Memorable mono media: The (Original) Red Tops, June Valli, Tony Bennett, Peggy King, more!

 

Twenty memorable mono sides, ripped from 45 rpm discs in my collection.  As usual, no unifying theme, save that all but two are from the 1950s, starting with the 1957 paean to marital fidelity, Hello, Is That You? by the (Original) Red Tops, recorded (I seem to recall) at Sun.  Then, a jazzy Capitol country side from 1951--a pre-Maybellene take on Ida Red called Freight Train Breakdown.  And I made sure to use the correct pre-RIAA response curve for the early-50s Columbia and Capitol singles.  (To my slight surprise, Columbia was still using a 300 Hz bass turnover as late as 1954!)

And... the original 1950 Tony Bennett Boulevard of Broken Dreams, which Google's AI describes as Tony's breakthrough hit on Columbia.  (His 1958 Greatest Hits LP utilizes a different arrangement altogether.)  I prefer this original, if only for the way Tony belts it out.  Then, Steve Lawrence does his best Bobby Vee impression with the King-Goffin Poor Little Rich Girl, whose lyrics portray a class-divided romance as doomed--in contrast to June Valli's From the Wrong Side of Town, which asserts (in so many words) that class distinctions are irrelevant.

Way to the Stars (from the 1945 movie) is magnificent 1954 (?) mood music by George Melachrino, while Sometimes is too-smooth-to-be-doo-wop doo-wop.  (Think the Four Lads crossed with the Five Satins.)  The Four Voices' 1962 remake of their 1956 hit Lovely One is especially elegant doo-wop, though it does register as/in that style.  Further in the list, we have "real" doo-wop from Lee Andrew and the Hearts (the brilliant Nobody's Home).  An incredibly tight performance, backed by the famous Pancho Villa Orchestra, best known for the 1957 hit, After School Rock (not in this list).

Brother Fats is a fascinating hybrid: Not quite rock and roll, but not quite big band, either.  Peggy King's 1957 Zero Hour is a movie theme gorgeously (and seductively) crooned, while Rock, Pretty Baby pushes all the right 1956 American Bandstand buttons.  Which is logically impossible, actually, since AB didn't start until the next year.  And the songwriter was Sonny Burke!

Tamboo is a superb 1955 piece of concert exotica, while the Leiber-Stoller Bazoom! is a fine Larry Elgart cover of the Cheers hit.  And for anyone wondering what Rock Around the Clock sounded like before it was revamped by Bill Haley, we have Bill Coates sticking to the original verse and chorus (with piano embellishments) from... well, I don't know.  Sometime in the '50s, surely.

Rosemary Clooney's rockin' version of Tennessee Ernie Ford's Shot Gun Boogie has an R&B-style backing led by none other than Mitch Miller, and Kay Star's "pop" cover of the Clovers' Fool, Fool, Fool is almost as good as the original (penned by the co-founder of Atlantic Records).  And there's fine middle-of-the-road jazz vocalizing on The Glow-Worm, followed (two entries later) by the weird but fun Tokyo Melody, the second 1960s side in our list. 

DOWNLOAD:  Memorable Mono Media.zip FLAC

Hello, Is That You?--The (Original) Red Tops, V: Rufus McCay, 1957

Eddie Kirk--Freight Train Breakdown, 1951

The Boulevard of Broken Dreams--Tony Bennett, Orch. directed by Marty Manning, 1950

