Office Naps | 45rpm curios

An offshootx of the Exotica Project, the Lonely Beat focuses on post-War music inspired by, or evocative of, the cluster of motifs, images and clichés associated with the mid-century American city. This is a city based in some reality but remade by pop culture - the gritty, dangerous, bohemian Naked City.

Lonely Beat

Bright Lights

Posted on 2013/01/15 by Little Danny

Like AM Radio Dust, its companion volume, Bright Lights is just as much an exploration of lost spaces and places as it is of sound.

I hope you enjoy it.

Bright Lights
(single MP3 file)

Susan Rafey, “The Big Hurt”
Jerry Lee Trio, “Banshee”
Rick Durham and the Dynamics, “Southern Love”
Stan with the Marauders, “Echo Valley”
Maggie Ingram with the Ingramettes, “Melody of Love”
Zena Ayo, “Long Long Gone”
Mike Baltch Quartet, “Delilah”
Cheryl Thompson, “Black Night”
The Checker Dots, “Alpha Omega”
Fantastic Dee-Jays, “This Love of Ours”
The What Four, “Gemini 4″
Carole King, “A Road to Nowhere”
The Bittersweets, “Hurtin’ Kind”
Charles Wright and the Malibus, “Runky”
The Missing Links, “I Cried Goodbye”
J. Gale and the Games, “A Million Nothings”
The Benjamin Specials Gospel Singers, “I Am on the Right Road Now”
Link Wray, “Girl from the North Country”
Shirley Mc Donald accompanied by The Kay Nines K-9′s, “You”
The Santells, “These Are Love”
Houston and Dorsey, “Ebb Tide”
Dub Benson, “Shaping Up Today”
Henry Kaalekahi, “Hookipa Paka – Maunawili”
Johnny Love, “Rain Drops”
George Johnson, “Capricorn”
Fay Simmons, “Bells”
Cee Cee Carol, “The Right Guy”
Lou Smith, “I’ll Be the One”

Posted in Blues, Country, Exotica/Space-Age, Garage Bands, Girl-Groups, Gospel, Instrumentals/Surf, Jazz Obscura, Mixes, Now Sound, R&B/Vocal Groups, Rock 'n' roll, Soul | 2 Comments

Raqs ‘n’ Roll

Posted on 2012/12/31 by Little Danny

The records that capitalized on post-War America’s tastes for Middle Eastern music encompass an absolutely fascinating continuum.

At one end there were the country-by-country ethnic field recordings released by Folkways, Lyrichord, Monitor and other specialist labels, academic packages for armchair anthropologists. At the other extreme was the unreconstructed orchestral exotica of albums like Ron Goodwin’s Music for an Arabian Night, Bob Romeo’s Aphrodisia and Sonny Lester’s How to Belly Dance for Your Husband and a proliferation of novelty “Oriental” rock ‘n’ roll singles like Bill Haley’s “Oriental Rock,” Johnny & the Hurricanes’ “Sheba” and Ralph Marterie’s “Shish Kebab.”

And somewhere between ethnography and exotica lay a substantial subset of secular Arabic music that was very successfully marketed to American audiences. The music originated amongst a set of musicians, generally first- or second-generation immigrants, who played a loose circuit of restaurants, theaters, hotels, night clubs and social functions in the Northeast and Upper Midwest. Though nominally authentic, theirs was a music that was modern enough to appeal to American consumers with a casual interest in Middle Eastern music and rhythms. The albums these groups made, found easily in local record stores, and typically sleeved in colorful covers featuring belly-dancers in kitschy “Casbah” interiors, sold very well, with bigger names like Fred Elias, Gus Vali, Artie Barsamian, Eddie Kochak, Eddie Mekjian, Naif Agby, Mohammed El-Bakkar, George Abdo releasing dozens upon dozens of recordings in their time. The music itself tended to reflect these groups’ diverse repertoire of Armenian, Lebanese, Syrian, Turkish, Greek, Egyptian and Jewish folk songs, ballads and dances.

