I Thought YOU Were Buck!

Sorry about that post title - it's an inside joke that I couldn't resist which will make sense to only one person who reads this blog. But it does sort of reference at least the title of today's feature, which is: 

I JUST bought this record and could not wait to send it. It's a later-era Film City release from just after Rod (Rodd Keith) Rogers' string of releases ended. My best pal Stu (the recipient of this post's joke title) has somehow determined that the 3000 series of Film City releases are from 1966, and I have no reason to doubt him. Since that's right around when Rodd Keith appeared on Preview, it all makes sense. 

Anyway, we have Rodd's primary replacement here, Frank Perry, singing a song called "Buck Fever". And a most entertaining number it is, too, set to a bouncy backing with a shuffling drum setting and a fun story in the lyric. And there is a reference to a geoduck, which I'm guessing is the only time that bizarre creature was ever mentioned in a song-poem. But the best thing may be the sound effects - yes, SOUND EFFECTS - Spike Jones styled sound effects, yet - that punctuate the track. This was money well spent!

Download: Frank Perry and the Swinging Strings - Buck Fever

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On Buck Fever, Frank Perry got to work with the immortal "Swinging Strings". On the flip side,  "Will the Dreams I've Been Dreaming (Mean Nothing)", he is accompanied by the Film City Orchestra, sounding very much like the Swinging Strings. I wonder why. 

But while "Buck Fever" seems to pass by in but a moment, and I wish it had gone on longer, "Will the Dreams...", despite being only 22 seconds longer, seems to go on for about three days. I simply cannot stir up any enthusiasm for this record at all. Blech. 

Download: Frank Perry and the Film City Orchestra - Will the Dreams I've Been Dreaming (Mean Nothing)

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An Important Find: "The Revox Singers" AKA Rodd Keith and Friend

I have something outstanding for you today, and it's another piece of the Rodd Keith story which has not previously been identified as such. And I'm going to share it even though the A-side has been available, on a rarely watched YouTube posting, for eight years, because it's not even identified as Rodd's work, there. But I'll start with the b-side, which is the better of the two tracks anyway. 

It looks like someone named John Sullivan, presumably from Chicago or nearby (the listed zip code is one used solely for high volume P.O. boxes), hired Sandy Stanton's Film City company to provide the music, arrangement and performers for two of his songs. This was to be released on the tiny (perhaps one-release) Aladdin Records and credited to The Revox Singers.

Please note that Sandy Stanton used the same numbering system for ALL of his Film City offshoots, so that if his last Film City release was #2022, and he then put out something on his "Action Records" sub-label, that would be #2023 and the next Film City release would be #2024. I add this because the number on this disc, #4150, appears to be the highest number on a Film City related record ever found, and may well be the last Film City related product released. I am speculating more than a little, but there is certainly evidence to support this. I am, of course, happy to revise this if someone has other evidence. 

Anyway, Stanton clearly handed these lyrics off to Rodd Keith. His fingerprints are all over this record - particularly "These Things For Remembrance" - from the style of the Chamberlin arrangement to his voice in the mix, to the astonishingly complex and beautiful vocal arrangement - almost like the close harmonies of a Big Band singing group. 

A handful of people who know me very, very well, know that the only thing I like better in music than a close harmony dominant seventh chord is a close harmony major sixth chord. Sixth chords send me straight to heaven. I'm certain I've mentioned that here, before, as well. And this record is chock full of them. 

Rodd arranged this for multiple voices, sung by himself and a female accomplice. I am admittedly a dunce when it comes to the female voices of the standard MSR/Real Pros gang - for the most part, I just don't care - but my best pal Stu suggests this is Bobbi Blake. If so, it's another clue that this record came out at the end of Film City's days. 

Anyway, I consider this an almost otherworldly beautiful vocal performance, and find it to be an essential addition to the Rodd Keith canon. The words are sweet, too, but in terms of my enjoyment, very much an afterthought. See what you think: 

Download: The Revox Singers - These Things For Remembrance

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As mentioned, the flip side - which is the A-side, has been available for many years as part of The Vietnam War Song Project, run by a man named Justin, with whom I have corresponded many times regarding song-poems. He does excellent work. 

"The Woodstock Message" has only a secondary connection to Vietnam, but I get why he considered it part of the oeuvre. Again, it's a male/female duo, this time with fewer vocal overdubs in the mix, but still a nice, harmony laden number. 

And it certainly contains some nice ideas, suggestions and entreaties, which, sadly, have clearly not become the norm in the ensuing years, and the possibilities of which might be, just now, experiencing their dying gasps, given the news of the last few weeks, and especially, the news as I type this today. And I say that as someone who is usually the most optimistic person you'll ever meet. 

Download: The Revox Singers - The Woodstock Message

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Well, They Can't All Be Winners - Not Even When They're By Rodd Keith

 

Today, I thought I'd get another pair of previously unavailable Rodd Keith songs out there into the ether. In this case, he's heard in his guise as Rod Rogers with the Film City Orchestra. However, these tracks offer up the proof that even Rodd Keith had his fairly awful days. If you previously thought (assuming that you thought about it) that it wasn't possible to be lugubrious and unctuous at the same time, these two tracks should disabuse you of that notion. 

I'd offer up thought that "well, what could he have done with these lyrics", except that he did so much better, so many times, with equally unpromising lyrics. 

