Various singles, Part 3--Shut Up, Rock Around the Clock, Joogie-Boogie Joint, Garbage Can

Despite the significant differences between the singing styles of Elvis Presley and Don Cornell, Don's But Love Me (Love But Me) has a lot in common with Elvis' Love Me.  And Don's record came first.  But I just read at Wikipedia that the Elvis song, penned by Leiber and Stoller, goes back to 1954, so....

I hate it when a bit of data comes in and ruins everything!

Louis Prima, who I'll never forgive for the abominable Sing, Sing, Sing, almost redeemed himself with another one-word-tripled tune (didn't know that was a category, did you?) called Yeah Yeah Yeah, a thinly-disguised twelve-bar blues, done here (in 1951) in a completely rock and roll style by Peggy Lee.  Amazing single--on the Capitol label.  Stomp and Whistle is another tune in the twelve-bar blues form, and Harry James and Buddy Rich use a very simple approach that borders on (you'll never guess) rock and roll, and the year is 1954 this time, and the label Columbia.  Jackie Lee's 1961 Isle of Capri Boogie, meanwhile, is Isle of Capri done boogie style.  You'd never have guessed from the title.  I love the sound of that organ!

Great barbershop harmonies by the Four Preps in the clever 1960 Got a Girl, and a 1962 reminder from the Original Rockets, about whom I know nothing, that young white guys making like African-American bluesmen is not something that started with the Stones, Animals, Beatles, etc.  There were countless pre-Invasion garage bands, of course, including the Kingsmen, and these guys.  Garbage Can informs us that "Life--it ain't nothin' but a gold-plated garbage can, and people are trash," and what's with the "gold-plated"?  Are the lyrics telling us that, behind the fancy facade, the....? Oh, never mind.  Fun side--no need to analyze.  I think the songwriters just sort of tossed the lyrics out.  Tossed the lyrics out.  Get it?

Rumble Boogie strikes me as a Rock Around the Clock steal, and quite a good one, with Don Cherry really getting into it, and Ray Conniff doing his usual great producing job.  Some folks, like me, seem to realize that Conniff' was really a pioneer rock and roll producer (while working for Mitch Miller, no less), while others seem to feel he was just on the edge.  A "proto" type, perhaps.  We'd be using the false definition of "proto" that many journalists employ, wherein "proto" means "almost" or "on the edge."  Actually, it means the first of its type.  As in, prototype.

Lee Andrews and the Hearts could be superb, despite Andrews' tendency to sing sharp.  I'll make enemies, but I consider the group's Long Lonely Nights to be a vocal disaster, but here they're like the all-time masters of street-corner harmonizing, with a strong a cappella sound, despite the piano throughout.  I realize that accompanied a cappella is technically impossible, but why be too formal about it?  For a contrast in singing style to end all contrasts, Lee is followed by Perry Como, my favorite pop singer, whose voice I consider a great natural voice.  By that, I mean Perry likely sounded great from the moment he decided to croon.  I'd have hated to hear his voice after years of formal training--something would have been lost.  There are technically better voices, of course--Steve Lawrence, Johnny Desmond, Vic Damone--but there's a beauty to Como's singing I find nowhere else in the pop field of the time.  Call me nuts.  ("You're nuts.")  Gee, thanks.

Don Howard could hold a tune, and he does so for two sides--Oh Happy Day and You Went Away--and the sound on the former is way better here than on the Essex reissue I featured a couple posts back, and it gives a far more pleasant edge to Don's monotonous crooning.  (With this material, there wasn't a lot of room for stylistic noodling.)  The disc, a 78, is also in the proper key (Eb Major).  John Scott Trotter's 1941 version of Kitten on the Keys is a nice, lightly swinging version of the Confrey classic, and it includes a cornet solo by Paul Whiteman's Bix Beiderbecke replacement, Andy Secrest.  The flip side is a Rube Bloom number in the symphonic jazz vein.  Then two by Alan Dale--a wonderful I'm Late from the Disney Alice in Wonderland, and a lovely ballad, I'll Buy You a Star, not from Disney.

