Country Music on Parade--Tommy Scott's Country Caravan (1971)

 

Whenever I encounter a Goodwill LP called Country Music on Parade, and one of the titles reads Don't Kill a Man Because He Calls You a S.O.B., my first thought is going to be, "Maybe I need this one." 

And, last post, I noted that I'm not here to mock things, and maybe I spoke too soon, since the songs on this LP cry out for a humorous review.  But I'll do my best to keep the humor friendly.  I could fashion a lame argument along the lines that, say, finding humor in music is not the same thing as mocking it, but my argument would necessarily be circular.  Tautological, even.

Back to Don't Kill a Man Because He Calls You a S.O.B., I'm glad to report that the lyrics live up to the title.  I just arrived in Hell and let me tell you, There's lots of faces down here that I know.  Bu there's one face down here I can't stand the sight of, And that's the man I killed a while ago.  The name that he called me did not fit Mama, And that's why I left him dyin' in the dirt.

"The name that he called me did not fit Mama"?  Interesting way of putting things.  And the last line delivers the song's moral: I lived a life I thought was pretty decent, But one mistake, and this is where you go.  Yes, the singer sounds like he was living a pretty decent life.  But you'll get an insult that does not fit Mama, and the next thing you know...

My favorite from this playlist of odd ditties (say that twenty times) is the tender love balled, Rosita:

Top of El Paso, just over the border in old Mexico, I met Rosita and she made me love her.  She changed her mind and told me to go.  I took my gun and cut her down.  Rosita, I'll always love you.

And what better way to demonstrate that love?  Georgia's Tommy Soctt, aka Ramblin' Tommy Scott, aka "Doc" Tommy Scott, seems to have been a major country/folk celebrity.  Though he never cracked the charts, far as I know, there are Scott bios all over cyberspace.  And PBS did a 2001 special on him.  And there were German reissues of his older country sides.  Solo recording artist, TV star, songwriter, Charlie Monroe bandmember, David Letterman guest, and leader of traveling medicine shows, Scott appears to have been a made-for-order "character."  An eccentric for hire.  And "eccentric," I think, perfectly describes his work on this not-quite-characteristic-of-the-genre country LP,  released in 1971 on the "Music of Many Lands" label, Request Records Inc. of New Rochelle NY.  If I were in a sarcastic mode, I might ask how many lands were musically involved in these selections.

Now, to be sure, the tunes and performances have a professional, Nashville-studio-pro sound to them--it's the texts which are memorably off-kilter.  We have, in addition to the above examples, these lines from Geneva: 

You turned this man into a child of three, By letting me taste how sweet your love can be.  The... what??  And these interesting lines, from Nobody But You: 

Baby, you're the only one that I let wear my ring, You're the one with whom I would do anything.  And I let no one else mess up my hair, But if it's you, I find that I don't care.  "Oh, it's you.  Good.  I won't have to shoot you."

And, from Scott's He Went That-a-Way, sung by Little Miss Betty: 

I tried to hold myself back, but I just couldn't quit.  With passion burning in my soul like fire down in a pit.  He led me on, loved me hard, Then he went that-a-way.  

(Not sure how to punctuate that second line without creating a dangling participle.)

And there are priceless Spike Jones-esque sound effects on Help Me Pull the Wagon--namely, whip snaps and "Hyaaa"'s.  Scotty Lee sings, You ? money as if you think I own the mint.  Girl, I ain't broke but I'm getting badly bent.  I can't speak for everyone, but I know I hate it when I get badly bent.

Pollution also sports sound effects, and they happen right away--and loudly.  So, if you're listening through speakers, you want might to cut the volume at that point--the noise is jarring.  So are some of the lyrics:

Temperatures a-fallin' a little year by year.  By twenty hundred, won't be none of us here.  Preach the word: Tell the world about pollution, Save the world: Stop the awful execution.

Except for the temperatures-falling part and the "twenty hundred," Tommy was spot on.  And I just discovered that, come tomorrow (Sep. 30th), it will be eight years since Tommy left us.  I didn't plan things that way--that's just how the post worked out.

