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

Various Artists--Sep., 2025: Tommy & Jimmy Dorsey, The Penguins, Hugo Winterhalter, The Checkers, Dreamlovers, more!

 

I forgot what "part" I'm at, various artists-wise, so I used the month and year instead.  The usual mix of doo wop, early soul (The Imperials), easy listening, EZ jazz, Dixieland, and Little Red Riding Hood.  Wait... Little Red Riding Hood?

THE BREAKDOWN:

The three Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey sides consist of a so-so So Rare (a stereo remake on the Bihari Brothers' Bright Orange label--so you know it's high end), plus two 1955 sides made for Columbia: Jackie Gleason's own Melancholy Serenade, and the terrific swing selection, Stompin' Down Broadway.  And we have some easy-listening (or EZ) jazz by way of the Columbia Musical Treasuries Orchestra's Call Me and the Moonlight Strings' Don't Go Breaking My Heart (a Burt and Hal classic).

In the R&B-vocal/early soul department: The Penguins' 1954 Hey Senorita (from a typically poorly-pressed SPC collection), The Channels' 1957 That's My Desire, The Imperials' (with Little Anthony) 1958 Two People in the World, and my favorite of the bunch, the pricey collectible from 1959, Teardrops Are Falling, by the Checkers.  Luckily, I ripped it from a thrifted copy of Porky Chedwick Presents His All Time Favorite Dusty Discs, Vol. 2.  I had to do some major audio repair, thanks to a radical crosscut (courtesy of whoever previously owned it, not me), but it's always nice to get a clean-sounding cut out of a not-clean-sounding cut.  And the Imperials and Channels are courtesy of the same Porky LP.  (I've always wanted to type that.)

Then, some 1963 R&B of the Chubby Checker era, by way of the famous doo-wop group, the Dreamlovers (minus the "the") on a 1963 LP which I thrifted in its Columbia Special Products reissue. We get The Slide, Pony Time, and Carole King's Loco-Motion.  Like much twist-era material, it is expertly done but a bit wearing when taken in a full-LP dose.

Next, two Al Caiola pop-instrumental tracks from 1965's Sounds for Spies and Private Eyes: Jerry Goldsmith's famous Theme From "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." and Maurice Alfred Cohen's (aka, A. Carr) Man of Mystery (Theme Music of the Edgar Wallace Thrillers).  Two tracks earlier, the virtuoso accordion of Myron Floren impressively rushes through Lover, from 1956's Lawrence Welk at Madison Square Garden.  Re "The Edgar Wallace Thrillers," I think this refers to the British TV series, The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre (1959-1965).

Some fine easy listening follows: The Moonlight Strings' Strangers in the Night (1969), Hugo Winterhalter's version of Mah-Na-Mah-Na (also 1969--the same year the Muppets first used it [on Sesame Street]), plus Frank Chacksfield and His Orch. with I Got Rhythm (1956).  As far as EZ renditions of I Got Rhythm, I prefer Andre Kostelanetz's amazing 1941 rush-through arrangement, though Chacksfield's milder treatment rocks, too.  Or doesn't rock.  Whichever.

And I ripped the artists-unknown Little Red Riding Hood from a Happy Time (Pickwick) LP, the track appearing earlier (?) on a 1960 Hudson label LP.  The Hudson label had been owned by Eli Oberstein, but (far as I know) Eli sold most of his labels to Pickwick in the late 1950s, so Hudson was likely Pickwick-owned come 1960.  Whatever I just typed.  And the fate of the wolf is pretty hilarious in this music-with-narration kiddie Riding Hood variant: I won't give it away, but I'll note that the wolf is neither axed, shot, nor felled with an arrow.  
                                     

DOWNLOAD: VA Sep. 2025.zip  FLAC

Melancholy Serenade--Tommy Dorsey and His Orch. Featuring Jimmy Dorsey, 1955

Theme From "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."--Al Caiola, 1965