Two 1947 "Wild" Bill Moore sides, with the Swingin' for Pappy verging on rock and roll, and the Savoy 78 it came from no longer in one piece after I stepped on it.  True--I tripped over a stack of 45s, knocking some LPs and 78s forward, my foot coming down on poor Bill.  I so rarely break a record accidentally, it's a shock when I do.  I don't think I've unintentionally broken more than six or seven shellac sides in my decades of collecting, and that includes one that was likely ready to snap, anyway.  This is history in the making.

I put up the Lenny Carson 78 a while back, and I'd found out some interesting things, but I no longer have access to the post.  Something about the sped-up voice on Molasses--it definitely sounds like tape manipulation, and I'm fascinated by any and all pre-Ross Bagdasarian sped-up voices on disc, which include 1954's Open Up Your Heart (And Let the Sunshine In), which was recorded at 33 and 1/3 for 45 rpm playback.  The flip is a steal of Happy Birthday, which originated as a verse in Good Morning To All of 1893.  I have it in its original form someplace, and without attribution.

More R&B--early rock and roll, really--including Wally Mercer's nothing-to-do-with-Rock-Around-the-Clock Rock Around the Clock.  From an original 78, and no relation to the famous song whose history may be the weirdest in the history of song histories.  You see, Bill Haley wanted his very own Rock the Joint, so he modified a swing-style number called Rock Around the Clock to sound like it (radically altering the intro/verse), but Essex wouldn't let him record it (forgot why), but he got to do it at the end of a 1954 Decca session, his vocals spliced in with the instrumental portions after the fact because the band had drowned him out.  Record went nowhere, but after the song was used in Blackboard Jungle, it became a smash hit in 1955, and just about everyone in the world except me and a few people I know have done a version of it.  And that's how rock was born.

I bought Shut Up (And Make Love to Me) because I saw the title on a 78 list and just had to have a record called Shut Up in my collection.  My other favorite titles along this line include Go To Hell and Huh?  Turns out to be a very good song, and Doris Drew is fabulous.  The lyrics are sexist, but it's 1950.  "Bloom" is in the composer credits, so maybe it's Rube?  But a quick Google search didn't connect Rube Bloom to "Shut Up (And Make Love to Me)," but maybe the song went nowhere, and I'm trying to work in a "shut up" joke, but it's not happening.  So I'll just shut up.



CLICK HERE TO HEAR:  Various Singles, Part 3





But Love Me (Love But Me)--Don Cornell, 1956
Yeah Yeah Yeah (Prima-Kaback)--Peggy Lee w. Orchestra, 1951
Stomp and Whistle--Harry James and his Orch., v: Buddy Rich, 1954
Isle of Capri Boogie--Jackie Lee, 1961
T.D.'s Boogie Woogie--Tommy Dorsey and his Orch., 1950
Got a Girl--The Four Preps, 1960
Garbage Can--The Original Rockets, 1962
Rumble Boogie--Don Cherry w. Ray Conniff and his Orch., 1955
Try the Impossible--Lee Andrews and the Hearts, 1958
With All My Heart and Soul--Perry Como w. Mitchell Ayres Orch., 1951
Oh Happy Day--Don Howard, 1952
You Went Away--Same
Kitten on the Keys (Confrey)--John Scott Trotter and his Orch., Cornet Solo: Andy Secrest, 1941
Sapphire (Rube Bloom)--John Scott Trotter and his Orch., 1941
I'm Late (From "Alice in Wonderland")--Alan Dale w. Percy Faith Orch., 1951
I'll Buy You a Star--Same
Swingin' for Pappy--Bill Moore and his Band--"Wild" Bill Moore, Tenor Sax, 1947
Bubbles--Same
Molasses, Molasses--Lenny Carson and the Whiz Kids, 1950
Ev'rybody Clap Hands--Same
Joogie-Boogie Joint (On a Saturday Night)--Ric Harper and Orchestra, 1951?
I'm a Sixty-Minute Rocket Man--Same
Story Blues--The Four Buddies, 1952
Rock Around the Clock (Mercer)--Wally Mercer, 1952
Shut Up (And Make Love to Me)--Doris Drew, Lew Douglas Orch., 1950

