Sunday morning gospel: The Sego Brothers and Naomi--Satisfied With Me (Songs of Faith 103; 1961)

 

The superb Sego Brothers and Naomi return, though I was planning to post a group called the Glorylanders.  However, I got my files mixed up (easy to do, since they're not labeled when I export them into MAGIX), and so... here's a second helping of this superb gospel quartet, this time on Spar's Songs of Faith label.  And, thanks to Paul Urbahns, who manages the excellent Facebook page Hit Records of Nashville, I finally understand what a "compatible record" is, at least in the case of Spar.  Such albums and singles were made with a cutting head that produced a groove which could be played by both a stereo and mono stylus/cartridge.  In short, wide enough so that a mono needle wouldn't rip out the vertical portion.  This was a big money saver for Spar, since it meant that the outfit didn't have to manufacture separate mono and stereo editions.  How about that?

And this 1961 effort is compatible, so it says on the cover--except, I could hear no stereo when I played both channels.  A feeble kind of "fake" stereo, maybe, but the sound was much improved when I summed the channels.  So I strongly suspect this wasn't stereo to begin with.  I debated whether or not I should reduce the bass, which is quite pronounced, but bass is very difficult to tweak properly--so I just kept things as they are.  Anyhow, great selections throughout, including that mystery number, That Heavenly Home, which I've written about before in regard to versions by The Looper Trio (as My Heavenly Home), The Prophets Quartet, and... this group (in my "Favorite gospel tracks, Part 7" post).  This group's version of There'll Be Shouting is also making its second appearance, but I believe the rest are first-run tracks for the blog.  Best of the bunch may be the wonderful a cappella rendering of the folk hymn I Will Arise and Go to Jesus (here called I Will Arise and Go to Thee).  And there are the usual irresistibly bouncy tracks, like I'll Live in Glory, That's Enough to Know (on the label, simply Enough to Know), and Uncloudy Day (aka, Unclouded Day), the last title credited to "Traditional," though it was written in 1879 by Josiah Kelly Alwood (Thanks, Cyber Hymnal).  A fabulous collection, even if there's no stereo to be heard, "compatible" or otherwise.

According to the liner notes, this was the group's first album--and a quick Discogs check seems to confirm this.  So, it was Spar that premiered this group.  Cool!

To the gospel...

UPDATE: Please let me know if you're having problems with the Workupload download.  The past two files have given my Chrome "safe browsing" feature fits--they've been tagged for containing viruses.  Josh reports the same experience.  Anyone else having this issue?  A quick solution is to temporarily disable the "safe browsing" setting, but I can understand why some folks would be hesitant to do this.

Here's today's offering at Box.com: https://app.box.com/s/na6z5h7u8t9ffpxjxxpiocyc8jyiqogh

DOWNLOAD: Satisfied With Me--The Sego Brothers and Naomi (1961)

I'll Live in Glory
That Heavenly Home
I'm Going There (J. Wetherington)
Uncloudy Day (Alwood)
Satisfied With Me
A Saviour to Be Proud of
It's Different Now (Beatty)
Enough to Know
Just a Closer Walk With Thee (Trad.)
There'll Be Shouting (Barlett)
Beyond Tomorrow (I. Stanphill--not "Stamphill")
I Will Arise and Go to Thee (Trad.)

Satisfied With Me--The Sego Brothers and Naomi (Songs of Faith 103; 1962)

Lee

12 Top Hits of Today, Vol. 1 (Hit Tune Records; Prob. 1967)

A repost from March, 2019.  I noticed that the link was no longer working, and so I decided to re-up the files in my current higher bit rate.

Twelve Top Hits of Today--"today," in this case, being 1967.  I'll assume that's the year of the LP, though it could have been early 1968.  And, by the way, while I love my Epson scanner, it doesn't always get the colors quite right.  For instance, that's a green border around the titles on the front jacket, not a blue one.  Oh, well.

