The re-return of "Christmas Is for Children"--A Pickwick (Design) classic from 1957 (?)

This at least my second reposting of this terrific LP find of four years back.  And a re-re-posting is sort of apt, or even ironic, given that this delightful Pickwick collection contains material re-re-recycled for years by Pickwick on one or another of its kiddie labels. 

Such a tacky-cool cover photo, and if the copyright year shown on the back cover is the year of release, then this is from 1957 (Design's first year--and, in fact, mine). This is quite possible, since the label is in the earliest style, complete with the promise of "Stereo Sonic Sound," which this disc does not deliver--the tracks are all mono. Stereo didn't happen at Design until the early 1960s, apparently, but I guess Pickwick Sales Corp. figured no one would sue. Their reasoning was probably something like,  "Anyone who buys this junk isn't going to know what stereo is.  No risk of any legal action."

 That's not a cut on the material, which is not only fun but very nicely arranged and performed, but just an acknowledgment of this album's rack-jobber standing. "Junk" tracks, but jewels of that type.

The selections, all released as singles or EP tracks on Pickwick's Cricket and Playhour labels (and who knows where else--Happy Time, probably), date back to 1953 or earlier (I suspect A Christmas Carol is pre-1953). The super-condensed Carol is fun and nicely spooky (it's like a Classics Illustrated version of a Classics Illustrated version), and Ding Aling Dong, The Sleighbell Song (aka, Ding-A-Ling Dong, The Sleigh Bell Song) remains one of my favorite cheap kiddie holiday numbers.  Plus, we get the ad-jingle-sounding Tinker Town Santa Claus, which I first heard in its 1970s Playhour Records edition, and I've Got Eighteen Cents, an annoying number sung by Rosemary Jun (1928-2016), whose real name was Rose Marie Jun, and who can't be blamed, since she didn't pen the thing.  Rose Marie, aka Rosemary, is credited on the back jacket, along with the Cricketones, Toby Deane, Norman Rose, and Linnea Holm, and the label lists the Cricket Children's Playhouse (which doesn't seem to have existed) and one Brett Morrison, who was actually Bret Morrison (1912-1978), and who, among others, played The Shadow on the radio.  

Here's Brett (left).  Pickwick's children's labels had a weird habit of referring to singers as "casts," as in "Performed with full cast and orchestra."  And its "cast" credits weren't consistent, either--sometimes, they varied between sleeve and label, and (far as I can tell) from issue to issue.  But Pickwick wasn't trying for anything close to the orbit of perfection, so we can forgive them for screwing things up on a regular basis. Five of the Christmas Is for Children selections are traditional, if we include Jingle Bells (a pop song, really) under "traditional."  Four of the five are sung by the St. Margaret's All Boys Choir, who might be the group doubling as "Santa's Friends" on Jingle Bells, and these tracks are a nice break from some of the over-cuteness which precedes them, such as Little Christmas Stocking with the Hole in the Toe (aka Just Come up with a Title So We Can Get Out of Here), and the Eighteen Cents song, which, again, I'm sure was merely another gig for Rose Marie Jun, and not something we can pin on her in any way.  

In all, the perfect cheap collection.  If you don't believe me, ask Roy Freeman, Director of Artists and Repertoire (Pickwick had one of those??): "Here is as fine a group of gay holiday songs as you'll find under any musical Christmas tree...All of the favorites for Santa's little helpers."  And I can easily picture 1957 children yelling, "We want Tinker Town Santa Claus--and I've Got 18 Cents!"  

"Many, many happy Yuletide hours are the promise and offering of this gala Christmas package...and may we warn you in advance...BE SURE..OPEN BEFORE CHRISTMAS..."  Which means we're in time.  Unless, of course, they were referring to Christmas, 1957.

DOWNLOAD: Christmas Is for Children.zip

Lee

Merry Shellacmas! John McCormack, Trinity Choir, Collins H. Driggs, International Novelty Orch., (1910-1940/58)

 

One hour of 78 rpm goodies, all Santa-approved (you'll have to take my word).  The Trinity Choir's 8/26/1926 Christmas Hymns and Carols, (I love it when that distinction is made) from a period when the "standard" hymns and carols had almost been codified.  Exception: Christians, Awake, Salute the Happy Morn, which should be a standard carol-sing title, but which never quite entered that category.  It's still performed, but more or less as an extra treat.

