Everyone in Britain has a different opinion, and different memories, of Mike Reid. You’ll either remember him as a slightly blue working men’s club comedian, as the avuncular host of the 70s kids quiz Runaround, as the dodgy but put-upon Frank Butcher in EastEnders or for his nasty rendition of The Ugly Duckling, the Danny Kaye standard which the late Mr Reid took into the top 10 in 1975.
But I guarantee you won’t remember him for this.
Recorded in 1976, Reid’s cover of Italian singer-songwriter Adriano Celentano's nonsense song Prisencolinensinainciusol is beyond bizarre. Who on earth tried to convince this beloved British entertainer that he would strike gold a second time round by attempting an Italian discotheque hit? The lyrics are, frankly (no pun intended) baffling – I can’t make out half of what he’s saying - and why do his backing vocalists insist on pronouncing the title as Freezing Cold In 89 Twoso? That makes even less sense. Apparently Celentano’s original version, although total gibberish, was supposed to sound to the Italian ear as if it was sung in English….which make the whole thing even more confusing.
Mike Reid died in 2007, but three years later the song enjoyed a bit of a renaissance with a campaign on Facebook to make it a hit. Reid’s granddaughter, Claire Louise Reid, told WebUser magazine at the time “Most people knew my Granddad as a stand-up comic or as Frank Butcher, clearly his singing talents need to be remembered too! Although, I must warn you - don't try and understand it - just enjoy it for what it is.” I couldn’t put it any better.
The Janet Greene story is a fascinating footnote in the history of American folk-rock. Called the Anti-Baez by contemporary commentators, she was the right wing’s answer to all of those liberal longhairs filling up America’s airwaves with their anti-war rhetoric, touted by the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade (CACC) as an antidote to the growing number of commie sympathisers clogging up the charts.
Already a TV star in her hometown of Columbus, Ohio, Greene (real name Greenroos) and her husband David discovered the message of the CACC when their propaganda started to infiltrate the Ohio school system. Ohio had become heavily anti-Communist during the Cold War: in 1950 Time Magazine reported that police officers in Columbus were warning youth clubs to be suspicious of communist agitators. Dave, who quickly became a fan of Australian anti-communist (and founder of the CACC) Fred Schwarz, heard that Schwarz was setting up a musical programme and – quicker than you could say ‘reds under the bed’ - he and the wife were off to California.
At a press conference Schwarz, who gained fame as the author of the international bestseller You Can Trust The Communists (to be Communists), introduced his ‘discovery’ with the following words: "Every great movement throughout history has expressed its inspiration in music. The Anti-Communist movement is young and music has not played a large part in its development to date…the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade is adding a new dimension to its activity, the dimension of music. We are satisfied with nothing less than the best and we have followed this policy in securing the services of Janet Greene as music director. Janet is a vivacious and beautiful young lady of remarkable musical talent. For the past several years, she had been the leading TV star of Columbus, Ohio where her early morning program, Cinderella, has delighted the hearts of the children. Conscious of the magnitude of the Communist danger, at considerable personal financial sacrifice, she had surrendered her TV program to become music director of the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade."
A cute girl with a decent voice and an established following seemed perfect for Fred’s scheme to infiltrate the pop scene; add in to the mix songs with titles such as Commie Lies, Poor Left Winger and today’s offering - Comrade's Lament– and they couldn’t go wrong, surely?
Ah, if only it was that easy to beat the red menace.
According to the book Mothers of Conservatism: Women and the Post-war Right (By Michelle M Nickerson), Janet spent her time listening ‘to recordings of Schwarz’ speeches and transformed them into lyrics’ whilst hubby Dave acted as her PR agent. Billed as a ‘new and effective anti-Communist weapon’, Janet was even known to drag her two daughters on stage with her and perform the dreadfulBallad of the Green Berets. Luckily her four 45s failed to trouble the charts or unseat Joan Baez (who, apparently, Janet quietly admired) from the top of her red pedestal. By 1967 Janet had grown disenchanted with the whole CACC set up and quit.
For the full story on Janet Greene you need to visit www.conelrad.com, the cold war culture website which carries an extensive and exhaustive biography of Janet as well as a couple of interviews with the now-reclusive artist: it’s easily the most comprehensive source on Ms Greene and a fascinating read. You can find all eight of Janet’s CACC sides at the always-brilliant www.wfmu.com
Here’s a disc that’s been gathering dust in my collection for almost 30 years – time methinks to inflict it on you.
What do you get when you lump together a precocious, screeching brat on vocals, a nasty kiddie-choir to back her up, a terrible cutesy synth and a ridiculous chicken impersonator? No? It’s Chick Chick Chicken by Natalie Casey.
Released in in the hope of grabbing a hit at Christmas 1983, this is just about as horrible a slice of kiddie pop as you can imagine. Although Natalie later went on to fame in TV soap Hollyoaks and dire ‘comedy’ series Two Pints of Lager, she was just three years old when she recorded her single, which reached the dizzying heights of number 72 in the UK Singles Chart in early 1984 and made her the youngest person ever to have a recording in the UK chart.
Now a respected star of stage musicals (she’s recently been in Legally Blonde and is about to star in the musical version of 9 to 5), some of you with memories long enough may recall her appearance on the BBC’s kids show Saturday Superstore when she had to ask Boy George to take her to the toilet (he didn’t, Culture Club member Roy Hay took her instead), but the assumption is that the poor deluded moppet thought that George was a woman. Having made tinkle Natalie then returned to whisper into George’s ear: “what’s for dinner?”- apparently no longer mistaking him for a toilet attendant but for a dinner lady instead.
Natalie later resurrected her one stab at chart stardom, performing the song in 2008 during a live Two Pints of Lager special. She would have been around 28 at the time; has she no shame?
Produced by Peter Gosling (chickens, geese…what’s next) who during a long career in music for children was involved in Bodger and Badger, Play School, Chockablock, Number 73, Noah and Nellie in the Skylark and many, many more, as an extra I’ve include the even more awful B-side (‘written’ by Peter Gosling), which is confusingly listed on the cover as Natalie’s Disco Party but, correctly judging by the lyrics, on the label as Natalie’s Disco Nursery.
Written by Victor Young, Ray Evans and Jay Livingston for the eponymous 1947 Marlene Dietrich movie, Golden Earrings is a classic which has been covered by everyone from Keith Jarrett, Dinah Shore and Peggy Lee (who had a number two hit in the US charts with the song in the same year as the film) to the Del Rubio Triplets.