But there were also the occasional recordings that were a bit stranger, and a bit more difficult to classify. Generally these attempted to mix Arabic and Western forms, taking shape as either curious rock ‘n’ roll hybrids or exotica larks incorporating Latin dance rhythms or elements of American jazz or pop.

Sometimes these experiments worked beautifully, becoming something more than the sum of their parts. Sometimes they just came out strange. Nearly always they were interesting.

This week we look at three of the best.

1. Eddie Kochak & Hakki Obadia, Jazz in Port Said (Bossa Nova Araby) (Georgette 403)
Released in 1962, the spellbinding “Jazz in Port Said” was one of the earliest recorded products of a long-lasting collaboration between percussionist Eddie “The Sheik” Kochak and violinist Hakki Obadia.

Kochak was born Eddie Soubhi Ibn Farjallah Kochakji to Syrian parents in Brooklyn, New York. Drawn to drumming as a child, Kochak would come to be a specialist in the derbeki drum. Hakki Obadia is an Iraqi-born Jew and classically trained multi-instrumentalist who first established a name for himself in the Middle East with concert and radio appearances as a child prodigy violinist.

The two musicians first met in the mid-‘50s. Kochak was then performing and leading groups in various New York and New Jersey-area venues. Obadia was playing around New York City area, where he’d recently settled after pursuing music studies at Berkeley.

First as performers, and later in the recording studio, they would create and promote their “Amerabic” sound – the melodies and rhythms of various Middle Eastern Arab standards and folk songs updated for American audiences.

Their “Jazz in Port Said” was one of the earliest of these recorded collaborations. It was, in terms of its Western jazz sensibilities and moody, propulsive arrangement, also among their most adventurous early recordings. ¹

“Jazz in Port Said” also saw inclusion on their Ameraba: Music with the New Amer-Abic Sound. The album would be among the first in a series of very popular LPs by Obadia and Kochak, along with their frequent partner, the violinist and oud player Fred Elias. Many of these albums were recycled and repackaged throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s with successive waves of interest in belly-dancing, their Strictly Belly Dancing series proving especially popular.

Kochak and Obadia continued to release their “Amerarabic” music over the years. Kochak himself remained one of the bigger names in post-War Arab-American entertainment, and something of a fixture in New York show business. Obadia, who published his Oud Method book in 1969, worked as a music teacher in the public schools of Long Island, and continued to perform and record.

Sources: Katherine Benson & Philip Kayal’s Community of Many Worlds: Arab Americans in New York City, http://www.eddiekochak.net, Phyllis Saretta’s Eddie “The Sheik” Kochak.

2. The Sheiks, Ya-Habibi (Sultan S-1001)
“Ya-Habibi” ² was at least partly the handiwork of New York City-based Frank Cari and his songwriting partner Anna Vito. ³

As a freelance writing team, Cari and Vito penned a number of songs in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, largely for the doo-wop and teen pop markets. Their biggest hit, “High on a Hill,” performed by Brooklyn singer Scott English in 1963, was typical of the New York City pop sound that the British Invasion would soon obviate.

In this time Cari also operated both his Turban Music publishing concern and his Frank Cari Productions, which was responsible for a number of pop-oriented 45 releases. And finally there was Sultan Records, which Cari founded in the late ‘50s. Among the 45s released during the label’s brief few years were the Inspirations’ “The Genie,” the Accents’ “Rags to Riches,” and, more interestingly, the Aztecs’ Duane-Eddy-inspired “Aztec Rock” and the Social Outcasts’ “Mad,” a strange instrumental with a wisp of the Middle Eastern aesthetic. (Note the recurring Middle Eastern motifs here.)

But nothing in the Sultan catalog quite matches the electric, booming “Ya-Habibi,” which was among the label’s very first releases, and which is nearly psychedelic in its instrumentation and echo-chamber aesthetic. Its flipside, the slightly-less-unhinged-but-also-great “Sultan’s Delight,” was penned by Jack Ghanaim, a musician whose kanoon playing is heard on jazz bassist Ahmed Abdul-Malik’s groundbreaking 1958 debut Jazz Sahara. Likely released in 1959, its players and backstory remain otherwise maddeningly mysterious, though it seems very likely that it’s Ghanaim heard on the oud on both sides of this 45. ⁴ Clearly there was more in the way of “authentic” musicianship here than the average Middle Eastern rock ‘n’ roll novelty, either way.