The LP's liner notes are by Hee Haw's "String Bean."

DOWNLOAD: Country Music on Parade--Tommy Scott's Country Caravan (1971)

TITLE/SINGER

Even I Can See the Sunshine--Chuck Housley
Unconcerned--Little Miss Betty
Don't Kill a Man Because He Calls You a S.O.B.--Chuck Housley
Geneva--Chuck Housley
What About That?--Sam Baxter
Nobody but You--Chuck Housley
Sally Ann of Greenville--Tommy Scott
Pollution--Tommy Scott
I Am Free--Sam Baxter
My Jimmy--Little Miss Betty
Pack Up, Ship Out and Go Home--Chuck Housley
He Went That-a-Way--Little Miss Betty
Help Me Pull the Wagon--Scotty Lee
Four Seasons of My Life--Tommy Scott
Rosebud--Tommy Scott
Rosita--Raymond Walker

Country Music on Parade--Tommy Scott's Country Caravan (Request Records Inc. SRLP 6031; 1971)

Lee

The always reliable LeFevres: "LeFevres Sing" (Sing 3209; 1963)

 

There's something very apt about an LP called LeFevres Sing on the Sing label.  And there's something slightly strange about the label title, which is simply "LeFevre."  It could almost have a buyer thinking he or she inadvertently purchased a solo LeFevres LP.  But, such is not the case--we get the entire gang on this excellent LP.

This Wikipedia entry tells the group's remarkable history, and a quick check at Discogs reveals that most of the LeFevres' LP output happened on this label (Sing), though they also recorded for Starday, Canaan, and LeFevre Sound--the latter clearly their own label.  My late foster mother, Bev, fondly recalled the group from its TV show, and, back in the cassette era, when I regularly put thrifted sacred LPs on tape for Bev and John's car player, I was always happy when this group turned up, because homerun hitters aren't that easy to come by in gospel.  For instance, I spot-listened to (and rejected) four gospel albums by four different artists before settling on this one for today's post--the others included a good LP ruined by an "invisible" needle dig, plus one of the worst quartet efforts my ears have yet experienced.  I won't reveal the name of the group, since I'm not here to poke fun at inadequate performers, but if I were to start a series called "When Quartet Singing Goes Wrong," that LP would be the headliner.  But I'm not here to mock.

No such worries with the LeFevres, who rank with the Sego Brothers and Naomi, The Blue Ridge Quartet, The Statesmen, and other top-rank acts in terms of reliability--none of these groups seemed capable of making a bad LP.  And I'll confess that most of the titles on this 1963 album are new to me, though I have a feeling I should know most of them.  At any rate, Bill Anderson's Mama Sang a Song graced the blog last post in a fake-hit rendition, and Sweet By and By, On the Battlefield, and Where We'll Never Grow Old (aka Never Grow Old)--all flawlessly done--are "old time" classics; the second title the sort of fast-tempo spiritual this group excelled at.  I wish the accompanying musicians had been listed on the back--I'd love to know who the outstanding ivory-tickler is.  The back jacket does contain the notice, "A unit of the Gospel Singing Caravan," and the Gospel Singing Caravan is explained here.  I think I've encountered them on vinyl from time to time.

Not only are these performances as solidly professional as we could wish, the album's group photo (despite a tad too much contrast) is a model of its type.  Excellent group shots not being the gospel-LP rule, I thought I should give special notice to this one.

