Grofe and Gershwin on Allegro Royale (1952)

I want everyone to appreciate the work I put into this.  The LP is fairly hammered--its condition can be described as very used--plus it's a product of the junkiest of the junk labels, the Eli Oberstein group.  And it's from 1952, so the recording curve is not compatible with the RIAA curve.  As in, way not compatible.  I ripped it first with the RIAA curve, in case this was a later pressing with an adjusted curve--not.  So I re-ripped with an improvised curve, freeing up the high end and toning down the grossly inflated bass.  Result: infinitely better sound.  Then I reintroduced some bass.  Had to do some tricky manual de-clicking, plus I did a second run-through with the MAGIX de-clicker for the smaller clicks and pops.  The result is acceptable fidelity.  From sonic mush to not-bad sound.

I was going to feature the three Grofe tracks only, but then I figured someone would say, "What about the rest of the album?"  So... I did the whole thing.  And I'm glad, because the music is fun throughout.  Imagine dance band versions of Grofe's Mardi Gras and On the Trail and Gershwin's Prelude No. 2.  Actually, you don't have to imagine them--they're right here.  Jaunty, Freddy Martin-esque renditions for the Grofes.  And how often do we encounter the line "jaunty, Freddy Martin-esque" on line?  I'm betting I'll get zero results.  Let's see.

Yup. "No results found."  I'm original, if nothing else.  The jazzy/corny Mardi Gras arrangement sort of threw me.  Then, once I'd gotten used to the idea of the Mississippi Suite in dance tempo, it was back to the original Mississippi Suite score for Huckleberry Finn.  Then, a dance band-style On the Trail.  Allegro Royale was messing with me.

As for the Gershwin numbers, Prelude No. 2 is orchestrated in a Larry Clinton/Duke Ellington fashion, while I Got Plenty of Nuttin is done in a style true to the opera.  An American in Paris is straight from the original score, and it's very well performed (was there a for-real Louis Shankson") but badly compressed and the victim of third-rate vinyl.  I'm betting the master disc or tape sounded terrific.  Such a shame.  Very enjoyable rendition, however, and more than bearable, sound-wise.  And a quick Google search, which took me to Discogs, suggests Louis Shankson was a made-up-for-the-occasion type of name.  A cheap-label artist who never was.  Yet another one.  I wonder if these guys had a union?

The tracks were ripped Grofe-first, then Gershwin, so the label listing doesn't match my track listing, and vice versa.  At the end of the tracklist, I've put a portion of I Got Plenty of Nuttin as it sounded before I applied the fixes--a "before" glimpse of this fun but ultra-cheap album.




DOWNLOAD: Grofe and Gershwin (Allegro Royale 1609; 1952)



Mississippi Suite--Mardi Gras (Grofe)
Mississippi Suite--Huckleberry Finn (Grofe)
Grand Canyon Suite--On the Trail (Grofe)
An American in Paris (Gershwin)
Prelude No. 2 (Gershwin)
I Got Plenty O' Nuttin


Royale Concert Orch., Dir. Louis Shankson (Allegro Royale 1609; 1952)


Lee

Do-It-Yourself--Peter Barclay and His Orch. (Columbia EP B-546; 1955)

Today's offering is a three-EP set from Columbia's "Music for Gracious Living" series.  It also exists in LP form, as do all the titles in this series.  This site has great scans of the LP covers, though I'm a bit confused by the text.  Quote: "The technicolour cover photographs encapsulate the ideal American family in a wonderfully cheesy/creepy way."  In a creepy way?  How so?  The photos look like ordinary catalog ads of the time.  They show ordinary looking people doing everyday things.  They're obviously posed, but obviously posed doesn't equal creepy.  And their goal is to encapsulate the ideal American family?  Really?  Maybe the cover photos are simply illustrating the theme of each LP.  Personally, I try to avoid reading too much into these things.  I try to do my sociological analysis with some discretion.

