Christian comedy--a history, Part 5: "Phone Call from God"

So, just how fresh was the phone-call-from-God concept in 1973, when Jerry Jordan recorded Ray Pinkston's Phone Call from God? Not very. There was, for example, 1901's Hello Central, Give Me Heaven by Charles K. Harris:

Eighteen years later, in 1919, Frederick M. Lehman gave us the gospel standard The Royal Telephone, heard here in a 1970s (?) version by The Blue Ridge Quartet:

The Royal Telephone (Lehman)--Blue Ridge Quartet; from LP.

And there have been songs and movies about God's voice turning up on the radio (Red Planet Mars being the funnest example I know). Yes, the phone-call-from/to-Heaven idea is an old one (probably preceded by telegrams from the Big Guy), and it wouldn't surprise me if the motif found its way into comedy right off the bell--I mean, bat. I'm guessing it was ancient news in that respect by the time Jerry recorded it in 1973.

1973, you say? But wasn't Phone Call from God a big hit in 1975? True, but Jerry first recorded the piece for the 1973 Jordans LP of the same title (see first photo). I don't know if it's the same performance or not, since I don't have the 1975 MCA version. Oh, I've passed it up close to 500,000 times at various thrifts, but I never thought to grab it. Now that I'm looking for it, of course, just watch it vanish.

Anyway, here's the 18:20 track in all of its, um... bandwidth. In the event you don't feel like d/l'ing an 18:20 track, I'll give a quick review: God literally calls Jerry and forces him to face the fact that he hasn't been a good Christian in the tithe-giving, service-rendering, stay-out-of-Hell senses. It's fairly amusing, though Jordan is no Wendy Bagwell. It has its moments, still. We even have Jerry checking to make sure God didn't call collect. (I thought I came up with that lousy joke! Me, and a zillion other folks.)

Phone Call from God (Pinkston)--Jerry Jordan, 1973. From Jordan Evangelistic Association LP.

More to come....

Lee

Having fun with the "new Blogger"

In computer lingo, "new" means "occasion for hair-tearing stress." Luckily, being bald, I don't have much to tear.

Just answered several comments at a post, only to find that Blogger no longer considers my user name to be valid. No announcement, no reason, no logic, no sense. It's just different now. Blogger decided to change it one day after I switched to the new, pain-in-the-behind Blogger, for no special reason except to be doing it. A trip to the Blogger dashboard revealed that I am now someone else, user-name-wise. Meanwhile, my comments are gone. (Expletive muted.)

Of course, I had received an invalid-password prompt, which was the opposite of what the problem was. The usual no-communication jazz. Anything to force the user to check four or five places to decipher what's wrong.

I am SO not in the mood for this idiocy, I can't put it in words.

What's next? Will my blog title suddenly become invalid? Will a new URL take the place of the old? Whatever it is, we'll know that Blogger spent at least two nanoseconds thinking it through before shoving it into place.

Lee

Vintage lounge sounds--Otto Cesana, Percy Faith, Morton Gould, Macklin Marrow, Rosa Linda

Your blogger, mellowing out to loungey sounds of decades past.

Some lounge/EZ/mood/semi-Classical/etc. gems from my collection of 45s, 78s, and LPs:

Autumn Leaves (Joseph Kosma-Johnny Mercer)--Mitch Miller's Horns and Chorus, 1952. English horn solo by Mitch. From LP.

Hindustan--Robert Maxwell, 1953. From Mercury label LP.

Pagan in Paris (Gene Paul)--Jack Pleis and His Orch., 1953. From Decca 78.

Scrub, Brother, Scrub--Melachrino Orchestra, 1953. From RCA Victor EP.

Misirlou (Wise-Leeds-Russel-Roubanis)--Freddy Martin and His Orch., featuring Stuart Wade (vocal) and Barclay Allen (piano), 1948. From 45 EP.

Strictly for the Persians--Larry Clinton and His Orch., 1938. From RCA LP.

Street Scene (Alfred Newman, 1931)--Buddy De Franco and His Orch., 1953. From 45.

Whirlwind (Cesana)--Otto Cesana and His Orch., 1953. From Columbia LP.

Beyond the Blue Horizon--Morton Gould and His Orch., 1947. From Columbia 78.

Brazil (Barroso)--Morton Gould and His Orch., 1946. From Columbia LP.

Beyond the Sea (La Mer; Trenet)--Macklin Marrow conducting the MGM Orchestra, 1948. From MGM 78.

Carioca (Youmans)--Andre Kostelanetz and His Orch., 1951. From Columbia LP.

Night Train (Cesana)--Otto Cesana and His Orch., 1953. From Columbia LP.

Ecstasy (Cesana)--Otto Cesana and His Orch., circa 1951. From Columbia LP.

Tabu (Margarita Lecuona)--Rosa Linda, piano, with group, 1953. From 78.

Reflection (Cesana)--Otto Cesana and His Orch., 1953. From Columbia LP.

Deep Night (Charlie Henderson-Rudy Vallee)--Carmen Cavallaro and His Orch., 1951. From MCA LP.

Dancing in the Dark (Dietz-Schwartz)--Percy Faith and His Orch., 1947. From Vocalion LP.

