Birth of Bebop and Blues

Remington 10" record featuring early recordings of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillepie backing a second rate blues singer Rubberlegs Williams, as well as 4 sides featuring Roy Eldridge, Red Norvo, Slam Stewart and Cozy Cole. There's no information on the liner notes, all session info about this album was found here.

The Birth of Bebop and Blues

Remington R-1031

SIDE 1:

Heard But Not Seen
The Beat
Bouncy
What's the Matter Now

Dizzy Gillespie(one source says Roy Eldridge) (tr), Charlie Parker (alto), Slam Stewart (b), Cozy Cole (dr), Red Norvo (vibes), Clyde Hart (p), J.C. Heard (dr), Clyde Hart and Timmie Rosenkrantz Orchestras

SIDE 2:

That's The Blues
I Want Every Bit Of It
4 F Blues

Dizzy Gillespie (tr), Charlie Parker (alto), Don Byas (tenor), Trummy Young (tr), Clyde Hart (p), Mike Bryan (guitar), Al Hall (cl), Specs Powell (dr), "Rubberlegs" Williams Orchestra

Too Much Pizazz, My Head Hurts

Holy cripe, this album is still in print? Well, after you hear the Four Coins version of "Ting-a-Ling Telephone" I'm QUITE certain you will be compelled to go out and purchase a nicely cleaned up version of this song. The rest of the album is an over-the-top pizazz-a-thon which was pretty irritating to me (tho I have a very low pizazz tolerance, it's a medical condition, OK?). But Ting-a-Ling Telephone! Swell tune which I'm sure I will cherish forever, or at least for the rest of this month!

Selections from The Four Coins in Shangri-La

Shangri-La
Memories of You
Heartache Street
Manhattan Serenade
Curly-Headed Kid in the Third Row
You're Breaking My Heart
Ting-a-Ling Telephone

Everybody Polka with Jan Waters and his Polk-Alongs!

The complete post title is actually Bravo Records Presents Everybody Polka with Jan Waters & his Polk-Alongs and Wanda and Stach and we'll all have some beers and maybe go bowling later. Um, in case you need to be told, it's polka music. Pretty enjoyable polka music at that. Dig the little play on words, "Gallup Polka", and then there's the saucy little "Fanny Polka".

Everybody Polka! - Jan Waters & his Polk-Alongs

Beer Barrel Polka
Clarinet Polka
Helen Polka
Fanny Polka
Mary Lou Polka
Be Mine, Be Mine Polka

Wanda & Stach Polka
Radio Polka
Springtime Polka
Gallup Polka
Andy's Jolly Hop Polka
How Good For Me Polka

Like Wild!

Today's album is a collection of swingin' early 60s big band music, very excellent despite have no songs related to bodily functions. Since it's a good album it probably means there are much better versions of it available on other blogs--maybe I should just stick with what I do best (most) which is half assed versions of music no one really wants.

It's got a rock version of the Bunny Hop just in case anyone at your next party is just too cool to dance to the regular version. Anyway, since I have nothing else particularly sassy or insightful to say about Ray Anthony or this album...here it is.

Like Wild! Ray Anthony

Room 43
Fall Out
Kukie Bird
Dark Eyes
Peter Gunn
Wrong Number

707
Swanee River
Fly Now, Pay Later
Bunny Hop Rock
Rock-umba
Walkin' to Mother's

Stick Out Your Can, Here Comes A Fart Song

Why are there are so few great songs about farting?

There’s nothing more natural or soul-cleansing than a good fart...in fact, as I’m typing this...oh, never mind. Go ahead, name me some songs that make any reference to gas passing. And I’m NOT interested in hearing about some obscure Finnish band who once recorded a punk/ska version of “Beans Beans the Magic Fruit”....or actually I think I AM interested in hearing about it if such a thing exists.

Today’s fine album, “For a Piece” by Roscoe Holland, boasts not one, but TWO fart related tunes.

