Sunday morning gospel will be back next week....

I got sidetracked with the Elvis stuff, which I thought I could put together quickly, since I was mostly transferring CD-R tracks. But that took longer than I thought, and I just had to rip four or five fresh tracks. Turned out to be a project. I also got sidetracked with cyber-research on a songwriter I'll be showcasing in a few days. I have five of his songs, though one is hiding on me at the moment. It's on a 78 whose pressing is way off center. (I've always wanted to type "a 78 whose....") Which means I need to enlarge the center hole without breaking anything, which is why God created fine sandpaper.

A blogger's work is never caught up, as they say. "They" being me.

Single digits for the morning. Aiieeee. On a nicer note, our drive was plowed out this afternoon, so I will be able to get onto the road.

Happy Birthday, Elvis! Part 2

Twelve more faux-King selections, including George Jones' 1956 recording of Heartbreak Hotel, which was released on Starday subsidiary Dixie, then Tops. (Many thanks to Mellow for the correction!) The Promenade cover of Don't by Jimmie Aires and the uncredited Return to Sender (Hit label) are very good Elvis imitations--the rest... eh. To be fair, not everyone tries to mimic the King, and Artie Malvin and Loren Becker always sound fine as Artie Malvin and Loren Becker. Budget-label covers run the gamut from copy-cat arrangements to new settings--there seems to have been no standard vision. Maybe standard visions cost too much money.

The Enoch Light productions (#'s 10 and 11) are expertly done, as ever. The only truly inept effort of the bunch, to my ears, is the uncredited One Night (#5) from the EP set Big Rock 'n Roll Hits. I don't think anyone at the session knew the song. Official-spelling-wise, I don't know if it's supposed to be One Nite with... or One Night with.... I went with the label. It's all we can do, sometimes.

Click here to hear: Happy Birthday, Elvis! Pt. 2

PLAYLIST

BLUE SUEDE SHOES--Hank Smith (Leon Payne), Tops 279 (1956).
HEARTBREAK HOTEL--Hank Smith (George Jones), Tops 279 (1956).
RETURN TO SENDER--Current Hits, Vol. One (Hit 1001)
DON'T BE CRUEL--Marv Lockard (Big 4 Hits)
ONE NIGHT--(21 Top Hits EPV-30)
LET ME BE YOUR TEDDY BEAR--Stevens Mark (Value Hit Parade Tunes 143)
DON'T--Jimmy Aires (Promenade RR-27)
A FOOL SUCH AS I--(Hit Parader HP-1)
JAILHOUSE ROCK--Eli Whitney (Promenade RR-23)
MY BABY LEFT ME--Loren Becker, w. Enoch Light O. (Waldorf)
HOUND DOG--Artie Malvin, w. Enoch Light O. (Waldorf)
HOUND DOG--Don Kay (Promenade RR-1)


Lee

Happy Birthday, Elvis! Part 1

This is (the weekend of) Elvis' 75th Birthday, which MY(P)WHAE will honor with two playlists of budget-label Elvis cover versions--these date from the Fifties and early Sixties and were ripped from vinyl copies in my vast, crazy collection. We're talking such labels as Gilmar, Promenade, Prom, Variety, Halo, Tops--and, oh, so many more.

These covers run the gamut from yikes! to quite good, with no fewer than four versions (two this time, two more next group) of Hound Dog. There's even Don't, Stuck on You, and King Creole. Three-quarters of these titles had no artist info attached to them--in these cases, I've given the collection titles and/or label and number.

