Oscar Brand: Bawdy Songs & Backroom Ballads Volume 4

Review # 69
Artist: Oscar Brand
Title: Bawdy Songs and Backroom Ballads Volume 4
Format: LP
Label: Audio Fidelity
Year: 1957
Songs: 14





So, after triumphantly moving on to "C" records, I found this sitting in my pile of records I hadn't actually listened to yet. I've had this for a while and it should have been reviewed before now, but it's very appropriate that this is review number 69, because this is a record of dirty, prurient songs. Being an enthusiast of old folk music, I picked this up out of a dollar bin, never having heard of Oscar Brand but curious about these ditties. Brand was a Canadian born folk singer who specialized in some of the less family-friendly folk music of Europe and America, so much so that he released at least four volumes of these forgotten and filthy tunes.

I sort of thought this record wasn't going to be any good, but I was mostly wrong. This record is a fun compendium of old-time songs about illicit sex. Some of them are sort of subtle (emphasis on "sort of") like "Two Maidens" and "Basket of Oysters" (you can guess what that one's about), while others are so graphic that they couldn't be played on the radio without significant censorship. These songs really put the lie to the idea that modern forms like rap and hard rock have made music a corrupting influence. With several of the tracks on this record dating back to 1607, it is quite clear that raunchy songs are nothing new. Many of these songs have familiar tunes that might have you absent-mindedly tapping your foot before realizing this is not the song from your childhood (i.e. "Cindy," "The Wayward Boy," and "The Money Rolls In," the latter of which is sung to the tune of "My Bonnie" but deals with prostitution and related matters). The record also contains a song called "Sweet Violets," which turns out to be a forerunner of the 1940s novelty hit "Shaving Cream," with mostly similar verses and choruses that replace the "shhhhaving cream, be nice and clean, shave every day and you'll always look keen" with "sweet violets, sweeter than all the roses."

The actual performances of these songs are pretty ok. Brand and his accompanist Dave Sear are both competent guitarists/banjo players and sing these tunes with the gusto that songs like these really require to work. The one place where it sort of falls apart is with the accents. Brand does an ok Scotsman--good enough that I initially found myself wondering if he was actuallyScottishf. But his English accent, on embarrassing display throughout "Don't Call Me," a British soldier song, is just laughably bad. Every time he sings "Cor, blimey!" I cringe.  He would have been much better off to just sing these with his natural accent, or failing that, skip the British songs, because he just sounds silly.

Overall though, this is a pretty fascinating and fun look at the scandalous side of folk music, if you are interested in that sort of thing.

The only song from this record I could find streaming is one of the tamer ones, "The Wayward Boy." Enjoy!

Total songs listened: 850

Chuck Berry: Chuck Berry's Golden Hits

Review # 45
Artist: Chuck Berry
Title: Chuck Berry's Golden Hits
Format: LP
Label: Mercury
Year: 1967
Songs: 11






If you like rock music at all, it's hard to imagine not liking Chuck Berry or the songs on this record. This is a collection of classic Chuck Berry tunes, like "Memphis," "Maybellene," and of course, "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B. Goode." These are classic songs by a man who deserves substantial credit as one of the creators of rock music. The fast pace, backbeat, and relentless guitar of Chuck Berry's best songs are the heart of rock and roll. It's hard to know what popular music would have become without Berry's music. There almost certainly never would never have been anything called punk rock.

All of that said (and I didn't realize this when I bought it), this record doesn't feature the original 1950s versions of these classic songs. In fact, the only song featured here in it's original version is new song Berry recorded for the record called "Club Nitty Gritty." Not coincidentally, this is the only song from this record I'd never heard before. All of these songs were re-recorded for Mercury Records in 1967 specifically for this release. The original stand-up bass has been replaced by an electric one, and they've also added some tambourine. What's missing is some of the energy. Don't get me wrong, these are still some peppy songs, and I wouldn't call the recordings bad by any means, but some of the magic that makes Berry's music so enduring is missing from these versions. I wouldn't quite say they feel forced, but I could imagine it being very hard to have the same enthusiasm for recording a song ten years or more after the original recording sessions, and I think the lower enthusiasm levels show here. The new bass lines are also more complex and a little higher in the mix, and sometimes distract from the songs.

If I'd known these weren't the original versions of this, I might not have bought this record. It's not that it's bad, but I would have rather spent the money on the originals.

I misspoke in the last review: I actually have one more record that was pushed to the back that I'll need to review before we cross back into punk rock territory after several weeks away.

