. From You Walk Alone LP.

And here's Jandek as he pays tribute to the Doors (my best guess). Just a wonderful disconnect all around, with J. leaving the key completely at times and the drummer performing weird experiments in accent placement. Again, it works so beautifully, I call it art. And I am normally NOT an outsider music fan:

I Know the Times, Jandek, 1988. From You Walk Alone LP.

That title sure makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Maybe he means that he knows someone at the Times. A journalist friend, maybe.

Anyway, too bad all of Jandek's albums aren't like You Walk Alone, but one classic is better than none. (I hope I don't get any Jandek-fan hate mail!)


















Jandek, in 1988 (?).

Lee