First up is "Never". The most interesting thing here, to me, is this: although the track is dominated, as Film City releases always were, by the Chamberlin, this particular track appears to also have a real live piano part on it, and not the "piano" as heard on the Chamberlin (which was, in today's parlance, a extremely canned "sample" of a piano). I don't remember hearing so much real piano on many Film City releases. 

Download: Rod Rogers with the Film City Orchestra - Never

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The flip side is "Francesca", the less said about which, the better. 

Download: Rod Rogers with the Film City Orchestra - Francesca

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A Texas Two-Fer

Today, we make another visit to the waning days of the great Film City label. This is number 4035 on the label, that label having started at #1000 and going to around # 4140, so this is late indeed. It's two releases up from Rod Rogers' great "Little Rug Bug", so there is quite the chance that Rodd Keith is also the Chamberlin master herein. And like several other releases in this numbering sequence, this record appeared on goldish-yellow vinyl. 

The singer is Jim Wheeler, about whom the less said the better, and the songs - both about Texas - represent a fairly rare occurrence in the land of song-poems, and that is, submissions by a songwriting team. Both of these song-poems were written by the same two-man team. Does that mean they wrote the words AND music (making this more of a vanity number), or just that they both wrote the "song-poem" lyrics. There's no way to know for sure, but these melodies and chords sound so traditionally "Film City-ish", that I'm betting these were traditional song-poem, with music by the Film City crew, and not a full submission of completed songs. 

The better of the two by a wide margin - better being very much a relative term here - is "Remember the Alamo". It is peppy, with a creative backing arrangement, a nicely structured "string section" solo and a lilting melody. And best of all, it doesn't wear out its welcome, ending in well under two minutes. 

But please, while everyone is remembering the Alamo, let's not forget that those fighting for America were on the wrong side of history: The battle at that time and place was really about trying to control Texas in order to allow those living there to have slaves, a practice that Mexico had outlawed. 

Download: Jim Wheeler and the "Swinging Strings" - Remember the Alamo

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I can muster up no enthusiasm for the flip side of this record. "The Beautiful Texas Waltz" goes on for roughly five days, or at least seems like it (it is actually just under twice the length of "Alamo". The word "dreary" comes to mind, which is unfortunate, as the song tells a happy story, and seems to have been designed to be a counterpoint to "The Tennessee Waltz", a song with a positive outcome. 

I'd also like to point out that both of these songs contain the weird feature - mentioned here from time to time - of songs which have a fade out, but then end before the face out is completed. Why fade a record out if you ended on a full stop? 

Download: Jim Wheeler and the 'Swinging Strings' - The Beautiful Texas Waltz

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An Easter Egg For You - A Rare Rodd Keith Album from Australia - COMPLETE!

First, let me just say that there are some things going on in my personal life which may - or may not - impact just how much time I have to give to sharing and writing here for the next month or more. If there are fewer posts, I hope it is only for this month and next. 

But TODAY, I have something ultra rare and exciting: An entire album that Rodd Keith produced, under the Film City umbrella but clearly with more money and options, for a song-writer in Australia, and released in Australia on a legitimate Australian label - W & G records. 

The existence of this album has long been known, and its contents are duly related on the Film City page of the song-poem website - although that listing shows that the album was released domestically by Film City. But I can't find that its contents have ever been shared online. My copy is the Australian release, obtained from a friendly Australian record dealer named Michael. Thanks a million, Michael!

The album is called "Island Songs of the Great Barrier Reef", and indeed, all twelve songs are about Hayman Island and the surrounding areas. 

I am fairly certain that this entire album is a song-poem/vanity hybrid album, and that these are songs written - music and words - by the listed songwriters: Reg Hudson for the first song, and John Ashe for all the others. The tunes are quite pedestrian, for the most part, although some have a nice, and appropriate, South Pacific type of lilt. But none of them have the sort of tune-writing excellence I would associate with Rodd Keith. 

What they DO have, though, is embellishment. This is Rodd Keith working with at least a somewhat larger budget than he usually had, particularly at Film City, where he was usually a one-man band. Not only is there a female singer heard nearly throughout the album - heard, in fact, virtually as much as Rodd himself - as well as both a female chorus and a mixed chorus on other songs. There are also horns playing here and there - a sax solo on the first, song, for example, and a veritable Dixieland combo playing on the fourth song on side two, South Molle Memories. In addition, there is clearly a "real" piano being played over the Chamberlin backing on a few tracks. 

And despite the bland nature of the tunes, Rodd's musicianship, vocal chops and particularly, genius for arrangement, shine through over and over again. 

Below are files containing each of the two sides, with no attempt made to separate the tracks, followed by photos of the album and the labels. 

I have NOT listened to the files I made of this album - I listened to it first before making the files, and as I said, I'm a bit busy just now. If there are any glitches, let me know and I will fix them. 

I hope you receive this with as much excitement and enthusiasm as I had in receiving it. 

Download: Rod Rogers with the Tropic Island Serenaders - Island Songs of the Great Barrier Reef, Side One

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Download: Rod Rogers with the Tropic Island Serenaders - Island Songs of the Great Barrier Reef, Side Two

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A Hendrix Christmas

That's Bill Hendrix, of course, the famous.... well, I don't know who he was, actually. 

Anyway, I promised y'all a Christmas vanity/song-poem hybrid last week, and here I am to provide it! The aforementioned Bill Hendrix clearly paid his money and got to perform two songs of his own creation, with the help from the ol' Film City Chamberlin, which I'm fairly certain was played here by Rodd Keith. 