DOWNLOAD: The LeFevres Sing (Sing 3209; 1963)

I Love to Call His Name
Let Us Go Back
I Want to Walk
Scatter Sunshine
When I Got Saved
Mama Sang a Song (Anderson)
Is Your Name Written There
I Want to Know More
When the Gates Swing Open
Sweet By and By (Bennett-Webster)
On the Battle Field
Where We'll Never Grow Old (Moore)

Lee

Current Hits, Volume Number 1 (Hit Records 1001; 1962)

Well, I had been Google-searching for this LP's release year.  The tracks were all recorded in 1962, but Discogs doesn't tell us when this collection arrived.  Turns out, all I had to do was read the back jacket notes:

"In this album entitled Current Hits, Volume 1 (1962), we are presenting to you a collection of the best selling songs of this period.  We might well entitle this LP 'The Sound of the Hits' because we have left no stone unturned in our efforts to provide you not only with the hit songs but with an actual duplicate interpretation of the 'hit sound' as it appears on the original recording by the original artist."  It never occurred to me to call these things "duplicate interpretations," but it has a nice ring.  And that paragraph may set a record in terms of avoiding comma usage.

This LP's "Compatible Mastering" was done in New York, since said technology had yet to arrive in Nashville.  I refer to the cutting head that produced a groove playable with both monaural and stereo styli--the innovation that allowed stereo Hit Records to be played on a "regular hi-fi" AND which saved Hit Records a lot of money, since it therefore didn't have to bother with a separate mono and stereo catalog.  Smart.

This LP is a gift from Diane, and it's one of those discs which visually grades VG+ but which turn out to have "invisible" wear throughout.  That will happen--this, of course, is why visual grading can be tricky.  However, the rip is more than adequate, and it's wonderful to have the first duplicate-interpretation LP put out by Spar/Hit Records.  So, thanks, Diane!

Mostly good performances on this one, and mostly nice songs, though I've always hated He's a Rebel.  I can't help it.  I know it's a classic oldie, and I know that Gene Pitney wrote it, but it's just so empty-headed.  "Just because he doesn't do what everybody else does"--that's what makes him a rebel.  And, somehow, we know that she doesn't mean he dresses in a clown suit and yodels the greatest hits of Gene Austin.  Or that he's a scientific or literary genius who's been pushed ahead in school five grades.  "Just because he hops to class a-riding on a pogo stick.  Wears his boxer shorts outside his pants, but I love him, anyway."  That wouldn't have worked.  No gal wants that much of a rebel.

The best of the duplicate interpretations, imo, is Return to Sender, which was credited to "Ed Hardin" (possibly Buzz Cason) on the Hit Records single, while the least would have to be Big Girls Don't Cry, which is lively and fun but missing something in the vocal department. On its 45 rpm incarnation, Big Girls was credited to the fictitious Chellows (yuk, yuk)--and here's where I mention that I've rounded up all the artist credits for your convenience.  This meant checking out the singles, since the LP carries no performer info.  Oh, and in the classic budget tradition, Hit Records slightly mismatches the front cover title (Current Hits Volume Number 1) with the back cover version (Current Hits Volume One).  Meanwhile, I think that's supposed to be a bullseye on the back cover, but maybe the illustrator was a moonlighting Salvador Dali:

Furthermore, between the labels and jacket, the track listings are out of sync, so: budget mission accomplished.

"He's a rebel 'cause he puts peanut butter in chicken soup; He's a rebel 'cause he travels in a one-man ragtime group."  Oh, and Bill Anderson's Mama Sang a Song is also scheduled to show up in our Sunday morning gospel post (by the LeFevres), so we're keeping it all in the blog.  Er, whatever that means.  More from the notes: "This is a quality reproduction from every aspect."  Hm.  I thought this was a first-run HLP 1001.  That's odd.

Two bonus tracks--the monaural single edition of the Chellow's Big Girls Don't Cry and the Hit Records fake of the Bacharach-David Blue on Blue (also mono).

