Sunday morning gospel: The Plainsmen Quartet--Little Is Much (1965)

Two posts back, we heard another LP from Heart Warming Records, and I spelled it "Heart Warming," though "Heartwarming" is an alternate spelling, according to discogs.  The label doesn't make it all that clear.  Sure, it looks like two separate words, what with the two hearts between "Heart" and "Warming," but I think I've seen it printed without the space.  Of course, as I search for an example, I can't find one, so maybe I'm having a memory fart.  At any rate, discogs isn't certain on the right way to spell the label, so there must be room for confusion.  And I can't believe I've wasted a decent-sized paragraph on this non-issue.

The main thing is, our last Heart Warming LP, which featured the Oak Ridge Boys, had a pretty awful cover photo.  Today's cover photo is a monumental step up.  So, clearly, bad jackets are not a given for this label.  This was a recent Goodwill find, and anymore I base my gospel LP buys on how many songs (or songwriters) I recognize--and what I think of them.  This has I Wouldn't Take Nothin' for My Journey Now, They Tore the Old Country Church Down, Cryin' in the Chapel, and a song by Doris Akers (Sweet Jesus), and so it was a must-buy.  Superb singing, and with a perfect balance between slow, heartfelt ballads and fast, rock-the-grooves numbers.  Many years back, when I first heard of I Wouldn't Take Nothin' for My Journey Now, I knew I was dealing with a country-idiomatic title.  The ambiguity, at least to my NW Ohio brain, is fascinating.  To wit, is the person saying he doesn't intend to take anything with him on his journey to Heaven--for instance, no suitcases, trunks, or rare baseball cards?  Or is he saying that he wouldn't trade anything for his trip to Heaven?  Well, it's the latter, of course, but I still find the title enigmatic in a fun way.  It's a great song--one of the modern classics.  Modern in terms of the whole of gospel song history, that is--to some, praise songs of the 1980s are oldies.  Depends on whether you reference "modern" to your own listening and playing experience or to the long haul of history.

Cryin' in the Chapel is one of those pop numbers that's close enough to a sacred song to sort of/kind of jump from pop to gospel.  It helps that Elvis recorded it in a gospel mode, of course.  Little Richard did a gospel-style rendition, too.  There are lots of almost-sacred numbers that exist on the edge of gospel, including Whispering Hope, You'll Never Walk Alone, Climb Every Mountain, He, and the like.  I hate Climb Every Mountain, by the way, and it may be memories of singing it in eighth grade music class, in which our teacher had us go over the "Follow every rainBOW" phrase about a million times, just to get the accent right on "-bow," which was somehow important.  None of us wanted to sing anything, including numbers from The Sound of Music, but she wasn't interested in what we wanted.   Anyway, many inspirational, almost-sacred, or vaguely religious numbers--or simply movie airs that accompany a scene in the afterlife (like the lovely main theme from Somewhere in Time, which makes its last appearance in the Titanic-imitated scene where Richard Collier reunites after death with Elise McKenna)--end up shuffled into the "inspirational" category, which could be considered sacred easy-listening, maybe.  Clearly, I have no idea what I'm typing, so time to move on to the excellent Plainsmen Quartet, not to be confused with the Plainclothes Quartet.  Hardy, har, har.







DOWNLOAD:  Plainsmen Quartet--Little Is Much (Heart Warming LPHF 1837; 1965)





Little Is Much
I Wouldn't Take Nothin' for My Journey Now
I'm Poor as a Beggar (Brumley)
You Just Don't Know What Lonesome Is
I am the Man
I'd Rather Live in the Valley
They Tore the Old Country Church Down
So Many Reasons
He Holds My Hand
Sittin' Around the Table of the Lord
Sweet Jesus (Doris Akers)
Cryin' in the Chapel (Artie Glenn)

The Plainsmen Quartet--Little Is Much (Heart Warming LPFH-1837; 1965)


Lee

Paul Whiteman, Part Six! 1920-1933

It's past time for another helping of Paul Whiteman 78s--my series went into pause mode in November of last year so I could devote time to my annual Christmas blogging, but we're back.  All of today's twenty sides were ripped and repaired from my overflowing 78 collection by me and VinylStudio and MAGIX.  I still have four parts to go, so... on with the shoe.  And if you don't get that reference, you're what people my age call young.  Our playlist includes three #1 Whiteman hits--1920's magnificent The Japanese Sandman (Whiteman's second release), 1921's Cherie, and 1922's Three O'Clock in the Morning.  The 1925 Halloween classic Ah-Ha! (well, that's how I usually utilize it) features four vocalists, including Billy Murray, but I have no idea who's doing the Snidely Whiplash lead, so I'm leaving it at "vocal refrain," as on the label.  All are 10-inchers, save for the 12-inch I Can't Give You Anything but Love, recorded in 1928 (and featuring a highly creative Ferde Grofe arrangement) and Just Snap Your Fingers at Care--Darling (Medley) of 1920.