The first side, "Sharing Christmas With You" is actually a it of an outlier, as it starts with what is clearly a flourish on a real, honest to goodness guitar, one of the rare examples of a non-Chamberlin instrument being heard on a Film City (or related) release. Note that the Chamberlin (with the additional few seconds of guitar here and there) is identified as an "Orchestra and Chorus". Not hardly. 

I find this song something of a dirge, and a long dirge at that. He does not sound nearly as excited about the title prospect as I think a guy ought to, given the words he's singing. My guess is it was meant to sound like a romantic, 1940's style holiday standard, but I'm not much of a fan of those either, and this one seems to be threatening to slow to a stop at any moment. The backing track is skillfully done, for what it is, but it's a drag, too. 

Download: Bill Hendrix and Orchestra and Chorus - Sharing Christmas With You

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After a far from promising, downright smarmy opening 25 seconds, "I Wish I Was Santa Claus" proves to be a major improvement on the flip side, bouncing along with another creative - and much more enjoyable - backing arrangement, although it doesn't come close to matching Ringo Starr's similar named wish-in-song. 

Still, it's an improvement on the A-side and a typical entry into the "if I ran the world" type song. 

Download: Bill Hendrix and Orchestra and Chorus - I Wish I Was Santa Claus

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Now, if you've been hanging around my blogs for more quite a while, you know that my family tries to create a funny Christmas card - we've done it every year except for one over the past fifteen years or so. If you've seen all of those I posted here, then you've gotten to see my kids grow and change, the addition of our son-in-law, and my wife and I get older and older. Here is this year's entry: 

Patty Payne's Pain

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!!

Let's celebrate with two weepers from the waning days of Film City!

This record's label number os 4120, just 25 lower than the highest numbered Film City disc documented. And it features one Patty Payne (along with the ubiquitous "Swinging Strings", who does not show up on any other listed release on the label. There were a few discs by Patty Stanton (presumably a relative of label boss Sandy Stanton), but this doesn't sound like her, to me. 

Patty Payne has a nice aching quality to her voice, and I wouldn't be surprised if she made other song-poem records (or perhaps even legit records) under another name. Perhaps someone out there with more of an ear for the female singers of song-poems can suggest if this is the case. 

And these two songs are definite downers - especially side one, "Don't Hang Up Now". The singer is calling an ex, "one last time", and spends the call running down how hurt she is, how she's prayed for him to change, and all of the chances she's give him. That's weepy enough, but in the last verse of this nearly four minute (!) song-poem we learn the tragic reason why this is absolutely the last time he'll hear from her.    

(By the way, whoever was playing the Chamberlin for the label, by this point, did not have skills anywhere near those of Rodd Keith. The arrangement is pedestrian and really clunky at times, even for a Chamberlin.)

Download: Patty Payne with the "Swinging Strings" - Don't Hang Up Now

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The flip side is perhaps not quite as tragic, but also, not coincidentally, was written by the same song-poet. Perhaps she was the first person named on this page. 

Anyway, in "Daddy's Found a New Love", well... Daddy has found a new love. And Mommy is talking to Daddy about how hard it will be to have to tell her children all about the situation, and how the children are missing him. Along the way, she mentions some of the things she's heard about the new love - both good (her looks) and bad (how she treats men). 

This side of the record is beat to hell, by the way. The song quality is nearly as bad as any record I've ever shared here. 

Download: Patty Payne with the "Swinging Strings" - Daddy's Found a New Love

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Dorothy and Mary

 Greetings! 

I don't have a lot to blather on about today - I just thought I'd go back into the archives and find a Rodd Keith Film City release which doesn't appear to have ever made it onto the internet before. So that's what I did: 

Song-Poet John Murynski's name does not show up in the AS/PMA website (and neither does this single), so these could possibly be his only two submissions to such a company. And both of the songs contain the names of women in their titles. 

Both of these are sort of Middle-of-the-Road, mid-tempo numbers. Rodd is, of course, heard here is his guise as "Rod Rogers", with his one man Chamberlin band identified, as it so often was, as "The Swinging Strings". First up is "Dorothy". It's pretty standard issue for Rodd, but, as is so often the case, I have great admiration for what Rodd did with the various setting and voicings of the Chamberlin: 

Download: Rod Rogers and the Swinging Strings - Dorothy

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Turning the record over, we encounter "Goodbye Mary", in which a sailor bids his love farewell until some unknown future date (betcha she doesn't know about the flip side, in which he's trying to find "Dorothy"). Rodd really sells this one - summoning as much smarmy sincerity as Paul Anka, only with a much better voice.   

Download: Rod Rogers and the Swinging Strings - Goodbye Mary

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Dora Foley Has Something to Say

Today, I have one of Rodd Keith's earliest song-poem releases, just the 41st (or so) entry on his first label, Film City (and, of course, not all of those 41 (or so) were even Rodd Keith records. That was what I initial found to be most interesting about this record. But once I listened closer to it, I found something else of even more interest. 

For this record's lyricist, Dora Foley, clearly knew hew way around writing. The lyrics to "Don't Cry Too Loud" are an extremely effective character study AND a put down of a former lover. Now, I will add that I don't necessarily think that the words to "Don't Cry Too Loud" were all that great of a match for a musical backing. Consider this couplet, probably the one really ill conceived line in the piece: 

You're so blasé now 

with all your drinking

There's only so much that even Rodd Keith could do with that. And he did attach it to a pretty durn turgid setting (one thing the "strings" on this track are not doing is "swinging"). But as a piece of poetry and a put down, I quite enjoyed Ms. Foley's composition. 