The copy-cat-athon starts right now: Happy Birthday, Elvis! Pt. 1

PLAYLIST

DON'T BE CRUEL--(Variety EPV-1812)
HOUND DOG--Same.
I WANT YOU, I NEED YOU, I LOVE YOU--Same.
HEARTBREAK HOTEL--The Cadets (Crown CLP-5001)
HARD-HEADED WOMAN--(Audition 59500)
KING CREOLE--Dick Penrose (Top Hit Tunes)
IT'S NOW OR NEVER--Hits a Poppin' (Prom 214 or 216)
STUCK ON YOU--Stumpy Anderson and His Stompers (Evon 531)
ONE NITE WITH YOU--Tops in Pops (Halo 1670)
WEAR MY RING AROUND YOUR NECK--Eli Whitney (Promenade 41)
HOUND DOG--(Gilmar GH-91)
TOO MUCH--Arch Angel (EP 4 Hits 345)

Vintage EZ (1901-1926)

I was going to call this post "Vintage semi-Classical," but at some point that term stopped referring to easy listening and light orchestral music--it now has something to do with Bollywood. I just found this out. Now why wasn't I given some kind of notice? Anyway, the term used to refer to Andre Kostelanetz, Mantovani, and so on. "Semi-Class," some called it, and I don't know if that was intended as an insult or not.

So, "EZ" it is. And early EZ this is--light orchestral fare from the early days of recording, lovingly restored (a fancy term for "made listenable") by yours truly from 10- and 12-inch discs. As you'll hear, I don't set the Denoiser to "sonar" but use it sparingly, as it should be. Between my 31-band analog equalizer and my editing program's parametric and graphic EQs, I kill all noise I deem necessary to kill. And I usually don't yell "Die! DIE!!" as I do so, though I probably have once or twice. This week, I mean.

And I do lots of declicking, some of it manual. 78s are high-maintenance. We who restore them can properly be called co-dependent.

NOTES: Love Dance is better known as Every Little Movement. I found an image of the sheet music for Dance of the Song Birds and swiped it. If anyone invented mood music as we know it, it may have been Albert Ketelbey (In a Chinese Temple Garden, In a Persian Market). The 1909 salon music recordings toward the end of the playlist feature exceptionally vivid sound for the time, to my ears, and the 1905 version of La Paloma is superbly played and recorded. Audiences of old had quite a menu of light works to listen to, however lo the fi. If I forgot to note something, it's because I didn't remember it.

To the vintage EZ: Vintage EZ (1901-1926)

PLAYLIST

THE LOVE DANCE (From "Madame Sherry")--Prince's Orch., 1910.
THE BIRTH OF PASSION (Same)--Same.
PICNIC FOR TWO (Lamb-Tilzer)--Prince's Orch., 1905.
DANCE OF THE SONG BIRDS--Columbia Orch., 1904.
FALLING LEAVES (Waltz Intermezzo)--Columbia Orch., 1901.
IN A CHINESE TEMPLE GARDEN (Ketelbey)--International Concert O., Nat Shilkret, 1926.
IN A PERSIAN MARKET (Same)--Same.
ON THE HIGH ALPS--Walter Biederman, Hans von Wegern, violin duet w. piano, 1909.
ALPINE VIOLETS--Frank Horning, Marshall Lufsky, and Paul Surth--volin, flute, and harp trio, 1909.
LA PALOMA--Curti's Mexican Orch., 1905.
SANTIAGO WALTZ--Columbia Orch., 1902.



Lee

Maple Leaf Rag; Swingin' for Pappy

Oh, I guess there's no apostrophe--"Swingin." Okay. But our two-fer actually starts with Harry Snodgrass, from 1926, playing Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag in a style known as playing too fast to hit the right notes. I should point out that I can mangle it just as effectively at a slower tempo. Why, I wonder, does the announcer talk like that? He reminds me of a slow-talking sports announcer (whose name I can't remember), only slower.

The record is in C- condition on a good day, but I managed to tame a good deal of the surface hiss and snarl. And crackle and pop and click. (No, I'm not about to break into song.) Enjoyable, even if such blurred playing is an acquired taste I haven't acquired yet.