Great scans, though.  So, to the important question about today's set--is the music any good?  Absolutely.  It's terrific.  Gorgeous.  And I had a number of excellent puns ready for this write-up--I had them in my head Sunday morning before church, and I was sure I'd remember them, but... they fled.   But I'm sure they would have been memorable.  (They'll come back to me, I'm sure, sometime after I've posted this.)

Yes, this is the kind of mood/easy listening that I love, and the cover is certainly classic.  Maybe an element of camp, but nothing creepy.  Just one thing--I would think that music for do-it-yourself background (did I just type "do-it-yourself background"?) should be lively, and the majority of these tracks aren't.  But that's just me.  A poll of do-it-yourself enthusiasts might reveal that relaxing sounds work best as background for doing it yourself.  I'm not much of a DIYer, so I'm not an authority.  And I doubt the topic comes up for on-line debate very often. "So, fellow DIYers, what kind of background music do you prefer?  From the 1950s, I mean.  No Black Sabbath or Aerosmith."

Some of the songs here go back a ways, even for 1955.  1902's Because, 1910's I'm Falling in Love with Someone, and my favorite of all, 1935's Alone, which made its first appearance in the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera.  It's my current earworm.  Nacio Herb Brown doesn't get enough respect, in my view.

If only I could remember those puns.  I had a dynamite intro all worked out in my head, and it's gone.  In my head, then it fled.  But... great easy listening material, and if anyone knows who Peter Barclay was (Ernie suspects that wasn't the leader's real name) or where he came from, please leave a comment.  Otherwise, enjoy the sounds.  Or do both!  To use my one feeble pun, these track really work for me.  (Get it?  Work?)  Sorry.  Guess that doesn't cut it.

The liner notes, which I almost forgot to scan (they're hidden in the fold-out sections), are admirable in their lack of brand promotion.  Well, except maybe for this one little part: "In every modern home there should be a music room, devoted to the enjoyment of Columbia's superb radio, phonograph, and television equipment--to say nothing of Columbia's fabulous library of classical and popular records."  A hint of self-promotion there, I reckon.

Anyway... Enjoy!




DOWNLOAD: Do-It-Yourself--Peter Barclay and His Orch. (1955)





See scans for track listing (I had to do six of them!):

Lee

Sunday posts will resume next week

Apologies--I didn't get a Sunday post ready for this morning.  Too much stuff happening.  And the LP that was going to be my gospel post for last week turned out to be defective.  Mint, still in the plastic wrap, but filled with noise.  A rogue pressing. 

I'm eager to get the series going again, and I have a number of recently thrifted LPs to sample.

The series shall return....



Lee

Film-Tone, Part 2

Last post, I mentioned coming across some copyright dispute (at the Internet Archive) and concluding there wasn't much info of use.  Bob gave it a closer look and pulled out vital info, though I can't picture anyone reading the entire 150-plus-page nightmare.  For instance, he informed me that the musical director--the one who looks like "Vincent Poll" on the label--was Vincent Poli.  And, meanwhile, the actual director was Elmer Schmidt.  The on-line document doesn't come out and actually name Poli as an alias for Schmidt--there could have been a real Poli, though not on the record--but Poli was an alias by default, so that's what I've dubbed him.  More info at the actual document.  I was revising my update even as people were reading my post--I had mistaken a leaflet for the Madhatters Trio (the group credited as "vocal trio" on the Film-Tone EP) for the magazine ad used to reel in the gullible marks for this outrageous scam.  Some of my details might be a little off, but I think I got the gist.  Film-Tone was a standard "song-poem" operation, only at such an epic level of flat-out lying that the consters had no chance of getting away with their scheme for long.  Common sense should tell a con artist that, if you're going to pull a standard scam, stay within the normal, conventional limits of that scam.  That lowers the probability of being sued, and it makes serious legal trouble unlikely, especially if a lot of other people are doing the same thing.  When you blow up the scam, you're just making yourself a target.  I have good dishonesty instincts--too bad I'm such a straight sort.