Perhaps unsurprisingly another cover version made some 30 years after the original recording, failed to set the British charts alight. Listen to this and I’m sure you’ll understand why: who in their right mind thought this absurd recording would ever be a hit? It's throroughly insane - but I have to admit I absolutely love it.
You might have never heard of The Enid, the British rock band who are about to enter their 40th year of existence, but I’ll bet you at some point or another you’ve hummed, whistled or sang along to one of their performances: they may have a reputation for ridiculous, overblown prog-rock nonsense but they were also the backing band for Kim Wilde, playing the vast majority of the music on her debut album (Water on Glass, Kids in America).
Formed in 1974 by Robert John Godfrey, who had been the musical director for prog-rockers Barclay James Harvest, and John Francis Lickerish, the band released their first album, In the Region of the Summer Stars, in 1976, just as punk was tearing up the rule book. Their recording of Golden Earrings first appeared as an A-side the following year, around the time of their second album Aerie Faerie Nonsense, although the track did not appear on either album. The single bombed…yet for some warped reason EMI decided to re-issue it three years later as the B-side to another non-album single 665 The Great Bean (a re-recording of their earlier album track the Devil). It too sank without a trace.
The band, in various guises but always fronted by Robert John Godfrey, has continued to record (and perform) sporadically ever since: a farewell gig in 1988 proved to be a pause to their career rather than an end to it as the band reformed in 1995 and since then they have released several new albums. As far as I know none of them has included a re-recording of this piece of bombastic drivel.
British actor Johnny Briggs has had a long, distinguished career in the business of show. Born in 1935 he graduated from the Italia Conti Stage School and was immediately thrust into movies, appearing in dozens of gritty dramas (Cosh Boy, the Leather Boys), war epics (633 Squadron, Sink the Bismarck!) and comedies (Carry On Up the Khyber, Bless This House) before landing the role that would make him famous: for 30 years he starred in Coronation Street (world's longest-running TV soap opera) as factory owner and Deidre Barlow-shagger Mike Baldwin.
But we’re not interested in his film and TV work, are we? No. What we’re celebrating today is his one attempt at vinyl immortality. For in 1983 Johnny released a single on the tiny (and short-lived) MVM record label: Warm backed with Livin’ on the Road.
This dismal offering sold about three copies: Corrie fans must have been bewildered by the fact that the bluff, gruff Mike Baldwinemitted such a thin, reedy vocal when he tried to sing. Warm? Barely tepid at best; lukewarm more like.
Although the writing credits on both sides of this dull slice of eighties pap went to Cass and Casstree, the sleeve rightly credits one Cass Casstree (as opposed to a brace of him/them) with having written the words and music and played keyboards on this insipid ballad. Bury-based Casstree has spent decades trying to have a hit: he wrote Sharon Benson’s 1988 flop Our Love’s Alive (she would later record a ‘hip’ version of the EastEnders theme, retitled I'll Always Believe In You), and still works as a professional musician, appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2005 and gigging regularly in his home town.
But back to Johnny; look at him on the cover, with his flicked back hair and gold medallion hanging over his tight, open shirt. Doesn’t he make you Warm? You’d think he would learn from this appalling crime, but in 1995 he would team up with co-star Amanda Barrie to record a simply dreadful version of the Frank and Nancy Sinatra classic Something Stupid which, when released as the B-side to the Corrie cast singing Always Look On the Bright Side of Life, reached number 35 in the UK singles charts. There’s just no accounting for taste.
Enjoy..and big thanks to Mick Dillingham for reminding me of this monstrosity.
Running for 30 years, Grange Hill was one of the world’s longest-running kid’s TV shows as well as one of the longest-running dramas on British television. Set in the (fictional) eponymous school, Grange Hill was conceived by writer Phil “Brookside” Redmond in 1975, although the first episode did not air until 1978.
From the start the series caused controversy for its gritty portrayal of school life, a million miles away from the more idealistic and anodyne school dramas that preceded it. This reached its zenith in the mid-1980s with the show’s infamous storyline about the character Zammo McGuireand his addiction to heroin. The story led to the cast recording an anti-drug single, Just Say No (and an accompanying, hysterically awful video) – a cover of a LaToya Jackson’s US single released to promote then-First Lady Nancy Reagan’s own anti-drug programme – and an album. The originally-titled Grange Hill – The Album was released to celebrate the show’s 10thanniversary and to capitalise on the success of the single, which sold over 250,000 copies, reached the top five and raised £150,000 for anti-drug charities. The cast were whisked off to the White House to meet Mrs Reagan and to promote the anti-drugs message, however the credibility of the campaign was somewhat tarnished when several years later Erkan Mustafa, who played Roland Browning, claimed that many in the cast were on drugs themselves.
But back to the album: and what a corker of an album it is. As well as containing the obligatory hit single it also includes its follow-up, the dire You Know The Teacher (Smash Head) with its sub-John Barnes rap, a handful of newly-written but soppy and badly sung songs about teenage angst and a whole side of terrible cover versions of singalong favourites including Fleetwood Mac’s Don’t Stop (sung by Zammo, Roland and various other cast members), the Who’s My Generation and, naturally, the Boomtown Rats’ ode to angry school children I Don’t Like Mondays. It’s horrific and, to prove the point, here for your enjoyment are what are undoubtedly the two worst tracks on this hideous release – the second single You Know The Teacher (Smash Head) which, unlike its predecessor failed to chart and the album’s closing track, an out-of-tune medley of The Greatest Love of All and That’s What Friends Are For.
Today's post comes courtesy of a World's Worst RecordsFacebook follower, Horseboxing Cowpoke, who was the first person to contact me yesterday when I asked a question about what type of track people would like to listen to. So blame him! It also gave me a good excuse to post a very rare Rodd Keith track which has, to date, not appeared on any compilation and the disc is not catalogued at Phil Milstein's AS/PMA site. It also allows me to include a previously unpublished interview I conducted with Rodd's son Ellery. The track in question isn't actually that bad; it's more here for its rarity value.
The term song-poem, in case you were not already aware, refers to lyrics (or poems) that have been set to music for a fee, a practice which has been around for more than 100 years but which undoubtedly enjoyed its heyday from the start of the rock’n’roll era until the end of the 1970s. The business involved dozens upon dozens of (initially) sheet music publishers and, since the advent of the 78 rpm disc, record labels mostly in North America but also in Great Britain, Canada, Europe and Australia. Promoted through small lineage and semi-display ads in magazines (Send in Your Poems! Songwriters Make Thousands of Dollars! Free Evaluation!), the term ‘lyrics’ was usually avoided, as your average potential customer would not have a clue what that particular word meant. Those who sent their work in usually received a gushing letter back, telling them that their words were worthy of recording by professional musicians, along with a proposal to do so in exchange for a fee – anything from $40 to $400 or more.