Total songs listened: 574

Frank Friday! Frank Sinatra: Come Dance With Me

Review #35
Artist: Frank Sinatra
Title: Come Dance With Me
Format: LP
Label: Capitol Records
Songs: 12







For pure fun Sinatra tunes, it's hard to beat Come Dance With Me. This is one of my favorite records to put on when I have people over for dinner. It's upbeat swinging Frank Sinatra in top form. There's not a bad performance on this record (although I'm not terribly fond of "Baubles, Bangles and Beads" as a piece of music), and while I personally am a fan of Frank's more melancholy numbers, this is a great record for entertaining guests because it stays up-tempo all the way through, slowing down only for it's closing tune, "The Last Dance."

The most interesting thing about this record is that it's a bit of a concept album. Most of the songs on the record are about (or at least mention) dancing. In addition to the title track and "The Last Dance" it features, among others, swinging renditions of "Dancing in the Dark," "I Could Have Danced All Night," and of course, "Cheek to Cheek." It's kind of a cool idea and somewhat ahead of it's time to connect the songs on the record thematically like this.

Sinatra's performance is spot on on this record. The man was in many ways in his prime when this recorded, and the vocals have that uniquely Frank-Sinatra-cool attitude that characterizes the best of his swing material. Backing him up are trumpeter Billy May and his orchestra, who collaborated with Sinatra on several other records, some which will appear later on this blog.  May and his band play good, solid swing, which should come as no surprise given that Billy May was part of Glenn Miller's band for a while and also worked with, among others, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, and Nat King Cole. Interestingly, along with other film and television work, Billy May also composed some of the music for the 1960s Batman television show.

This to me isn't Sinatra's most compelling record, but it's definitely one of his most fun.

Come dance with Frank Sinatra.

Total songs listened: 456

Jan August: Piano Roll Favorites

Review # 20
Artist: Jan August (w/The Bay Rum Boys)
Title: Piano Roll Favorites
Format: 10" LP
Label: Mercury
Year: 1950
Songs: 8




I don't remember how this came into my collection, but I might have bought it at the Goodwill outlet store where records cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 cents. I think I played it once before today, but I'm not really sure.  This record is made up of songs that were popular as rolls for player pianos, performed by pianist (and, according to the internet, xylophonist) Jan August. Some tracks feature vocals by the Bay Rum Boys. There's also a snare drum and what sounds like maybe a stand up bass on these songs.

This record has seen better days. It pops and skips a little, but honestly, it kind of adds to the old-timey feel of this record. While this came out in 1950 (or at least, that's the only date I could find for it online), these songs are older than that, with some dating back to the 1930s, and the recording feels much more like something out of the 1940s than the 1950s. There's a ragtime feel to most of these songs, and the lyrics are incredibly dated and sometimes politically incorrect (see for example these lyrics to "Egyptian Ella"). And yet, on some level, this was a record that recognized the changing times. "The Good Old Pianola" reminisces about the days of player pianos, bemoaning the rise of the jukebox, which, in contrast to its vanquished predecessor, charges it's listeners for the pleasure of listening to music.

I can't really get too deep into this one. It just falls too far outside my frame of reference, and to my ear there isn't anything that deep happening here. I will say, however, that the piano performances are pretty impressive, and the Bay Rum Boys, although they sound silly and entirely too innocent to the contemporary ear, really nail that old-time harmony sound and compliment Jan and the band nicely. This feels like a perfect little slice of music from a bygone era--it's actually sort of surprising this isn't an album of 78s rather than a single 33rpm record. Apparently Jan and the Bay Rum Boys did release some of these tracks on 78s, so maybe the recordings are older than this particular collection, but I don't know. Information about this one on the internet is sparse. Regardless of the actual date these were recorded, however, you could imagine strolling along at a county fair in the 1930s or 40s, and hearing these performances in background as someone yells about how, for just a nickle, you can have three chances to knock down the bottles.  Or something like that.  I wouldn't seek this out or anything, but it's cute and fun if you like old-time music.

Total songs listened: 242

Louis Armstrong and the All Stars: The Glenn Miller Story **UPDATED**

Review # 17
Artist: Louis Armstrong and the All Stars
Title: The Glenn Miller Story
Format: LP
Label: MCA
Year: 1954 (?)
Songs: 10






This the French release of the soundtrack to the 1954 film The Glenn Miller Story, which starred Jimmy Stewart in the title role and also featured Louis Armstrong playing... Louis Armstrong. I haven't seen the film, and in fact didn't even know it existed until I got this record (which was only a about a week ago), but I'm curious now and probably will try to rent it. I've listed the year for this album as 1954 because that's when the movie came out and I haven't been able to find a release date for the record.