Lee

Sunday morning gospel: Statesmen Q., Carl Story, Toney Brothers, Valley Voices

A tossed-together Sunday Morning Gospel from a CD-R I made in 2007.  Unfortunately, even though I originally entered album and date info, my MAGIX program will only retrieve title and artist info.  It's always been that way.  Rather annoying.

We start with the Statesmen Quartet, from 1962.  The three selections are from the RCA LP, Camp-Meeting Hymns, which appears to not be on CD.  Bluegrass gospel great Carl Story follows, and the tracks are from... wherever.  At least I have the years (I must have added them into the title field).  Sources are noisy.  Then, three by the Toney Brothers, LP unknown, then six a cappella selections by West Virginia's The Valley Voices--this LP I happened to still have.  And could find.  So, we have the scan above.  Enjoy!





CLICK HERE TO HEAR: SMG 1-27-19





There Is Power in the Blood--Statesmen Q. with Hovie Lister, 1962
Old Camp-Meeting Days--Same
I Shall Not Be Moved--Same
Echoes from the Burning Bush--Carl Story. 1955
God Put a Rainbow in the Cloud--Carl Story, 1956
I've Found a Hiding Place--Carl Story, 1947
He Will Set Your Fields on Fire--Carl Story, 1951
I Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now--Toney Brothers
Jonah--Same
Born Again--Same
What Will Your Answer Be--The Valley Voices
I Am on the Road--Same
Hard Working Pilgrim--Same
I Know I'll Feel at Home--Same
You Can Take My Place--Same
Who--Same

Lee

Steve Lawrence Meets Tennessee Ernie Ford (Camay 3007; 1963)

And here's Steve Lawrence Meets Tennessee Ernie Ford, restored--that is, with the Steve Lawrence tracks included!  You get the entire LP this time--all nearly 30 minutes worth.  Glad that people requested the Lawrence, because the tracks are very good.  Lawrence--who I'm happy to discover is still with us--had a fabulous voice, as you will here hear.  I mean, hear here.  The fidelity on these sides is infinitely better than on the Ford tracks, suggesting they're not from "telescriptions."  Though three of theses titles match 1952 King Records titles recorded by Lawrence, I'm almost sure (not having listened to compare) that these are from a difference source.  Other than King, I mean.  Are they demos?  The same five tracks showed up on Premier and Spinorama, a.k.a. Spin-O-Rama, the latter being a Premier label.  (Nothing makes perfect sense when we're talking budget groups!)  So they had to be tracks that were floating around--five stray tracks, up for sale to whatever budget label wanted to falsely promise the buyer a Steve Lawrence "album" for the price of  barely half of one. At least there were five tracks--the cheapo labels pulled the same stunt with even less material.  I have a Premier label Petula Clark LP with two entire Petula tracks.  You get what you don't pay for.  It should be noted that this LP, despite the conservative playing time and dreadful audio quality on Side B, was a genuine bargain among bargain-priced LPs, so it's one of those accidental dollar-bin gems.

I restored the track order, and, as you can see, I used the undoctored cover image this time for the post.