Poor Little Rich Girl (Goffin-King)--Steve Lawrence, 1963

Way to the Stars (Nicholas Brodszky)--The Melachrino Orch., 1954

Sometimes--The Bachelors, 1958

From the Wrong Side of Town--June Valli w. Joe Reisman's Orch. and Chorus, 1956

Lovely One--The Four Voices, 1962

Brother Fats--Ray Anthony and His Orch., V: Gloria Craig, The Skyliners, 1951

Zero Hero--Peggy King w. Frank De Vol and His Orch., 1957

Tamboo--American Symphonic Band of the Air, Dir. Willliam D. Revelli, 1955

Bazoom! (I Need Your Lovin')--Les Elgart and Orch., 1954

Rock, Pretty Baby (Sonny Burke)--Jimmy Daley and the Ding-a-Lings, 1956

Rock Around the Clock--Bill Coates at the Console

Fool, Fool, Fool--Kay Starr w. The Lancers, Lee Young and His Band, 1952

Hesitation (Winterhalter)--Hugo Winterhalter and His Orch., 1952

Nobody's Home--Lee Andrews and the Hearts, 1958

The Glow-Worm--The Paulette Sisters and Dick Style, Larry Clinton Orch., 1952

Shot Gun Boogie--Rosemary Clooney, Orch. under direction of Mitch Miller, 1951

Tokyo Melody--Helmut Zacharias and His Orch., 1964

Lee

Happy Semiquincentennial! Grofe, Gould, Gottschalk, Sousa, more!

 

Happy Semiquincentennial!

We start with an excerpt from a larger concert setting of William Billings' Revolutionary War hymn, Chester (1770/1778), as scored by Samuel Loboda.  Here are the words:

When God inspir’d us for the fight, 

Their ranks were broke, their lines were forc’d, 

Their ships were Shatter’d in our sight, 

Or swiftly driven from our Coast. 

Lord Halleluiahs let us Sing, And praise his name on ev’ry Chord.

Then, Ferde Grofe's 1929 Over There Fantasie, as also performed by The United States Army Band under Samuel Loboda in 1975 or 1976, followed by a rousing 1961 rendition of Morton Gould's famous American Salute.  Next, a lighter, joyous mood by way of Harry J. Lincoln's Midnight Fire Alarm (1900), as performed by the Medallion Concert Band on a Kapp label subsidiary.

The National Symphony Orch. returns with Hershy Kay's 1951 ballet suite, Cakewalk: Grand Walkaround, featuring themes by Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869), and then we move on to the second half of Reclamation's Golden Jubilee, a movement from Grofe's Valley of the Sun Suite--then, a street-organ performance of John Philip Sousa's Gladiator march, from 1959.

The Rock Around the Clock Polka follows, and is in turn followed by Grofe's Desert Water Hole from his 1949 Death Valley Suite.  We'll hear the main portion of that movement--lively variations on Oh! Susanna.

We stick with Stephen Foster for Ferrante and Teicher's 1952 novelty, Susanna's Last Stand, and then it's on to Budd McCoy's rocking The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (Longfellow-Davie, 1959).  We close very ironically with an alternate take of The Five Satins' In the Still of the Night.  Fourth of July fireworks celebrations, needless to note, make for anything but a still night.

DOWNLOAD: Fourth of July 2026.zip

Chester (Billings, Arr. Loboda)--The United States Army Band, c. Samuel Loboda
Over There Fantasie (Grofe)--The United States Army Band, c. Samuel Loboda

American Salute--National Symphony Orch., c. Howard Mitchell, 1961

The Midnight Fire Alarm (Lincoln)--Medallion Concert Band

Cakewalk: Grand Walkaround (Gottschalk, A: Hershy Kay)--National Symphony O., 1961

Reclamation's Golden Jubilee (Grofe)--Arizona State College (Tempe) Symph. O., c. Ferde Grofe

The Gladiator (Sousa)--The Thunderer, Netherland's Greatest Street Organ, 1959

Rock Around the Clock Polka--Adam Nowicki and His Polka Band

Desert Water Hole (Death Valley Suite; Grofe)--National Symphony Orch., c. Howard Mitchell, 1961

Susanna's Last Stand (A: F&T)--Ferrante and Teicher (1952)

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (Bob Davie)--Budd McCoy, 1959

In the Still of the Night (Fred Paris; alt. take)--The Five Satins, 1956

Lee