Because this is the soundtrack to a film about Glenn Miller, the songs are, not surprisingly, mostly big band renditions of Glenn Miller classics like "In the Mood" and "Pennsylvania 6-500," the latter of which features a slightly jarring telephone sound effect before each chorus. I like Glenn Miller well enough, but he's not one of my all time favorites in the jazz world. Even though I like it, there's something just a little too tame and friendly in the Glenn Miller sound for me to get deeply invested. The songs on this record are mostly nice versions of songs in Miller's repertoire, but they aren't that different from the actual Glenn Miller recordings of these songs.  Very seldom do Louis Armstrong's famous trumpet stylings really come through, and on only two songs, "Basin Street Blues" and "Otchi-Tchor-Ni-Ya" does his unique vocal appear. To be honest, I'm not totally sure how many of these songs Armstrong actually even appears on, and I wouldn't be surprised if it weren't that many.

I don't mean to suggest that this a bad record.  Far from it.  It's both a good record and sort of a cool piece of jazz history. But if you pick this up hoping for something that sounds more like a Louis Armstrong record than a Glenn Miller record, you may find yourself a bit a disappointed or at least surprised.

Also, since this is the French release of this record, I can't read the liner notes and have no idea what they're saying. They might provide some insights on the what role (if any) Armstrong played in recording the songs he's less obvious on, but I'm not sure.

In short, this is a fun jazz record and has a lot of nice cuts on it, but most of it sounds more like a Glenn Miller record than a Louis Armstrong one.

Here's a fun clip from the movie that features  Louis Armstong playing "Basin Street Blues."

Total songs listened: 220

**Update: July 5, 2011**
Over Independence Day weekend, I watched a bunch of movies, including The Glenn Miller Story. While I don't know how accurate the film was to real life, I definitely have a little more respect for Glenn Miller as an artist. The film shows his struggles in the early years of his jazz career, as a man driven to finding a new sound in jazz. It also makes it clear how unusual his arrangements were in his time. The instrumentation he was using was unheard of in his time.  No one had ever tried five saxophones with a clarinet lead before, at least not successfully. The Miller sound is still not my favorite, but I have a new found appreciation for Miller's jazz innovation after seeing the film.  It's also just a good watch, if you like old movies. Recommended.

Louis Armstrong: Louis Armstrong's Greatest Hits

Review # 16
Artist: Louis Armstrong
Title: Louis Armstrong's Greatest Hits
Format: LP
Label: Columbia
Year: 1967
Songs: 11





This is the first of three records featuring Louis Armstrong that I'll be reviewing over the next few days.  Louis Armstrong is one of those artists who played for so long that's at first blush, it seems like it would be kind of hard to determine which were his "greatest hits." Be that as it may, this a great record that features a lot of songs that even a casual fan of Louis Armstrong would recognize (though lacks a recording of "What a Wonderful World," which came out the year after this collection was released).  These are mostly recordings that Armstrong made in the mid-1950s, but a few of them go back to the late 20s as well, and it's a mix of studio and live tracks from performances. The recording quality is pretty good on all of them (sometimes this is not so with older recordings, especially live recordings) and the studio tracks by and large have a rich, warm sound that's really conducive to Armstrong's unique voice.

This was the first Louis Armstrong record I ever bought, and the one I've played the most. It's hard to pick out highlights from this record, because you just can't really go wrong with Louis Armstrong. I've always particularly liked his version of "A Theme from The Threepenny Opera (Mack the Knife)," although it's funny how much the tone doesn't match the lyrics.  The song sounds so happy, but when you actually pay attention, there's some pretty horrible stuff going on in the narrative.  It's a swingin' good time song about  murder. It's always struck me as odd, especially after hearing what the original version sounded like, that this has become a jazz classic. From eerie and kind of sad to swingin' good time... tale of murder. It works though, no doubt about it.

Another moment I love from this record is at the beginning of "Back O'Town Blues," the second cut on the record, when Louis sings: "I once had a woman..." and someone else from  the band shouts out "So what? I had five of 'em!" That's always cracked me up. On side two, which is all live stuff, I'm particularly fond of Armstrong's version of "All of Me," a song I've always had a fondness for anyway.

The back of the sleeve is nice in that it gives a little background on each song, when it was recorded, which band was playing with Armstrong, and how it fit into his large repertoire and career.

I'm not an expert on Louis Armstrong, or on jazz in general for that matter. I like a fair amount of it, and I tend to mostly go in for the classics, so my opinion of this record isn't based on an encyclopedic or up-to-date knowledge of jazz music. As a non-expert though, I will say that I think this a good collection of Armstrong's work, especially as an introduction for someone who may not be too familiar with his catalogue.

Total songs listened: 210