CLICK HERE TO HEAR: Steve Lawrence, T.E. Ford (Camay 3007; l963)



STEVE LAWRENCE

Little Girl
Never Leave Me
Hands Across the Table
All My Love Belongs to You
Mine and Mine Alone


TENNESSEE ERNIE FORD

Shotgun Boogie
She's My Baby
You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry
Woman Is a Five Letter Word
Stack-O-Lee
Kissin' Bug Boogie

Steve Lawrence Meets Tennessee Ernie Ford (Camay 3007; 1963)


Lee

Tennessee Ernie Ford Meets Tennessee Ernie Ford (Camay 3007)

The real title of this weird LP is Steve Lawrence Meets Tennessee Ernie Ford, as you can see on the label, but since I'm including only the five Ford tracks, I thought I'd so some fun photoshopping, using Paint and ArcSoft MediaImpression.  Pretty easy--all I had to do was cut and paste and compress and shorten the lettering.  Now, for years I've been wondering where the heck the Tennessee Ernie Ford material on this disc came from--Ford discographies have him starting at Capitol.  No pre-Capitol recordings.  Are these demos?  Practice runs?  Are they unauthorized issues?  The answer to that last one is likely yes.  That great label-history resource, Both Sides Now, is in the process of putting together a Camay Records page.  It does tell us that Camay appeared in 1961 and had vanished "prior to 1964."  Quote:  "In 1963, the label focused on issuing budget albums. I believe the entire LP output was issued that year, most if not all of the material was leased from other labels and not recorded directly by Camay."  Not sure who the "I" is, but it's a page in progress--and very helpful.

Then, a May 30, 1964 Billboard article to the further rescue:

"At press time the trade was buzzing with reports anent the debut of a new budget line, Camay Records, whose initial releases would include albums with sides by Capitol artists Nat King Cole and Peggy Lee and other sides by by Lawrence Welk, and Frankie Carle.  There was considerable speculation as to where the reported masters came from.  Camay's office stated it would provide more details, but none was forthcoming.

Meanwhile, it was learned that Capitol's legal department was looking into the matter--in the event that the Camay product appeared on the market.

It was also learned that Capitol of Canada was studying the situation.

Tradesters were of the opinion that the Camay masters of Cole and Peggty Lee probably were derived from soundtracks used years ago when Louis Snader produced a series of TV film shorts.

An interesting aspect of the speculation was the matter of licensing.  The Snader licenses were synchronizations rather than mechanical; and it was questioned whether performances cleared under a synchronization license could be transferred to disc without authorization."

Louis Snader produced 754 of the film shorts between 1950 and 1952, apparently as television time-fillers.

And... what do you ya know?  This page possibly gives us the answer.  Camay was indeed using the Snader films, or audio from same.  Quote: "One of Camay's specialties was the release--on LP--of audio taken from Snader and Studio telescriptions."  Telescriptions!  Only one of this LP's tracks are cited--Woman is a Five Letter Word--but I'm guessing--just guessing--that all six Ford selections are "telescriptions."  They all feature the same pitifully bad fidelity.  As for the bad splices that occur, your guess is as good as mine.  There's the jump into the barroom piano solo on Stack-o-Lee, and a couple other obvious cuts.

Bottom line is, the material is highly entertaining, and with a looser feel than the Capitol studio versions--much looser.  Sorry for the quote-heavy essay, but I'm thrilled to have most likely answered the mystery of these things.  And don't miss the amazing guitar solo on Kissin' Bug Boogie, even though the band has lost the beat by that point.  Country musicians were prone to adding and dropping beats, as were many famous blues artists.  I have a theory about that.  Many of the musicians in those genres, no matter how accomplished they became in the formal sense, were from a more or less folk background, and they were playing riff-based forms.  A mistimed riff will throw off the meter, but typically country and blues bands went with the flow.  Dropped beat?  Rushed measure?  (Think Howlin' Wolf.)  Adjust as necessary.  It's a tribute to their talent that they were able to take those things in stride.

Horrible sound, awesome music.  I've listened to patches of the Steve Lawrence side, and there's nothing I want from it.  However, if anyone's dying to hear the Lawrence side, I can rip it....