If you downloaded my stellar Songs of the Mule compilation a while back, featuring enough versions of “Mule Train” and “Mule Skinner Blues” to choke, well, a mule (and I think you probably did NOT since the sum total of downloads as of this moment is a paltry 81) you would already be familiar with Mr. Holland’s “Foul Mule Train” which is the uptempo lament of the driver who has the bad luck of riding downwind of his flatulent team. Then there is a very excellent version of the old favorite “Stick Out Your Can (Here Comes the Garbage Man)” with this stanza:

Up the hill,
I pushed a cart,
I pushed so hard,
You could hear me...sneeze

Can I take a moment to tell you that I spent an obscene amount of money to own this album?

Reasons:

1. is on the Dooto label, same as the Willie and Rising Dick download from a while back

2. it has fart songs DUH

3. Roscoe Holland made his fame and possibly fortune as an off-color lounge act in ALASKA for chrissakes

4. I cannot control my random buying impulses

For a Piece - Roscoe Holland Dooto Records DTL-812 (1961)

Foul Mule Train
Psonia
Bennie's From Heaven
Itty Bitty Girl
For a Piece

Yo Yo
Stick Out Your Can
Down on the Farm
Bijou
Drug Net

Danish Dynamite!

Det var tid til at besøge de 33 1/3 cent record butik igen, og ved den måde, her er et billede af denne fine etablering:



Se plast candy cane dekoration i nederste højre for billedet? Jeg tror ikke man kan vente til efter Halloween længere at starte udsmykning til jul.

Dagens tilbud er en af de fremragende - og når jeg siger "udmærket" jeg virkelig betyder "virkelig forfærdelig" - albums jeg fundet inden de støvede kasser, der var stuvet fuld af record afviser. "Danish Dynamite" er en 1989 indsamling af nogle forfærdeligt frygtelig sange fra nogle nydelige grufulde kunstnere. Dodo og Dodo's? Gnags? "Death Angels of Israel"?

Det er stort set umuligt at lytte til denne uden oplever en slags mave nød, så jeg vil varmt anbefale at holde langt væk fra det.




Forskellige sange fra Danish Dynamite

Grammofon AB Electra BOLP 5017

Sanne Salomonsen – Hvis du forstod
Thomas Helmig – Nu hvor du har brændt mig af
Ray Dee Ohh – Brændende læber
The Poets – Death Angels of Israel
Gnags – Mr. Swing King
Dodo and the Dodo’s (sic) – Hvis det bli’r
Lis Sørensen – Mine øjne de skal se

Valjean (at the piano)

Kitsch level is at Orange Alert for this album of orchestral arrangements of sixties TV themes featuring the light-loafered talents of VALJEAN, whose name alone conjures up mental pictures of flouncy velveteen jackets and errant forelocks of hair being flipped from the eyes.

Poor fella, the liner notes say that pianist Valjean Johns (a subsidiary of Vidal Sassoon, Inc.) grew up in Oklahoma City, and made his name with “such leading orchestras” as the hyperbolically named Tulsa Philharmonic Orchestra and the Dallas Symphony, (tho I bet his farm club was the Longines Symphonette) which surely makes him worthy of performing on these Rachmaninovian renditions of the themes of Dr. Kildare, Bonanza (yay!), and The Perry Como Show (“See the USAAAAAAAA in your Chevrolaaaaaaaaay”).

Truly inspirational.



The Theme From Ben Casey - Valjean

Carlton Record Corporation LP-143

Ben Casey
Naked City
Bonanza
Perry Como Show (Dream Along with Me)
Peter Gunn
Bell Telephone Hour

Dr. Kildare
Checkmate
G. E. Theatre
Gunsmoke
Alcoa Premiere
Wagon Train (Wagons Ho!)

1970 Majorette Originals

If high school marching band charts can be seen as a snapshot of the times, let’s take a peek at what was on the radar of central Indiana circa 1970:

* A nod to naked drug-loving hippies with a medley from “Hair”

* The lighter side of Nazi prison camps (Hogan’s Heroes theme)

* an acknowledgment that marching band songs are a painful thing with Hoosier Lite versions of “Hey Jude” (clocking in at a tolerable 1:23), Also Sprach Zarathrustra (1:04), and under 1 minute versions of I’m a Brass Band and L-O-V-E.