John McCormack is magnificent in both acoustical and electrical form, and we get his classic 1914 Ave Maria (with Fritz Kreisler, and in the Bach-Gounod setting I prefer) and a wonderful Oh Come, All Ye Faithful from 1926 (with the Trinity Choir sounding stronger and brighter than ever).  But maybe the highlight of this sleighlist is the 1913 Prince's Orchestra Children's Symphony, aka Kindersinfonieand and Toy Symphony, which for a long time was falsely credited to "Haydn"--i.e., Joseph or Michael--but actually came from the pen of Benedictine monk Father Edmund Angerer (1740-1794). The chief challenge, performance-wise, is locating the original toys (or reasonable facsimiles thereof) for the sound effects.  And we already know that Spike Jones was hardly the first person to expertly employ musical racket, but this circa-1770 piece really pushes the date back.

Plus, Nathaniel (aka, Nat) Shilkret directs the International Novelty Orchestra, with Sigmund Krumgold on pipe organ, in the all-time version of Leon Jessel's 1897 holiday masterpiece, Parade of the Wooden Soldiers.  Recording date: 1/25/1928 (a month late!).  But not before Collin H. Drigg's 1940 Novachord recording, very possibly arranged by Ferde Grofe. Says Wikipedia, the Novachord is "often considered the world's first commercial polyphonic synthesizer." I'll buy that. Er, I would, if I could afford one.  (Or had a place to put it.)

Lillian Currie's Children's Toy March (Pince's Band, 1912) was presented at a faster clip in 1911 as part of the descriptive piece On a Christmas Morning.  I see that I posted same at my Shellac City YouTube page in its Harmony label edition.  Anyway, this more mellow rendition of the march has its charms...

Oh, and I always feel the need to note that "Adeste Fideles" is not "Fidelis," though we see that typo pretty often.  Oh, and when I posted my YouTube upload of the Driggs 78 at Facebook, a number of synthesizer enthusiasts were more than slightly impressed.  Synths have a longer history than we imagine.

And a non-shellac, non-78-rpm selection, 1958's God's Christmas Tree, ripped from my Columbia 45.  How this got on the list, I don't know, but I never said I knew what I was doing.

The wonderful Richard Crooks 1933 performances are of two once-standard holiday concert numbers--Stephen Adam's The Star of Bethlehem and The Holy City.  They may still be featured in England.  The 1933 Red Seal RCA audio is nice.

And I just lost three hours of my life in the goal of finally, somehow, figuring out why OneDrive was not giving me a sharing link to this file.  In the meantime, my MAGIX-exported FLAC files (I discovered I indeed have that option) somehow reverted to mp3s.  And my brain is too fried to even start to attempt to figure out how that happened.  (The letter couldn't been an operator-error event!  I always reason best when I'm annoyed.

DOWNLOAD: Merry Shellacmas! (1912-1940).zip

Adeste Fideles (Oh Come, All Ye Faithful)--John McCormack, Trinity Choir, 1926

Christmas Hymns and Carols, Pts. I and II--Trinity Choir, Dir. Rosario Bourdon, 1926

Messiah--Hallelujah Chorus (Guess who?)--Same

Gloria from "Twelfth Mass" (Mozart)--Trinity Choir; pipe organ: Mark Andrews, 1926

Ave Maria (Bach-Gounod)--John McCormack, Fritz Kreisler, 1914

Parade of the Wooden Soldiers (Jessel)--Collins H. Driggs, Novachord solo, 1940

Parade of the Wooden Soliders (Jessel)--International Concert Orch. Dir. Shilkret; pipe organ: Sigmund Krumgold, 1928

Children's Symphony (Father Edmund Angerer)--Prince's Orch., 1913

Children's Toy March (Lillian Currie)--Prince's Band, 1912

Messiah--Hallelujah Chorus--Mark Andrews, Pipe Organ Solo, 1925

Babes in Toyland--March of the Toys--Victor Concert Orch., Dir. Nathaniel Shilkret, 1939

The Skaters--Waltz--International Concert Orch., Dir. Nathaniel Shilkret, 1926

The Star of Bethlehem--Richard Crooks, Orch. cond. John Barbirolli, 1933

The Holy City--Richard Crooks, Orch. cond. John Barbirolli, 1933

God's Christmas Tree--Southwest High School Choir, O.B. Dahle, 1958

Lee

A Panorama of American Orchestral Music: Grofe, John Knowles Paine, Copland, MacDowell, Roy Harris (1955?)