Download: Rod Rogers with the Swinging Strings - Don't Cry Too Loud

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The flip side, also written by Ms. Foley, contains a lyric which is much more suited to a musical backing, at lteast to these ears. And again, I think this is a fairly good little set of lyrics. Fleshed out with a few more verses, I think one would be hard pressed to discern these words as being those of a song-poem submission, as opposed to those from a record meant to be plugged as a potential hit. Note that I'm speaking of the lyrics here, and not the fairly cookie-cutter (and mechanized) supper club backing that Rodd provided for it. 

And hey, here's another one of those records which fades out, but then ends before the fade out is complete!

Download: Rod Rogers with the Swinging Strings - Mine to Forget

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They've Got English Beatle-Itis!!!

Well, what a fascinating little disc I've come across in my collection today. It's one of the earliest releases on the Film City label, and is credited to the otherwise undocumented duo of Pat and Patty. Patty is almost certainly Patty Stanton, a relative of Fable and Film City owner Sandy Stanton, and who turns up on about a half-dozen known releases on the two labels. Is Pat just Patty, overdubbing herself, or is she someone else? 

Regardless, and although it's not given away at all by the rather bland titled, "Young Hearts Can Cry", this track is actually all about the way young women of that day felt about The Beatles. Or at least I think it is. I have listened to this thing five times, and I can't quite make out the basic idea? It seems like maybe they're asking the Beatles to go away - that young women are unhappy in ways they didn't used to be, since the unattainable Beatles showed up. If so, it's sort of the female version of one of my two favorite song-poems ever, "The Beatle Boys" (also on Film City), in which a young man complains that all the girls want to do these days is pine over the Beatles. 

But maybe I have that wrong. I'd love to hear what others thing this sort of contrived lyric is going for. And while I'm not saying that this is the equal to "The Beatle Boys" (precious few records are), but it's a pretty fascinating little song and performance in its own right, with a weirdly meandering melody and those dang lyrics. Have a listen! 

Download: Pat and Patty - Young Hearts Can Cry

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The other side of this disc has actually been on YouTube for a few years now, but it's only been viewed twenty-some times, and bizarrely, with "Young Heart Can Cry" available, the poster only chose to feature the flip side, "Blue Heart". 

This is a deep dive into the song-poem world, but the melody that the folks at Film City chose for this song reminds me of nothing so much as the repetitive and sing-songy tunes favored by William Howard Arpaia. I haven't posted enough of his stuff here to indicate what I'm talking about (and there's a reason for that - it's bottom of the barrel stuff without being entertainingly bad), but if you listen to the piano playing the melody while Arpaia himself talks himself into a lather on this track, you might hear what I'm talking about. 

Download: Pat and Patty - Blue Heart

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And now, back to cut-ups. Not long ago at all, my best pal Stu suggested that I really needed to do something with the record "Popcorn and a Coke Please", by Acoustifone, which I posted to WFMU's blog ages ago. It is a record meant to go along with a filmstrip, the purpose of which was to assist some population of young people with spelling. You can hear the whole thing, here, and I encourage you to listen to at least part of it to get a sense of what I was working with, when I chopped it up. 

For my re-imagining, which I did while I had some unexpected time off this past spring, I ended up doing two fairly distinct segments. In the first part, I simply created silliness, and at times gibberish, out of the various things the narrator said. Then, at the 1:25 point, I took it in a more, um, carnal direction, where it stays for the last 70 seconds. 

Download: "Coke-Corn" (cut-up)

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A Little Golden Record About Hippies

 Greetings!

I hope it's warmer where you are than where I am. But not over 75 degrees. I don't like that, either...

I will get to today's feature in a moment, and will also, by request, start sharing more of my "Cut-Up" tapes, but first: 

I discovered a couple of days ago that I skipped over "fixing" two posts from 2007, and so I have corrected those, as well as one post from 2006. There are now barely 20 more posts that need to be overhauled. And from here on out, almost all the posts I'll be repairing actually never had files in them before. That's because, for the first 18 months or so, I was uploading tracks to an e-mail account and giving out the password so that anyone could get in and download them. In fixing all of those early posts, I will be doing the same as I've been doing all along in repairing of posts, and putting in a play feature and a download feature.  

For today, I have correctly those two posts from October of 2007, one featuring a Rudy Vallee 78 that I just love, and the other featuring a musical mystery which I wrote about much more extensively at WFMU about a year later. I have yet to get an answer to any of the mysteries contain in the post here or at WFMU, so if you have an answer, by all means, let me know!

Going back even earlier, I also updated my final post from June of 2006, which featured a novelty record about beer, which was fairly obscure at the time, but has had multiple postings to YouTube in the years since, often incorrectly credited to Thurl Ravenscroft. 

~~

Today's feature is a very late period Film City release, on some truly gorgeous translucent gold vinyl.