The single "hot" side is Doo Wacka Doo, featuring Billy Murray, only up front this time.  And what a voice--a tenor practically designed for the acoustical recording process .  Highly imaginative arranging throughout these numbers.  Disc condition varies, of course, but no moments of noise too awful to bear--nothing close to that.  Just a few bouts of opening wear, and stuff like that.  These are 78's--come on.

One George Gershwin number--an early one, of course.  I Found a Four Leaf Clover, from George White's Scandals of 1922.

To the Whiteman!




DOWNLOAD: Paul Whiteman, Pt. 6




I Found a Four Leaf Clover (Gershwin)--1922
Love Bird--Medley--1921
Three O'Clock in the Morning (A: Grofe)--1922
Song of India (A: Whiteman)--1921
Cho-Cho-San (A: Hugo Frey) 
Ty-Tee--1922
Oh, Joseph! (A: Grofe)--1924
Shanghai Lullaby (Isham Jones)--1923
Ah-Ha!--w. vocal refrain, 1925
Honolulu Eyes (A: Grofe)--1921
My Man (Mon Homme)--1921
I Can't Give You Anything but Love (A: Grofe)--v: Jack Fulton, 1928
Bright Eyes--Medley--1921
The Japanese Sandman (A: Grofe)--1920
When the Sun Bids the Moon Goodnight--v: Jack Fulton, 1933
Doo Wacka Doo--v: Bill Murray, 1924
Cherie--1921
'Neath the South Sea Moon--1922
Just Snap Your Fingers at Care--Darling (Medley)--1921
Pal of My Cradle Days (A: Grofe)--v: Lewis James, 1925

Lee

Sunday morning gospel--Life Is like a mountain railroad: Sacred shellac (1905-1928)

We start with the Vaughan Quartet's 1928 recording of His Charming Love, with its flip, I Want to Go There, Don't You?  Somewhere, I have the James D. Vaughan songbook containing the first number, with its complex overlaying of voices.  And I used to know something about this group, but I forgot it all, and a quick Google search gave nothing specific.  Suffice it to say the group's mission was to promote Vaughan's songbooks, which it probably did very successfully, given its outstanding musicianship.

Gid Tanner and Riley Puckett's renditions of Don't You Hear Jerusalem Moan and Alabama Jubilee are poster children for the "old-timey" country gospel sound--what many would dub bluegrass--and the latter title is often, maybe usually, associated with the Mummers Parade, thanks to the 1955 hit version by the Ferko String Band.  But it goes back at least as far as 1915, and the lyrics are clearing describing an African-American religious meeting, complete with faith-healing.  It's taken at a tempo slower than we're used to.

Even more "old-timey" are Marshall Smith's two Columbia sides from the same year (1926), and darned if I can make out most of the words in Jonah and the Whale.  I did a ton of manual click removal for these, so what you're hearing is much better than what came out of the grooves initially.  While just as down-home-sounding (and from the same year), the Wisdom Sisters (Sitting at the Feet of Jesus; Amazing Grace) offer more precise enunciation, to say the least, though I still have trouble making out many of their words.   Could be an issue of accent or the limited sound technology of 1926, though I'm leaning toward the former. Could be anything--proximity to the mics, lack of experience in the recording studio, my own hearing.  Dunno.

The trio's haunting rendition of Amazing Grace is not the first recording of this number--Wikipedia gives that credit to a group called the Sacred Harp Choir in 1922.  The Grace melody sounded a bit off to me at points, as if the lead (top) voice was staying on the tonic instead of descending, but listening with my portable player, it's clear that I was confusing the lead with the second voice, which overlaps the lead as it descends.  Typically, it's headphone listening that yields the most reliable detail--in this case, it was my player.  I have trouble with the harmonizing of the cadence which closes each stanza, which is pure "folk" in its more or less parallel descent, the problem being the V7 without a root--or maybe it's the glaring augmented fourth in the two lowest voices on the middle chord.  It just sounds wrong, like a passing tone that never finds peace.  It bugs my ear, but there's no right or wrong in music--it's all an issue of what sounds correct to the listener.  At any rate, this is the Amazing Grace melody we know and love.  The text is from 1779, and it's been set to any number of different tunes over the past 240 years, with the present melody (from the early 1800s) finally winning out about, oh, 1900-ish.  That's a safe guess, I think.

