The Manor Boys are back on-line, by request.
Warning! This here's a whole album of song-poems - lyrics that suckers regular folks have paid to have set to music - that might have you questioning your sanity if you attempt to listen to it all in one go. Like I did.
Unlike the song-shark racket's most famous exemplars Rodd Keith and the slickly professional MSR Studios posse, Royal Master Recordings from Tennessee are at least as inept as the amateurs who sent in their hapless lyrics. The singers, one male and one female, can't find the rhythm, stop (give up?) singing thus leaving long awkward instrumental passages, and once even keep going after the music has stopped! They also give every song the exact same reading no matter what its' content. The music tracks are generic country, and sometimes are repeated. Yep, you pay good money to have your heartfelt poems set to "original" music, and you get the same backing track as several other poor souls.
And what poems they are. Side 1 sports at least two real gems amidst all the love songs, the self-explanatory "Monkey Disco," and the hysterical Luddite plea "Progress." Side 2 is nuts, kicking off with several baffling songs. "Let Me Try Again" actually resembles good music, but the following track "These Hands" sends things back into the twilight zone.
As with another Royal Master album I've posted, the all dead-Elvis themed "Gone But Not Forgotten," we get the added bonus of actual photos of the lyricists. And remember - these aren't hit songs yet. But they will be...tomorrow. I can't wait!
Hit Songs of Tomorrow
By request, the Irish folk mashup collection "Straight Outta Ireland" is back up. When my unbelieving eyes saw that parts of the US were going to be below -50 F (factoring in wind chill), my mission was clear: post that exotica compilation I'd been sitting on. You people need to warm up, and what better way to do that then with this collection of steamy, sultry, pseudo-tropical musics rescued from singles and otherwise non-exotic albums, not unlike our previous "Savage Exotica" comp. Like that collection, this features folks you wouldn't expect to be making tiki tunes: The Residents? Sun Ra? (His biography "Space Is The Place" confirms that he was a fan of exotica maestros like Les Baxter.) Sinatra singing with a Hawaiian group? A Rodd Keith song-poem? You bet your aloha. The "Fifth Beatle" Billy Preston, even, as well as famous bandleaders like George Shearing & Xavier Cugat, and contemporary revivalists like Combustible Edison, Cocktails with Joey, and the man whose track gives this album it's name, Fred from the B-52s. Plenty of unknowns, lounge acts, and private-press records in here, too. And "Noisy Village" and "A Night In Bedrock Forest" are bizarre, sound-effects-laden novelties, presumably parodies.
TOTALLY NUDE EXOTICA01 Superions - Totally Nude Island [w/Fred Schneider]02 Exotic Adventure - Mel Henke03 Caravan - The Three Suns04 Tahiti - Rodd Keith 05 Exotic bird-bird - Dickie Harrell06 Ferry Across The Mersey - Billy Preston [sounding more like "Ferry Cross the Amazon", this is from 1965, years away from Preston joining the Beatles, or his '70s solo fame]07 cults percussion ensemble - baia [feat. a then-teenaged Evelyn Glennie]08 Slow Hot Wind (Lujon) - The Trilogy [a Florida lounge act covering Mancini]09 Poinciana - Art Van Damme [one of many versions of this oft-recorded exotica standard performed here by the world's foremost (only?) jazz accordionist]10 The Residents - Syx Things to a Cycle (part 1)11 Solar Drums - Sun Ra & His Mythical Science Arkestra12 Tabou - Lecuona Cuban Boys [very early 78 rpm version of song that would be a perrenial exotica standard, often spelled "Taboo"]13 Jungle Fever - The Mighty Accordion Band 14 Frank Sinatra - Bali Hai15 Tropical Espionage - Cocktails with Joey16 Noisy Village - Bobby McFadden and Dor ['Dor' is a pre-fame Rod McKuen]17 Michael Farneti - In the Jungle [sleazy '70s lounge disco!]18 The Veldt - Combustible Edison19 Bahía - Xavier Cugat & his Waldorf Astoria Orchestra (with Bing Crosby)20 Fred Flintstone - A Night In Bedrock Forest [near as I can tell, this has nothing to do with the actual "Flintstones" show]21 ブンガワン･ソロ (
Bengawan Solo) - Kiyohiko Senba and his Haniwa All Stars22 patrick vian - oreknock23 george shearing - caravan
John F. Kennedy inspired a lot of music. This is some of the weirdest. Song-poems! A Frank Zappa composed/produced surf record! A singing psychic! Mexican music! And all 6 tracks from the great "Sing Along With JFK" album that featured pre-sampling tape manipulations of Jack's voice "remixed" with original music and a vocal chorus. You've heard of musique concrete? This is musique ridicule.
Sing Along With JFK1. George Atkins and Hank Levine: Begin Anew For Two (from "Sing Along With JFK")2. George Atkins and Hank Levine: Let Us Begin Beguine3. George Atkins and Hank Levine: Alliance For Progress Bossa Nova4. George Atkins and Hank Levine: Ask Not Waltz5. George Atkins and Hank Levine: The Trumpet 6. George Atkins and Hank Levine: Let The Word Go Forth7. Los Conquistadores: Homenaje a John F. Kennedy8. Brian Lord & The Midnighters: The Big Surfer (written/produced by Frank Zappa, recorded in his Cucamunga studio, 1963)9. Frances Baskerfield, "The Singing Psychic" - The Grassy Knoll10. Johnny Tucker - Mr. Kennedy11. Mike Macharyas - Lee Harvey Oswald (from the 2005 album "Ashlee Simpson" in which all Macharyas does is repeat famous peoples names over and over; he has 17 albums of this insanity)12. Lee Roy Abernathy: John F. Kennedy The Greatest Of All (like the Johnny Tucker song, this is an indie country/folk record, but this guy seems really worried about Texas' reputation as much as anything else)13. Norm Burns and the Five Stars: John F. Kennedy Was Called Away14. Norm Burns and the Five Stars: John F. Kennedy's Election Race (Song-poems! This one's the more inept/funnier of the two)Thanks for some of these to WFMU's Beware of the Blog, and master blogger Bob Purse.