The performer - Jimmy Allen - is not credited elsewhere on the label, or anywhere else in the song-poem database, and both songs are credited to a team of three writers. Both of these facts might serve to indicate that this a vanity release, but I don't think so. A "Jimmie Allen" shows up on a Rodd Keith production on the Kondas label, and one of the writers - Frank Parkins - seems likely to be the same person as a Francis Parkins who had a song produced for him on the Vellez label. So I think it's a song-poem while accepting that it might be more of a vanity release, something Film City did with some regularity, simply providing Chamberlin backing for the composer/performer's song and performance. 

Anyway, whatever its history, these songs are worth hearing, particular "Hip, Hip, Hippy". This is the rare song-poem which talks about the Hippies, and has nothing but good to say about them, and in fact dismisses the thoughts of those who look down on them. Now, I've listened to this track four times today, and the only positive attribute being described is that hippies aren't tied down, and like to go where the road takes them. That doesn't strike me as good or bad thing in and of itself. However, there's no missing the feelings behind: 

"The hip, hip hippy's not so dip, dip, dippy as the whole world thinks he is"

The clumsy edit at the 1:02 mark is a wonder of incompetence, by the way. 

If you have a thought about this records provenance, leave a comment!

Download: Jimmy Allen with "New Sounds From Hollywood" - Hip, Hip, Hippy

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The flip side, "Trina Bird", is no slouch, either. Sounding extremely similar to the track behind, "Hip, Hip, Hippy", this song is a tribute to an apparently quite winsome teenage girl of the protagonist's acquaintance. And apparently Trina likes the singer just as much. 

Download: Jimmy Allen with "New Sounds From Hollywood" - Trina Bird

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Oh, and I meant to point out - and before I could even come back in here and type it up, Sammy Reed beat me to it (see the comments!) - both of these tracks have the odd feature, which I've commented on with a few other records, of featuring a fade out, but ending with a final chord before the fade out finishes. Very strange. 

~~~

And now....

Recently, I linked back to a very old post in which I'd shared two of my "cut-ups", tracks made in which I played around with the sounds and lyrics of favorite songs, replacing lyrics with words or lyrics from other recordings, or simply messing around with the sounds of a track. 95% of more of those "cut-ups" that I have, I made as a young adult, while in college and/or single, and with a LOT of time on my hands, doing all of the edits on a cassette recorder which had a very effective pause button. 

My "cut-up" work slowed to a crawl in 1985, when I met my then-future wife, and started working full time, and had stopped altogether by 1988, when we got married. Ah, to have that sort of free time again. I've made perhaps two dozen such playful tracks in the years since, mostly using computer software.

Anyway, I heard from someone named Douglas who wanted to hear more. Actually, if I understood correctly, it sounded like one of those shares from the earlier post was going to get played on the radio! Thank you very much!

In response, I will share some more. Today, one of the few that does not actually feature the sounds of a lot of different tracks, but mostly (except for the last two seconds), just a rearranging of the sounds of one track, in this case, "Twist and Shout" by the Beatles. 

I consider this a hell of a lot of fun, especially starting at the 0:30 second point.

Download: The Beatles - Twist and Shout (cut-up)

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Hewstan. Guy Hewstan

Hello, and Happy August 8th - Happy Birthday, Paul! Thanks for sharing my song-poem obsession - and so very very much more, more than I could possibly capture - across the years of our friendship. 

~~

Before getting to anything else, I want to thank a few people. First, there is frequent correspondent Tyler, who takes particular joy in Halmark releases, and who was the main driver behind my posting of the full Halmark album from a few weeks ago.  First, Tyler makes the argument that ALL of the tracks on the album are the work of the vocalist usually credited as Bob Storm. I'd be interested to hear what others think of this, but I'm going to trust his ears over my own, due to his adoration of this stuff, unless someone has a competing argument. 

But more importantly, and interestingly to me, Tyler has located a newspaper page which contains an advertisement for this album. The page can be found here. You have to buy an account with that site to see the actual page, but if you click the button reading "Show page 22 article text", it will show you the entire page's text, unformatted. And there you will find: 

THE MERCY DROPS ALBUM WRITTEN BY JOE CARMEN OF LAPEL, IND.

All new songs with fabulous and different assortment of music and arrangements.

We guarantee you will be wel! pleased.

If after hearing this album you are not entirely satisfied we wilt promptly return your money.

PROMPT MAILING, POSTAGE PAID BY US.

SEND CASH, CHECK M.O., OR C.O.D. FINEST IN QUALITY. 

SEND ONLY $ 2.00 Manufacturer's Suggested Price $4.98 and up.

send TO: HALMARK RECORDS 1127 Fore! Street Lapel, Indiana

It's pretty clear to me that Mr. Carmen used the Halmark people for his vanity project, bought a bunch of copies, and then tried to sell them himself, as the address above is nowhere near Halmark's actual home base in Massachusetts. A fascinating little find - Thank you Tyler!

~~~

I also want to give a much overdue thank you to a long time song-poem friend, one who has been known to comment frequently. 

I missed the chance to link to his own song-poem 45 site, when he was posting to it briefly, but I didn't want to wait another moment to link to another neat site that he has, one at which he has posted the lyrics to some of the more particularly lyrically appealing and/or weird song-poem songs. There are nearly 50 lyrics captured at his site, which is here. Thank you, sir!

~~

My correcting of formerly broken posts has taken me all the way back to August of 2009, just a dozen short years ago this month! And as it happens, August of 2009 was the month in which I shared the highest number of posts I've ever done in one month - a total of eight posts. 