DOWNLOAD: Current Hits, Volume Number 1 (Hit Records 1001; 1962)

Return to Sender--Ed Hardin
Next Door to an Angel--Ward Oliver
Don't Go Near the Indians--Sandy Carmichael
He's a Rebel (Pitney)--The Gleams
Mama Sang a Song--Sandy Atkinson
Big Girls Don't Cry--The Chellows
Don't Hung Up--The Dacrons
Limbo Rock--Bill Carmicheal
Do You Love Me (Berry Gordy, Jr.)--Leroy Jones
He Thinks I Still Care--Connie Landers
Only Love Can Break a Heart (Bacharach-David)--Ed Hardin
All Alone Am I--Katy Richards
Big Girls Don't Cry--The Chellows (Mono single version)
Blue on Blue (Bacharach-David)--John Preston (Mono single version; 1963)

Lee

Sunday morning gospel: Old Gospel Favorites--The Glorylanders (Rite Record Productions, Inc., 1972)

 

Interesting front cover stitching, there--I have no idea what happened, aside from the fact that the contrast obviously changed during the course of my four-angle scan.  The original image doesn't have a light and dark side--it just came out that way.  My scanner is an excellent but, by now, almost antique device.  I should consider upgrading, but I've grown to love this ol' Epson, which came bundled (I forget when) with amazing photo editing software.

And... excellent amateur gospel sounds from the Glorylanders of Marion, Illinois.  The Rite Record Pressings dating guide (say that several times) places the matrix numbers (30373/30374) at approximately 1972, whereas the writing on the back jacket reads "Sep., 1973," but close enough.  I'm guessing that the back jacket writing is by the previous owner, that there are no group signatures involved, though I can't tell for sure.  At any rate, just for the sake of quibbling about the LP title, neither He Touched Me nor Turn Your Radio On were especially old when this LP was made, but Old Gospel Favorites is such a fine, traditional type of title, I'm fine with that.  It sounds proper and heartfelt.  Properly heartfelt, even.

Solid performances, even if the instruments slightly overpower the vocalists in a number of spots, and it's nice to have the 1907 Ada Habershon/Charles Gabriel Will the Circle Be Unbroken ("There are loved ones in the glory..."), as opposed to the Carter Family variant, though there's nothing wrong with the variant.  And 1907 is definitely a vote for "old."

As a rule, I'm never thrilled to see Amazing Grace in a gospel tracklist, since versions of this mega-standard tend to be throwaway stuff, but this rendition is a pleasant surprise: It has a fresh, pleasant sound, just like the other tracks.  And, to answer the age-old question, "Why are there six people pictured on a quartet LP?" please note that one of the people--Dianne Ozment, to be precise--is both an extra singer ("soloist") and one of two pianists, while the instrumentalist is, well, one of the instrumentalists.  By the way, I've never figured out the tradition of separately crediting singers and musicians.  I mean, aren't singers musicians?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Not surprisingly, Hide Me, Rock of Ages, which has a 1940s Stamps-Baxter kind of sound, is from 1946, with a 1947 Stamps-Baxter copyright.  Somebody Loves Me--not the 1924 Gershwin song, of course--ends the album on a quite upbeat note, and as I type this, I'm still searching out the year of composition for that title.

And here we are--1940, and originally published in "Charming Refuge."  Now we know.  Sometimes, my songbook collection comes in handy...

Discogs gives 1972 as the year for this LP, which may well be the case, but I'll stick with the writing on the back (which appears to start with "Rich and Linda") and the "Sept 15 1973" date.  (Update: See Bob's comment.)  The search word "Glorylanders" brings up a good number of artist matches at Discogs (well, six, anyway), including a 1966 LP credited to this group but which doesn't appear to be by the same folks.  But who knows?  I asked the cats, and they have no idea.  I get the distinct impression they don't care.

Enjoy!  (My PC is back to rejecting Workupload files, so it's Box.com today.  And just after Chrome had ceased having issues.  A very moody browser.)

DOWNLOAD: Glorylanders--Old Gospel Favorites (1973?)

I'll Thank My Savior for It All
He Touched Me
The Great Speckled Bird 
Amazing Grace 
Turn Your Radio On
Will the Circle Be Unbroken (Habershon-Gabriel)
How Great Thou Art
Hide Me Rock of Ages (Brantley C. George)
Going Home
Somebody Loves Me (W.F. and Marjorie Crumley)

Old Gospel Favorites--The Glorylanders (Rite Record Productions, Inc. 30373/30374; 1972)

Lee

Vintage fakes (1948-1952)--Buttons and Bows; Syncopated Clock; Lover; Cry; Come on-a My House

 

Before I forget, I want to note that these are all 78 rips.