And this is supposed to be a stereo LP, but there's no stereo to be heard, so I combined (aka, "summed") the channels for better fidelity.  These are fakes, of course, and humorously enough, beside each title the front jacket lists the original artists ("made famous by") followed by the impostors ("recorded by"), and maybe someone was fooled by this tactic, but to my eyes the white font stands out over the yellow, the yellow being the real people--Procol Harum, Strawberry Alarm Clock, Lulu, etc.  A failure to trick buyers may explain the apparent lack of a volume 2.

The performances range from competent to not so competent, with Homburg especially dreadful, the singer sounding like the original vocalist after a week without sleep.  By contrast, Mike Landers (who must have been multi-tracked?) does a decent version of I Can See for Miles, which was one my big favorites growing up.  It hung on for years as an AM oldie.  The main problems with this copy of Miles are the weak vocal harmonies and the guitar chords going south on the fadeout.  Racheal Waters has the best singing voice of the lot, but her handling of Vikki Carr's hilarious (it seemed so at the time, in 1967) It Must Be Him lacks Carr's bordering-on-panic conviction,  and on To Sir with Love, she seems unfamiliar with the melody.

I'm positive the "Slim Pikins" on this LP was no relation to actor Slim Pickens.  And it was Tommy James and the Shondells who did the original Gettin' Together.  Either Hit Tune Records didn't know that or it misplaced the info.

I seem to remember, back when the Carr record was playing every five minutes on AM radio, that I would answer the "And then I die" lyric with something like "All right--then die, already."  On that lovely note, to the 1967 fake hits:





DOWNLOAD: Twelve Top Hits of Today, Vol. 1




Back on the Street Again--Tony Anderss
Hush--Mike Landers
Keep the Ball Rollin'--Slim Pickins
Like an Old-Time Movie--Dean Gregory
It Must Be Him--Racheal Waters
I Can See for Miles--Mike Landers
Incense and Peppermints--Bobby Sty
Homburg--Look-A-Way
Never My Love--Tony Charles
Gimme Little Sign--Slim Pikins
Gettin' Together--Sexton
To Sir with Love--Racheal Waters


Lee

Sunday afternoon gospel--"The Kitty Wells Family Gospel Sing" (1965)

 

Every day, I learn something new.  For instance, I'd have sworn that Kitty Wells' husband, Johnny Wright, was not the creator of William M. Golden's Where the Soul of Man Never Dies, Thomas A. Dorsey's Shake My Mother's Hand for Me, or J.W. Vaughan's The Old Country Church, but apparently he was.  I mean, a major label like Decca wouldn't lie, would it?  A disappointing but good-in-spots gospel LP by the Kitty Wells Family, one from which I was expecting a lot more, if only because the track listing includes classics like Glory Land March and Jesus Is Coming Soon.  But, in the latter case, it pays to read the fine print: This is not the unforgettable R.E. Winsett Coming Soon but a piece of fluff by one Bill Phillips.  And how can you go right with a title like Let's Regain the Garden?  You can't.  And I wish Roy Botkin hadn't wasted our listening time with A Family Gathering at Home and There's No Greater Time Than Now--Couldn't Decca have chosen a couple more P.D. classics to fill said space?  (And credit them to Kitty's hubby?)

But the good tracks almost make up for the filler titles--the spirited Glory Land March, an excellent Precious Memories, and three other genuine gospel goodies, including Thomas (Precious Lord, Take My Hand) Dorsey's Shake My Mother's Hand for Me.  I'm generally not big on mother songs when it comes to gospel, but at least this particular mother song, while falsely attributed, is the real gospel deal.  Five out of twelve ain't bad, though I still feel pretty let down.  I mean, this is Kitty Wells, her family, and the label is a major one, so we don't really expect such cheap tactics as borrowed credits and cliché-athon filler.  But so it goes, sometimes.

Now, that was a ringing endorsement, wasn't it?  Seriously, though, the five good tracks (Side 1-3, 5; Side 2--1, 2, 5) make this worth the download.  But, if you're me, you'll want to avoid the rest.