Hey Senorita--The Penguins, 1954

That's My Desire--The Channels, 1957

Stompin' Down Broadway--Tommy Dorsey and His Orch. Featuring Jimmy Dorsey, 1955

Call Me--The Columbia Musical Treasuries Orch. (Arr: Ken Woodman), 1968

Loco-Motion--Dreamlovers, 1963

South Rampart Street Parade--Lawrence Welk's Dixeland Boys, 1956

The Slide--Dreamlovers, 1963

Strangers in the Night--The Moonlight Strings, 1969

Teardrops Are Falling--The Checkers, 1959

Two People in the World--The Imperials, 1958

Pony Time--Dreamlovers, 1963

Lover--Myron Floren, accordion, with Lawrence Welk and His Orch., 1956

Don't Go Breaking My Heart (Bacharch-David)--The Moonlight Strings, 1969

Man of Mystery (Theme Music of The Edgar Wallace Thrillers)--Al Caiola, 1965

So Rare--Members of the Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey Orchestras

Mah-Na-Mah-Na--Hugo Winterhalter and His Orch., 1969

I Got Rhythm--Frank Chacksfield and His Orch., 1956

Rock Around the Clock--Frankie Carle, 1973

Little Red Riding Hood--Unknown (Bedtime Stories and Songs, Happy Time [Pickwick])

Lee

A Great Light Concert--National Opera Orchestra (1953)!

 

That cover and label might necessarily suggest a junk-label product, and we might necessarily conclude that the audio is probably not state of the art.  No, not necessarily.  However, in this case, yes.  A junk label (Eli Oberstein strikes again!), and with less than RCA-quality fidelity, but still pretty decent audio, considering.  Well, fairly decent...

And I thrifted this mainly for 1) the wonderfully chintzy jacket, and 2) the inclusion of Liszt's Chromatic Galop, which I had never before heard.  And it's as amazing as I figured.  And, again, for the early 1950s, the audio is... okay.  Middling.

As far as the sound-editing/-correcting process on my part, the VinylStudio declicking filter did wonders for the many clicks (aka, ticks) and pops.  But I had to spend approx. two hours on manual click repairing.  Was it worth the time?  Well, seeing how this is is a delightful LP and a marvelous example of rack-jobber Classical music, yes.  And I used an excellent after-market stylus and my Stanton 500 cart instead of my terrific AT cartridge, and simply because it's better for junk vinyl.  (The wonderful after-market stylus is, of course, no longer in production.)

The Gramophone label--and all the junky Record Corp. of America rip-offs--fascinated me as a kid.  My maternal grandparents had a number of Gramophone, Varsity, Royale, et al. albums, and I found them quite cool in their cheapness.  Obviously, I still do, and nearly (yikes!) 60 years later.

And... something I still, to this day, find difficult to believe.  Namely, when I first discovered thrifting, ca. 1967, it always puzzled me that the cashiers (always women, all of whom looked "old" to me) had no clue about the difference between, say, a 12-inch 78 and a 12-inch LP.  All they knew was that the "big" records were 25 cents and the "little" records were 10 cents (I think).  Big/little.  And so I hypothesized that, back when long-playing records (including 45s) were introduced, most customers were just as confused as the Salvation Army cashiers.  I figured that people saw no reason to pay $3.98 or more for an LP, and thus was created the market for 99-cent budget vinyl! 

Adding to the confusion caused in the first place by the introduction of 45 and 33 & 1/3 rpm discs, we had RCA trying to hype 45s as the long-playing format of preference (instead of 10" and 12" LPs).  This made sense, in a way, since 45rpm EP albums and boxed sets were analogous to 78rpm albums and boxed sets.

But buyers figured things out eventually, and so RCA's plan failed.

And, last thing, dig the appearance of I've Been Working on the Railroad in Poet and Peasant, and nearly 50 years before that song was penned.  By Facebook "woo woo"-reel standards, this is proof that time travel must be real.  We have the "proof" right here!!

Oh, and of course the "National Opera Orchestra" could be anyone.  And, off the top of my head, I recall that Eli Oberstein recorded in Europe because the musicians worked for a flat fee (no royalties).  I can picture a German musician in his 80s, and somebody asking, "Were you part of the National Opera Orchestra?"  And the old man replying, "The what?"



DOWNLOAD:  A Great Light Concert 1953.zip

Poet and Peasant (von Suppe)

Hungarian March (Berlioz)

Chromatic Galop (Liszt)

Zampa Overture (von Herold)

March Slav (Tschaikowski, sic)

Military March in D (Schubert)

A Great Light Concert--National Opera Orchestra (Gramophone 2044; 1953)

(And there's "art" this time!)

Lee