Steven Foster classics in swing time: Bill St. Clair and the Eddie Maynard Orchestra beautifully manage this goal. It helps when the songs are terrific, the vocalist is excellent, and the arrangements spot on. This LP is a wonderful surprise--way above the norm for Parade.
However, as we congratulate Bill St. Clair and the Eddie Maynard Orch., I think it's fair to ask... do or did either of those persons exist? Under those names, I mean?
Let's look at the evidence: This LP also showed up on Spinorama, Palace, Coronet, and Riviera. Here, the orchestra is credited to Eddie Maynard, but elsewhere it's assigned to Fontanna, Mark Andrews, David Bruce, and... artist-unknown. And, on Coronet, Bill becomes Dick Neilson. The Fontanna version (on Palace), gives no vocal credit at all, though at least it's in stereo. And had I known it was the same album, I'd have gone for it (because of the stereo), but the Parade monaural audio is nice enough--after I fixed it up, that is.
Bill, or Dick, or whomever, has a marvelous voice, and the Stephen-Foster-in-Swing-Time theme is beautifully managed, but we really have no reason to believe this singer is, in factual reality, named Bill St. Clair. In fact, at my fake-hits YT channel, I have a Bill St. "Claire" on Big 4 Hits singing "Shake Rattle and Roll," and it doesn't sound like the same guy. As for Eddie Maynard, he was a name-drop bandleader at SPC, Spinorama, and Parade. A fill-in-the-credit bandleader.
To be fair , Bill and Eddie ("Bill and Eddie"?) also put out an LP on Promenade called Let's Be Frank, on which Bill (or whoever he is) does a decent job imitating Frank Sinatra. This might compel us to believe that Bill St. Clair was the singer's real name, but there's the problem of the many different credits for these Stephen Foster tracks. And there's the problem that Bill seems to have done nothing outside of the rack-jobber realm. Nobody said rack-jobber detective work was easy...
Anyway, according to the liner notes, "This is a great unique album and will provide many hours of listening enjoyment." (If put it on repeat play, I guess...) "Bill has a tremendously great voice," the notes continue, and Bill is a singer "from the Boston area who has his own TV and radio shows." Except, I can find no online confirmation of same, and Google's AI can't, either. No TV or radio shows on file for one Bill St. Clair. Still, this is a superior budget-album experience--fine vocalist, spot-on arrangements, and great American tunes. Hats off to Bill, Dick, Fontanna, Artist Unknown, and everyone else involved.
DOWNLOAD: Bill St. Clair Swings Stephen Foster Favorites in a New Fresh Manner.zip FLAC
Beautiful Dreamer
I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair
Nellie Bly
Old Dog Trey
Ring Ring de Banjo
Old Folks at Home
My Old Kentucky Home
Gentle Annie
Oh Susannah
Hard Times
Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming
Camptown Races
Lee
13 comments:
FLAC? I am glad it unzipped as MP3 instead. Saved me from converting them.
That being said, a very interesting album. I have enjoyed these classic songs as Instrumentals and Easy versions, but Swing versions take them to another level.
But that cover, if I saw that female peeking through bushes as she is doing, hell, I would run the other way...fast...
She looks possessed and up to no good, yikes...
What a way "not" to sell a product.
Yes, she looks... witchy in the extreme. Attractive, but witchy. Sorry about the mp3s--I had changed a project to mp3 from FLAC, and I had no idea this setting would migrate to my other VinylStudio files. I'll correct this ASAP.
No problem with them being MP3. This is my music choice, until I decide to buy another FLAC device.
But, I guess others might prefer FLAC.
Also great album. I think anyone who downloads it, will appreciate it.
Oh, that voice sounds familiar, but there were sound-a-likes out there I guess to cash in on the major artists.
Bryan,
Well, I just reconverted it to FLAC--sorry. Are you without the means to play FLAC files? And I agree--terrific album.
I can certainly play FLAC files on my computer. I currently have several MP3 players, and I had one FLAC player. The FLAC player fell either into a bucket of water, or maybe it was into the toilet as I was cleaning one day. So, I never replaced it as I have all these MP3 players.
The thing is, I rarely listen to any albums I download at home. I prefer to listen to an internet Easy Listening station called Instrumental Hits Radio, from Mexico, I believe? So, I have to convert everything, not as an MP3, into this format. But, most things are currently still in MP3s. This way, as I am out and about, I can listen to these albums.
If the AI were any count, it could gather up samples of TV and radio personalities from the proper time and locale, then compare the audio to these tracks. But I think that's still a few years away. :)
In the glory days of the Brand "X" budget album, these labels would do anything to put a new spin on Public Domain material in order to not pay a bunch of royalties to either ASCAP or BMI and save a lot of money in the process. Such is the case with this album. SPC took this singer (whoever he is) and gave him several tunes from the founding father of modern popular music songwriting, Stephen Foster, and dresses them up in stylish 1950's traditional pop musical clothes, more along the lines of Frank Sinatra's classic concept albums from Capitol Records.
You just know that this is going to be a great album when the '50's pop re-imagining of "Beautifq
You just know that this is going to be a great album when the '50's pop re-imagining of "Beautiful Dreamer" and "I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair" are better than the numerous recordings of some of these songs done the way they were originally written. "Nellie Bly" is a real swingin' affair with some great trumpet solos and the singer almost swinging out to a Mel Torme Jazz groove. "Ring Ring De Banjo" hearkens back to Guy Mitchell's hits from his early-'50's heyday with Mitch Miller at the helm with touches of Don Cherry's "Band of Gold" thrown in for good measure.
Not all of these songs are Franken-style re-imaginings. "Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming", "Old Dog Trey" and "Gentle Annie" stay true to their original folk roots, while the singer takes a very somber approach to "Hard Times" with moody organ and Pop guitar. I am not sure if Frank Sinatra would have been embarrassed to sing "Camptown Races" in his Swingin' Lovers style; here the singer and the band give us a fascinating glimpse of what could have been, complete with a Harry "Sweets" Edison-style trumpet solo! Three of the tunes on this LP appeared on the next "Bill St. Clair" album for SPC, Let's Be Frank, while this album got reissued with a wide variety of aliases on numerous labels across the budget label spectrum.
I don't know if dealing with the SPC Hits-A-Poppin' style vinyl was better than super-cheap Palace Records Vinyl quality. I do know that my copy is the same as the one you just posted. There was a singer in the '50's named Bill Raymond who sounds eerily similar to the "Bill St. Clair" singer posted here; I noticed it when I was listening to Bill Raymond sing the song "Suddenly" the flip side of Les Baxter's "April in Portugal", which I have in 78 form.
Since you just posted an album with "Eddie Maynard" as the orchestra director, now might be a good time to revive the Eddie Maynard album you posted here a while back. Just a suggestion.
musicman1979,
That's a good idea--re-ripping that Eddie Maynard LP, that is.
Thanks for your detailed review of this LP, and let me note that the stereo Palace LP has awful audio--I tested it, and some of the stereo is of the "rechanneled" type, while some tracks are very poorly engineered. The audio on the Palace is terrible--thus, I'm glad I opted for this version of the LP.
"Ring Ring De Banjo" definitely has a Guy Mitchell vibe! I had expected this album to err on the side of camp, but it all works quite well.
Post a Comment