As for (Wild) Bill Moore, some have asked what jazz has to do with the earliest rock and roll. Answer: everything. Listen for a faster and looser version of the riff which showed up, eight years later, in the last instrumental chorus of Rock Around the Clock. From 1947, swing becoming rock.

To the 78-rpm two-fer: Harry Snodgrass, Wild Bill Moore

PLAYLIST

MAPLE LEAF RAG--Harry Snodgrass (King of the Ivories); J.M. Witten Announcing, 1926. (Brunswick 3239).
SWINGIN FOR PAPPY (W.M. Moore)--Bill Moore and His Band, feat. "Wild" Bill Moore, Tenor Sax, 1947 (Savoy 662).



Lee

A wreck of "The Wreck of the John B."

Okay, it's not exactly a wreck, but it is pretty worn, as you can see (my copy of Rex Allen's The Wreck of the JOHN B, that is). No, the edges aren't that rough--the effect was created when I mouse-traced a line around the image so I could put in the red background. The things I do for this blog....

Despite the wear, I got some decent sound out of this 1951 78, and--if you're like me--hearing a non-Beach-Boys version of John B. is always a novelty. Of course, it's the B.B.'s version that should sound like a novelty, but it's all about one's listening history. And which point in history we're peering forward and backwards from. (That was profound, you'll have to admit.) Allen's version dates from the time of the Weavers' hit recording.

Rex Allen had quite an excellent crooner's voice. As for "Lou Douglas," I'm guessing he's also the "Lew Douglas" who appeared on Carlton, Fraternity, Dot, B and F, and Bally, and who backed Joni James on MGM.

Click here to download: The Wreck of the "JOHN B" (Sandburg-Hays)--Rex Allen w. Lou Douglas O., 1951.



Lee

Sunday morning gospel: Brighten the Corner Where You Are

Tons of requests have poured in for an image of me in my church choir robe. None in this dimension, but in some theoretical corner of time/space... who knows? Anyway, here is such a photo. I needed something to attach to this post, and I remembered that I wanted to put this one up, and bingo. Was his name-o.

This morning is sacred-shellac time. There are two especially good versions of Brighten the Corner, a 1913 gospel number that's been recorded over the many decades by everyone from Homer Rodeheaver to Ella Fitzgerald. Elvis, to my knowledge, never recorded it, though he did do a memorable version of the same composer's An Evening Prayer. A zillion versions of Brighten seem to exist. I have all but four. Just kidding. (Or am I?)

Then we get to hear the Criterion Quartet, from 1908, singing that same composer's hugely popular Glory Song. And a bunch (well, seven) of other sacred-shellac titles on repeat go-rounds, but in glorious new rips that I worked on lovingly. Smith's Sacred Singers, the Utica Institute Jubilee Singers, the Ganus Brothers Quartet--the best kind of pre-1930 gospel. Save for the Knightingales, who come from a 1952 Skylark label disc. And I can't believe my 78 dating guide includes the label in question, but it does. I think the Skylarks were trying for the Weavers/Gordon Jenkins sound. Why not?

To the sacred shellac: Brighten the Corner Where You Are


SHELLACLIST

BRIGHTEN THE CORNER WHERE YOU ARE (Oatman-Gabriel)--Criterion Q., 1920.
STILL SWEETER EVERY DAY (Martin-Miles)--Same.
GLORY SONG (Gabriel)--Criterion Quartet, 1908.
THE RADIANT MORN HATH PASSED AWAY--Lyric Quartet, 1908.
CHURCH SCENE (From "Old Homestead")--Hayden Quartet, 1904.
BRIGHTEN THE CORNER WHERE YOU ARE--The Knightingales, 1952.
LEANING ON THE LORD--Utica Institute Jubilee Singers, 1929.
SOMEBODY'S KNOCKING AT YOUR DOOR--Same.
MEET ME THERE--Smith's Sacred Singers, 1929.
HAVE A SUNNY SMILE--Ganus Brothers Quartet, 1928.


Lee