At that point, my involvement with WFMU was still new, and I was periodically sharing things that interested me, apart from song-poems, from time to time. Soon after, all of those subjects would migrate to the WFMU blog, including reposts of some of the things I posted in the first eight months of 2009. 

Anyway, during that month, I posted a particularly horrendous Halmark release, a fun Norm Burns record, an example of rank plagiarism on a Gene Marshall number, another Gene Marshall release featuring two tunes with ridiculously contrived titles, and a particularly rare EP on the tiny Princess label, featuring Rodd Keith, Frank Perry and Singing Jimmy Drake (better known as Nervous Norvis). 

But in addition to those five posts, that August also saw two posts featuring favorite 45's of mine, an old favorite called "Dancing Tambourine", and a then-new favorite from The Allison Sisters. Finally, that month also saw the death of one of my few musical heroes, Les Paul, and I offered up a post in his honor, here. 

~~

And now: 

Up until this month, I'd only ever heard one record by Guy Hewstan, whose name I had either mistakenly read as (or mistakenly was told to be) Gus Hewstan. That record was "My Point of View", and it is among my top 25 song poems of all time. And, as luck would have it, it was provided to me by the aforementioned song-poem pal, many many years ago. You can hear that track here. 

Guy Hewstan apparently made very few records for Film City, as his name was never recorded at the now mothballed AS/PMA website. I have gone back to the other posts where I shared "My Point of View" and changed the name, although the links will still read "Gus". 

Anyway, when I found there was another record by Mr. Hewstan for sale, I made an effort to obtain it, sound unheard. I received it this week, and while it's no match for "My Point of View", I still want to share it, in order to get another singer, and another sound, documented on this site. 

The better of the two sides is "A Little Confused". Musically, this is actually a cousin of "Point of View", with a similar chord structure, and the same rhythmic feel, if not the in-your-face over the top-ness of the previously shared number. No great shakes, but a pleasant listen. 

Download: Gus Hewstan with "New Sounds from Hollywood" - A Little Confused

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The flip side, "Time" is sort of a dirge, a slow waltz with lyrics which are at times ponderous and at others quite prosaic. And it's all tied together with a far less creative Chamberlin backing. 

Download: Guy Hewstan with "New Sounds from Hollywood" - Time

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More Song-Poem Thievery

 Howdy!

Before getting to today's ridiculous song-poem release, I'm happy to reveal that I have now completed the upgrade of yet another year of old posts, in that for today, I have "fixed" the posts for January of 2010. This means we have just twelve months of posts to fix in order to have all of the posts (that is, all those since I made this a primarily song-poem blog) corrected!

Specifically, for January of 2010, these include a terrible Real Pros record, a typical early Rodd Keith Preview label release, a dance record titled "Chicken Neck Boogie", and a wonderfully idiosyncratic Tin Pan Alley record, featuring one song about Shoes and another about Tin Cans. 

And NOW, it's time for more plagiarism!!!

One of the things that consistently amazes and fascinates me, while collecting and listening to song-poems, falls under the broad category of "people who submitted, as their own work, something someone else already wrote". 

In the past, I have shared records "written by" someone who submitted the lyrics to the hit song "Watching Scotty Grow", changing a few things here and there, including than the name of the child, and two someones who, in one case, submitted amended lyrics to the 1949 song "Nobody's Child" (a post not yet "fixed") and in the other, submitted the lyrics to "Ruby (Don't Take Your Love to Town)" with barely a word changed. I even have a Halmark release - which I haven't shared - in which some jamoke submitted the words to The Lord's Prayer, verbatim, and claimed a writer's credit. 

Today's example seems of a piece with those, even if its construction is a little different. The song involved may have faded from public memory in the last 50 years, but I'm guessing that in 1965 or so - the era when this record was made - the vast majority of Americans knew the 1897 song "Asleep in the Deep", and at the very least could hum along to parts of it. 

The author of today's masterwork - "Beware Take Care" - simply rewrote the seafaring ballad along a religious line, making fear and caution in the face of God the subject, instead of fear and caution in the face of the roiling sea. Some lines from the original are quoted verbatim, others are changed slightly to fit the new topic, and a few are re-written completely.  

But then the "lyricist" made the theft obvious, by - I'm assuming - asking Film City to set the lyrics to the tune of "Asleep in the Deep", leaving out only the two (title) lines at the end of the chorus. The result - made all the more disconcerting by Rodd Keiths ultra-lugubrious performance - is utterly weird, off kilter and, to my ears, irresistible. 

You can read the original lyrics here, and follow along with the new ones as you listen.

I am utterly unable to comprehend the motivation here - if the song-poet proudly put on this record and said to friends and family "I wrote that", the response would almost certainly have been embarrassed silence, or maybe a blunt, "um, no... you didn't" from someone with less tact.  

Download: Rod Rogers and the Film City Orchestra and Chorus - Beware Take Care

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The flip side, "Chehalis Valley", is a pleasant midtempo shuffle, written in tribute to an area in Washington State, including glowing words about the physical beauty of the area, the niceness of the people therein, and the wonderful activities one can partake in. Rodd created a very nice music bed for this one. 

Download: Rod Rogers and the Film City Orchestra and Chorus - Chehalis Valley

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One of Rodd Keith's Earliest Song-Poem Records

Well, Howdy-Doo!