CLICK HERE TO HEAR:  Tennessee Ernie Ford (Camay 3007)





Shotgun Boogie (Ford)
She's My Baby (Ford)
You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry (Bob Merrill)
Woman Is a Five Letter Word
Stack-O-Lee
Kissin' Bug Boogie

Steve Lawrence Meets Tennessee Ernie Ford (Camay 3007; 1963)



Lee

Various singles, Part 2--Full of Love, Do You Wanna Ride?, Open the Door Polka

Well, it's not every post in which I get to say, "And included in this playlist is a lovely 1957 number from The Monster That Challenged the World."  So I'm saying it now.  I'll never have another chance.  The performance is credited to Bill Fontaine with Orchestra and Chorus, so Bill must be the harmonica player.  Record collector's logic, in action.  I've seen the flick, and it's much better than the title might suggest, with a couple of excellent shock moments where you know the monster is going to show up, but when and where and from what camera angle, you don't know.  I recall that the giant mollusks in the film are not full of love--quite the reverse--so we can assume this is a love theme for humans.  (Record collector's intuition, again.)  That, plus I found this page.  I'll never again get to type anything like, "Here's a lovely number from The Monster That Challenged the World."  And that's too bad.  I might even do this post over again, just so I can relive the moment.  Damn, this feels good.

And we have a cheap but excellent fake version of Johnny Ray's Cry on the Tops label, and I really made the thing sound a lot better than it does.  Not sure how I manged it, but I gave it a nice bottom and good definition in the treble without any tinny effect.  Mimi Martel does a good job, though next to Ray, she sounds like a singer on benzos.  Sherri Lynn's magnificent Tops label cover of I Want You to Be My Baby is better than the Lillian Briggs hit, and how often did Tops top an original?  It's better in every respect, and the fidelity puts the YouTube posting of Briggs' version to shame.  All of this is only my opinion, but I hold my opinion in high regard.

Then Eileen Scott shows up and sounds more like Rosemary Clooney than Rosemary Clooney on Mambo Italiano.  Was Eileen the real Rosemary?  Then the fabulous Open the Door Polka from 1949, with lyrics (I guess you could call them that) which would never go down today.  This is followed by Artie Malvin doing an okay cover of Tony Bennett's Close Your Eyes--not bad at all.  I'm searching for a pun on the title, but with no luck.  Artie again, with a good High Noon, the singer doing a perfectly decent Frankie Laine.  Sunny Gale's Come Go with Me doesn't do it for me, but it's an interesting oddity.  I think it was Prom, but one of the cheapies did a much better copy.  I just listened to another side by Gale, and Come Go with Me just didn't go with her.

Then it's Mitch Miller, with Stan Freeman on the harpsichord, followed by two sides of a Paulette Sisters single.  The 1952 sound on the Paulette sides is gorgeous, and I don't care that Sui Sin Fa is way un-PC today--I like it.  Not crazy about the flip, Glow-Worm, which copies the Mills Brothers' hit version of the same year, but here it is.  It's so synthetic in its jive element, and it fails to swing.  But the public loved it--the Mills version, anyway--so what do I know.  Just read that Johnny Mercer did the revised lyrics.  Very below par for him.

And for the weirdest offering of the bunch--it's 1954, and famed rock and roll hater Mitch Miller permits a (lousy) cover of Oop Shoop on his label, with a creepy and lewd flip made all the moreso by the fact the Hamilton Sisters are clearly not of age.  My God.  Is this record for real?  And Mitch, of all people, choosing such limited vocalists--the lead on Oop Shoop is pathetic.  Mitch usually went for singers with actual pipes.  Oddly enough, I've seen this record listed for serious money.  I would think Mitch would have paid serious money to bribe discographers not to list it.  Not to be missed.  The lyrics of Do You Wanna Ride? make so little effort to hide what they're about, I'm surprised it isn't Do You Wanna Screw?  It makes Sixty Minute Man sound like I Believe.  Anymore, everything we think we knew about Mitch is shown to be myth.  (Myth Miller?)

I dreamed this record.  I had to.  It doesn't exist.  No--just played it again.  It exists.  An alternate universe is overlapping with ours or something.