That Old Black Magic (Arlen-Mercer)--Percy Faith and His Orch., 1947. From Royale EP.

Vintage Valium, of the musical type, brought to you by... Music You (Possibly) Won't Hear Anyplace Else!

Lee

I'm on the new Blogger; HP update

I'm on the "new Blogger." I'm not sure I know what that means, besides a slightly different dashboard. Meanwhile, Blogger is all out of Blogger Beta. Oh, well. Life can be that way.

Blogger says, "Happy blogging,The Blogger Team." Well, sure.

So, what's happening with HP and the CD drive replacement? Glad you asked. You'll recall the phone fun I had with HP. You'll recall that they finally agreed to send the replacement drive, and that they sent it to someone else. In Virginia. Who was super-nice enough to send it on to me (that was highly, highly cool of her). The part arrived. In a plastic bag. Across the road, under our rural mailbox. In the snow.

Thanks, FedEx. I love you.

So, I swapped the part--new drive works fine. Software problem, my caboose. So, I got ready to return it and noticed the lack of a pre-paid return label. I call HP; they tell me one will arrive in two to three days. "At the outside," the phone guy insisted.

A week later (yesterday), I called HP back. Where's the label, I asked? The phone guy said he'd contact the case manager (or someone) and have him call me back. This morning. Around 11.

No one called back.

Meanwhile, I have the sinus headache of the year. So far.

I think I'll sit here and dribble my lips. (Bllll-blll-bllll-llllll-blll....)

Meanwhile, here's my very own Dissonant Rag. It's from... forget when. Ten years ago, maybe. I should retitle it The HP Concept of Customer Service Rag.

Dissonant Rag (Lee Hartsfeld)--Lee Hartsfeld on his Casio keyboard with assist from Macintosh 512K software, with MAGIX effects added.

Lee

Websense blocking my site!

What the heck? My sister reports that she can't get to this blog from work because Websense is blocking me. Websense is "a global leader in internet filtering and web security solutions to help companies productively use the internet," says its website. Far out.

My sister received this message from Websense:

Access to the desired Web page is restricted at this time. Reason: * The Websense category "Sex" is restricted.

Sex? Well, no wonder--all those pornographic posts of late. My Sunday gospel music posts, my series on the history of Christian comedy, my 78 files, my Ichabod and the Cranes novelty called The Turtle....

Like, what in the world is Websense talking about???

Any clues?


Lee

Give to WFMU, if it's the last thing you do!

"I gave to WFMU, and it was the last thing I did!"

From Irwin Chusid. "Flora" is artist Jim Flora:

"The WFMU 2007 Marathon begins Monday, March 5, and concludes Sunday, March 18. You can listen, you can volunteer, you can donate. WFMU has always been a quirky phenomenon that works in practice, but not in theory. Flora has made a posthumous artistic contribution. Make yours financial."

Um... does my contribution have to be posthumous? I mean, is anyone really dying to give to that station?


2007 Pledge Drive Theme.


Lee

You want scarce? We've got scarce.

Grofe (middle), with Gus Mueller and Buster Johnson, 1920. Swiped from the terrific site, VJM's Jazz & Blues Mart.

Ferde Grofe's Aviation Suite was composed in 1944. Or it was composed in 1946. I'm guessing 1944, but you'll encounter both years when you research the thing. Flip a coin, I guess.

And Grofe's own recording might date from 1946. Or it might date from 1950, the year it appeared on a 10" Remington REM HOLLYWOOD LP, which may or may not have been was very likely a reissue of 78s cut on the ARA label. Either way, I have the recording.

Well, not the recording itself--a cassette tape of the recording, made for me in 1981 when I suggested to a record dealer that his asking price of $40 (for the vinyl) was a little steep. In his reply he noted the "extreme scarcity" of the LP and offered to tape it for $15 (or was it $20?). I sent him the dough.

And he sent me the tape. And I'm just now preserving it to MAGIX. Luckily, the cassette is fine, save for a few creaks in the transport toward the start. A tape jam waiting to happen....

If there's been any fidelity bleed-off in the tape over the years (such as in the highs), it wouldn't matter, as the Remington Rem Hollywood pressing was pretty awful to begin with. I've fixed the sound considerably.

Here is the first track. I'd say "first movement," but in fact what we're hearing here is a combination of the third movement, Plane Loco, and the first, The Take-Off. It seems that, for this performance, Grofe reduced the five-movement suite to four, possibly for reasons of space.

OR it's possible that, in its original form, the Aviation Suite only had four movements, with Grofe fleshing things out at a later date. At any rate, the 1984 CBS "first recording" by Jan Stulen and the Promenade Orchestra (we all have that one, don't we?) features five movements--this one, only four.

You don't suppose God could have made record research a little easier? No, I guess not.

Anyway, this track is so very scarce, I'm terrified that I'll cause a rip in the fabric of time and space by simply featuring it. Let's hope I'm wrong:

The Take-off (From Aviation Suite)--Ferde Grofe, conducting the Hollywood Studio Orchestra, 1946 or 1950. From Remington REM HOLLYWOOD LP.