On receipt of that fee (well, once the cheque had cleared, anyway), these unscrupulous sons-of-bitches would throw a cue sheet at a bunch of musicians who would hastily record them (90 per cent of the time in the first take) and then have their masters pressed as vinyl singles or released on compilation LPs with songs by other amateur lyric writers. If you, the songwriter, were lucky you might get a handful of copies sent to you with promises (rarely, if ever, kept) that your soon-to-be-hit record would also be sent to radio stations or music industry executives. Most of the results were terrible; many, laughably so.
Some of the musicians involved in the production of song poems were moonlighting from day jobs at other labels, firing off anything up to 30 songs in a single session for a few extra (non-union) bucks, but the Brian Wilson of the song poem world was Rodd Keith, a singer, musician, composer, arranger and – according to those who knew him – an all-round musical genius. An early exponent of the Chamberlin (an instrument similar to the Mellotron), many of Rodd’s recordings for MSR, Preview, Film City, Circle-D, Master and other song poem outfits have gone on to become highly-prized collectables in Northern Soul circles and several compilations of his recordings have been released on CD.
Rodd’s story is a sad one. Born Rodney Keith Eskelin he was a musical prodigy, playing a variety of instruments and writing choir and instrumental arrangements for church groups from an early age. The scion of a religious family, he toured and recorded with the family singers before finishing his religious schooling in Florida and moving to a church in Baltimore to look after their music programme. In Baltimore Rodd (the second ‘d’ was added, he is purported to have claimed, because God only had one) met a young lady and fellow musician by the name of Roberta ‘Bobbie’ Lee, married her and formed the organ and piano duo Rodd and Bobbie, touring extensively and even landing themselves a weekly live television programme in Wichita, Kansas called Just a Song at Twilight. The couple had a son, Ellery, who was born in 1959 but who, sadly, would grow up not knowing his father.
Rodd dragged his young bride and even younger son to Los Angeles in search of fame and fortune, but the travelling, and lack of income, proved to be too much for the marriage to stand. Bobbie and Ellery left Rodd and returned to Baltimore. Ellery was just eighteen months old, and he would never see his father again. “Growing up and hearing stories about my father was inspiring,” Ellery – himself a highly respected avant garde jazz saxophonist - tells me. “His reputation was that of a "larger than life" persona both musically as well as in his character and eccentricities. Given that music was probably the most powerful force in my life this all felt rather profound. My mother was a great musician and I knew I wanted to be a musician as well when I was ten years old.
“I was disappointed when I first heard my father's work. It was not at all what I expected. I'm not actually sure what I expected but it sounded like rather poorly done commercial music. I later discovered that what I initially heard were not the best examples of what he did although I don't think I would have responded positively to even the best of his song-poems at that time. Everyone who knew Rodd says that song-poem work was not a true indication of who he was musically and represented a mere fraction of what he was truly capable of.”
Sadly, we’ll never know exactly what Rodd would have been capable of. Apart from the innumerable recordings he made under a variety of different names including Rodd Keith, Rod Rogers, Rod Rivers, Douglas Paul (the moniker he hid behind for this particular outing, Teen-Age Girl) and others, he left little of his own material. However we do get glimpses of his creative genius in some of the better song poems, many of which have now been collected on albums such as My Pipe Yellow Dream, Saucers in the Sky (both available through Roaratorio), Ecstacy to Frenzy (sic) and I Died Today (both Tzadik). There’s a gulf of difference between Rodd’s greatest work – and some of his recordings truly are the equal of many hits of the day (I’d site Gloria, Little Rug Bug, I Can’t Decide, Saucers in the Sky, I Died Today, First Comes the Rain, Cloud Nine, How can a Man Overcome His Heartbroken Pain and The Merry-Go-Down as some of the best pop singles of the 1960s) - and the enormous pile of dross he usually had to put his moniker to.
Unfortunately Rodd, like many, many musicians before and since, took to drugs; his use of psychotics had a massive influence on his work (when he was together enough to be able to work) as can be heard on recordings such as the Beat of the Traps (an insane, rambling ode to the art of drumming) but LSD, PCP and the like killed off his creative prowess. He became more and more odd, making the lives of his second wife Joni and daughter Stacey so impossible that they too were forced to leave. Today we’d probably say that Rodd was bipolar, look after him and nurture his talent. 40 years ago he was just a crazy man who went shopping in the nude.
He died in December 1974 after being hit by several cars on the Hollywood freeway. No-one knows how he ended up on the freeway: did he fall accidentally from a bridge over the road or did he jump, intending to take his own life? Apparently he had a habit of balancing on high balconies, and had talked about ending his life this way. There’s even a story that Rodd filmed his final moments, although that footage has yet to surface.
“I know that Rodd felt that song-poem work was a form of prostitution: ‘commercial crap’ I believe were his words,” adds Ellery. “As for ever being a successful artist, I'm not sure that was in the cards for Rodd. Not due to any lack of talent nor lack of breaks. He had some potential breaks and yet he somehow managed to evade the best outcomes due largely to his drug use and its effect on his life. But even before he got involved with drugs there seems to have been something about his world view or other unknown issues that resulted in a lack of focus or direction with respect to keeping himself on any kind of career track in the music business. It was all there right in front of him and everyone who came into contact with him says he was frighteningly talented and capable of anything he could have wanted to do musically. And so I'm left to assume that for reasons we don't fully understand he was uninterested or otherwise unable to develop his potential in the business.”
But we, like Ellery, have the recordings. Rodd’s song poem output runs the gamut from country western to psychedelic pop and even, as in one of the two versions of I’m Just the Other Woman which has a backwards tape loop superimposed over the whole track, reaching out into the avant garde. Unlike many of his contemporaries in the field though Rodd’s recordings almost always have that certain something else that lifts them above mediocrity. His work with the Chamberlain is quite remarkable, especially when you consider how limiting that instrument was – tape loops were short, percussion tracks ran in weird time signatures and often the overall effect was like listening to a drunk playing a fairground organ – and his arrangements bear comparison with the all-time greats. It’s just a pity that the material he had to work with was so tenth-rate.
“Discovering him through these recordings has been illuminating although I think there are just as many questions raised as are answered,” Ellery continues. “I eventually became quite enamoured of his work once I had heard enough to get a sense of what the whole game was about. In his best work I hear a man who put himself into what he was doing even as he likely considered the work to be next to worthless. In doing so he revealed something of himself, an honesty that is often missing in more popular commercial music. Given that he had to take on so many different musical personas, I ask myself if he was simply a very skilled mimicker of human emotions or whether he was in fact deeply connected emotionally. Given all I know about him I suspect it's the latter.