The McCravy Brother's terrific Jacob's Ladder has an issue date of 1945, but it's a continuation of an old catalog series for the label, Gennett, and it sounds exactly like the McCravy's 1920s material, so I suspect it's from 1927 or thereabouts.  It just had to wait a couple decades to hit the shelves.  Charles H. Gabriel's Glory Song was one of the hugest gospel song hits of all time, and this 1905 version by the Haydn Quartet was one of my best-ever Goodwill finds, even if the disc was cracked.  I figured I could realign the disc and Scotch-tape the reverse to make it playable, and I was correct--worked like a charm.  Another Gabriel number follows, this time rendered by Scottish evangelist William McEwan (a.k.a. MacEwan)--a fun anthem called All Hail, Immanuel, which makes a great solo number on the organ.  I used it as such several weeks back, and the congregation loved it.  The chorus is a workout, at least in standard four-part arrangement.  The two Tietge Sisters sides are lovely, and the trio harmonies are more "correct" than the Wisdom Sisters', but, when you come down to it, "correct" is whatever sounds correct.  Maybe conventional is the better word.  Master, the Tempest Is Raging has always been one of my favorite gospel songs, and it hails from the late 19th century.

Then we're back to old-timey quartet sounds, with two groups that make the Vaughan Quartet sound like city folk--Smith's Sacred Singers and the McMillan Quartet.  The former is from Georgia--not sure about the second.  1927 sides from both, and all superb.  We Shall Rise might be my favorite Smith's side of them all, and I spent years hunting it down in old songbooks, partly because it's very close to another Resurrection Morning song, and I wanted to confirm that they were, indeed, two separate songs.  I was right--there are.  I prefer this one.  If I had the music handy, I'd give the year of composition, but I don't.  1911, I think.

I trimmed this 23-song playlist to 20, removing a few numbers that sounded a little out of character due to their more sentimental style.  Nothing wrong with a sentimental approach, but it just doesn't gel with the overall tone of this set.  The exuberant Jacob's Ladder doesn't, either, but I thought that it made for a nice halfway-point jolt, so I kept it in.  A nice "Aren't we having fun?" side before returning to the no-nonsense gospel of The Glory Song and Master the Tempest Is Raging.  I do put some degree of planning into these things.

Oh, yeah--and another once-super-famous gospel number, Life's Railway to Heaven.  Under "metaphor" in the dictionary, they ought to put "Hear Life's Railway to Heaven."

All 78s from my collection and curve-corrected and filtered by me.  I was without info on the Gennett curve, so I went by ear.







CLICK HERE TO HEAR:  Sacred Shellac






His Charming Love--Vaughan Quartet (Victor V-40045; 1928)
I Want to Go There, Don't You?--Same
Don't You Hear Jerusalem Moan--Gid Tanner and His Skillet-Lickers w. Riley Puckett (Columbia 15104-D; 1926)
Alabama Jubilee--Same
Home in the Rock--Marshall Smith (Columbia 15080-D; 1926)
Jonah and the Whale--Marshall Smith and John Marlor (Same)
Sitting at the Feet of Jesus--The Wisdom Sisters (Columbia 15093-D; 1926)
Amazing Grace--Same
Jacob's Ladder--McCravy Brothers (Gennett 3503; 1945--probably reissue)
Glory Song (O, That will be Glory--Chas. H. Gabriel)--Haydn Quartet, 1905 (Victor 4398; 1905)
All Hail, Immanuel (Chas. H. Gabriel)--William McEwan (Columbia A1365; 1913)
Master the Tempest Is Raging (Palmer)--Tietge Sisters (Victor 20515; 1926)
The Name of Jesus (Martin-Lorenz)--Same
We Shall Rise--Smith's Sacred Singers (Columbia 15230-D; 1927)
I Want to Go to Heaven--Same
City of Gold--Smith's Sacred Singers (Columbia 15195-D; 1927)
Climbing up the Golden Stairs--Same
No Stranger Yonder--McMillan Quartet (Columbia 15194-D; 1927)
Glory Is Coming--Same
Life's Railway to Heaven (Abbey-Tillman)--Charles Harrison-Clifford Cairns (Victor 18925; 1922)