On the mp3 ID tags, I've given the proper author/composer credits.

DOWNLOAD: The Kitty Wells Family Gospel Sing (Decca DL 74679; 1965)

Jesus Is Coming Soon
A Family Gathering at Home
Where the Soul of Man Never Dies
Let's Regain the Garden
Shake My Mother's Hand for Me
Heaven
Glory Land March
Precious Memories
I'm on My Way
Thank God for a Mother Like Mine
(With My Friends At) Old Country Church
There's No Greater Time Than Now

The Kitty Wells Family Gospel Sing (Decca DL 74679; 1965)

Lee

An Hour of Tops in Pops (Allegro Royale 1389L; 1955?)--Rock Around the Clock; Two Hearts, Two Kisses; Don't Be Angry; more!

 

This is a significantly improved new version of the rip I featured in this 2018 post.  The fidelity isn't great (the LP has seen many plays), but gone is the muffled, low-detail quality, at least.  Three posts back, I featured another An Hour of Tops in Pops, though I forgot to include the "N" suffix with the catalog number.  The suffix on these issues (L, this time) is important, because the 1389 catalog number was the standard Hour of Tops in Pops identifier, with the suffixes presumably marking the editions.  This allowed Allegro Royale not only to conserve numbers but to reuse cover art.  Just as with 1389N, 1389L is missing the track listing on the cover, but this time the panel appears to have been deliberately removed (last time, Allegro Royale apparently simply forgot to print the info).  Why someone would remove the track listing, we'll never know--unless it was part of a threat, perhaps.  ("Play this thing one more time, and I'll remove the track listing!"  "Oh, yeah?  I'd like to see you try that!")

Some things are lost to time.  The fate of the paste-on track sticker for this LP will forever dwell in the Hall of Forgotten Fates.

The version of Rock Around the Clock which starts this record is identical to the Broadway label single by Jack Richards, and it's totally possible the rest of these tracks represent fakes swapped between Eli Oberstein and Broadway, as well.  Many or most of these probably also showed up on the Today's Records label.  With fake hits, it was a small world.  ("Can we use your fakes?"  "Sure.  Go ahead.")

The lead guitarist on Clock is to be commended for copying the original Danny Cedrone solo from the Haley original, something even the Comets' Frank ("Frannie") Beecher didn't attempt on stage, at least when it came to the lightning-fast half-step portion which ends it.  Whoever this guy was, he came very close to nailing it.  A lot of highly fun grown-up pop numbers here--Learnin' the Blues (Frank Sinatra, original), Hard to Get (Gisele MacKenzie, original), A Blossom Fell (Nat "King" Cole, orig.), and Heart (Eddie Fisher, orig.), plus the extremely annoying Honey-Babe (Art Mooney, orig.), which was unleashed on the 1955 Top 40 from the move Battle Cry, a film I'd only want to see for Gregory Walcott's role as a drill instructor.  And, besides Clock, there are two other rock and roll gems: Don't Be Angry and Two Hearts, Two Kisses.  It's interesting that neither number is done in a "pop" style--an indication that r&r was coming into its own, at least on the budget front.

So, is this an hour's worth of pops?  No, closer to 33 minutes.  So why did the Record Corp. of America title it "An Hour of..."?  What, you're asking me?

Oh, and Unchained Melody and A Blossom Fell contain periods of a high-pitched squealing that must have happened in the mastering process, or else which represent a defect in this particular pressing.  I tried different types of filtering, but with no luck.  Fortunately, the instances are fairly brief. 

To the fakes...

DOWNLOAD: An Hour of Tops in Pops (Allegro Royale 1389L; prob. 1955)

Rock Around the Clock
Learnin' the Blues
Hard to Get
Honey-Babe
Sweet and Gentle
Love Me or Leave Me
Unchained Melody
A Blossom Fell
Something's Gotta Give
Heart
Don't Be Angry
Two Hearts, Two Kisses

An Hour of Tops in Pops (Allegro Royale 1389L; prob. 1955)

Lee

Great Moments of Gospel Music: Dixie Echoes, Carl Story, Sego Bros. and Naomi, Sunshine Girls, more!