So, exactly what are vintage fakes?  Well, as far as sound recordings go, the post-WWII knockoffs are certainly old and early as knockoffs go.  But were they the first of their type?  Obviously, no.  There were the Hit of the Week records of 1930-32, and, back in the late 1910s and 1920s, there were budget knockoffs (on the pre-CBS Okeh label, for instance) of big hits like Avalon, Whispering, and Dardanella, to name three one-time monster hits.  However, it seems to me that the major precedent, when we're talking fakes/knockoffs, would have to be the famous radio show, Your Hit Parade (1935-1953), which also ran on TV from 1950 to 1959.  (Source: Wikipedia, of course.)  So, listeners of the past were used to hearing hit approximations and reinterpretations and wouldn't have been too shocked to encounter same on budget labels.  Of course, the big difference between the Your Hit Parade fakes and the Tops/Eli Oberstein/SPC/Extended Play Records/Broadway, etc. fakes would be the latter's attempt to confuse the buyer as to the difference between the official hit version and the knockoff.  The budget fakes did their darnedest to pass themselves off as the hits, as opposed to sound-alikes or knockoffs (though they emphasized the money-saving aspect of going with their releases).  The cheapies worked hard to blur the original/knockoff distinction--a distinction which seems obvious to us today, but maybe not as obvious when the 1950s and 1960s knockoffs had their kickoff circa 1948.  Their knockoff kickoff.

And it's those early, late '40s/early '50s knockoffs we're going to hear today--a small percentage thereof, anyway.  I did two posts of vintage fakes in 2018 and 2019, but, listening to the CD-Rs the other day, I wasn't happy with some of the restorations.  In particular, Iverne Whittaker's 1949 Buttons and Bows (on Tops) sounded a good deal noisier than it should.  Luckily, this time, I tamed that particular exercise in hiss quite nicely.  Now, these were tough rips, given the cheapness of the pressings and the ravages of old, heavy tonearms, and I'm obsessive about removing clicks and pops, except in those instances where the task becomes hopeless--such as, on the Les Paul/Mary Ford knockoff, The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise (featuring a multi-tracked Mimi Martel and what are probably multi-tracked guitars--billed as "The Freddy Laine Orchestra").  I did my best with that one, and left the rest to fate.  And the Music Club Hit Tunes Come on-a My House had a sufficient number of surface clicks for ten 78s, but I managed to reduce those about 75 percent.  Most of these, however, cleaned up very well.

Not surprisingly, our playlist is a mixture of gems and duds--the latter, starting with that 1949 Tops Buttons and Bows, on which the singer vastly overdoes the hill-person accent on the vocal, all atop a chintzy organ background.  The flip is an improvement, with a group called the Blenders blending fairly well (though what I take to be the tenor voice is consistently off).  I refer to Underneath the Arches, a likely-not-widely-remembered 1948 hit--this version seems to be inspired by the Andrews Sisters' highly successful recording.

The super-versatile Mimi Martel, who was sort of the Patti Page of the budget set, does great work on Lover, Wheel of Fortune, Cry, and the Mary Ford fakes (I believe "The Toppers"=an overdubbed Mimi)--and the Tops Lover has to take the prize for the most daring budget attempt of its time.  Mimicking Les Paul and Mary Ford was a big enough assignment for a junk label, but even thinking about copying the over-the-top Peggy Lee/Gordon Jenkins Lover (1952) took guts.  Amazingly, the results aren't too shabby, though the arranger wisely opted to fade out early.  Kaw Liga--by "Hap" Williams, no less, and ripped from a worn-out Victory Extended Play Records EP--is pretty decent, despite the Clark Bar-budget sound to it.