Lee

Various singles, Part 5--"Two Hearts"-athon, June Valli, Gayle Lark, The Doodlers

Yes, a four-selection Two Hearts, Two Kisses (Make One Love)--athon, featuring four versions of the 1955 hit for Otis Williams and the Charms, famously covered by Frank Sinatra and Doris Day.  I'm giving you one real-label cover version (the outstanding Doodlers, on RCA Victor), and three fake hits--Bob Vance on Big 4 Hits, Rudy Weldon on Prom, and Gayle Lark on Tops.  I did a big search through my platters for the Gayle Lark Tops version, certain that I had it.  Looked and looked, and turns out it was a few feet away in a small row of 78s.  Plus, I'd already ripped it.  Oops.  Clearly, I need a staff.  The cats are no help in this department.  They just get hair all over things.

Then, the lovely instrumental Candlelight, by Mantovani and his Orch.,1956, and this may be my favorite Monty track of them all.  Artie Malvin follows with Eleventh Hour Melody, which is not the ideal number to follow Candlelight with, since both are slow numbers.  Then again, they're following the Two Hearts-athon, so maybe two slow numbers fit the bill.  (These decisions are complicated.)  I just now noticed how dull Malvin's rendering is--the thing needs some dramatic punch.  It usually has a sort of spooky effect.  Luckily, waiting for us on the Tops label is an excellent Rags to Riches by Bud Roman, with especially nice sound for 1953, considering it's an early Tops 45.  (They don't always sound this good.)  The Halley Sisters follow with a good Rock Love, though it clearly copies one of the pop covers of the title, as opposed to the Lula Reed original.  Don't Shake the Tree is the flip side of the Doodler's Two Hearts, and the lyrics don't play games, even if they describe someone who does.  And Steve Lawrence tries his hand at two rock and roll numbers, and he does very well, though you just know that Steve Lawrence doing two rock and roll numbers is enough to have the rock critics screaming "Blasphemy!"  Or laughing uncontrollably.  Which means Steve was doing something right.

I'm assuming As the World Turns has nothing to do with the soap opera.  I do know (thanks to Wikipedia) that singer Ginny Gibson was actually Virginia Nelson, and that she sang on the Chiquita Banana TV commercial, among many other TV ad spots.  Now we know.  Sally Sweetland's Jambalaya is pretty good, and her voice is even more of a contralto than Jo Stafford's, unless maybe the Waldorf label slowed this down a little for the pressing.  It does sound a little draggy.  Needless to say, Sally is not imitating Hank Williams.  Chuck Lovett's Short Fat Fannie is a cover pretty close to the original--the label is Gateway Top Tune (1957).  Looking up "Chuck Lovett," I got a bunch of Manson "family" matches, since there was a Chuck Lovett in that group.  Charming.  Two June Valli sides follow, the first--From the Wrong Side of Town--featuring Valli's usual Elvis-style over-selling, though the theme is interesting, since it would become a cliche in rock and roll.  It was written by country songwriter Harlan Howard.  The second, a nice Leiber-Stoller number, has Valli in a far more subtle mode, and she should have tried this more often.  She's double-tracked on the bridge and twice on the hook.  No, three times.  Whatever.  She fooled me at the end.  This predates Spanish Harlem, of course.

We continue with two 1951 very pleasant easy listening sides (I guess they wouldn't be easy listening if they weren't pleasant) on the Rexford label, which I never heard of before finding this or since, and they're by Norman Greene, a big band trombonist who played with Louis Armstrong.  Bob Sharples, aka "Lightnin" Bob, gives us the Hurricane Boogie, complete with prerecorded sound effects.  We end with three cheap-label covers, the most interesting being the Bell label Little Darlin', which either by accident or intention sounds more like the Gladiolas original than the Diamonds cover.  It's a gem.  Come to think of it, I don't think I've heard a bad fake-label version of Little Darlin', though all fall into the cover-of-a-cover category.  Except this one.