 

This 20-selection gospel special was mastered by no less than the Columbia Recording Studio, so I can't understand why they did such a bad job of it.  It took some work to level out the track volumes, but this material is generally of such a high quality, it was well worth the effort.  As ever, I had to remove some clicks "by hand" in my MAGIX program (after the file's trip through VinylStudio), but then I imagine the groove width on this vinyl was compressed a bit (assuming that's possible) to fit in all these numbers, which made the LP more susceptible to scratches.  Don't ask me what I mean by that, as my brain isn't clocking normally right now.  It's the high ragweed pollen count...  My body is filled with allergy meds, and I'm still sneezing.

Florida Boys, Sego Brothers and Naomi, Carl Story--how can we go wrong?  Answer: we can't.  Be on the ready for the extremely down-home singing of the McCormick Gospel Singers (Walking on Holy Ground), the not-quite-on-key bass voice solo that starts the Crusaders' Noah Built an Ark (prior to the terrific, upbeat harmony section), and the must-have-been-dubbed-from-vinyl fidelity of Just a Rose Will Do and Faith Is the Key (weren't J.T. Adams and the Men of Texas WORD artists?).  Today's label, Gospel Time Records, was a subsidiary of Spar Records, which explains the Spar look to the label (I love that sideways font!), and this thing has both a genuine culled-from-everywhere and sold-on-TV character to it, though there's no direct indication that this may have been a TV offer.  My favorite line from the notes: "Gospel music is simply an extension of the stories and the messages given to each of us in the biggest best selling book of all times, the BIBLE."  Okay.

Great Moments of Gospel was a series, I believe, and, in this case, the playlist is so delightful, I guess it doesn't matter from where Spar got its tracks.  Some were likely originally recorded by Spar, and others leased from elsewhere.  Who knows?  Just always remember that gospel music "is easy to understand and accept, because it is tied to the happiness as well as the trials and tribulations of living day to day."  This is a "Compatible" disc, which means it plays on both stereo and mono equipment, allegedly with equally excellent results.  But there may be a catch there.  The thing is, it's my understanding that monaural cartridges were bad news for stereo grooves, and because they were designed to "read" the horizontal groove plane only.  Now, I vividly recall my dad buying a stereo cart for our home's monaural, single-speaker rig in order to make things safe for playing stereo issues (in mono).  So, it may be that, Compatible or no, these Compatible records wouldn't have held up under a cartridge made for mono.  Maybe the missing qualifier is that you needed a stereo cart if you had mono gear.  Oh, well.  I'm not going to buy a mono cartridge to test things--I'll just take Spar's word.  That's the less expensive option.  No need to conduct a test.

To the budget (but first-rate) gospel...

DOWNLOAD: Great Moments of Gospel Music (Gospel Time 1017)

There's a God in Heaven--Sego Brothers and Naomi
The Richest Poor Man on Earth--Dixie Echoes
Noah Built an Ark--The Crusaders
Battle Hymn of the Republic--Florida Boys
Just a Rose Will Do--John Daniel Quartet
Peace of Mind--Georgians Quartet
The Whole World in His Hands--Wendy Bagwell and Sunliters
How Great Thou Art--Wally Fowler and the Oak Ridge Quartet
Ashamed--Sons of Song
Faith Is the Key--J.T. Adams and the Men of Texas
Oh Yes I'm Saved--Foggy River Boys
Heavenly Highway--Sunshine Girls
Above the Storm--Pine Ridge Boys
In That Old Fashion (sic) Home--Travelers Quartet
Hallelujah Amen--Clyde Beavers
Jesus Is Mine--Melody Men Quartet
The Lights of Glory--The Crusaders
Alone--Carl Story
Walking on Holy Ground--McCormick Gospel Singers
Rock of Love--Morris Family

Great Moments of Gospel Music (Gospel Time Records 5017; Spar Recording Studios)

Lee