The Return of Halloween 2023, Part 3: Monster-Size Monster tracks! Or, look out for "Lookout Mountain"!

 

I think we all prefer our monsters monster-sized.  So long as they obey.  And so long as they aren't mutant insects...

With Jeane Dixon, break-ins, and seasonal soundalikes out of the way, it's time (just barely) for more of my favorite pieces of tongue-in-cheek terror.  And, for some reason, it was only last nght that I found the recording dates for Haunted House Polka and He's Going to Eat Me Up (thanks, 45cat).  I'd searched for them in the past, but you know how that goes: Locating data is often a matter of using the exact correct phrase or phrase combination, or you're up a haunted creek without a crucifix.  I'm probably showing my age, but I can remember when Google searches were pretty straightforward.  You put in a search phrase, and up popped the object of your search.  That was, what?  1888 or so?

And, save for the creepy Lookout Mountain, the rest of the slaylist is classic October 31 absurdity: Haunted House Polka (1955), The Screemin' Meemies From Planet "X" (Merv's finest novelty, and he made a number of them), Close the Door (a lighthearted take on The Thing), Rip Van Winkle, Munster Creep, In the Hall of the Cha-Cha King (the least dread-invoking title, after Planet "X"), Which Witch Doctor, Funny Farm, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (nothing to do with Robert Louis Stevenson's brilliant novella).  My worn Jekyll copy sounded best with my 1 mil mono stylus, so that's the rip you'll hear.  Also, Spooky Movies, which seems to me a Halloween variation on the "I took my girl to the movies, hoping for romance, but she just wanted to moon over Troy Donahue/Guy Madison" genre, only with monsters the target of her ardor.  (No, not a love for big-screen pirates.)

Bob Hudson's 1966 I'm Normal, and The Napoleon XV Revue's 1975 He's Going to Eat Me Up are our two axe-cellent copycat answers to They're Coming to Take Me Away, though there are other thump-a, thump-a, thump-a, thump-a knockoffs lurking around.  Any number of them, actually, and I have--or used to have--a CD-R of same, though one would have to be strapped down (or in) to take them away in one session.  I mean, to take them in.  Note that the latter contains a phrase not suggested for family listening.

And this is just from my boo-point, but I seriously believe Merv Griffin made the best, most campy novelties of all time, and of course I've included his two moss-terpieces for the season: the above-mentioned Screamin' Meemies and House of Horrors, both penned/co-penned by Doris Roberts.  Another Merv novelty accomplice was the famous Charles Randolph Grean (Quentin's Theme), who produced Merv's RCA hits (during Merv's brief period of chart success) and, far as I know, all of his later special productions, including the immortal Have a Nice Trip (1968), co-written by Charles.

1961's Rip Van Winkle is not so much Halloween in theme but feel, with sound effects fit for the season, and a sufficiently supernatural theme.  And a Halloween without Steve Allen is, well, a Halloween without Steve Allen.  Allen's "rockin'" ghost rocks in the fashion of cool jazz, as we'd expect from Steverino, who was (hardly) one of rock and roll's early champions.

I cited Lookout Mountain as the single credibly creepy title in the mess--er, mix.  That's because there's no lightness in the handling, and, really, it would be a chillingly challenging task to add levity to a narrative about a vengeful ghost coming to kill his widow and her new man.  But, a couple questions, at least: Were the Voodoo (?) hexes love spells which backfired?  And, if they knew the ghost would find them on Lookout Mountain, wouldn't the simplest solution have been to not go there?

And we get a soul version of Buck Owens' It's a Monster's Holiday.  Had I been able to find Owens' own recording (I failed to exhume my copy of same), I'd have made coffin space for it, but...  Oh, and there's an incredible story (thanks, Charlie Christ!) behind The Incredible Shrinking Man, on which Ray Anthony is credited as "Ray Anothony."  This title music, not surprisingly, started as an acetate not related to the film to the tiniest degree.