We are rapidly approaching the point at which all of the song-poem entries on this site will have been "fixed" - I have now corrected March of 2010, meaning that there are only 14 months of entries left to correct, since I began the "Song-Poem of the Week" project, some 12 and a half years ago. There are a handful of earlier posts I will also correct in do time, but the main project here has been to reconnect all of the song-poem postings with their original files. 

Specifically, today,.in fixing March of 2010, I have resurrected these posts: an Irish specialty offered up by a Tin Pan Alley singer who always went by "Lance", Dick Kent singing about "Ole Dirty Face" on a Cinema release, a vanity project involving Sandy Stanton's Film City label, by the one and only Stich Stampfel, and a record from the Globe company on a tiny label - a record where my original text had some major errors, which I have now corrected. 

And now, here's something special for today: 

So far as I know, Sandy Stanton's hiring of Rodd Keith for work at his Film City label, marked Rodd's entry into the song-poem world. And I think that fact makes this record (along with a few others I've shared) quite notable. According to its label number, and a variety of information available at the Film City page (and related pages) at the AS/PMA website, this record is probably one of Rodd's first dozen and a half song-poems under his own pseudonym. He is likely on at least another dozen as the Chamberlin player, as well. See the notes after the second side of this record for more information on really early Rod Rogers on Film City tracks. 

What's clear from today's tracks (and the ones linked below) is that Rodd Keith arrived at Film City with his talents fully developed, and that it took him virtually no time to get up to speed with the Chamberlin. Today's lead track, a mid-tempo thing called "Hide and Seek", has a lovely backing track, complete with strings, choral-ish and sax-ish flavoring, and best of all, some fake, picked lead guitar, playing an intricate melody throughout and in a lead solo section. Top it all off with a sweet, effective harmonized vocal, and you have a nice little one man band song-poem record.  

Download: Rod Rogers with the Swinging Strings - Hide and Seek

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The flip side, "September Wind" has many of the same features, although admittedly in the service of a style of song which doesn't do much for me. But even in a record which I find less than scintillating, I still admire the work that went into it. What you're hearing here would be easy to do today in a matter of minutes, using Midi, and sound more accurate, but given what he was using, and that it was brand new to him, I think this is a rather amazing, and the flip side much more so. 

Download: Rod Rogers with the Swinging Strings - September Wind

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As promised, here is some more information about Rodd Keith's earliest days at Film City and in the song-poem world: 

I featured the record immediately before this one (in terms of label number) almost ten years ago, here, and an even earlier one in 2013, which can be heard here. I shared a truly horrific vanity record from the label, which likely features Rodd on Chamberlin, back at WFMU, which is an even earlier release, and which can be found here. And the lowest numbered Film City disc in my collection, number 1012, is a wonderfully atmospheric record which also clearly reflects the magic of Rodd on Chamberlin. I posted it in 2013, and it can be heard here. 

Tragic Song Poem

Well, it's been two weeks without a post - that's almost entirely due to me being a political junkie of sorts, and spending most of my free time obsessively watching the pre- and post-election news. And all I can say is... that's a relief...

Anyway, I have again updated a previous month's worth of posts, and not only does this mean I've completed the "fixing" of another year - 2012 is done, now, with the completion of January - but that January featured a bumper crop of song-poem records - twelve of them in all - so those who weren't reading/listening back then have, as of today, 14 new sides to listen to! Yay!

Among the posts I have rehabbed are: A Bobbi Blake record on MSR, an incomprehensible song sung by Norm Burns, a set of two early Preview offerings from Rodd Keith, a New Year's Day post from Sammy Marshall, and an impossibly rare and fascinating acetate from the pen of Norridge Mayhams, certainly the latter being my favorite of the bunch. 

And now....

It's back to Film City and the world of Rodd Keith in his Rod Rogers persona. Today's first offering is a tragic tale, perhaps inspired by all the teen tragedy records which peppered the charts in the first half of the 1960's. It's called "Lisa", and rarely has the appellation "Swinging Strings" seemed less appropriate to tie into the song being performed, than it does of the tale of a groom-to-be describing the scene as everyone learns that there is to be no wedding, and why. "Rod Rogers and the Dreary Strings and Woodwinds" would be more accurate. 

Oh, and the phrase "hit broadside" has to be among the least musical combinations of words I've ever heard in a song - song-poem or otherwise - although I do enjoy the fact that "broadside" is then rhymed with "bride". 

Download: Rod Rogers and the Swinging Strings - Lisa

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On the flip side is a much brighter, shuffling, sun-shiny number titled "I Want Only You Sweetheart". The music is a bit deceiving - the protagonist of the song is suffering from a distrusting gal pal, and it's not clear if he's succeeding in convincing her of his trustworthiness. I greatly enjoy the backing track that Rodd put together for this one. 

Download: Rod Rogers and the Swinging Strings - I Want Only You Sweetheart

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When "Your" Ready - Be My Steady

Good Day, Y'all!

As usual, I have re-purposed another month's worth of posts, in this case, posts from exactly eight years ago this month, August of 2012. What a different world it was then. 

I actually made five posts that month - those were the days - and have repaired all of them. These include: A scratchy but very enjoyable Norm Burns record, a Sammy Marshall record with a very famous title, a Mike Thomas/Tin Pan Alley special with a ridiculous title, one of the last couple of records (and a terrible one, too) put out my Norridge Mayhams, and a bouncy, countrified Rodd Keith and the Raindrops number. 