Tokyo Boogie Woogie, from 1946, is pretty well known to collectors, I think, but it's a great side, and I got nice sound out of it.  It's a 1953 issue on U.S. Columbia.  And a lively Square Dance Polka by Carson Robison, with me doing a last-minute removal of its flip, Promenade Indian Style, on account of a certain viral video of the moment.  The Robison is actually harmless fun, but 1952-style fun, and this is 2019.   Statler was a dance class record label, and I'm guessing the Statler version of Rock Around the Clock is from the early 1970s, when the tune became famous again in its function as the Happy Days opening theme.  Or whatever I just typed.  I remember that time period pretty vividly--early rock and roll was out, and progressive rock was in, with FM the coolest thing in town (they played entire LP sides!), and this is why I grew up with little knowledge of anything pre-Manfred Mann.  I swear I never heard anything beyond snippets by Elvis until I met John and Bev--there was a greatest hits commercial on TV, but that was it.  I don't remember when malt shop nostalgia started, though I remember when the Beach Boys were suddenly in again, with Endless Summer.  People seem to gloss over the whole period of rock disowning its early days, but I sure remember it.  Anyway, you'll notice that the singer on this dance-class Rock Around the Clock disc clearly doesn't know the melody, meaning that, yes, there was a time when the early classics were as ancient to Boomers as Tommy Dorsey's Song of India.  Real rock was serious; none of this silly early stuff.

Update: Buster reminded me that the Boomer period was pretty broad and that Boomers before me experienced early r&r.  I keep forgetting I was born about the middle of the generation span (1957).  The early-rock blackout happened on my watch.  I didn't properly qualify things....

We close with Pat Patterson doing That's All Right, but he's copying Marty Robbins, not Elvis.  Sorry.  I have no idea what's with the very heavy rumble during the piano solo--probably a poorly placed microphone.




CLICK HERE TO HEAR:  Various Singles, Part 2






Cry--Mimi Martel and the Toppers (Tops 317; 1952)
I Want You to Be My Baby--Sherri Lynn w. Nat Charles and His Orch. (Tops)
Mambo Italiano--Eileen Scott w. the Four Jacks and Herbie Layne's Orch. (Gateway Top Tune 1097; 1954)
Open the Door Polka--Larry Fotine and His Orch. (Decca 24647, 1949)
Close Your Eyes--Artie Malvin w. Vincent Lopez Orch. (18 Top Hits 148)
High Noon--Artie Malvin w, the Enoch Light Orch. and Chorus (Waldorf Record Corp. P 111)
Come Go with Me--Sunny Gale w. Orch. Dir. by Sid Bass (Decca 9-30231; 1957)
Full of Love (From "The Monster That Challenged the World")--Bill Fontaine, 1957
Bolero Gaucho--Mitch Miller and His Orch., w. Stan Freeman, harpsichord (Columbia 4-40655, 1956)
Sui Sin Fa--The Paulette Sisters w. Larry Clinton Orch., 1952
The Glow-Worm--The Paulette Sisters and Dick Style w. Larry Clinton Orch.
Tell Your Tale, Nightingale--Toni Arden w. Percy Faith and his Orch., 1952
Oop Shoop--The Hamilton Sisters (Columbia 4-40319; 1954)
Do You Wanna Ride--The Hamilton Sisters (Columbia 40319; 1954)
Maybellene--Jack Daniels w. Herbie Layne's Orch. (Gateway Top Tune 1135; 1955)
Square Dance Polka (Robison)--Carson Robison and his Pleasant Valley Boys, 1952
Tokyo Boogie Woogie--Shizuko Kasagi w. Columbia Tokyo Orch. (1946)
House of Blue Lights--Artie Malvin w. the Light Brigade (Waldorf, 1955)
Rock Around the Clock--Unknown (Statler 933)
That's All Right--Pat Patterson with the Texas Wranglers (Tops R255; 1954)





Lee