And the theme from William Castle's The Night Walker (1964) by (who else?) Sammy Kaye, the fondly remembered (by me, anyway) King Kong cartoon theme, and SPC doing some PD-graverobbing (in this case, from Charles Gounod) with The Alfred Hitchcock TV Show (aka, Funeral March of a Marionette).

A demon's dozen today: Thirteen titles!  Well, actually, that was true last post, but I neck-glected to depart that fact.  But, today we have a double demon's-dozen today: 26 grisly groaners!!  So, be careful!  Times two.  

DOWNLOAD: Halloween 2023, Part 3

SLAYLIST

Lookout Mountain--Chuck Miller, 1956

Haunted House Polka--The Cavaliers, 1955

The Screamin' Meemies From Planet "X"--Merv Griffin, 1961

Spooky Movies--Roy Clark, 1963

Thirteen Men--Dinah Shore With Harry Zimmerman's Orch. and Cho., 1958

Close the Door--Jim Lowe With Norman Leyden Orch., 1955

Big Bad Wolf--Don Cherry With Ray Conniff and His Orch., 1958

The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Danse Macabre--Dick Jacobs and His Orch., 1958

Rip Van Winkle--The Devotions, 1961

Munster Creep--The Munsters, 1964

House of Horrors--Merv Griffin, Orch, conducted by Charles Grean, 1962

The Naughty Ghost--Jan August With Vocal Group, 1955

I'm Normal--The Emperor (Bob Hudson), 1966

The Rockin' Ghost--Archie Bleyer Orch. and Chorus, 1956

He's Going to Eat Me Up--Napoleon XV Revue, 1975

In the Hall of the Cha-Cha King--Belmonte and His Afro-American Music, 1955

Tennessee Hill-Billy Ghost-Red Foley With the Anita Kerr Singers, 1951

It's a Monster's Holiday--Chick Willis, 1975

Murder, He Says--Betty Hutton With Pete Rugolo and His Orch., 1951

Which Witch Doctor--The Vogues With Al Kavelin's Music, 1958

The Alfred Hitchcock TV Show--Unkown (Diplomat, 1962)

The Incredible Shrinking Man--Ray Anothony (Anthony) and His Orch., 1957

The Thing--Danny Kaye, Orch. and Cho. Dir. by Ken Darby, 1950

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde--The Emersons, 1959

The Night Walker--Sammy Kaye and His Orch., 1965

King Kong--Wade Denning and His Port Wawshingtons, 1966

Lee

Shellac City 2022 Halloween Youtube playlist, 1904-1947

So, I discovered--not to my surprise--that most of my Halloween 78 rpm rips were lost when Workupload had deleted all of my zips--AND when all the zip files on my previous PC's D drive couldn't be retrieved by the Geek Squad.  Sometimes, it doesn't pay to get out of the coffin at sundown...

Yes, a more tragic tale has ere been told.  Well, actually, that would require a hyphen--e'er.  As in ever, except with the v omitted.  No, wait.  It's "ere" in the sense of before.  My bat--er, my bad.  So, no punctuation necessary--my error.  No more tragic tale has before been told.  Or e'er for "no more tragic tale has ever been told."  I'll leave this up to you.

However, my 2022 YouTube Halloween 78 playlist is still in place, and below is the link.  At least, I think it's the link.  Let me be sure.  (Annnnnnnd, no.  I isn't.  Time to create a new link.)  Here we go--this one works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR451Zkh5EA&list=PLZptDb6GpTWgqE6xz9YEfSlqNxRImV0va&index=1

26 acoustic/acoustical and electric 78s, from Spooky Spooks (1916) and Chopin's Funeral March (1909) to Little Nell (1932) and Hooray! Hooray! I'm Goin' Away (1947).  Also, Murder, Witch Hazel, and No! No!  A Thousand Times No!!

And the moral of the season is, Buwa-ha-haaaaa!!