3. Ganimian & His Orientals, Come With Me to the Casbah (Atco 45-6142)
Oud player Charles “Chick” Ganimian was born in 1926 in upstate New York. Like many of the figures of in post-War Arab-American music, Ganimian grew up in this country; his father, an Armenian immigrant who’d arrived from Turkey, also played oud, and from an early age the younger Ganimian seems to have been fascinated with the music of his heritage.

In the mid-‘30s, the Ganimian family moved to New York City. In the late ‘40s Chick first formed the Nor-Ikes Orchestra, a group largely comprised of Armenian musicians, one of the first to consciously revive the music for mixed audiences, playing various social engagements for the broader Arab-American community.

Well regarded early on as an oud player, Ganimian did not record as prolifically as some of his peers. He was nothing if not bold about exploring different forms, however. A modest (and surprising) pop hit in 1958, his “Daddy Lolo (Oriental Rock ‘n’ Roll”) b/w “Halvah,” was crossover rock ‘n’ roll at its weirdest.

Which brings me to “Come With Me to the Casbah.” Released in 1958, its spoken word bits are straight Orientalist hokum but its fine solos and terrific arrangement still make for a fun experience. The selection would see release on a full-length album, also entitled Come With Me to the Casbah, that was released the same year on Atco Records, sister label to R&B giant Atlantic Records.

That album, recorded over the course of several sessions in 1957 and 1958, is an unusual and fascinating artifact, a mix of a slightly updated dances from the Arabic world, East-West rock ‘n’ roll novelties and fairly faithful readings of American standards performed on regional instruments.

The 1958 session that produced “Come With Me to the Casbah” featured an interesting roster. Not only did Ganimian’s longtime compadres in the Nor-Ikes – Steve Bogoshian (clarinet), Ed Malasian (or Malkasian, percussion), Aram Davidan (dumbek) and Souren “Sudan” Baronian (tenor sax) – participate in the session, but they were joined by Anglo jazz musicians Al Schackman (guitar), Peter Ind (bass), Dick Palazzolo (drums) and Peter Franco (drums).

Ganimian’s overlap with the jazz world is worth noting here. Obsessives might have noticed the Lennie Tristano connections; Peter Ind in particular had a long-running, crucial association with the influential jazz pianist Lennie Tristano, whose “school” was very influential in post-War bebop and cool jazz. Interestingly, both Bogoshian and Baronian had played with Tristano, too, though Bogoshian’s association, which is only alluded to in the liner notes of the Come With Me to the Casbah LP, is unconfirmed by other sources.

Ganimian would continue performing in the ‘60s and ‘70s, making regular appearances and enjoying residencies in New Jersey and New York. His few recorded appearance from included a live date from 1978 (released later), as well as an independently-released 1975 LP with the Nor-Ikes. He would also occasionally appear on other jazz dates; he’s heard in the mid-‘60s on flautist Herbie Mann’s Wailing Dervishes and sublime Impressions of the Middle East albums, and on David Amram’s 1972 Subway Night. Perhaps only fellow oud player John Berberian would enjoy as much overlap with the jazz world in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Charles “Chick” Ganimian passed away in 1989.

Both musicians can be heard blending Eastern and Western forms prior to “Jazz in Port Said.” Kochak’s obscure solo 78 sides from the ‘50s saw him experimenting with bebop and Latin music on tracks like “Ha Bee Bee Blues” and “Mambo Arabia.” And Obadia’s “Cha Cha Baba” – heard on his 10 Nights in a Harem LP from 1960 – is excellent Latin exotica. ↩
Arabic term of endearment – loosely “my love,” or “my dear old friend.” ↩
Cari and Vito are shortenings of, respectively, “Cariola” and “Mangravito.” ↩
Ghanaim also played with Eddie Kochak in the ‘60s. ↩

Posted in Exotica/Space-Age | 1 Comment

Jeri Simpson

Posted on 2012/12/10 by Little Danny

I first posted Jeri Simpson’s “In My Black Lace” back in 2006. It has been one of the great mysteries around here, a marvelous, truly one-of-a-kind recording whose story I’d long given up hopes of ever learning. But I’m happy at last to have some more conclusive details on Jeri Simpson. Many, many thanks to her niece Susan and nephew James, who contacted me recently.