And speaking of Rodd Keith: 

It has been quite a while since I featured Rodd Keith, in any of his guises, and that's why I turned to my pile of Roddeliciousness and selcted a platter from around 1964 or 1965. "When Your (sic) Ready - Be My Steady" features a frothy Chamberlin track, a Rodd-and-Rodd duet, and some cutesy lyrics that feature all of the most obvious rhymes possible.

An interesting sidelight here is that the song-poet, who wrote both sides of this record, covered up the publishing information with his own name. It's also not clear to me at all why they wouldn't have chosen to correct the song-poet's spelling...

Download: Rod Rogers and the Swinging Strings - When Your Ready - Be My Steady
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The flip side, "Harbor of Love" is a down-tempo thing, which drags on and on, seeming to be much more than the 30 seconds longer than it is, compared to its fun flip side. This is only moderate on the Unctuous-Rodd scale, but it's too far up that ladder for my tastes.

Download: Rod Rogers and the Swinging Strings - Harbor of Love
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Making Due with Just a Few

Greeting!

First up, here is yet another Song-Poem ad, courtesy of Brian. This one is just a little blurry:

Next, I will share the latest month's worth of updates to previous broken links, which in this case are for February of 2013. That month featured a split feature on a vanity label called Patmar, a Real Pros record where I seem to have misidentified the singers on both sides of the disc, a Valentine's post from Halmark, and a Rodd Keith countrified number.

And speaking of Rodd Keith, he is featured again today, in his earlier guise as Rod Rogers and the Swinging Strings. On this Film City release, he does a typically nice job creating a music bed with the Chamberlin, but two things stand out for me in this performance.

The first is that the song-poet has not provided Film City with enough lyrics for a two minute song, perhaps not even enough for a one minute song. After an initial verse, we are treated to elements of the same, remaining lyrics for the last 90 seconds of the song, expanded nicely with multiple instrumental breaks.

The other is that those lyrics that are present seem to have presented Rodd with little chance to format them into a typical song or chord pattern. To my ear, after that opening verse, the lyrics come out of him seemingly at random, with little sense of consistent or memorable melody or, really, much of a coherent chord structure. I'm not sure he could have done much better, given what he was offered, but this really sounds tossed-off.

It's worth noting that this is one of the highest numbered Rod Rogers records on Film City. Publishing information I found in a web search dates the copyright on the song to December of 1968, which is actually after I thought he'd moved to Preview, and his name disappears from the Film City label less than 100 numbers later (although one of my all time favorites from Rodd, "The Watusi Whing-Ding Girl" came even later in his tenure).

Download: Rod Rogers and the Swinging Strings - You Stole My Heart Cupid
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As more indication that Rodd was on the way out the door, the flip side of this record is performed by Rodd's eventual replacement, Frank Perry (indeed, this record number is a full 80 releases prior to anything by Perry documented at AS/PMA). The offering here is a downright torpid number - I doubt that's Rodd on the Chamberlin - in which even the song-poet doesn't seem to have known how to spell his loved one's name, given the confusing title: "Lea, My Leah". There aren't a ton of lyrics to this one, either.

Download: Frank Perry and the Swinging Strings - Lea, My Leah
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Wish Upon a Kiss

Howdy, 

First, I want to confirm that I have fixed up another month's worth of posts from the past, in this case, December of 2013. That was a month filled primarily with Christmas and New Years-related song-poems, including ones by Sammy Marshall (an acetate!), Halmark, Norm Burns, and a thoroughly wonderful one by a child named Beth Anne Hayes. There was also a non-holiday post featuring Rodd Keith - ten re-connected song-poems for you to enjoy!

And, as promised, here is another song-poem ad located by Brian Kramp, who had me on his podcast earlier this month. This one advertises a business in Tarzana, CA: 

~~

Something very odd happened this week. I had previously - in the middle of January - made a sound file of a Film City record featuring Frank Perry on one side and another singer on the other side, intending to use it for my next post. And as I always do, I did a web search to make sure I wasn't sharing something readily available elsewhere. No significant hits popped up. When I went to write this post, I rechecked, just in case I hadn't before, and wonder of wonders, my friend Darryl Bullock had, in the meantime, shared the exact record I was going to put up here in mid-February, on his "World's Worst Records" blog. What are the chances that we'd both grab the same record in the same month? Anyway, you can hear that record here. 

~~

So I went back to the Film City stack and found another Frank Perry record, and I'm glad I did, because I get a real kick out of the lyrics to both sides of the record, in different ways. 

The first side I'm including there, "Wish Upon a Kiss", has what strikes me a very clever set of lyrics for its chorus, with the quick phrasing of several similar words into a catchy tongue twister which works both on that level and as an observation about a moment in one's life. The verses are only so-so, but Frank Perry does a good job with the material and the whole thing "works" for me. 

Download: Frank Perry and the "Swinging Strings" - Wish Upon a Kiss

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On the flip side is a song that creates a completely different mood, written by the same song-poet. It's called "Empty Pockets", and its words sure paint a picture. The Chamberlin does not do this tender, sad ballad style any favors, but I have to say, I find the lyrics to this song truly affecting. They are clunky here and there, but mostly, they are a significant step above what is usually heard on a song-poem, but with real backing and better production, I'd probably have been convinced that this was a legitimate attempt at a hit. It's even the rare 3 1/2 minute song-poem that doesn't seem to go on too long.

I really enjoy both sides of this record.

Download: Frank Perry with the "Swinging Strings - Empty Pockets
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