“I'm always interested in hearing or tracking down Rodd's work. I do know that there was at least one homemade film made in the studio at one of the sessions. That's probably lost to the ages. Needless to say, if I found something like that the experience would be beyond words. It's very rewarding for me that Rodd has become known, at least for song-poem work. It's frustrating that his greater talents seem not to have been well documented, yet there is something surprisingly revealing about the song-poem work. So he did leave us something and for that I'm very grateful.”
Enjoy!
NB - although both sides of this 45 are credited as being written, produced and performed by Douglas Paul the A-side - below - is clearly performed by Rodd Keith (or, more correctly, Rod Rogers as this has all the hallmarks of his Film City period). The B-side, Born to be Like the Wind, is by another singer altogether. Possibly Mr Paul himself.
In light of the current turmoil in the Middle East I've decided to delete this week's WWR post. I aim to inject some fun into your Fridays; the death of an innocent diplomat is just not funny and I can see how insensitive the post may have appeared.
I'll be back next Friday with something a little more appropriate.
In honour of the annual Talk Like A Pirate Day, which was celebrated earlier this week and takes place every September 19 (and at the behest of my colleague Beccy), today I bring you something a little pirate-y (as Mr Mann would put it).
In 1962 Jon Pertwee– comic actor and the man who would go on to be THE Doctor Who (for my generation at least) recorded an album entitled Jon Pertwee Sings Songs for Vulgar Boatmen. Released on the Philips label, the album also spawned two EPs, amusingly titled Jon Pertwee Sings Songs for Vulgar Boatmen No. 1 and the even more original Jon Pertwee Sings Songs for Vulgar Boatmen No. 2.
Born in 1919, Pertwee’s career began shortly before World War 2, appearing as an ‘extra’ in the films A Yank At Oxford and The Four Just Men. He served in the Royal Navy before returning to the screen in 1946 (in Trouble in the Air), but it was on radio where he started to make a name for himself, in series including the long-running the Navy Lark. But for many of us it will be his stint as the third (if you discount peter Cushing in the cinema adaptations) Dr Who for which he will be forever remembered.
The tracks Pertwee performed on Songs for Vulgar Boatmen remind me a lot of Kenneth Williams’ brilliant Rambling Syd Rumpo songs and it’s clear that the producers of this cacophony were trying to appeal to the same audience. The humour is broad and not very sophisticated and even the sleeve notes are little more than a ham-fisted attempt at Carry On-style cheap laughs: Jon Pertwee…creates the remarkable illusion that he is not singing at all; we needed the specialised treatment of a man unshackled by trained musical technology; how to get the best out of this record: a blunt, or slightly chipped mind will be a great help. An added bonus is that the tracks are arranged (and, in the case of What a Shame, co-written) by our old friendIvor Raymonde, who had worked with Williams on Hancock’s Half Hour.
The original choice for the role of Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army (his cousin Bill Pertwee played Warden Hodges), Songs for Vulgar Boatmen wouldn’t be Pertwee’s only brush with music: he later released singles in the UK based on his portrayal of Dr Who and inspired by his other great role, that of the perennial children’s favourite Worzel Gummidge.
A little obscurity to tide you over until next Friday.
I've just got back from a week on the Isle of Wight, and I seem to have spent the entire seven days either walking the dog or picking through piles of vinyl in charity shops. This is one of the many oddities I picked up (for the princely sum of 33p) in Cowes.
I can't tell you much about Nu/Imij - the act that put out this peculiar, one-sided 33 rpm picture disc: I know that they hailed from California and, as far as I am aware, this 1982 single (on Azra/Erika Records of Maywood) was their only release. That's it. It's a rather unusual pressing: the picture side is unplayable and both tracks appear on the reverse, cut on standard vinyl. The company put out other discs - Tools of the Trade by the Orange County-based hair metal act Special Forces (Azra/Erika 050) was a one-sided four track mini album - but neither of the two tracks on this release - Model T.A (a substandard Beach Boys rip-off) and I'd Walk an Indoor Mile have any writer credits and I've been unable to discover any other info about the band.
Still, for now enjoy Nu/Imij and I'd Walk an Indoor Mile - and do let me know if you have any further information on the five piece behind this.
As today is the 50th anniversary of the release of Love Me Do, it seems appropriate to provide you with something for the weekend Beatle-related.
Now, it’s no secret that I am a huge Beatles fan, however regular readers of The World’s Worst Records will know that I am not blind to their more trite group and solo efforts. There are many who would say that the Beatles (both individually and as a group) are incapable of doing wrong. Balderdash. Each one (yes, even Saint John) has ballsed up somewhere along the line – in PaulMcCartney’s case it often seems as if it’s harder to find the gold in the sea of turds he calls a solo career.
Now I could pull out a bad cover version (God knows there are enough of them, as we’ve discovered before) but I thought instead that I’d bring you something precious and rare from one of the fab Four themselves, I equally could have mined the band’s trough of sickness – Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da; Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and so on – but as Apple are rather litigious and this is a rather special anniversary I thought better of it.
So today, for your delectation I present yet another classic from Sir James Paul McCartney: it was almost Morse Moose and the Grey Goose from London Town but I don’t want to admit to having heard a track that awful, let alone owning a copy.
Oobu Joobu(honestly…) was the title McCartney gave to a radio show he created 1995 which aired on the American radio network Westwood One (apparently the name was inspired by a BBC production of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Cocu). The series included demos, rehearsals, live performances, and unreleased recordings of Paul McCartneyand The Beatles, as well as several versions of the ridiculous ‘theme’ tune. He also released six edits – of between seven and ten minutes each – of ‘highlights’ of this self-indulgent tosh as B-sides to the three singles from his 1997 album Flaming Pie. The series has, unsurprisingly, been widely bootlegged.
As I know many of you are also fans of the fab four and therefor some are bound to already own the released versions, here is the incredibly rare ‘rehearsal ’version of the Oobu Joobu theme tune that appeared in the first instalment of the radio show but has never been issued officially in this form. Thankfully it’s very short.
A real treat for you all today - not only the usual nonsense from me, but a two tracks from song-poem performer Bob Storm over at the brilliant The Wonderful and the Obscure courtesy of my friend and fellow collector Bob Purse. Go check it out...but maybe read my bit first!
Jasper, the sole, eponymous album by the Keighly-based British band, is something I picked up for 50p on holiday: I have seen a copy, similarly autographed, on eBay recently for a tenner (even though one of the tracks was rendered unplayable by a cigarette burn) but I’d advise you not to waste your money. It isn’t worth it.
