Beanie Topps, Otto Born, The Low Notes, The Swivel Hips--Twin Fakes

 

You came to the right place for Otto Born, The Low Notes, The Swivel Hips, and the ever-popular Beanie Topps.  "Beanie Topps" sounds like some failed clothing line, doesn't it?

So, what can account for the fake hits which were issued concurrently on Top Hit Tunes and Pickwick's Bravo label?  You're asking me?  Well, Both Sides Now reports that Enoch Light's labels were purchased by Am-Par in 1959, but I can find nothing in writing that mentions either Waldorf or Am-Par doing co-releases with Pickwick.  But we have the evidence before us.  Neither of these photos were faked.  Nor was I faked.  I am who I say I am.  Well, as far as you know, anyway.

Today (or tonight, actually), I offer a fun program of fake hits that showed up on both Top Hit Tunes (Waldorf) and Bravo (Pickwick), though the word "Waldorf" had been dropped from the Top Hit Tunes labels by this time (1960-61).  It did appear on earlier Top Hit Tunes EPs.  Some of today's tracks showed up on LP, too--credited to the Bobby Krane Orchestra and Chorus.  Credits, schremdits.  Top Hit Tunes, Tops in Pops--what's the difference?

We've heard far worse fakes than the ones in today's playlist, and you can't beat the aliases for cleverness and oddness: the aforementioned Otto Born, The Low Notes, The Swivel Hips, and The Bleecker Street Regulars (after Arthur Conan Doyle's Baker Street Irregulars, I'm sure), plus Anna and the Kings (yuk, yuk!), Sunny and the Moonlighters, Slim Downes, Big Legs Jackson, The Star Glazers, and Arthur Poem.  Actually, these names are from a master list of my Top Hit Tunes EPs, and they're not all on hand today, but just to show you that Am-Par, Pickwick (or whoever) was having some fun concocting excellent bogus sobriquets.  ("Hey, Bill, you need to slim down."  "Perfect!!  Slim Downes.  Thank you.")

Bill, the man in charge of the Aliases Department.  Nickname: Josh Handle.

Despite a few instances of mildly painful vocalizing ( such as I've Told Ev'ry Little Star), these are good, solid fakes.  The backgrounds are all very professional, and we should note that it's Bill Wooley who loses the rhythm at one point in Hot Rod Lincoln, not his accompanists. To his credit, he doesn't stop for a retake--he simply carries on, finding his way back into the proper meter.  Losing the beat on a spoken-text song would mean an automatic redo on a legit label, but this is Top Hit Tunes (and Bravo, and who knows who else?).  The three Elvis fakes--It's Now or Never, Surrender, and Little Sister--are respectable attempts at copying The King, and long before it became an industry, though I really wanted Marty French to go up an octave, Elvis-style, at the end of Never, and I don't know if he chickened out or if he simply decided, for the wages he was receiving, why bother.  But it's kind of a false build-up.  But six hits on one EP, so stop complaining, already.

Come to think of it, there is one major (or, more accurately, minor) instrumental goof-up: It's on Peter Gunn.  The riff is supposed to be F-F-G-F-A-F-Bb-A, with an Ab grace note before the first A.  In this version, we get a Dick Dale-style guitar, with the guy playing F-F-G-F-Ab-F-Bb-Ab, and maybe because he couldn't find the right notes or hadn't heard the theme song.  The latter would have been weird, given what a huge hit it was.

Ah, the "good old" days.  I remember hearing the 1960 Larry Verne hit Mr. Custer quite often on AM radio around 1965, which is why I'm surprised to discover it's from 1960.  They must have had it on nonstop oldies play.  It seemed hilarious at the time, though of course it's only mildly funny in a Tim Conway way--plus, it's outrageously un-PC by today's standards.  That'll happen over the course of decades.  The real fun lies in listening to a no-budget attempt to copy a novelty where the production was everything.  Like Custer, this ultra-cheap venture was doomed.

Whatever I just typed.  Actually, while not un-PC in any way, Yogi (originally inflicted on the Top 40 by The Ivy Three) is maybe the lamest novelty in history--and I say this after listening to the genuinely agonizing Dinner with Drac over the Goodwill speakers today.  The problem isn't that it's a one-joke novelty (Yogi Bear as a practitioner of Yoga)--one-joke novelties are fine, as far as that goes.  The problem is the idiot beginning--"Hey, Boo Boooooo!"  And with the Yogi and Boo Boo voices, very badly done on both the original and here (making this a successful fake, I suppose).  Maybe the chief problem is that Yogi Bear is an instance of word play to begin with, being a take on Yogi Berra, of course.  No one loves stupid-for-their-own-sake novelties more than me (Dickie Goodman's Ben Crazy, for ex.), but I just find Yogi too hard to (wait for it) bear.

Overanalyzing a forgotten novelty is one of the many services I provide at this blog.

Another theory: Maybe the Top Hit Tunes label was a tax write-off for Pickwick.  Pickwick: "Can we use the label?  You guys aren't doing anything with it."  Am-Par: "Be our guests.  Just remove the 'Waldorf.'"

Along with such goodies as the tracks already mentioned, plus the immortal Transistor Sister, you'll hear a full, six-selection EP in all its full-selection-ness: Top Hit Tunes THC-10-3 (third disc in set), which appeared on Bravo in a different order, and which has Beanie Topps singing The Twist.  And you'll hear Side A of Top Hit Tunes PH-70-2, which came out on Bravo with the exact same tracks and catalog number.  You've already heard the three Side A tracks in stereo in this post: Barbara Ann (The Essex), Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong (The Bearcats), and Raindrops (Dave Pidor).  Junk-vinyl triumphs--all very well done.

I've invested a lot of time into establishing to my own satisfaction that Waldorf, in its post-Enoch Light period, was partnering with Pickwick.  Or vice versa.  But I can't explain why.  Was it simply the usual see-if-we-can-sell-the-same-tracks-twice routine?  Did it happen by accident?  That is a possibility, you know.  As I'm always saying, the fake-hit operations never planned anything, and simply because planning takes time.  And time is money.

To the fun fakes.

DOWNLOAD Top Hit Tunes--Bravo fakes

Peter Gunn--Happy Harry
Will You Love Me Tomorrow?--The Bleecker Street Regulars
Yogi--The Three Phases
Angel Baby--Anna and the Kings
Mr. Custer--Charlie Sonder
Baby, Oh Baby--The Low Notes
Hot Rod Lincoln--Bill Wooley (Top Hit Tunes THC-10-3)
Kiddio--Brother Ray (Same)
Volare--Pete Studer (Same)
Mission Bell--J.T. Bruce (Same)
The Twist--Beanie Topps (Same)
So Sad--The Parkers (Same)
Surrender--Bert Summer
It's Now or Never--Marty French
Transistor Sister--Bob Packer
Walk, Don't Run--The Swivel Hips
Stay--Dion and the Dreamers
Little Sister--Unknown (Bravo P-201-6)
Runaway--Bucky Charles
Apache--The City Boys
I've told Ev'ry Little Star--Unknown (Bravo PEP-201-4)
Take Good Care of My Baby--Phil Barad
Barbara Ann--The Essex (Top Hit Tunes PH-70-2)
Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong--The Bearcats (Same)
Raindrops--Dave Pidor (Same)
Spanish Harlem--Emil Morgan

Lee