So, check out my last post for the update, which I revised about, oh, twenty times in the space of an hour.  Legal documents never, ever start with an "Okay, here's the basic situation...." statement.  Intellectual people know to start big--to generalize, THEN cut things into smaller pieces.  From general to specific.  You're supposed to learn that in college.



Lee

Weirdest 45 ever?--updated 1/24/20

No, probably not, but I couldn't resist that subject line.  Pure click-bait, and I should be ashamed, but I'm not.  I'm not, do you hear me?  (Maniacal laughter.)  Ha, ha, ha, haaaaa!!!

Sorry--too much caffeine.  Anyway, this IS one of the stranger 45s I've ever found in my history of 45-finding.  Normally, I don't look through the 45s at the local St. Vincent de Paul thrift, since there's rarely anything "new," but there appeared to be an extra box this time, so I looked.  And I found some pretty cool stuff, including the pièce de résistance to come--a three-EP set whose cover is a classic in the so-uncool-it's-cool category of covers.  For now, the topic is this Film-Tone EP, one which caught my eye immediately, because... Film-Tone??  If that doesn't say rare (and weird), what does?  And, sure enough, no mention of this disc on line--none I could find--and only one Film-Tone 45 listed anywhere.  Specifically, at 45cat, where they won't allow me to establish a password.  The site has a link that promises a second Film-Tone listing, but nothing happens when I click on it, so....

Film-Tone could well have been a "song poem" label, given the weird composer credits (there are no intermittent beeps, so we know it didn't go with film strips), or it could have simply been a tiny, failed indie.  I wish I could read the name of the musical director--"Vincent Poll"?  It would be possibly be a lot of help, but the letters are too worn to make out for sure.  And the lack of a label address is another road to nowhere.  The two "A" sides are easily explained--that was me, photo-shopping a portion of the A-side label onto the B side, which had a big tear on the left.  So, the second A is actually B.  I did a pretty snazzy substitution job, no?  Well, except for the two As, but who pays attention to that stuff?  Obsessed collectors, yes, but we're just a tiny burp in the U.S. census.

The record could well be from the late 1950s, as I Love Those Snowflakes has a copyright registration date of 1958.  (Thanks, cyberspace.)  That title sounds like the ideal late Christmas or winter song, but it doesn't really work as such, at least for me.  It's just... weird.  Like the rest of the tracks.  The most interesting number, by far, is Ti Ru Addle, a.k.a. Child Ballad 278, The Farmer's Curst Wife, a folk song with umpteen variations/variants, including The Devil and the Ploughman, as collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams.  If you don't know about Child Ballads, click on the link.  As far as I know, Francis James Child, who collected British and Scottish folks ballads, searched for them on site, whereas the possibly more famous Cecil Sharp traveled over here to collect American versions of same.  I inherited a book of Sharp ballads from my foster parents and found the melody used for the 1951 Merv Griffin hit Twenty Three Starlets (And Me), credited to Tom (On Top of Spaghetti) Glazer.  And I'll need to take a break, as I'm suffering weirdness overload.

Okay--I'm back.  Anyway, this super-rare single is performed by "Vocal Trio," who, I'm just guessing, probably partnered with the equally famous "Vocal Stars of Radio and Television with Famous Orchestras."  They sound related. As for the Musical Director credit, I tried "Vincent Poll" (my best guess) in a search, and with no luck.  I did find some kind of litigation that lists a "Vincent Poll Orchestra," but I didn't feel like reading the entire thing.  The "Vincent Poll Orchestra" is used as a hypothetical orchestra name in the ruling, so I saw no point in struggling through a bunch of legal "English," likely for nothing.