The album, issued in 1978 by Look Records, is pretty pedestrian, competent but dull and full of obvious showband covers. It would hardly have been worth a mention if not for the dismal, self-composed, second track Supergirl – a sub-Rubettes Sugar Baby Love rip-off – and track three, Do It In the Night, a failed stab at white soul: a funk-fuelled fright-fest, if you’ll allow the alliteration. Apparently this is what passed for entertainment in Yorkshire in the late 70s. Look Records was owned and operated by September Sound Studios in Huddersfield and appears to have been active between 1975 and 1982 (Elvis Costello and the Attractions recorded there in 1981). There is –as far as I am aware – no connection between them and the September Sound Studios set up by the Cocteau Twins, which was formerly better known as Pete Townshend’s Eel Pie studio.
To be perfectly frank, the best thing about it is the cover. Look at those hairstyles! And the clothes! They look as though they’ve been dressed by a blind man rummaging around in Leo Sayer’s dressing up box (with understated prescience, the album features a bland cover of the singing midget’s international smash When I Need You).
Most of the members of the band had previously been part of a late incarnation of John O’Hara and the Playboys. The Playboys, originally from Scotland, had been around since the late 50s, released a couple of singles on Fontana in the mid-1960s and even appeared on the German TV show Beat Club. However the original line-up had long since disbanded and by the middle of the 1970s the band consisted of John O’Hara, Peter Baines, Steve Middleton, Anthony Waite, Chris Turner, Roy Johnson and Peter Coe. Coe, Johnson, Turner and Baines all went on to appear on the Jasper album, along with Geoffrey Alan Cartwright and Denni (Tifano) Conlan.
Guitarist and lead vocalist Roy Johnson is now a full time tutor of classical, acoustic and electric guitar as well as Irish tenor and bluegrass banjo from his home in Yorkshire. There’s a Chris Turner who has carved out a career as a musician on cruise liners, but I sincerely doubt that he is the same musician, as he would have been 12 years old when this album was released. Drummer Peter Coe continued to work as a session drummer and is now living on the Isle of Wight where, coincidentally, I discovered this little treasure. I guess he has a stack of them and is dropping them off in charity shops around the island.
I am indebted to World’s Worst Record’s reader Mikael for bringing today’s slice of audio horror to my attention.
Released in by Odeon in 1971, Jolly Jolly Buddy Buddy and the even more perverse B-side Molly Cow Teddy Puff (which, even if it is billed as one composition on the disc's label, is clearly two distinct 'songs') appear to be the only tracks recorded by Reco – an obscure Swedish vocalist of whom I know very little. I can tell you that his real name was Reijo Kääriäinen and, under his own name, he released a further 45 in Finland in 1978, Pahalta Tää Kaikki Näyttää/Kuka Mä Oon? Which I believe translates as something like All the Evil In the World/Who Am I? But I’ve no doubt that some of you can put me right.
Like the previously featured Prisencolinensinainciusol, Reco’s record is sung in what appears to be fake English. It seems that Reco played most of the instruments on the tracks, with Ulf Andersson on flute and Ulf Söderholmon drums. Both songs were produced by Tommy Hallden who, in the 50s and 60s, fronted his own band The Rocking'Jupiters. And that’s where it ends. Swedish website sunkit.com has been trying to get to the bottom of this mystery for years. Contributor Magnus Nilsson has corresponded with Reco’s drummer, Ulf Söderholmbut he has absolutely no memory of performing on the disc.
All I know is that this is brilliantly baffling and I need to own a copy.
Recently I’ve had the great privilege of corresponding with Annette Palazzo. Annette is a talented rock photographer who has taken pictures of some of the biggest acts in music: her shots of Led Zeppelin, the Police and XTC on stage in New York are just amazing. Better still, for lovers of bad music, Annette is the niece of the late James ‘Jack’ Covais, founder of the Tin Pan Alleysong-poem company, and she and her mother have been kind enough to not only share their memories with me but to allow me to share them with you.
A quick recap: Busy since the early 50s, and now with a reputation among serious doo-wop collectors for the quality of some of the company’s earliest output, Tin Pan Alleychurned out hundreds of singles over the next three decades – so many that no-one has yet managed to pull together a complete discography: given the company’s confusing cataloguing system (especially in their later years when they introduced the imprints TPA and Pageant Records) that’s hardly a surprise. Tin Pan Alley was founded, initially as a sheet music operation, in 1941 by Jack Covais a songwriter who, unable to hook up with an established publisher, wound up self-publishing instead. By 1943 he was already dabbling in song-poem publishing and by 1952 Tin Pan Alley had become a full-blown record company: their first release came out on both 10” 78 and 7” 45 that year, with both sides penned by Covais himself. Initially the company began by providing custom pressing and musical arrangement work for small bands and artists keen enough to get a record out to self-finance the project. It’s some of these records (by acts like the Melloharps and Teacho Wiltshire) which can now fetch hundreds of dollars and, because of that, have been widely bootlegged.
jack, it should be noted, was pretty serious about his business, forming his own publishing company (Juke Box Alley) and copyrighting his compositions. He was not adverse to taking the big boys to court either if he felt his copyright had been infringed: in 1957 he sued Atlantic Records over their Laverne Baker hit Tra La La, which he claimed copied his own Check Your Heart and CBS over their tune I Hope You Don't Know What You're Doing which, he believed, ripped off his composition What's It Gonna get You. Litigious he may have been, but it didn't seem to bother the Brooklyn-based Covais too much that there was already an outfit called Tin Pan Alley, run by Frank Capano in Philadelphia, which issued its first recordings in 1946.
Says Annette: “Jack Covais, who owned Tin Pan Alley, was my uncle through marriage. He was married to my dad's sister Lena. As a kid, my Aunt Lena would give all her adult siblings, as well as her nieces and nephews, Tin Pan Alley 45s.
“It was difficult to gauge what my aunt actually thought about these songs, she was a woman of few words, though I do remember that the family would always put these recordings on for a laugh during the Holidays and for family get-togethers! There are some real doozies in the TPA catalogue: Are You Willing/Working Overtime by Teacho Wiltshire (TPA 142/3) was a particular favourite of mine. ‘Performing the One and Only Rock 'n' Roll Waltz!’ was added to the A side!