 

A Panorama of American Orchestral Music was a series, and an interesting one.  With impressive fidelity, even (for Allegro Elite, especially).  Too bad Ferde Grofe is represented by the Huckleberry Finn movement from his Mississippi Suite.  Not because I dislike the movement (in fact, I love the suite to death), but on its lonesome, it sounds like background for a Tom and Jerry cartoon.  George Gershwin, meanwhile, is represented by an orchestration (by Gregory Stone) of his Prelude No. 2 for Piano, a dirge-like number in 12-bar blues form.  It's addictive.

And the Overture to "As You Like It" is my introduction to John Knowles Paine (1839-1906), senior member of the Boston Six (along with Edward MacDowell and George Chadwick), and I couldn't be more impressed--it's gorgeous.  One listen tells us that Paine was a major name in American music.  Paine's piece is followed by Edward MacDowell's ingenious Lamia, based on a poem by John Keats, its subject being a serpent transformed into a gorgeous vamp, only to have her true nature/form exposed (no, seriously).  Lamia exists in any number of folk variants.  In Greek mythology, she was a beast who dined on children (isn't that charming?).  Anyway, MacDowell's piece is masterfully written, like everything else he ever composed, and I've always thought of Edward as Debussy minus the modernity.  He's what Claude would have sounded like had Claude taken a conventional path.  Same level of genius, but minus a forward-looking quality.  So, MacDowell was a genius who didn't transcend his time.  So what?  A master composer is a master composer (is a master composer).  And you can quote me.

So, as we speak, my four favorite American composers are Grofe, Gershwin, MacDowell, and now John Knowles Paine.  Oh, and the self-taught, mocked-for-decades-until-critics-wised-up 18th-century genius, William Billings. A not-favorite American composer is Aaron Copland, whose work, as a general rule, I can take or leave.  But... I'm rather fond of Quiet City, the final track in this program.  And I have to wonder if it inspired Leonard Bernstein's On the Waterfront (1954) score (which pales next to this fine composition).  Any number of measures could be transplanted from Quiet City into that soundtrack, and with no one the wiser.  I'm glad to encounter a Copland work that I actually like. 

By the way, the musicians under Richard Korn's baton are terrific.  And "The Philharmonia Orchestra" is a pseudonym, apparently.  But for whom?

As for Roy Harris' First Interlude From "Folk-Song Symphony," I can't describe how little it does for me.  Off-the-scale (no pun intended) modality and a certain degree of polytonality (I think--not sure), all I can say is that this sort of folk tune setting was accomplished with infinitely more skill and taste by Bela Bartok.  I have no problem with harmonies that clash, except (I guess) in this case.

Thanks to the cover design, Grofe appears to be wearing the world's worst toupee.  Or posing after a safety-scissors haircut.  This is the result of a clash between Ferde's profile and the white U.S. map silhouette.  A careless cover design from the Record Corp. of America, of all outfits?  Shocking.

Enjoy!

DOWNLOAD: Panorama of American Orch. Music.zip

Lee

Halloween 2024, Part 2: Al Goodman, Earl Fuller, John Logan, Charles Randolph Grean, The Four Tunes, The Liverpool Five, more!

 

On this not-so-chilly October evening, our second Halloween 2024 collection (which is why I call it "Halloween 2024, Pt. 2"--seems logical enough).  We start out with a marvelous 1945 recording of Miklos Rozsa's Spellbound theme, which Camden credits to Harold Coates, though it's really conducted by the Ukrainian-born Alfred Goodman.  The theme was famous for its use of the Theremin, and I think I hear a brief appearance of same on this recording, though my ears may be mistaken.  

