A record of a man playing with himself

This one's got it all in my opinion.....multitrack recording by one person playing a LOT of instruments (with various degrees of success), a vanity label, an unintentionally crass subtitle, a slightly out-of-tune piano, and several dorky songs (Anatomy Rag, I'm So in Love with Mable, You Pick a Rib) sung really badly.

We've met Dr. Harley Frey on this blog before, on the very rip-roaring Crusty Crumbs record, Dixieland music performed by a group of doctors and other professionals from Lafayette, Indiana. Here, Harley correctly assumes his own talents alone are enough to fill an entire album--he multi-tracks himself on piano, organ vocals, trombone, bass, drums, guitar et al.....and the results are stunning, to say the least.



The sax breaks alone are worth the $3 I spent on this one (yes, I will admit it was purchased for the subtitle "A record of a man playing with himself", I have the maturity of an eight year old kid). If I ever needed to be anesthetized when Dr. Frey was still alive, I would have sought him out, just to hear him sing the "stimulate my dendrites" line from "Anatomy Rag" to me as I drifted off into oblivion.

Here's Harley or Here - Performed, recorded, and produced by Harley Frey
RPC Record Publications Company, Camden NJ

Paul Baby

Today's 45 record is a relic from an era when local personalities ruled the airwaves. The Paul Dixon Show broadcast live from WLWT-TV in Cincinnati, Ohio from 1955 until Paul's sudden death from a brain aneurysm in 1974. The daily 90 minute show was syndicated throughout Ohio and Indiana, and was a huge influence on a young Indianapolis resident, David Letterman. Letterman would occasionally drop in and hang out in the control room during Dixon's show--in fact, Dave's canned ham giveaway bit was surely borrowed from Dixon, whose audience members often received Oscherwitz Kosher Salamis.

Dixon's most memorable broadcast was in 1969, when he decided to throw an on-air wedding for the two prop rubber chickens, Harry and Pauline, he used frequently for the live commercials. I would absolutely watch that program if it were still on today!

More about the man known affectionately as "Paul Baby" here and here.

Paul Baby "Sings?!!" - Paul Dixon with Colleen Sharp and Bonnie Lou
QCA records 412
Side 1 You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You
Side Rehearsal (marked "censored", though it's clean as a whistle)





A look at Paul Dixon in action:

Tragedy & Disaster

It's gloom and doom Wednesday, with a delightful collection of clunky and maudlin country music disaster songs, from Howard Vokes. You get tales of drunken mamas neglecting their innocent babes, burned up children, drowned children, children flattened under their schooldesks during a cyclone--anyone else seeing a pattern here? It's a thriller from start to finish, with great song titles like "Willie Roy (The Crippled Boy)" and "Yellow Tomb" (spoiler alert: schoolbus accident), and some of the most ham-handed lyrics imaginable--this from "The Death of Little Kathy Fiscus":

Just like a beast in the forest that day,
the abandoned well took Kathy away,

For over two days the well was her tomb,
everyone kept praying they'd get her out soon.

Maybe it doesn't sound that bad, but Mr. Vokes has an interesting way of accenting syllables to fit the words along to the beat. Very creative.

You can actually still buy this whole album on CD, so you only get some of the titles here....I KNOW you will be inspired to go out and buy the whole thing! You'll be sobbing into your PBR, guaranteed.

Tragedy and Disaster in Country Songs - Howard Vokes

2/3 of album album

It's got David Murray on it, and it's out of print. What more do you need to know? Be happy you have 4 of the 6 songs, the other 2 aren't that great anyway.

4 from Album Album

Now THAT'S Puerto Rican Music!

We might not care for more tasteful and refined Puerto Rican music, but we do dig us the Puerto Rican steel band music of Pedrito Altieri. For those of you challenged in the joyful exuberation department, there is a lot of helpful shouting and carrying on, to let you know there are high-spirited hijinks of some sort going on. Apparently this is what happy people do in public when they are experiencing something that is socially pleasurable.

Each song is helpfully tagged as merengue, calypso, bolero, rumba, or rock and roll, so you don’t embarrass yourself publicly by doing the wrong dance along to the music. For those keeping score, “Colonel Boogey” is a meringue, and is coincidentally very similar in form and melody to “Colonel Bogey March”, but not nearly as frightening. “Cutuguru” (rumba calypso) is the same song as my perennial favorite Jack Jack Jack from this album. And there’s a rock and roll version of Volare, the poignancy of that noted tune heightened by a bunch of guys begging for tips while whacking some empty oil drums for all they are worth. And did I mention that some of the drums are comically out of tune?

Pedrito Altieri y su Banda de Acero is an album that will be a prized part of your music collection long after your head stops throbbing from the incessant beat of the cowbell. Thonk. Thonk. Thonk.

