Fab sounds, plus Ellington, Carlisle, Polkateers, Triumphs, and the Topper Cast!

Top o' the Friday mornin' to you! As we speak, my more PC fellow lefties are--as far as I can tell--starting to go after everyone on the radio or TV who ever said an incorrect word. Maybe they should carry torches while they're doing this. In case they're able to trap their targets in a windmill.

Anyhow, it's time for a trip in a rocket ship--an exciting trip which includes five-second visits to the Moon, Mars, and Jupiter. (Not to get too technical, but how does a rocket LAND on Jupiter?) Notice how much the voice artist (I think there's only one) sounds like Homer Simpson:

The Rocket Ship--Tops Orchestra and the Topper Cast; from (what else?) Tops label LP.

Everybody, sing along: "Comet will make your teeth turn green; Comet is worse than Listerine. Comet will make you vomit; So have some Comet and vomit today!"

Otherwise known as The Colonel Bogey March, except this march is a polka. From Peppy Dance Polkas:

Colonel Bogey Polka--The Polkateers; from the Palace LP Peppy Dance Polkas.

That was peppy. So is this next side, Draggin' Waggin, whose title could have fooled me (and did). This is The Triumphs on (of all things) the Triumph label. The jump near the beginning was NOT caused by your mp3 player:

Draggin' Waggin (Fred Gartner)--The Triumphs; from 45.

Far out. I wish I knew much about The Triumphs. All I know is that they made the above side in Columbus, Ohio, and that they were a quintet (two guitars, drums, trumpet, sax). It sounds 1962 or 1963 to me. All I remember from 1962 is the Four Seasons.

Around the same time, Ferlin Husky recorded Electrified Donkey. I ripped this from a 33 and 1/3 EP. I bought it because I wanted to hear what in the heck Electrified Donkey sounded like. Now we can take the journey together:

Electrified Donkey--Ferlin Husky, 196 . From 33 and 1/3 EP.

Many such journeys are possible at this blog. Come, let me be your guide.

And now for the fab portion of our playlist. Four tracks, fittingly enough:

All My Loving--Jimmy Griffin, 1964; produced by Jimmy Bowen. From Reprise label 45.

My Bonnie--The Boll Weevils. From Hit label 45.

Because--Charter Jazz-Rock Ensemble and Chamber Chorus, 1973; arranged by Bill Holcombe. From LP.

Mother Nature's Son--Same.

And now, Bill Carlisle invites us to Take This Country Music and Shove It. The flip is a remake of a 1952 classic (which became a hit the following year):

Take This Country Music and Shove It (Arnold-Carlisle)--Bill Carlisle, circa 1965. From Hickory label 45.

No Help Wanted (Carlisle)--Bill Carlisle, circa 1965.

We close with four of my favorite Duke Ellington sides, all recorded for RCA (well, Victor):

Daybreak Express--Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, 1933. From RCA Victor LP. (Tiger Rag never sounded so peppy!)

Dinah--Duke Ellington, with vocal by Sonny Greer, 1932. From RCA Victor LP.

Cotton Club Stomp--Duke Ellington and His Cotton Club Orchestra, 1929. From RCA Camden LP.

Rude Interlude--Duke Ellington and His Orch., 1933. From RCA Victor LP.

Have a great Friday!


Lee

Thank God for Alec Baldwin

Yesterday, the celebrity blogathon Huff-and-Puffington Post engaged in journalistic crucifixion--and guess who the crucifee was? It would have been comical had it been funny. HP's all-day, all-nerd Don Imus feeding frenzy was something to behold. Every P.C. platitude, every crank Women's Studies cliche, every "old white guys don't get it" insult known to humanity--Jesus. Plus, the usual assortment of pompous twits too busy being "smart" to worry about communicating anything in English. I don't care what your real or imagined I.Q. happens to be--either you can write or you can't.

However, HP isn't a total waste of bandwidth--Bill Maher and Alec Baldwin blog there. And here's Alec's wonderful take on Don Imus--a rare victory for common sense at the Internet's premiere shrine to strangled thinking.

By the way (and you may not believe this), I was never particularly a fan of Alec Baldwin until I read my first Baldwin post at HP. Now I'm a fan.

Yup, HP isn't all bad. But it's not for lack of trying....

Poll question: How relieved do you feel now that racism and sexism have been eradicated from our culture with the firing of Don Imus? 1--Highly relived; 2--Very; 3--Somehwat; 4--Not relieved at all; 5--Just pooped my pants.


Lee

"Tenement Symphony"--universally despised by those who despise it

Tenement Symphony, featured in the Marx Brothers' The Big Store, is one of those universally-considered-a-piece-of-crap numbers, like MacArthur Park and Everything Is Beautiful.

Proof: it became Martin's signature number. So, obviously, everybody considered it a piece of crap. ("Hey, Tony, sing that awful number!!") Just as Park and Beautiful were awfully popular, considering how much everyone hated them.

I've been checking out the insults leveled at Tenement Symphony on the WWW, and some of them are pretty funny. Hal Erickson writes in the All Movie Guide: "Unfortunately, many latter-day movie fans judge Martin only by his insipid leading-man stint in the Marx Bros.' The Big Store, in which he had the dubious honor of introducing that pseudo-classic piece of claptrap The Tenement Symphony."

"Pseudo-classic"? What does that mean? Pseudo-Classical? But that hardly describes Tenement Symphony, which is little more than a standard verse/chorus ballad of its time, only with a middle section added for variety. I guess that makes it ternary-plus form, or something like that. At any rate, "classic" or "Classical" doesn't apply, because TS wasn't trying to be classical, as we define that word nowadays. Clearly, the "symphony" in the title was meant to be cute--a simple study in contrasts. Something grand (a symphony) versus something not so grand (tenement life). But why let clever word play get in the way of insults? Here's more:

"Awful." "Bizarre, to say the least." "A suicide-inducing number." "Horrible." "Atrocious." "Nightmare-enducing (sic)." "Crap." "Infamously patronising." "Downright embarrassing." "Ear-grating." And so on.

It's only fair to note that these comments pertain to the song as presented in the movie, over-the-top production and all--the version we're about to hear is the song and nothing but the song, as recorded two seven years later by Martin. It's a fine and memorable number, and I'm guessing it originally filled two sides of a 78--you can hear where the sides were joined.

It was a lot of work getting this to sound good--which is to say, whatever distortion you hear is less than it was:

Tenement Symphony (Hal Borne-Sid Kuller-Ray Golden)--Tony Martin with the Skyrockets Orchestra directed by Woolf Phillips, 1948. From RCA Victor LP.

Planning to commit suicide? Expecting to have nightmares? Did you find that "infamously patronising"?

I hope I haven't ruined anybody's life.


Lee

Fab sounds for Monday morning!

Or whenever you happen to be reading this post.

You've Got to Hide Your Love Away--Floyd Cramer, 1966. From RCA Victor LP.

Honey Pie--Richard Alden's Orchestra and Chorus, 1970. From Reader's Digest vinyl set.

Lady Madonna--Andre Kostelanetz and His Orch., 1968. From Columbia LP.

Beatle Time (Peterson-Biesbeir-Holvay)--The Livers (The Chicagoans), 1964. From Constellation label 45.



Lee

Stairway to Easter

My latest Stairway parody.

Writing this was easy (Ye Olde Circle of Fourths)--finding the right MIDI patches, not so. The trick is finding synth sounds that work together in terms of attack, delay, etc. But I think it came out O.K.:

Stairway to Easter (Lee Hartsfeld), 2007. Composed on Noteworthy Composer® software and spruced up sonically on MAGIX®.



Lee