Jeri Simpson, circa early '60s. Jeri is seated second from the left. Her sister Doris is seated third from the right. Her brother Bill Simpson, one of the authors behind "Black Lace," is seated with his wife across from Jeri. Photo courtesy of Susan

Born Louise Geraldine Simpson in the 1920s, Jeri Simpson came up in a musical family in the Chicago area. It was, more to the point, a large family – Jeri, as she was better known amongst her family, was the youngest of ten children. Music was a strong presence in the Simpsons’ lives, with the five girls of the family forming a singing group growing up. (Susan’s mother Laura sang and played piano for the family.)

Two of the brothers – Jack and Bill, the authors behind “In My Black Lace” – were also drawn to singing and writing songs early on. Incidentally, another sister, Doris, later achieved some fame as screen siren Doris Merrick.

Jeri Simpson, In My Black Lace

Jeri had been in California for some time already – since the late ‘30s – when she recorded “In My Black Lace” in 1957. The session occurred in Los Angeles when Jeri was in her mid-thirties, and somewhere around the time of her marriage to Jay Ranellucci. Ranellucci worked deep in the music industry as a recording engineer and mixer for a decades-long stretch at Capitol Records between 1957 and 2007. (Ranellucci’s resume included not only the jazz-pop of Peggy Lee and Nancy Wilson, but also crucial early rock ‘n’ roll by Gene Vincent, country by Hank Thompson and Merle Haggard, FM radio rock by Steve Miller and the Band, and psychedelic jazz excursions by David Axelrod and the Fourth Way – among many others.)

Jeri Simpson in California, circa 1948 or 1950. Photo courtesy of Susan.

It seems likely, given Jay Ranellucci’s connections to the music industry and, in particular, to Los Angeles-based jazz guitarist Barney Kessel, that he also played some role in engineering the “In My Black Lace” session. Either way, it is a captivating recording to this day, an expertly produced exercise in moody jazz, Jeri borrowing a bit of Julie-London-style sensuality while imbuing it with her own wholly unique “exotic” flavor.

Jeri had, according to family members, a “sultry,” “sexy” aspect. No surprise, given the evocative atmosphere of “In My Black Lace.” But she was also a housewife and mother (one daughter) who raised dobermans and rottweilers as a hobby, and alas this 45 seems to have been her only commerical recording, at least to anyone’s knowledge.

Given the quality of both “In My Black Lace” – which seems clearly to have been written for Jeri – and its flipside “Sugar” and Simpson’s obvious vocal talents, it’s too bad. But as her niece Susan noted, “[she] wanted to be a singer but never pursued her dream.”

Jeri Simpson passed away in 2012.

Posted in Exotica/Space-Age, Jazz Obscura, Updates | 5 Comments

Nature Boy

Posted on 2012/11/19 by Little Danny

I can think of at least a few reasons for the continued appeal of the song “Nature Boy.”

There’s its philosophical, pseudo-mystical message for one. It was heady, if not radical, stuff for 1948, at least as far as pop songs went, and furthermore its gentle sentiment and lyrics, unlike many “message” songs, have weathered with enviable resilience over the years.

It helps that melodically it’s also a difficult song to get wrong. There’s a robustness to its structure, one that has engendered a particularly attractively set of moody, exotic arrangements amongst its many adaptations.

The original 1948 sheet music for "Nature Boy," with an image of Eden Ahbez. Image courtesy of Online Collections (The Strong) / CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

There’s also the not-insignificant appeal of Eden Ahbez, the Wanderer himself and the songwriter behind “Nature Boy.” I covered Eden Ahbez here, this fascinating, quintessentially American character who also embodied, self-conciously, but still sort of admirably, “Nature Boy.” “Nature Boy,” the song, is Eden Ahbez – a combination of autobiography and self-mythology.

