This Week's Pop Hits (Audition 33-59-500)--A parting cheapie from Enoch Light?

 

The clothing style and general color scheme are so garish, it took me a while to notice that the young lady's slip is showing--I was so busy marveling at the variations on red, brown, and green.  I have the fashion sense of a crushed bug, so things have to be pretty bad for me to even notice tasteless attire.  But it's certainly an effective cover.  I mean, it definitely draws attention to itself.

Late 1959 was when Am-Par took over Enoch Light's Waldorf label stable, and there seems to have been a flurry of "Get the tracks out there!  I don't care how--just get them out there!" activity, with at least seven of these "Pop Hits" LPs issued on the Waldorf sublabels Audition and Colortone (ten tracks apiece) during (I'm guessing) that year.  I wouldn't be surprised if more "Pop Hits" collections are waiting to be discovered--and I'm betting that, despite the "This Week's Pop Hits" claim, the tracks on the "Pop Hits" LPs were holdovers.  ("Well, they were this week's hits--last year!")  As in, 1958 tracks released in 1959.  The catalog numbers for these LPs all include a "59" (in this case, 33-59-500), and, at the time this was pressed, Waldorf was big on including the two-digit year (though the two hyphens are used on the jacket, not label, so...).  You'll notice that the artists credited on the front jacket (with the exception of The Audition Studio and Chorus) are Waldorf people--Artie Malvin, The Zig Zags Trio.  And, weirdly enough, Artie doesn't actually show up, so maybe his name was jobber-rack gold.  ("Mention Artie--it'll sell!")  Or maybe Waldorf was paying insufficient attention.

I have s second theory--one which may make more sense than Enoch flooding the market just before the takeover.  Rather, maybe Am-Par, at the time of the takeover, released recently recorded Waldorf tracks just to keep the stampers stamping as it prepared its entry into the fake-hits market (with its own artists and orchestras). And, speaking of, in addition to the above LP, we'll be hearing a post-Enoch 1959 Waldorf Top Hit Tunes EP which sports none of the Enoch artists--instead, we get Chris Casino, Ted Colt, and The Progressives.  (Chris Casino??)  It's a bit ironic that the Am-Par takeover happened only shortly after Enoch Light figured out how to produce convincing rock and roll fakes--his earliest attempts in the style sounded more like "Glenn Miller Plays the Teen Hit Parade," and Enoch's move, about 1956/57, to more convincing rock and roll fakes may signal that he was resigned to the fact that rock and roll wasn't going anywhere.  Not for a while, anyway.  So, Waldorf rock and roll started to sound like... rock and roll.  Or imitations thereof.

I'll have to do more investigating before I can safely assert either theory, but it's clear that 1959 was a weird period for Waldorf, which makes it a highly cool one.  The ten LP tracks are mass-credited to The Audition Studio Orchestra and Chorus, featuring The Monarchs Quratet, Artie Malvin, The Zig Zags Trio, and "other popular artists."  Since there are no individual track credits, I located that info on Discogs, and it turns out that, out of the above list, The Monarchs and The Zig Zags do appear.  So it's halfway accurate.  Also, Loren Becker, Ken Lynch, Dick Penrose, and (of course) Enoch Light.  These are the usual high-quality Enoch Light productions, with When especially effective.  Hard Headed Woman is competently covered, though it lacks the energy and bite of the Tops/Eli Oberstein version, which showed up in umpteen budget collections.  Duane Eddy's Rebel-'Rouser is credited to Enoch Light and His Orch. in its EP release, and either Enoch's orchestra had an amazing ability to sound like everything from the Percy Faith strings to a small rock combo, or we'll have to assume that the Light credit was used for anything that happened to be an instrumental.  Combo, orchestra--what's the difference?

As far as the "According to leading national surveys," are we to actually believe that any budget label would consult leading surveys?  You'd think they'd have followed secondary surveys, or even lesser ones.  Or have simply listened to the Top 40 to see what was selling.  I'm including a back-cover scan, so you can read all about Audition's Supertone recording process, because I know you want to.  "Wow--Supertone.  I'll have to check that out!"  That was my reaction.  Not to be confused with the Supertoner, which I believe was an "Order within the next five minutes" TV product.

Waldorf's EP tracks, as a rule, are edited down to fit the three-to-a-side format--all of the tracks sound complete enough, anyway, with the huge exception of Tallahassee Lassie, which sounded like it was over before it could start.  So I cheated and doubled the middle section, which meant doing an overlap and quick fade--the edit should be undetectable.  In a sense, I'm misrepresenting a pop-cultural artifact by extending the playing time, but I won't tell if you don't.  Oddly enough, I can find no LP appearance of the Waldorf Tallahassee Lassie, and I'd love to hear the full cut.  It may even have had a guitar solo. 

DOWNLOAD This Week's Pop Hits (Audition 33-59-500; 1959?)

THIS WEEK'S POP HITS (Audition 33-59-500; 1959?)

Volare (Nel Blu Dipinot Di Blu)--Charles Magnante
Poor Little Fool (Shari Sheeley)--Loren Becker with The Monarchs
If Dreams Came True (A. Stillman-R. Allen)--Loren Becker
Splish Splash (Darin-Kaufman)--Ken Lynch
Rebel-'Rouser (L. Hazlewood-D. Eddy)--Enoch Light and His Orchestra
Enchanted Island (A. Stillman-R. Allen)--The Zig Zags
Hard Headed Woman (Claude Demetrius)--Dick Penrose
A Certain Smile (P.F. Webster-S. Fain)--Loren Becker and Enoch Light, His Orch. and Chorus
When (J. Reardon-P.Evans)--Farrell Brothers

TOP HIT TUNES TH-32-1 (Six-selection 45 rpm EP)

Ring-A-Ling-A-Lario--Jackie Rich
Tallahassee Lassie--Ted Colt
So Fine--The Progressives
Dream Lover--George Clark
Along Came Jones--The Progressives
I'm Ready--Chris Casino

Lee