“When I got older, I'd make mix tapes for work, adding on some of the Tin Pan Alley tunes. Teacho worked with King Pleasure, Solomon Burke and Wilson Pickett, it was clear Teacho was a professional, but not from the sounds of this recording! He was more of a band leader and pianist, than a singer. Since Teacho is the only one listed on this single, the assumption was that he was the singer, whoever was singing on this 45. We LOVED these songs at work; they really got us through the monotony of the day and 'working overtime'! When I Found Love, by Phil Celia (TPA 279), is another awesomely horrible tune; a guy at my former office would croon along when I put on the tape. I always wonder, had my Uncle Jack lived longer, perhaps he would have worked with Weird Al or some other music parody artist, because I still cannot believe Jack truly thought these inept recordings were serious, well-made pop music!
“My work colleagues could not believe what they were hearing! They thought these songs were from a parody record, or from a recording by The Bonzo Dog Band, Spike Jones or songs off the Golden Throats series of actors and actresses 'singing'. My work colleagues were shocked to find out these releases were legit recordings. I'd switch Working Overtime on when we worked overtime, hilarity ensued. At one point everyone in our art department knew the words! I always wondered how these Tin Pan Alley songs would sound if they'd been interpreted by some real singers with a great band.
“My Uncle Jack, who died around 1964, actually worked with some famous musicians. He recorded a song with R'n'B singer Pearl Woods. It was called My Donkey Wouldn't Walk (TPA 149/150; the B-side, by Pearl Woods, was You’re Getting Old, Charlie). There was a rumour that Jack Covais actually wrote Paper Roses, a hit for Marie Osmond, but no one in the family ever verified it (he didn’t. Paper Roses was written by Fred Spielman and Janice Torre and, before Marie Osmond’s 1973 version had been a hit in 1960 for Anita Bryant).
“My understanding is that Jack's nephew, Sal Covais, who took over the TPA family business, remained in the music business. I'm not sure in what capacity nor the time frame. According to information from my father, Jack Covais died in 1964 in Richmond Hill, New York, definitely not in Fort Lauderdale in 1991, as reported on the American Song-Poem Music Archivewebsite. I think there was some confusion, because, Jack, at one point, ran the TPA business with one of his brothers. Jack was a fairly young man when he died, he was either in his late 40s or early 50s; my dad doesn't remember his exact age, although he remembers he died of cancer. His son Jack Jr. was a young teen when Jack died.
“Since both Jack and Lena Covais, as well as their daughter Carolyn Donato, have passed away, we no longer have much contact with that side of the family. His son Jack Jr. is still alive, but we only see him at weddings and funerals. As far as I know, Jack Jr. never worked in the music business.
“Hope you enjoyed my personal Tin Pan Alley story! I always get a huge laugh when I see one of those TPA 45s for sale on eBay!”
Since this first email, Annette and I have continued to correspond. Although she has asked me not to reprint her other emails in their entirety (lots of personal family detail) she does confirm, via her mother, that Jack must have passed away in either 1964 or 1965, not in 1991 as previously believed. This would explain why his name, ubiquitous on the early TPA releases, suddenly disappears from the label around 1965. Annette’s mother, now in her 80s, is still in touch with one of the Gugliotta Sisters, one of the many acts that recorded for Tin Pan Alley.
Annette, I know I have already thanked you personally for sharing these memories with me, but thank you once again for allowing me to pass them on to other Tin Pan Alleyfans here at the World’s Worst Records. And thanks for the photo of Andy Partridge on stage at the Ritz too!
Here, for your enjoyment, is a selection of some of my favourite Tin Pan Alley releases: I Never Knew by Verle Clapper and the Sunset Boys, which was written by Jack Covais and issued as the very first Tin Pan Alley release; Goody, Goody, Good! by Fran Gold (co-written by Jack Covais); from the company’s later years I Tried John (Joan), a slice of silly sub-Dylan nonsense from Mike Yantorno, and, especially for Annette’s mother, Nina and the Gugliotta Sisters with Teenage Rock And Roll. Enjoy!
A serious rarity for you all today from the doyenne of bad singers, Leona Anderson.
Now, I’ve written about Leona before but it’s worth a recap, especially as I’ve unearthed a few more details about this extraordinary woman, proudly proclaimed by her own publicity as ‘the World's Most Horrible Singer’.
Born in 1885, Leona Aronson was the younger sister of early cowboy movie star Broncho Billy (not his wife, as stated elsewhere) and began her showbiz career at 15. She seriously thought about a career as an operatic singer before appearing in a number of films - thankfully all silent - in the first two decades of the century. One - Mud and Sand - satirised Rudolph Valentino and starred the great Stan Laurel (as Rhubarb Vaseline, not Vaselino as I originally wrote; Leona played Filet de Sole), another (In the Park, 1915) starred Charlie Chaplin and a third (Broncho Billy's Mexican Wife) was directed by and starred her brother.
By the mid-1950s Leona had developed her unique singing style and made many cabaret appearances sending up opera singers: she once said she chose this career because “Opera singers just can't kid themselves properly; they never can let their voices go.” She recorded a single, Fish, a 78 rpm released by the small New York City label Horrible Records(motto: if it’s really a Horrible Record it’s bound to be a hit) credited as Leonna Anderson which, the label on the disc claims, was recorded in the Holland Tunnel. TV comic Ernie Kovacs heard it and invited her on his show. That appearance led to her recording a cover of the Pattie Page hit The Mama Doll Song(backed with I’m A Fool to Care) for Columbia – of which Billboard wrote ‘her cracked tones, sadly out of tune (have) the same macabre appeal as the miserable chirping of Florence Foster Jenkins’. Both sides of her second (and last) 45 for Columbia, Limburger Lover and Yo-Ho the Crow, later turned up on her RKO/Unique Recordsalbum Music to Suffer By.
A short piece on Leona which appeared in the July 1957 edition of Song Hits magazine tells us a little more about how the great lady started her recording career: ‘Leona bills herself as "the world's worst singer", although there are people who have different opinions. Leona says that an artist mustn't expect complete objectivity from everyone - there will always be those who will not appreciate her act.
‘Miss Anderson was discovered by Tom Murray and Tony Burrello, who felt that since the world was apparently interested in buying terrible records, they would help meet the demand. They organized Horrible Records, signed their songs to the Miserable Music Company and released them through Terrible Distributors.
‘She was stolen from Horrible Records by Columbia, who had her satirize other record companies' artists, with sides like "I'm a Fool to Care" and "Mama Doll". Leona wanted to do a recording based on one of Columbia'sbig hits, but for some reason they said no. Stanley Borden, of RKO-Unique Records, knowing how effective Leona is, signed her to record for them. They have just issued her first album, "Music to Suffer By" (or "The Worst of Leona Anderson"!).’