Until I figured out that "Harold Coates" was Al Goodman, my Google searches kept taking me back to Memorable Music From The Movies (shown above, with Jim Flora art).  There was, in fact, a real Harold Coates, so I don't know if RCA's Camden label goofed, or if RCA was mad at Al, or what.  The correct ID appears at a Miklos Rozsa page.  However, no mystery in regard to Harry Lubin's One Step Beyond track, Weird, which is definitely by Lubin and very recognizably from that very show (One Step Beyond), where it was constantly used.

In fact, both Weird and the OSB title music were reworked into the second-season Outer Limits title music--unfortunately.  Lubin's OL music hardly compared to Dominic Frontiere's amazing first-season offerings, but he did an uncharacteristically terrific job on the famous Demon With a Glass Hand ep, plus the score for my favorite second-year OL, The Duplicate Man. I wish Harry had worked at that level more often.  At any rate, Lubin will always be known for the rather lame 1959-1961 OSB, a show hosted and directed by John Newland, allegedly featuring true (yeah, right) tales of the paranormal.  Because I only knew Newland for OSB, I always figured the man was something less than a masterful horror director, and so I was stunned to discover he'd directed what might be the scariest episode of the Boris Karloff-hosted Thriller series, "Pigeons From Hell," along with some other genuinely excellent entries.  He also directed the famous 1962 Bus Stop episode, "I Kiss Your Shadow," which Stephen King calls "the single most frightening story ever done on TV."  At the moment, that ep is still up on YouTube, and it is quite creepy (hence, perfect for Halloween).  But not quite the equal of Thriller eps like "Pigeons," "The Hungry Glass," or "The Cheaters."

And, courtesy of SPC's (Synthetic Plastics Co.) Promenade label, two budget knockoffs by John Logan: 1958's Dinner With Drac and The Witch Doctor.  From SPC, also, is 1965's Saturday Evening Ghost, performed by Frankie Stein and His Ghouls.  I can't believe I didn't hang on to my copy of the original LP version (which preceded this 1977 {?} Peter Pan EP release).

Rod McKuen's 1959 The Mummy features Bob McFadden and Dor (Rod), and is derived from a folk tale I know from childhood, which was featured in the same year's The Thing at the Foot of the Bed.  My book copy is packed away at the moment, so I can't quote from the text, though it employs the same story formula, only minus any mummies.

More instrumentals: Theme from "The Man With a Thousand Faces"--from Chopin's Prelude in E minor (Op. 28 No. 5); Morton Gould's Deserted Ballroom, performed by Morton at the piano; Chopin, again, with his famous Funeral March, performed my Mark Andrews; Josette's Music Box, familiar to any Dark Shadows fan; Graveyard Blues; John Barry's The Black Hole--End Title;  Lawrence Welk and George Cates' terrific adaptation of a famous Grieg number; Frank De Vol with The Addams Family theme; and Ferrante and Teicher with a prepared-piano rendition of Man From Mars, which I suspect they wrote (though I'm not sure).  Not sure where the LP is at this moment.  And there are Three Hauntovani Waltzes, composed and played by some guy named Lee Hartsfeld.

And, one of all-time favorite finds: The two-band, 78 rpm Theatre Lobby Spot for The H Man (the title for the 1959 release of this 1958 Inoshiro Honda classic).  "One of the most unusual and exciting films of its kind!" "Faceless, formless horror of destruction!" "Terrifyingly real, as the world in which it lives!" "See an exotic dancer trapped and destroyed!" "See.. The H Man."

And... three sides shared with me years back by my dear e-friend, the late Pete Grendysa, one of the leading R&B-history experts: Steve Gibson and the Red Caps doing their version of Charles Grean's The Thing (note that Grean recorded our version of Josette's Music Box); The Four Tunes' Ballad of James Dean; and Mr. Ghost Goes to Town, sung by the 5 Jones Boys.  The Four Preps' The Sphinx Won't Tell and the Liverpool Five's The Snake are maybe titles you're not likely to hear elsewhere, but with all the recordings available on YouTube these days, who knows?

