Shellac Shanty

A long day. That there is STILL no toner in the copier at work (and many many training packets to copy), I got a three-hour (unpaid) break, so I decided to go into Loveland (and see the Lovely Lake where Lovers Love to Go) to check out the thrift-store action up there. No quantity, but I did manage to find 10 discs, 9 of which contain German music, and one Patti Page 78 I didn't have.

We'll start out this voyage with the 'A' side to the Lombardo Loveland 78 (an interesting story about that one, if you listen to the lyrics, apparently there is quite the colloquial intimate reference in Lovely Lake in Loveland....... if you speak Swedish....) the oft-recorded "Wedding Samba". Kenny Gardner does the vocal chores quite nicely on this take. I fail to understand, however, where the huge Brasilero contingent is on the Rio Grande, unless there is a Rio Grande in Brasil, in which case, my ponderings are moot. But, on first listen, it seems that Kenny is singing about southern Texas, and if he is, someone horribly failed geography 101. Shoot the lyricist.

Remember the kvetching I did about Decca shellac? Well, this here cut proves me wrong, although this song is probably from the same session as Wedding Samba, which would put it on the better black-label shellac. "Enjoy Yourself", again with Kenny Gardner on vocals, joined by the Lombardo Trio on backing vocals. Hedonism in the early 50s, anyone? Not the record I would play when the Reverend is over for supper....

This next recording is for the birds... literally!"Bird Calls with Story, Part 1", done by Howard R Garis and Edward Avis. Mr Garis tells the story of Uncle Wiggly and Billy the Squirrel, while Mr Avis adroitly performs whistled bird calls. I suspect that this was a childrens offering, but Columbia in the blue-label acoustic era made no indication of a 'juvenile' series. There is a little bit of artifacting on this disc, but you can plainly hear the reverberation from the studio walls (a bit on the hard side) and even some of the recording machinery. I suspect this was recorded in the late teens.

Finally, we continue the bird motif with a very interesting recording from Columbia, "Waldeslust", which roughly translates to "Call of the Forest", or something like that. Any of you who are better at German than I am, please correct mein malgespracht Deutch. Vielen Dank, meinen Damen und Herren (und lieben Kinder). Harry Steiner's Parlophon Orchestra & Choir perform this one. It is interesting because even though the label (US Columbia Vita-Tonal green Ethnic series) SAYS "Electrical Process", the vocals sure sound like they were singing into a horn! Needless to say, this was a challenge to re-master! The birdsong and some of the other music sound electrically recorded, so this may have been a case of an overdub of an acoustical track onto an electrical recording.

What the heck, I'll put on the other side as well... "Der Soldat hat ein Sabel", or "The Soldier has a Saber". This time, Herr Steiner's orchestra backs up the Saxophone Orchester Dobbri (mit gesang). My guess would be that this would have been very early on in the German Patriotic Campaign of the early 1930s, so this recording may have some darker overtones of things to come. Again with parts of this sounding as if it were recorded acoustically and then laid onto an electrical recording. Both sides do say on the label that this is an imported recording...

As always, right-click on the link to download & enjoy!