Shortly after the release of her only album, she appeared in the Vincent Price horror film The House on Haunted Hill (as the demonic Mrs Slydes). She died, on Christmas day 1973, in a retirement home in Fremont, Alameda County, California at the age of 88, a little less than three years after her brother.
Music to Suffer Byis well-known and readily available; her first recording, Fish, turns up from time to time on compilations but, to the best of my knowledge, her Columbia debut is currently unavailable. So here, in all its glory, are both sides of that first Columbia 45: The Mama Doll Song and I’m a Fool to Care. Enjoy!
Opening up my email inbox this morning I encountered a press release from ‘Britain’s favourite astrologer’ Russell Grant…some nonsense about how the stars predict success or failure for skiving MP Nadine Dorriesand the rest of the Z-list celebs featured in this year’s I’m A Nonentity Get Me Out Of Here. It couldn’t have come at a better moment, for it spurred me into digging this horror out for you.
For you see, back in 1983 the man best known for predicting the future on various breakfast TV shows during the 80s and 90s released this monstrosity, a cover of the Supremes’ No Matter What Sign You Are. Bedecked in a terrible sleeve that featured the pudgy astrologer squeezed into a spandex body suit, this awful dirge actually reached the charts, peaking at number 87!
I’ve got a bit of a grudging admiration for Russell: he always seems game enough to take the piss out of himself when needed; he’s had a successful relationship with his partner Doug for 40 years, has lost a shed load of weight (something I’ve failed miserably to do) and he’s battled severe depression and come out the other side to tell the tale. Still, he did make this piece of rubbish, so it's not all good.
Although people of a certain age (that’s me included) will remember him for camping it up on the TV-am and BBC Breakfast Time sofas, over the last decade he’s forged a new career for himself, appearing on every ‘reality’ TV show imaginable: Celebrity Fit Club, Kitchen Burnout, Five Go to..., Strictly Come Dancing and so on. I thought he’d been in the Aussie outback for I’m A Celebrity but it seems not; in fact in 2011 he told The People newspaper: “It’s not about aggrandisement. I’ve turned down I’m a Celebrity about four times and Big Brother about three. I’m not someone who really cares about celebrity.” Really?
I’ve no doubt he’ll be popping up again somewhere soon, but until then – enjoy!
I am indebted to a regular reader of The World’s Worst Records, who has asked to remain anonymous, for pointing me in the direction of today’s performer – Amy Beth Parravano– and her album Full Service Love.
Although Full Service Love is an album of Amy Beth’s originals she’s better known as one of the world’s very few female Elvis impersonators: she cheekily markets herself as Elvis’ Lil’ Sister although, to the best of my knowledge, Elvis’ beloved mother Gladys didn’t have an affair with anyone called Parravano. In character she's performed worldwide at Elvis fan festivals and, judging by the cover of this album, makes a pretty mean Ms Elvis.
Her biography reads like a who’s who of Nashville: she’s worked with Kris Kristofferson, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Rodriquez and Joey Welz(of Bill Haley and his Comets); she has performed all across the United States and internationally, has recorded ten albums and produces and hosts her own television show "Amy Beth Presents". A fan of 50s music, especially Elvis, in the 80's she started her own record label, Peridot Records, and began releasing her original material. She claims to have had had a national chart record with her song North Hampton Line (although nothing appears on the Billboard charts), which resulted in her signing to Caprice Records where she ‘had a string of chart records on the US and overseas’ – which again I can find no evidence for. Her official biography also claims that Amy Bath was ‘inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame’: the official list of the 380 or so inducteesso far fails to include her name. It appears that Amy Beth (or AmyBeth as she is credited when not doing her Elvis schtick) likes to be a bit fast and loose when it comes to the truth, or at least her Elvis’ Lil’ Sister persona does.
In her ‘real’ life AmyBeth is a married woman of 60 with two fully grown children and is currently a pianist at the Roger Williams Park Carousel in Providence, Rhode Island. You can catch her there every Saturday, from 2pm to 4pm, where she plays ragtime piano, nickelodeon style, dressed in a sequined waistcoat and top hat. She’s appeared as an extra in a number of movies, including Underdog, 27 Dresses and Hachiko, and even has her own local access cable TV show, the aforementioned “AmyBeth Presents”. She’s written a horror film, Broom Ride to Salem, which was screened as part of the Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival, and has auditioned for American’s Got Talent, dressed as one of her other characters Amy the Mime and singing the Mamas and the Papas song Dream a Little Dream of Me, although quite how a mime is supposed to sing I don't rightly know. Still, she’s certainly a busy lady and, by all accounts, quite a character.
Anyway, for your enjoyment here’s the painful Hero For the 90s, from Amy Beth’s 2008 album Full Service Love.
I’ve never known an artist or group (with the possible exception of the abominable Coldplay) generate as much bile and downright hatred as Meade Skelton. Google him: it won’t take you long to find people issuing death threats towards the country singer and self-proclaimed ‘good ol’ boy’, such as ‘That fat racist f***ing piece of self-absorbed inbred hillbilly redneck pigwoman dog s**t…I hope he smothers his fat f**k ass with his own bosoms in his sleep’. Phew! Mead’s music actually isn’t that bad: naïve, perhaps; mediocre certainly, but not point-blank horrible. But what makes this outsider musician so fascinating is his personality. Self-righteous and obsessed with junk food, the man who wrote an ode to a cuppa (Sweet Tea) is fanatical about protecting his image – so much so that should anyone dare to criticise his work online (at, say, Amazon or any one of a number of online forums) he will appear under the guise of one of his many alter egos to remonstrate with them. He’s also rather fond of posting four and five star reviews of his own albums to try and kid people into believing that the release they’re purchasing is in fact the work of the next Elvis.
I’m sure he’s not the only ‘artist’ doing this, but he’s been caught out time and time again and yet still does it: E P Haufe, RVACountryLover, RVACountrySinger and Elvis Fan are his favourite pseudonyms, but he’s used a number of different ones over the years. So infamous are his attempts at self-aggrandisement that he now appears in the Urban Dictionary as an example of an internet troll.
Hailing from Richmond, Virginia, Meade Skelton has released a handful of albums over the 11 years since his debut, Songs by Meade Skelton, appeared in 2001, his self-composed songs distinguished by his florid piano style, pleasant baritone voice and odd – some might say downright weird – lyrical inspiration. Take a look at some of his song titles: They Called Me Porker, Proud to be a Square, It’s Hard to Love Yourself (When Everybody Hates You), I Love to Eat (and it Shows) and the brilliantly-titled Hipsters Ruin Everything among them.