DOWNLOAD: Halloween 2024, Pt. 2

SLAYLIST

Spellbound (Rozsa)--Harold Coates (Al Goodman) and His Orch.; 1945

Weird (Harry Lubin, From "One Step Beyond")--Harry Lubin; 1960

Dinner With Drac--John Logan (Promenade; 1958)

Theme From "Man of a Thousand Faces"--Wayne King Orch.; 1958

Deserted Ballroom (Gould)--Morton Gould, piano; 1940

Funeral March (Chopin)--Mark Andrews, Pipe organ solo; 1928

Josette's Music Box (From "Dark Shadows")--The Charles Randolph Grean Sounde; 1970

Saturday Evening Ghost--Frankie Stein and His Ghouls; 1965

My Friend the Ghost--Jill Whitney; 1954

The H Man--Theatre Lobby Spot (Columbia Pictures; 1959)

Graveyard Blues--Earl Fuller's Rector Novelty Orch., 1918

Witch Doctor--John Logan (Promenade; 1958)

Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte--Al Martino, Orch. c. by Pete King; 1964

The Thing (Grean)--Steve Gibson and the Red Caps; 1950

The Quest for Bridey Hammerschlaugen--Steven Freberg, with June Foray; 1956

Ballad of James Dean--The Four Tunes; 1956

Mr. Ghost Goes to Town--The 5 Jones Boys; 1936

The Sphinx Won't Tell--The Four Preps; 1962

The Snake--The Liverpool Five; 1965

The Black Hole--End Title (Barry)--Andre Kostelanetz; 1980

Mountain King--Lawrence Welk and His Orchestral; 1961

The Addams Family--Frank De Vol; 1965

The Mummy (Rod McKuen)--Bob McFadden and Dor (Rod McKuen), 1959

Man From Mars--Ferrante and Teicher, 1956

Three Hauntovani Waltzes (Lee Hartsfeld)--Your blogger;  2010

Lee

Halloween 2024, Part 1: Stanley Holloway, Paul Frees, Elsa Lanchester, David Rose, Gene Moss, The Merriettes

 

A number of technical glitches when preparing this slaylist--evil forces working to ruin my Halloween-blogging plans, no doubt  But I chanted some magic words over my ceramic Frankenstein-monster-and-pumpkin planter (? shown above), and I seem to have expelled the demons (or anti-demons?) at play.  But not before having my first MAGIX "project" (of 20-plus tracks) vanish on me.  Crud.  

Elsa Lanchester for Halloween?  If only for her portrayal of the Frankenstein monster's bride, yes.  But we'll hear two 1957 numbers from her act at Hollywood's Turnabout Theatre, shortly after the closing of that establishment.  Forman Brown's Never Go Walking Out Without Your Hat Pin may or may not be a period song adapted by the songwriter--it certainly sounds "period."  It's all about a hat pin as a defense against unrequested sexual attention--and there's also the implication that the pin can function as a reminder to young lower-class British women of the virtue of protecting their "you know what."  At the close, we discover that, had her mother remembered to carry a hat pin, the singer wouldn't have been born.  Yikes.  Those reserved Brits sure have a talent for bold, frank (not to mention dark) humor.  The Ratcatchers Daughter (which I incorrectly tagged as The Ratchcatchers Song--sorry!) is described as a "London Street Song," and a rough one, too.  Even though the fidelity is adequate for both numbers, I suggest headphone listening--if you want to make out all the lyrics, that is.  The numbers are introduced in a dry, ready-to-burst-out-laughing fashion by Elsa's husband, Charles Laughton (whose sole directing job, 1955's Night of the Hunter, is a perfect Halloween flick.  Which is probably why it's not on TCM's October schedule).

Sterling Holloway's Sweeney Todd the Barber is more typical music-hall material, though with the same level of dark humor.  Recorded in 1957, far as I can determine, though released in the U.S. (on Columbia Masterworks) in 1958.  And the Village Stompers' Haunted House Blues is a spooky-in-title-only number, but still fun.  Of course, I was hoping for something more traditionally Halloween.  A few screams, or at least a low-pitched "Buwa-ha-haaaa!"