I used the line "He carried her to Hell's back door" as my Google search.  Try it--it'll take you to the sources I used.  Put quotes around the phrase, or you'll get fragmented results, as I call them.  Dang, I love weird finds like this!  They make the hunt worth the time and the grimy fingertips.

UPDATE: Bob gave the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit document (the appellee's brief, plus the appeal brief, put up in the Internet Archives) a closer look than I did (I had skimmed a bit, then booked), and it contains much (understatement of the year) information about the criminal song poem-style operation associated with the Film-Tone label.  It was a three-stage operation.  With stages within the stages.  You're welcome to read the more than 150 pages in question--why not print them out for more convenient perusing?   Busy blogger than I am, I chose to grab pertinent data and call it a day.  The appeal was not won, though there's an appeal brief by/of the appellant, Mortimer Singer, which splits hairs on a subatomic level--I got a migraine just skimming that portion.  Basically, it was the song-poem scheme of promising naive amateur songwriters a lead sheet, x-number of singles, and a chance to have a hit, though this outfit (which worked through three sub-outfits) seems to have taken the scam to the outer limits, more or less promising a hit, and with publishing royalties, and eager DJs ready to push the record, and the possibility--maybe even probability--that the song or songs would appear in a motion picture (!).  It's the old, old story--the more outrageous the claims, the more likely some folks are going to swallow them whole.  The songwriters were apparently promised a disc (in a set of 100) devoted wholly to their song or songs.  Instead, their creation ended up in EP form, as on this disc.  That was just one of the cheats involved.

The weirdest part of all this was the Madhatters Trio scam--these were the folks credited as "vocal trio" the Film-Tone labels.  Though they were an actual trio, none of the hype in the leaflet below was true.  The MH Trio had not appeared in any movies listed--at least not in the form of the Madhatters Trio--and none of the celebrity endorsements could be confirmed as anything but fake.  I don't know what role this leaflet played in the con job--maybe it was mailed out when people answered the "We will record your songs"-type magazine ads .  Apparently, song submitters were promised a recording of their song by the Madhatters Trio--a record devoted to their song or songs only--and they instead received a non-exclusive two- or four-song EP, with the closest thing to a Madhatters Trio credit being the (I'm not kidding) "MH" prefix in the catalog number.

There are other Madhatters Trio credit discrepancies which relate to the ever-evolving personnel.  Sort of like the average R&B vocal group of the 1950s, the group went through editions.  But it was never anything close to famous.  Not that the marks needed to know that....

This is my page capture of Madhatters Trio leaflet, the exact function of which I'm not sure, though, again, I'm guessing it was mailed to those who took the ad bait.  It's easier to read at the Archives, and I just know you'll be rushing over there....

And what looks like "Vincent Poll" on the label is actually Vincent Poli, someone who apparently did not exist.  The orchestra leader was one Elmer Schmidt.  There are more musician details at the Archives, if you simply must know who played behind the "vocal trio," aka MH, aka The Madhatters Ttrio.

Anyway, thanks to Bob for giving this mind-numbing document a closer look.  The brief doesn't actually come out and state that "Vincent Poli" was an alias for Elmer Schmidt; just that Schmidt was the person doing the directing.  There may have been a Vincent Poli, but he wasn't involved in these sessions.  I'm splitting hairs, but I can't help it after skimming this nightmare!  Poli was sort of an alias by default.  These folks just wanted to steal the money of decent but hyper-credulous souls, and they would have credited Adolf Hitler as music director if they could've gotten away with it.


DOWNLOAD:  Film-Tone 100--Vocal Trio




Now That I've Found You (Mrs. Orville Smits)
Paradise of Love (Marguerite E. Mitchell)
Ti Ru Addle (James Richmond Wright)--Actually the folk ballad, The Farmer's Curst Wife
I Love Those Snowflakes (George Kaercher)

The Madhatters Trio (as "vocal trio"/MH-); Musical Director: Elmer Schmidt (as "Vincent Poli").  (Film-Tone MH 100)



Lee