Lee

Music, Music, Music!--Hugo Winterhalter (1958; reissued 1949-1950 tracks)

 

From 1958, one of the weirdest cheesecake covers of all ("Let's put a seemingly nude model in a bathtub holding a trumpet {"A bathtub holding a trumpet?"] with a music stand next to the tub..."), though the model is easy on the eyes, and the composition is excellent (the photo composition, that is--not the sheet music in the stand).  Eight of these ten tracks came out earlier on this 10" album, which had more dignified, but far less fetching, jacket art...

The two extra tracks on the 1958 12-incher--Blueberry Hill and Casey Jones--were previously unreleased, far as I can determine.  And the musicianship throughout the ten selections is superb, with an especially gifted pianist (marvelous on Casey Jones), and someone who might be Paul Whiteman's own Chester Hazlett on "subtone" clarinet.

I've loved this LP since thrifting it approximately forty (!) years ago, and the miraculously fine fidelity gives these sides an eerie edge--to my ears, at least.  Eerie, because the tracks, marvelous as they are, are in a hybrid big-band/easy-listening style which didn't become the 1950s norm, not even by way of Mitch Miller's own solo sides (which evolved into Mitch Miller and the Gang/..and His Sing-Along Chorus).  They hint at an evolutionary path not taken!  Throughout the 1950s, the big-band sound endured, even as it got bigger, and the easy-listening sound also became bigger--and lusher.  These tracks are an oddity in terms of the separate paths taken by EZ and big band, but all the more interesting for being different, I think.

Seven of these ten tracks are covers of numbers that charted in 1949 and 1950: Blueberry Hill--Louis Armstrong with Gordon Jenkins, 1949; Music! Music! Music!--Teresa Brewer, 1949; My Foolish Heart--Billy Eckstine, 1950; The Third Man Theme--Anton Karas, 1949; There's No Tomorrow--Tony Martin, 1950; Casey Jones--Dixie-Aires, 1949; and Jealous Heart--Al Morgan, 1949.

The three non-1949-or-1950-chart numbers (far as I know), are Come Into My Heart, The Glow-Worm (A huge 1952 hit for the Mills Brothers), and Leave It to Love.  However,  Leave It to Love--a 1948 song by Irving Szathmary--was recorded in 1949 by Ralph Flanagan, and appeared in a Jan., 1950 budget knockoff on Varsity by Jimmie Livingston.  Would a budget knockoff have been released had the song not charted?  Not likely.  But then who had the chart hit?  I wonder...

According to the Online Discographical Project's listings, Hugo made twelve solo recordings for Columbia during his brief stay, including two Christmas numbers (Blue Christmas, and You're All I Want for Christmas), with all but four of them showing up here (plus the two previously unreleased numbers).

During his Columbia period (as musical director), Hugo also provided orchestra backings for Doris Day, Dinah Shore, Frank Sinatra, Toni Arden, et al.

Side notes: On the original 78 issues, a group called The Five Gems is featured with Winterhalter's orch. on Music! Music! Music!  and The Glow-Worm (with no mention of a chorus).  Also, Hugo's "Chorus" is alternately credited as his "Choir" and "Vocal Group."  Now we know.  So far, I can find nothing about the Five Gems, nor have I seen them credited anywhere but on the two Winterhalter sides.  Given the brilliant piano work on Casey Jones, however, I suspect the Gems participated on it (as well as Glow-Worm).

DOWNLOAD: Music! Music! Music!.zip FLAC

HUGO WINTERHALTER ORCH.

Music! Music! Music!--With the Five Gems (1950)

My Foolish Heart--With Choir (1950)

The Third Man Theme-- With Choir (1950)

Leave it to Love--With Choir (1950)

Blueberry Hill

There's No Tomorrow, V: Johnny Thompson (1949)

The Glow-Worm--With the Five Gems (1950)

Come into My Heart--With Choir (1950)

Casey Jones

Jealous Heart--With Vocal Group (1949)

Hugo Winterhalter, His Orchestra and Chorus--Music! Music! Music! (Harmony HL7078, 1958)

Lee