CLICK HERE TO HEAR: Various singles, Part 5






Two Hearts--Bob Vance (Big 4 Hits 140; 1955)
Two Hearts, Two Kisses--Rudy Weldon w. the Prom Orch. and the Argyles (Prom 1114)
Two Hearts (Two Kisses)--Gayle Lark w. Nat Charles Orch. (Tops R256)
Two Hearts--The Doodlers (RCA Victor 47-6074; 1955)
Two Hearts--Loren Becker and the Brigadiers (18 Top Hits 151)
Candlelight--Mantovani and his Orch.  (1956)
Eleventh Hour Melody--Artie Malvin w. Enoch Light Orch. (18 Top Hits 174)
Rags to Riches--Bud Roman w. Lew Raymond Orch. (Tops 380; 1953)
Rock Love--Halley Sisters w. the Prom Orch. (Prom 1108; 1955)
Don't Shake the Tree--The Doodlers (RCA Victor 47-6074; 1955)
The Chicken and the Hawk (Leiber-Stoller)--Steve Lawrence w. Dick Jaccbs Orch., 1955
Speedoo--Same
As the World Turns--Ginny Gibson (Virginia Nelson) w. Dick Wess Orch. (Charles ZTSP 85276; 1962)
Jambalaya--Sally Sweetland w. the Enoch Light Chorus and Orch. (Waldorf Record Corp. P111)
Short Fat Fannie--Chuck Lovett w. Herbie Layne's Orch. (Gateway Top Tune 1220; 1957)
From the Wrong Side of Town--June Valli w. Joe Reisman's Orch. and Cho., 1956
Will You Love Me Still (Leiber-Stoller)--June Valli w. Joe Reisman's Orch., 1957
Black Magic--The Norman Greene Orchestra (Rexford 103; 1951)
Little White Lies--Same
Hurricane Boogie--Bob Sharples and his Music, featuring "Lightnin" Bob (1956)
Without a Song--The Checkers (King 4675; 1953)
White Cliffs of Dover--Same
Don't Be Angry--The Four Jacks w. Herbie Layne's Orch. (Gateway Top Tune 1121; 1955)
Pledging My Love--Mona Grey w. the Prom Orch. (Prom 1110; 1955)
Little Darlin'--Bob Miller w. Michael Stewart Quartet (Bell 35; 1957)


Lee

A less recent version of "Deliverance Will Come" ("Palms of Victory") and 1914 John McCormack

On Sunday, I shared the terrific Oak Ridge Boys version of Palms of Victory, a.k.a. Deliverance Will Come (and vice versa), an 1836 song they wished they'd recorded first. Here's the 1928 version by Smith's Sacred Singers, which the Singers take at about 1/10 the tempo.

My copy is quite worn, but I sicced MAGIX's DeNoiser on it, and it hasn't sounded the same since.  Why the group whispers the final repeat of the chorus, I know not.  The volume dip actually helped my cause--it showed me precisely where it was necessary to cut and boost to maximize detail.  Thank you, quiet last chorus repeat.

I've also uploaded my restoration of John McCormack's 1914 recording of the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria, featuring Fritz Kreisler on violin and Vincent O'Brien on piano.  You'll hear the surface noise taking over at the end!  But I think I got a nice file out of it.  Found a copy on eBay (or was it discogs?)--I always wanted the 78 to see what I could do with it.  The 1958 RCA Camden transfer, while likely superb for its day, doesn't sound quite as good in 2019.  I don't know why pianist Vincent O'Brien speeds up a bit during the piano intro.  I never noticed this until I made my own rip.

Update: I redid the Ave Maria rip a bit--see additional link below.  I think I'd left in a little too much hiss in my effort to bring out all the musical detail.  My copy is fine shape, but it' a noisy side!
Update 2: I also redid Deliverance Will Come, this time with the normal 78 rpm stylus width (2.7 mil).  I think the results are a lot better.  I posted the new file below.  For individual, non-zip files, the Box download button is in the upper r.h. corner, or you can listen at the site!

To the sides:

Deliverance Will Come--Smith's Sacred Singers, 1928

Ave Maria (Bach-Gounod)--John McCormack, w. Fritz Kreisler and Vincent O'Brien, 1914

Revised McCormack file:

Ave Maria (Bach-Gounod) 2--John McCormack, w. Fritz Kresiler and Vincent O'Brien, 1914

Revised Smith's Sacred Singers file:

Deliverance Will Come 2--Smith's Sacred Singers, 1928

Third time's a charm:

Ave Maria (Bach-Gounod) 3--John McCormack w. Fritz Kreister and Vincent O'Brien, 1914.

Lee