Shellac Shanty

Still more goodies from the stacks, it's blustery and stuff, and I am running on three hours' sleep... but I did get a few more done today, so here they are!

I don't have any dead rabbits or anything on my porch or such to relate (the Pinkster views them as chasing material, but not for the catching, that is, of course beneath her stature... she would rather watch them frolic and let the other felines of the area exert all their energy. The Pinkster is by no means fat or lazy, just too dignified for all that fuss. Squirrels? That's another matter entirely! If you go to my home page you will see the Pinkster in all her grandeur.

Music, Maestro, PLEASE!

I was going through the discs and found this pair by Roy Evans on COlumbia Vita-Tonal (electric recordings) that immediately reminded me of Leon Redbone, or at the least material he would have in his trick-bag. "I'm Tickled Pink With A Blue Eyed Baby" and "It's An Old Spanish Custom In The Moonlight" just feel like Leon Redbone songs, even though Roy sings them a couple of octaves above Leon's usual velvety growl. No orchestra credit is given, unfortunately... it's a nice, unobtrusive band. Oh, one more thing, Roy: lose the gargling effect, PLEASE.

I'll follow the Roy Evans sides with a couple of Victor electrical pressings... it was a conundrum I faced with these, as I was between sides of some pre-lounge stuff from the early 50s (pretty unremarkable stuff, that, but I'll let you decide, as I am posting them in today's audio journey), and looked down at the stack and saw "Johnny Hamp's Kentucky Serenaders" on a VIctor Scroll disc. Oh joy! Gotta encode this! "That's Why I Love You"... yep, I love the sound of those Victor Scrolls, the bass is just so... THERE. But wait... where did it go?? The rest of the recording is, um, well, OK I guess, but someone forgot to add in the bass! There's usually some great tuba or bass sax in there, but for some reason, someone put a sock in it. It's too bad, because this is a nice hook-y tune, typical of Johnny Hamp's work. The recordist must not have had something quite right because it sounds like there was some actual diaphragm buzz in this, wonder where THAT came from... And just who is responsible for that there fiddlin'... fess up now, or it's back to the bread lines....

So, I decide, let's do the other side, since it's a Jan Garber track. Gotta be at least a decent rendition of "Baby Face"... and it is. Benny Davis does the vocal chores in this recording while Jan cranks up the swinging orchestra all the way to 'Jaunt'. There's also some very hot muted cornet licks in there too before the vocal.

Now, the other part of the conundrum. I was in the midst of recording a disc by Wladimir Selinsky & his String Ensemble. Wladimir WHO? Well, Columbia thought he was worth something, as these two semi-unremarkable cuts came from a disc out of an early 1950s set called "Dinner Music". First alarm bell for a dull disc. But these aren't that bad... Wladimir is no Andre the K, but I guess he holds his own... you decide. In "Neopolitan Nights" you get a kind of feeling that you're in an Italian restaurant and Eisenhower has just been elected... and for that after-dinner martini, we have the "Sleeping Beauty Waltz"... is it nap time yet?

I'll close with another interesting side... this is an Oxford single-sided disc, and I wonder what the story is on it. "Mister Dinkelspiel" is sung by an unknown baritone (the only credit is "Baritone Solo with Orchestra") and is apparently an attempt to make the Germans look good in the US at around the time of World War 1 (before we became involved in actual fighting). There's a slight slam on the Irish, but mostly the lyricist shows the good German Guy as friend to America. A little propoganda you say? No more than the junk seen today on Fox & CNN and the rest of the media... remember, records were a way of spreading propoganda to the people in the early 20th century. I'll post some WW1 stuff later and you'll see.

Nuff-a-dis, gotta go to work... enjoy the day and I'll have more for you soon. Right-click on the link to download the tunes, you know the drill :)

Until next time,

the Impaler