But just who is Meade Skelton? Meade Skelton Haufe grew up in Virginia and began playing music at an early age. After his mother died (when he was just 11), Meade became a born-again Christian. He moved to Richmond when he was 18 and it was here that he became involved in music, playing with local bands, in coffee shops and at his local church. According to his website (www.meadeskeltonsplace.com) Meade’s ‘heartache meets humor style puts pop, country, jazz, Americana and gospel music into a blender’. As a member of the Tabernacle Baptist Church, Meade often performs as part of the The Meadow Street Band– their rather overwrought presence provides the back up on his latest release, Meade Music(re-recorded versions of 10 Meade Skelton classics) - and he plays a large part in his church’s music ministry.
He had his own Tumblr blog for a while but this appears to have been taken down – probably as a reaction to such semi-racist posts as ‘I enjoy going to Kroger’s and getting a 2 pc chicken dinner. I get baked, not fried. (I eat healthy!). So then I had macaroni and cheese, and collard greens with it, and a dinner roll. It was very good in my mouth. I just love going there. The people that work there are really nice. Except some of them have a more uppity attitude. I notice its worse with the middle aged Negroes, than the younger ones. I guess they were taught to hate white people. Oh, well. I certainly don’t hate them.’ Responding to Meade's rant about the Kroger supermarket’s African-American employees, Regional Manager Scott O'Connell informed employees that Meade would now be banned from four local Kroger locations: "Kroger is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and strongly condemns any bias based on race, creed, sexual orientation or religion," said Scott. "Our employees are proud to work for Kroger and our decision to ban a customer does not come lightly. We stand behind our employees." Although Meade later apologised for his comments he managed to force his own foot further down his throat by referring to the now non-uppity Negroes as ‘of the colored race’….oops! ***The Krogers' ban story may be a hoax; although the Fairfax Underground forum claims the Richmond Times-Dispatch as its source there is no news story currently indexed at the R T-D site which mentions the ban***
Meade has some odd opinions about gay people too: ‘I think that many lesbians are usually women that were treated poorly by men. They might have been raped or abused. They fear men, and seek solace in other women. Homosexual men are usually under something more demonic, that controls them to lust after men. Which is sinful and unnatural.’ I can see where he’s coming from here: I often find it hard to control the outrageous overflowing of lust I have for every single man on the planet.
He’s no time for the Beatles either (although that is not why I’m including him here): ‘I think Rock music is bad music, and the only Rock artist I can tolerate is Elvis Presley. But most of it is really evil. I think that the Beatles had a deal with Satan, and also you can clearly see that when people are at Rock shows they go under a trance almost and its like pandimonium for a long time - they are under some kinda witch craft. The beat in Rock music comes from African (sic). The Africans used this beat to conjure up evil spirits when they did their tribal dances. But the Illuminati is mostly to blame, because when they made Rock albums, they dedicated them to Satan.’
It’s been suggested on various message boards that Meade may be autistic, which would certainly explain such lacks of tact as this, and he’s said himself that he suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome. But as everything in Meade’s life is shrouded in mystery, confused by his multiple personalities and exacerbated by his outright lies, who knows for sure? It's a shame, because some of his material is not without it's own innocent charm. Maybe if he spent less time trying to market himself as a country star, embraced his outsider status and quit the bad-mouthing people might be a lot less inclined to hate him so much. Mind you, he detests Obama and supports the Tea Party, so maybe not.
I am indebted to an anonymous benefactor for introducing me to the rather strange Mr Skelton; now you take him! Here’s Fat No More from his latest album, Meade Music and, from his earlier release They Can’t Keep Me Down, the track They Called Me Porker
A short post this morning, partly because I’m a little short of time but also because I know very little about this particular oddity.
Released originally in the US on MGM (DJ copies also exist) and later in several other countries including Australia, Mildred, Our Choir Director by the otherwise unknown Rollo and Bolliveris one of the most peculiar records I’ve ever come across. When I first heard it I assumed it came from the mid-60’s, and would have appeared at about the same time as the slew of other campy takes on British life which America seemed so fond of, but it seems that Mildred (and it’s equally confusing B-side, the Dr Seuss-inspired The Hoobaschnob Machine) was actually issued way back in 1958, and re-issued (according to a brief review in Billboard) in November 1960, presumably to try and catch the lucrative Christmas Market.
Sayeth Billboard: ‘Mildred, poor gal, is screaming as she hangs from the cliff but the boys have little interest as they drink their tea’. There’s not a lot to add to that, other than this is one of the funniest things I’ve heard in ages. It is clearly a novelty release, which is something I normally avoid here, but does it also rate as a ' bad' record? Well, I guess that all depends on your point of view. It's certainly in bad taste.
I assume that Rollo and Bolliver are pseudonyms for the composers Marvin Moore and Bob Davis (or, more correctly it seems Bob Davie), who also wrote the classic Green Door, but I can’t be sure. I can tell you that Elvis owned a copy, but that’s about it. No doubt one of you will have some more info on this peculiar little record. A hat tip to one of my favourite record blogs Lord of the Boot Sale which featured this a couple of years back.
Yo ho ho! It’s Christmas (well, almost), which means it’s time for this year’s Christmas cavalcade.
Today we’re paying tribute to our old friend Red Sovine, an artist who has featured on these pages several times in the past. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a little Red Sovine, would it?
Woodrow Wilson 'Red' Sovine, who scored his first chart hit in 1955, was responsible for a barrel load of Christmas-themed monstrosities; Is There Really A Santa Clause and Santa Is A Texas Cowboy (a surprisingly upbeat tune from this master of the morose) were compiled on his must-have 1978 collection Christmas With Red Sovine, which has to be the most miserable set of celebratory songs ever.
One song on the album, Billy’s Christmas Wish, tells a tale so desperately lurid that I can’t believe his record company had the temerity to release it. I also can't believe that I have not shared it with you before. Billy’s Christmas Wish is the tale of a homeless, father-less child who prays to Santa every year but whose sack is perpetually empty.
Have you ever been to Heaven Santa?
Why I bet you know God as good as you are Could I just ride up to Jesus' house sir? If it's not too awful far
He might just let me live there a while
Daddy says he likes little boys And I wouldn't take too much room sir I'd just sit in the back with the toys
Well, when you live in a car and your father is in jail it’s no wonder Santa has a hard time finding you. “I’m Santa! Come sit on my knee, he’d say…” Ick. Shades of Jimmy Savile. Then, wouldn’t you know it, the little swine dies. Ungrateful brat.
The Red Sovinecanon is the best argument I could ever present against country and western music. In a superb twist of fate Red Sovine, known for his truck driving tributes, died of a heart attack at the wheel of his van in April 1980.