Well, doesn't look like I've caused any damage to the time-space fabric. I...

(Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiippppppppppppppppppppp!!!!)

Oh, nooooo....



Lee

Sunday morning gospel--Chuck Wagon Gang, George Zinn, Myrtle Baptist Church Choir, Carl Story

The marvelous Chuck Wagon Gang; a 1925 songbook cover.

So, ready for a good laugh? Seems that some eBay dealers regard privately-pressed gospel LPs as examples of "outsider" music. "Outsider Xian music," no less. By the way, I have a policy of not purchasing records from dealers who write nonsense like that. Nothing personal, but....

Just thought you'd be happy to learn that much of the music presented here is "outsider" music. It's news to me. I guess having labels like "outsider" on hand beats actually studying pop music history and learning stuff about it.

Speaking of studying, I'm continuing to turn up cool Christian-comedy-history information. And I've scored some interesting examples. When this is all over, I'll combine the data into one long post. I've only been on this a couple of weeks, but it's turning out to be more fun than any other investigation I've carried out.

To the music. We start with the Chuck Wagon Gang's version of Charles H. Gabriel's Send the Light. This 1890 mega-hit was Gabriel's breakthrough gospel song, and it doesn't look like it's ever going away--even if it's frequently mistaken for the proverbial folk song from "the hills." It originally featured a middle section (with bass lead) that quickly vanished from songbooks and hymnals. A gospel masterpiece:

Send the Light (Gabriel)--Chuck Wagon Gang, 1959. From Columbia LP.

Too more from the superbly-talented Gang--neither quite on the level of Send the Light (what is?), but perfectly fine in their own right:

I'll Live in Glory (Henson)--Chuck Wagon Gang, 1959.

Heaven's Really Gonna Shine (Brumley)--Chuck Wagon Gang, 1959.

This next number, Tramp on the Street, was originally called Only a Tramp and dates back to 1877. It was written by one Dr. Addison D. Crabtree, though "Traditional" tends to get the credit. The exceptionally distinguished lyrics blew me away when I first heard the song, and they continue to have that effect:

Tramp on the Street--Carl Story, 1961. From Starday LP.

This next one is an early Stamps-Baxter goodie from 1921. This rousing recording was made forty years later:

Everybody Will Be Happy Over There (E.M. Bartlett)--Carl Story, 1961. From same LP.

Lyric tenor George Zinn made the following numbers in (I'm guessing) the Sixties. This is a private pressing that lacks even so much as a label name, so I guess some would argue that Zinn is an "outsider" artist. Not having time for such stupidity, I opt to label George a first rate gospel singer of the old-fashioned sort. Around here, old-fashioned is good. In George's case, great:

Saved (Oswald J. Smith)--George Zinn, lyric tenor; from LP. (Song written in 1917.)

Just When I Need Him Most (Poole-Gabriel)--George Zinn. (Song written in 1907.)

Saved to the Uttermost (Kirkpatrick)--George Zinn. (Song written in 1875.)

A Shelter in the Time of Storm (Charlesworth-Sankey)--George Zinn. (Written in the 1880s.)

This is the third Gospel-Lites track to grace this blog in the space of a week. The album jacket reveals that the group hailed from South Carolina and Ohio. I wonder if they're still performing?

Speckled Bird (Guy Smith)--Gospel-Lites.

We move on to the Myrtle Baptist Church Choir of Myrtle, Mississippi. Don't know when these were recorded, but I'm guessing mid to late 1960s. These performances remind me of "shape-note" singing, only at a much lower volume. A couple of the tunes are real oldies--the first is from 1819 (words) and 1825 (music), and the second features words from the late 1700s and music from 1832. The tune most often used for John Newton's 1779 hymn Amazing Grace (many have been used over the past 200-plus years) has been traced back to the 1830s. No one knows who wrote it. I have a tunebook version from the 1850s called Harmony Grove, but it was more commonly known as New Britain. (Confusing? Yes, it is!)

Brethren, We Have Met to Worship (Atkins-Moore)--Myrtle Baptist Church Choir.

How Firm a Foundation (Music: Joseph Funk)--Myrtle Baptist Church Choir.

Amazing Grace (Newton)--Myrtle Baptist Church Choir.

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms--Myrtle Baptist Church Choir.

Charles Gabriel, again, and one of his most beautiful tunes. The words are by Ida A. Guirey. This 1922 classic should be way better known:

Jesus, Rose of Sharon (Gabriel-Guirey)--The Family Altar Quartet; from Tops label EP.

We close with two by the Daileys, whose jazz-country touch I find very charming, especially on two classics that don't often receive such a peppy reading. (Yes, that's what I typed--"peppy reading.") Blessed Assurance, written in 1873, may well be Fanny J. Crosby's most brilliant hymn. Whatever happened to such beautifully literate lyrics?

"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine! Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine! Heir of salvation, purchase of God, Born of his Spirit, washed in his Blood." The word we're looking for, folks, is genius. And quite a humble one, by all reports.

Blessed Assurance (Crosby-Knapp)--The Daileys; from LP.

Love Lifted Me (Rowe-Smith)--The Daileys; from LP.

See ya next Sunday!


Lee