With these truncated Reader’s Digest versions of the tunes, you’d think the Majorettes were juggling chainsaws instead of twirling batons—can you even get a baton going if the twirling song is under a minute?

This album is truly a Who’s Who in Central Indiana Marching Band history, take a gander at these resumes:






Is anyone else suspicious of that “C.O.W.” really stands for “Camper of the Week”?



1970 Majorette Originals - Smith Walbridge Summer Camps

The Lebanon High School Band:

Mostly Mambo
Medley: By the Time I Get to Phoenix/Do You Know the Way to San Jose
Hair Medley: Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In
Hey Jude
Love

Saint Joseph College Band:

All I Have to Do Is Dream
Classis Miniature “Also Sprach Zarathrustra”
I’m a Brass Band
Hogan’s Heroes
Days of Glory
Halftime Happening

"Night Train"

The raspberries are ripe for the picking in my backyard, I have an extra day away from work, I think I’m getting dangerously close to this “happiness” thing I hear the young people talking about nowadays. Then I throw Buddy Morrow’s “Night Train” on the turntable, which reminds me of the co-worker who told me that her husband’s nickname in college was “Night Train”...and realize that I will never have a nickname anywhere near as swell as “Night Train”, and quickly slide back into my comfort zone of gloom and despair. Better now!

Oh, the album...sadly, this is nowhere near as fabulous as our last Buddy Morrow entry , cover songs of TV themes such as Bonanza and International Detective.

”This is a group of ace music-makers, taking a day off the road schedule, to provide you with music that automatically makes the toes tap or leads saddle-shoes or buckskins to the maples”. OK.

Night Train

Mangos
With a Song in My Heart
Midnight March
One Mint Julep
Rib Joint
With the Wind and the Rain in Your Hair

Night Train
Hey, Mrs. Jones
I'll Close My Eyes
Back Home
Pink Lady

The Terrors of the Antilles

Let's Cha-Cha-Cha in Stereo with Tito Moreno and his Orchestra, who were apparently known in Puerto Rico as "The Terrors of the Antilles", but it's not made clear on the liner notes by whom. Let's just assume that moniker had something to do with music.

Let's Cha Cha Cha - Tito Moreno and his Orchestra
Somerset Album SF-8000

La-La Cha Cha
Kee of See Cha Cha
Mambo No. 5
Concerto for cha Cha
Cha Cha with B. B.
Acapulco Cha Cha

Ala Concord
Having a Ball
Mambo Jambo
Cha Cha Felicidad
Sweet and Gentle

Beauty Shop Beat

The cover is a classic, but the highlight of this album is the upbeat "Oh By Jingo" with its flawless harmonies and swinging backup by Bob Bain and the Players.

The Clark Sisters began their career performing as the Sentimentalists (snappy name) with the Tommy Dorsey Band. Their early roots were in barbershop, but despite the choice of some quintessential barbershop numbers on this album (Down By the Old Mill Stream, Sweet Adeline) there is (thankfully) little in common with typical mustachio'd quartets. Yeah, you want to download this one.


Beauty Shop Beat - The Clark Sisters
Coral Records CRL 57290

Oh By Jingo
Play that Barbershop Chord
Goodbye My Coney Island Baby
That Old Gang of Mine
Down By the Old Mill Stream
My Honey, Honey

You Tell Me Your Dream and I'll Tell You Mine
Waiting For the Robert E. Lee
Fly, Kentucky baby
Sweet Adeline
Rockin' In the Cradle of the Deep
Moon Medley:
a) By the Light of the Silvery Moon
b) Oh Mr. Moon
c) In the Evening By the Moonlight

The Reality of High Society Twisting

Apparently I can’t escape the world of weird music even when I sleep—last night I dreamed I was in a shop in Chicago and considered buying a rare inflatable record of some astronauts singing, it was supposedly very strange, or so the clerk was telling me. It would have to be, to justify the $127 price tag...so sorry people, I passed on it in my dream , so I won’t be posting any bizarre figments of my imagination. Only bizarre figments of my reality.