Last year, Otis Fodder asked me to put together a guest-dj mix for his late, lamented radio show Friendly Persuasion. I decided to go thru my boxes of (mostly) old 7 inch records and put together a thing called FORBIDDEN 45s!! And since Our Man in Salt Lake City, windbag (who has shared so much awesomeness with us before) sent us a mind-boggling assortment of 7" platters, I'm calling this: FORBIDDEN 45s!! (windbag edition)So much here to warm the heart of any Maniac: song-poems, disco atrocities, singing children, singing animals, exercise records, rap novelties, hillbillies, more song poems, angry Chipmunks, Jane Fonda talking dirty, and an enchanted one-man polka puppet-show orchestra.
1. Bobbi Blake - Rock Rock Beat (Ms. Blake was one of the most-recorded singers of the MSR song-poem factory; this "rocker" boasts such money-well-spent lines as "you're nobody's patsy/so hop in a taxi")
2. Luigi's World's Largest One Man Band - Anaconda Polka (major, major discovery here, folks - the only thing I can find about this guy is from this book about the bars of Montana; read that link and be amazed; anyone else got anything on this guy?)
3. Susan Carroll Presents - Waistline and Tummy Exercises (from an ep calle
d "Milady, Your Figure!")
4. Dick Kent - Smiling Farmer-The President (this bewildering ode to Jimmy Carter is one of the best song-poems EVER; to quote Rudy Ray Moore, "I ain't lyin'!")
5. The Hartz Mountain Master Radio Canaries - Pizzicato Polka (real live birdies tweating along with peppy organ and xylophone)
6. Major Bill Smith with Zane and Hogan - Freddy The Disco Frog (minimal-synth disco novelty: Suicide meets Rick Dees?! Oh, and Major Bill Smith was a successful record producer in the early '60s who later claimed that Elvis was alive and he had a recent taped conversation to prove it)
7. Ira Cook - Wh
at Is A Girl? (this 1958 side spends more time complaining about little girls than speaking their praises)
8. Klute - Special Exploitation Lobby Record featuring Jane Fonda Dialogue
9. The Hartz Mountain Master Radio Canaries - Humoresque
10. Bill Nettles and His Dixie Blue Boys - God Bless My Darling He's Somewhere (In Viet Nam) (I'm assuming that this craggy-voiced country singer is calling his SON "darling"...uh, right?)
11. Susan Carroll Presents - Thigh and Can-Can Exercise
12. Dick Kent - Cozy Doe (another most-unrockin' rock-n-roll song-poem: "Come on jive, get alive/'cause the clock is at five")
13. Luigi's World's Largest One Man Band - Billings Polka
14. Fred Carson - This Is Not The Time To Cry (This song-poem's author worries about crime, and wants guys to act like real men. Or something like that.)
15. The Hartz Mountain Master Radio Canaries - Mexican Dance
16. The Curbstones - Scrumpdillyishus Land
17. Dick Kent - She Thumbed A Ride
18. The Chipmunks - I Ain't No Dang Cartoon (the b-side to their version of "Achy-Breaky Heart" that was the hidden "bonus" track on a previous windbag comp "Songs of the Sewer;" Alvin sounds rather cranky and defensive here)19. Ira Cook - What Is A B
oy
20. The Hartz Mountain Master Radio Canaries - Beautiful Blue Danube
21. Gene Marshall - Not Owned (Hey, it's Gene Marshall! The guys who sang all those Richard Nixon song-poems! This isn't one of 'em.)
22. Susan Carroll Presents - Duck Walk and Leg Exercise
23. Fat Boys w/Chubby Checker - The Twist (Yo Twist) (This hip-hop novelty actually made it to #16 on the US charts)
24. Zane and Hogan - Studio 54 (This disco instrumental, the b-side to "Freddy The Disco Frog," is a complete spazz-attack.)
25. Bobbi Blake - Who Played House With You? (weird sci-fi keyboard sounds on this song-poem)
26. Bill Nettles and His Dixie Blue Boys - Got A Lot Of Lovin' To Do (this almost-rockbilly toe-tappin' flip of "God Bless My Darling" is impressively energetic considering that he died shortly after recording it.)
27. The Hartz Mountain Master Radio Canaries - An Artists Life
28. Harry Brooks - False Words and False Kisses (another song-poem)Needless to say, another great big thankyoooo to windy.
Our busy elf helper windbag sent a us batch of singles, including a Christmas disco one, which inspired me to root thru my own disco/old school archives to pull out my fave 12" and vinyl yuletide artifacts. Totally kitschy, funky and, tho sometimes awful, always awfully fun.
01 Wayne Newton - Jingle Bell Hustle02 Santa's Disco Band - Xmas Medley Disco
03 Charo - Mamacita (Donde Esta Santa Claus)
04 Walter Murphy Orch - Disco Bells
05 Irwin The Disco Duck - Disco Duck II
06 The Sisterhood - The Rocking Disco Santa Claus [the one track I did get off a cd, the crucial Song-Poem Christmas album
]
07 Walter Murphy Orch - Deck The Halls08 Kurtis Blow - Christmas Rappin' [from 1979! pre-"Rapper's Delight"?]09 Santa's Disco Band - Santa Claus is Coming To Town Disco
10 The Treacherous Three - Xmas Rap (Un-Censored)
ROCKIN' DISCO SANTA CLAUS