And there are some flat-out gems, including a good Buttons and Bows from 1948 (on a badly pressed Varsity 78 that cleaned up surprisingly well)--a version sure to erase the memory of the Tops dud.  And there's a spirited I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Cocoanuts which almost definitely takes off from the mega-hit Merv Griffin version, and a charming Syncopated Clock (no "The"--Royale was saving on ink).  No Help Wanted is technically excellent, though it fails to capture the Sun-before-Sun-Records sound of the 1952 Carlisles original on Mercury, on which Chet Atkins played riffs we've been programmed to associate with original Elvis lead guitarist Scotty Moore.  The Guy Mitchell knock-offs are pretty good (Belle, Belle My Liberty Belle and The Roving Kind), though neither vocalist succeeds in capturing Guy's emphatic but smooth touch--they sort of overdo things.  Interestingly, the Elliott Everett version of Belle spells it "Bell."  A typo or just another attempt to save on ink?  The two Come on-a My House fakes, both great fun, demonstrate the wisdom of terming these records "knockoffs" instead of "sound-alikes," given that the first effort, courtesy of Eli Oberstein's Music Club Hit Tunes label (you've heard of that one, I'm sure), more or less follows from Rosemary Clooney's hit (if you don't count the piano subbing for the harpsichord), whereas the Owl Records fake by Jean Ryan is anything but a sound-alike, with the musicians giving the Saroyan-Bagdasarian number a Klezmer treatment.  Effective, but not remotely a sound-alike.  Ross Bagdasarian, of course, is much better known as David Seville, and William Saroyan was the famous playwright and novelist.  Believe it or nuts.

And Bob Hilliard, lyricist for Be My Life's Companion and Shanghai, also wrote Any Day Now, Please Stay, Mexican Divorce, Tower of Strength, and other numbers for Burt Bacharach.

Now that I've typed your ears off, it's time to savor these vintage knockoffs, all of which hopefully sound better than the previous rips.  And there are a couple of "new" selections in the mix.  Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD: Vintage Fakes (1948-1951)

Buttons and Bows--Iverne Whittaker, Assisted by the Blenders, 1949

Underneath the Arches--The Blenders, 1949

I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Cocoanuts--"Skeets" Morris With Jimmie Livingston and His Orch., 1950?

Syncopated Clock (Anderson)--Elliot Everett and His Orchestra, 1951

Buttons and Bows--Barbara Brown With Orchestra, 1948

A Penny a Kiss, A Penny a Hug--Elliot Everett and His Orch. With Vocal Refrain

"A"--You're Adorable--Barbara Brown and Johnny Frank With Orchestra, 1949

Maybe You'll Be There--The Varsity Orch., Vocals by Frank and Chorus, 1948

Lover--Mimi Martel, The Hal Lomen Orchestra, 1952

Until--Johnny Frank and Barbara Brown With Orchestra, 1948

No Help Wanted--Hillside Four (1952?)

The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise--Mimi Martel, The Freddy Laine Orch., 1951

Belle, Belle My Liberty Belle--Bud Roman, The Freddy Laine Orch., 1951

Tiger Rag (ODJB)--The Toppers With the Les Morgan Quartet, 1952

Wheel of Fortune--Mimi Martel, The Les Morgan Orch., 1952

Cry (Kohlman)--Mimi Martel and the Toppers, The Hal Lomen Orch., 1952

Be My Life's Companion--Mimi Martel With the Hal Lomen Orch., 1952

Kaw Liga--"Hap" Williams, 1953?

The Roving Kind--Bud Roman With the Tops Choristers and Hal Lester's Orch., 1951

So Long (It's Been Good to Know You)--The Tops Choristers With Hall Lester's Orch., 1951

Come on-a My House (Bagdasarian-Saroyan)--Elliott Everett and His Orch. With Vocal Refrain

My Truly Truly Fair--Elliott Everett and His Orch. With Vocal Refrain, 1951?

Bell, Bell, My Liberty Bell--Elliott Everett and His Orch. With Vocal Refrain, 1951?

Come on-a My House--Jean Ryan, 1951?

Shanghai--Jean Ryan, 1951?

Lee