Today’s real album is “Twistin’ in High Society” by Lester Lanin (Lester Lenin would have been SO much more interesting, wouldn't it?) and his orchestra.
There are all sorts of highlights on this, including Mack the Knife Twist, Darktown Strutters’ Ball Twist, Muskrat Ramble Twist (which of course makes me think of Country Joe & the Fish "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die") Charleston Twist (which sounds like a visit to the chiropractor waiting to happen), and Organ Twist (yee-owtch!) This is a very excellent twisting for old people entry, very entertaining indeed.

The last song is “When the Saints go Twisting in”, which of course meant that I had to leave the room when it was playing to go scream into my pillow for a spell. Not only is it my song-nemesis “Saints”, but it also features both a tinkly honky tonk piano AND a Duane Eddy twangy guitar imitator, both of which are known to send me ‘round the bend as well. But in all, surprisingly high marks for this one despite the last cut.

Twistin' In High Society - Lester Lanin and his Orchestra - Epic BN 620

This was actually re-released on CD with a second collection twist music for the elderly country club set, but it's gone out of print again.

Sweet Georgia Brown - Twist
Blue Moon
At the Darktown Strutters' Ball
Josephine
Guitar Boogie Twist
Charleston

Organ Twist
Muskrat Ramble
I Don't Know Why (I Just Do)
Mack the Knife
Way Down Yonder in New Orleans
The Twisting Saints

Of Wandr'ing Minstrels and Leopard Maillots

Hot babe in a leopard swimsuit in a flower garden. Cole Porter. The Donkey serenade. Porgy & Bess sung by white people. My Fair Lady. Gilbert and Sullivan. Sure, I can see a common thread there, can't you?

The Best Musical Comedy Songs - The Broadway Singers and Orchestra

Halo Records 50245

I Could Have Danced All Night
Standing on the Corner Watching All the Girls Go By
Summertime
June is Busting Out All Over
Some Enchanted Evening
A Wand'ring Minstrel
Donkey Serenade
(Is it even possible to have too many versions of "Donkey Serenade"?)
People Will Say We're in Love
Make Believe
Deep in My Heart, Dear
They Say It's Wonderful
You're the Top

The Magic Fingers of Merlin

Hello, I believe we've met before....

I started listening to the album "The Magic Fingers of Merlin & His Trio" and soon realized that I was listening to cuts from the Dayton Selby and Willene Barton album The Feminine Sax I posted a while back. There are duplicates songs (Snake Eyes here = Seven Eleven on the other album, Vincent's Last Stand here is Barton's Blues on the Feminine Sax) as well as several songs that are new to me.

The Magic Fingers of Merlin and his Trio - The Swinging Hi-Fi Organ

Too Close for Comfort
Bluer Than Blue
Number 33 Wickpick Lane
Little Brown Jug
Dilemma at Dusk
I'll Never Stop Loving You
Blues for Rafe
Snake Eyes
Breakin' the Sound Barrier
Bluer Moon
In the Still of the Night
Vincent's Last Stand

Sunday Swap Meet

Time to burn off some less then stellar entries that has been clogging up my hard drive for quite some time now....



I thought this might be moderately amusing, but except for one time that he uses the phrase "shoot your wad" seriously, there are no laughs to be found, not even cheap ones.

Would you buy a used car from this man? I thought not.



How to Use Tact and Skill in Handling People


This one's is inexplicably still in print, so you only get a few songs to make you want to go out and buy buy buy:



Introducing Pete Rugolo



From the generically named "Afro-Cuban Singers & Orchestra" (since Allegro Records probably assumed you only want one Afro-Cuban album in your collection)It's in pretty bad shape, but don't you want a song called "Conga de los Dandys" for your collection?

Babalu

And last, two from Groucho Marx from an old 45 I've had for ages. This dates from the end of his life when he toured with Marvin Hamlisch. He was forced to sing for his supper when his vile third wife mishandled his money and he was left practically destitute.

Lydia the Tattoed Lady

Show Me a Rose