Pedrito Altieri y su Banda de Acera Puerto Rico Record Manufacturing Co. Inc. LP-62
(possibly distributed by Caribair Airlines)

Around the World in Boring Music

For me, Puerto Rican music is all about the noisy trombone section and every type of percussion imaginable. Refined and tasteful music like this just won't cut it for me. Though some of the sax arrangements are a little off kilter, but otherwise they sound like they're a little logy, out of sorts. Stay away from those starches, guys, and add some fiber to your diet, then maybe you can record something I'd be interested in listening to.

Around the World in Music - Puerto Rico - Rafael Muñoz and his orchestra

3, 4, 5

The album cover led me to believe this would be a honky-tonk piano mess, when it's really some pleasant small combo jazz music. Some of which features a French horn player. And the CD of this album is actually, amazingly still in print. So you only get a few of the songs here to whet your appetite to buy the CD. Full price. From Amazon. Shuh, RIGHT.

Four from Lou Stein

Caribbean Carnival

Today's 3 record set is a collection of various music from the Monogram, Request, and Ritmo labels, re-relased on the el cheapo Murray Hill label. It features a lot of my all-time favorite music from the Duke of Iron, Lord Kitchener, The Terror, Macbeth, The Lion, and a whole lot more that the liner notes don't identify (and neither could I). There are many classic songs here--Chinese Children Call Me Daddy, Mama Look at Booboo, and Wash Your hands are just a few. It's not only calypso, but some mambo and cha cha as well.

Record 1 Side A

Gumbo Calypso
Federation - Lord Kitchener
Mary Anne 1
Mayaguez
Creole Girl– Duke of Iron
Antigua Steel Band

Record 2 Side B

Mambo de Plantation
Linstead Market
Music Lesson– Duke of Iron
Mama Me Belly a Hurt Me – Lord Beginner
Mereguinando
Danzon

C

St. Thomas Mambo
I Do Adore Her – George Brown
Cha Cha Cha International
Big Bamboo– Duke of Iron
Women Will Rule the World - Macbeth
Grandma’s Calypso


D

Carneval en Cuba
Chinese Children Call Me Daddy – The Terror
Mama Look at Booboo – Lord Melody
Last Train– Duke of Iron
Cotorrita
La Paloma

Record 2 Side E

Cojele Bien el Compas
Louise – Lloyd Thomas
Por Ahi
Pan Bush Mary
Bamboo Dance
Malidie

Record 1 Side F

Baile de Hombre Voo Doo
Man Centipede – Duke of Iron
If You’re Brown - Lord Kitchener
Wash Your Hands – The Lion
Minerva
Mary Anne 2

Caribbean Carnival
Murray Hill Records S-5364 X

Greene and Iles

Today's album except is courtesy of my lastFM buddy ChangLooGrace, who is responsible for my finding the brilliantly dorky version of "Bo Diddley" by the Joe Reisman orchestra and chorus (here, session 53)--for which I will forever thank him. He sent along side 1 of "Moods and Music", a collection of standards for Hammond organ and piano duet.

Not much is out there about Greene & Iles other than the LP was recorded in Chicago in 1956 and released by Mercury in 1957. They made another LP in 1959 - with a much more interesting title of "Keep It Gay".

CLG forgot to tag the songs, but sent along this list:

I'm Glad There Is You
(cut 3:) Foggy Day
Moonlight In Vermont
Land Of Dreams
(cut 7:) What Is This Thing Called Love
Love Is A Simple Thing

I was also able to identify "Moonlight in Vermont", but the other songs are unknown to me. Maybe some of you are more clever than I and can help identify them.


Greene & Iles

Edit: A wonderful reader has identified the remaining songs:

Track 1 = Land of Dreams (aka Tune Time, music by Eddie Heywood, lyrics by Norman Gimbel)
Track 2 = I'm Glad There Is You (Jimmy Dorsey)
Track 3 = Foggy Day
Track 6 = Love is a simple thing (music by Arthur Siegel, words by June Carroll)
Track 7 = What is this thing called love


Thank you Riley!!

Cowboy Copas and His Filipino baby

Cowboy Copas luuuuvs his dark-faced Filipino baby, and I dig his song about her. OK, most or all of this is still in print, but do they offer it with this great album cover? No, I don't THINK so. (I want a grey and red diamond shape wall in MY house!) Or the swell inner liner?



I wish I could remember which blog that does the funniest disclaimer--basically if YOU download the music, you are required to delete it after a couple of days, or it's your fault. So, here's MY new disclaimer--listen to these tunes long enough to make you want to go buy buy buy, then delete the offending mono versions from your computer--hell, maybe you'd better just completely trash the offending computer you used to download.

Cowboy Copas