The Dramatic Cue and Mood Music "suite" was edited by me from the above Elektra LP.  I assembled a number of season-appropriate cues into a single file, and it flows amazingly well (I was expecting lesser results).  The LP has seen better plays, but VinylStudio's declicker filter did an amazing job, as usual.

Two Funeral March of a Marionette (aka Alfred Hitchcock Presents) offerings: An excellent and just-right 1956 pipe organ performance by Ray Bohr, and a fine, swinging 1959 interpretation by Ralph Marterie and the Marlboro Men.  (What Halloween is complete without Ralph and the Marlboro Men?)  And, courtesy of the famous voice actor Paul Frees (Solomon Hersh Frees), we have "Boris Karloff" crooning the Bacharach-David The Look of Love, and "Bela Lugosi" with Games People Play.  And some moody--if marginally-Halloween--1961 titles on Enoch Light's Command label (Grand Award Record Co.): Strange Interlude and Witching Hour.  I was hoping the latter would have a more foreboding sound, but it's effective enough, and the highly precise Command-style stereo is fun.  

In addition, my favorite Douglas Byng track of all: 1963's I'm a Mummy.  A brilliant cabaret performer, known for appearing in drag, and of course at a time when it was very not safe to come out of the closet.  A situation to which we never want to return.  Douglas was a comic genius, which is all that matters.

Gene Moss, the voice of Smokey Bear from 1992–2002, provides two song parodies as "Dracula": I Want to Bite Your Hand and Frankenstein (Clementine), both from the 1964 RCA LP, Dracula's Greatest Hits.  And I confess to a love for Mantovani's music--including this dreamy 1969 arrangement of Robert Colbert's famous Quentin's Theme (from the 1960s Gothic soap, Dark Shadows).  Just part of my high regard for expertly arranged and performed mood/background/"EZ" fare.  The collectable value of most mood music, of course, is slim to none.

My rip of David Rose's Forbidden Planet comes from the 1957 MGM Music From Motion Pictures LP (speaking of superior mood music), but I cheated by swiping the Discogs image of the picture sleeve that came with the single.  Rose was hired to compose that film's soundtrack, but his music was ditched for the very cool (I think so; not everyone does) electronic background.  So, is this the actual title music Rose composed?  Or an original recording thereof?  I do not know.  But it's excellent stuff.

Look Out for the Batman, courtesy of (who else?) Synthetic Plastics Co., is a mess of a knockoff rushed to market during the 1966 Adam West/Batman craze, but I love it to death.  I even love the recorded-in-another-room quality of the drums.  And Batman is a permanent part of my Halloween memory, if only because I went to school as Batman that year--complete with cape and mask.  Even at 9, I recognized the set as non-brand, but it was cool, anyway.

DOWNLOAD: Halloween 2024, Part 1

SLAYLIST

Sweeney Todd the Barber--Stanley Holloway, 1957

Dramatic Cue and Mood Music-suite, 1964

Quentin's Theme--Mantovani, 1969

I Want to Bite Your Hand--Dracula (Gene Moss), 1964

Alfred Hitchcock Presents--Ralph Marterie and the Marlboro Men, 1959

Frankenstein (Clementine)--Dracula (Gene Moss), 1964

Blue Ghost--Tommy Roe, Jordanaires, 1962

Trick or Treat (Ferde Grofe)--Andre Kostelanetz and His Orch., 1976

Ghost Town--Don Cherry With Ray Conniff Orch. and Chorus, 1956

March of the Marionettes--Ray Bohr, pipe organ, 1956

Haunted House Blues--The Village Stompers, 1964

I'm a Mummy--Douglas Byng, piano: Alan Leigh, 1963

Strange Interlude--Lew Davies and His Orch., 1961

The Witching Hour--Same, 1961

Never Go Walking Out Without Your Hat Pin--Elsa Lanchester, intro: Charles Laughton, 1957

The Ratcatcher's Daughter--Same

Forbidden Planet (Rose)--David Rose and His Orchestra, 1957?

The Look of Love--Paul Frees as Boris Karloff, 1970.

Games People Play--Paul Frees as Bela Lugosi, 1970.

Look Out for the Batman--The Merriettes, 1966

Lee