I’m not alone in my fascination with the song. Since its million-selling treatment by Nat “King” Cole in 1948, it’s become a pop and jazz standard. And it’s also inspired a decades-long, wildly varied body of readings across many styles. This week’s three versions are but a few of my favorites.

1. Clete Grayson and the Thurston Trio, Nature Girl (Nature Boy) (Pacific PA-1007-A 45-111)

Released in 1961 on what was almost certainly a Los Angeles-based label, there’s surprisingly little else to be learned of either Clete Grayson, the Thurston Trio or Pacific Records (which was unrelated to the more widely known Pacific Jazz / World Pacific Records).

Either way, Clete Grayson was certainly a capable vocalist, and he sings here with winning gusto. His lyrical gender transposition is a unique twist, and the professional production isn’t too shabby, either, with an emphatically rockin’ beat and an ondioline making a rare solo appearance during the instrumental break.

With any style of mainstream, mass-produced culture, no matter how commercial, there are bound to be a few nonconformists, oddballs that slip through the cracks in the guise, in this case, of conventional pop music. One of thousands of teen pop and rock ‘n’ roll records being cranked out in the early ‘60s, “Nature Girl (Nature Boy)” might not have succeeded commercially – it’s just too strange – but it is unequivocally great.

(I owe my copy of this gem to Jack at the great Out of the Bubbling Dusk. Thanks Jack.)

2. Richard Barbary: Soul Machine, Nature Boy (A & M 953)

Richard Barbary is a puzzling case in the world of ‘60s R&B, a talented unknown who seems, after just one excellent, lavishly-produced album on a major label, to have just as quickly disappeared.

A singer with a smooth, world-weary baritone, Barbary had, at the time of this record, just one release under his belt – 1967’s “Get Right” b/w “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again,” the debut 45 for future soul powerhouse Spring Records.

But Barbary is better heard on his first LP, Richard Barbary: Soul Machine, which was rolled out with all the trimmings – sumptuous production, a cadre of cream-of-the-crop session players, deluxe gatefold album cover – by A&M Records in 1968.

Richard Barbary: Soul Machine, the album.

Produced by Creed Taylor, arranged by studio veterans Artie Butler, Horace Ott and Jimmy Wisner and recorded by legendary jazz engineer Rudy Van Gelder, it’s an East Coast recording but, with its up-to-the-minute production qualities, a West Coast sounding record. It seems to have been conceived somewhat in the style of a Lou Rawls, Willie Tee or Jerry Butler – smooth-voiced, sophisticated R&B singers with appeal to both pop and jazz markets.

“Nature Boy,” which is featured on Richard Barbary: Soul Machine, is one of the album’s highlights, both Barbary’s mellow reading and a subtle, Horace-Silver-influenced Afro-Latin jazz feel asserting the song’s inherent wistfulness.

A&M Records invested no small amount of stock in Barbary, perhaps cultivating him as their Lou Rawls. But his debut would, sadly, and for reasons unknown, turn out to be his only album. Furthermore, it seems to have been his last recording, period. I would love to know more of the story.

3. Etta Jones, Nature Boy (Prestige 45-237 A)

Like other stylists who never quite got their due – Betty Carter, Abbey Lincoln springing to mind – the great Etta Jones never crossed over much into the more visible worlds of R&B and pop music, perhaps ultimately to the detriment of her career, though she was widely respected as one of the purest of all jazz vocalists.

Born in 1928 in South Carolina, Etta Jones came up in Harlem. After winning the attention of bandleader Buddy Johnson at an Apollo talent contest in 1943, she joined his popular orchestra, her exposure thenceforth leading to more work, including gigs with drummer J.C. Heard and pianist Earl Hines, and a set of fascinating mid-‘40s releases recorded with Leonard Feather.

Jones seems to have sung jazz from the very outset of her professional career. Her early recordings evince mature sensibilities – the Billie Holiday influence is at its most pronounced, and era-standard jump blues are suffused with deep feeling. But, despite the early promise, Jones was not swept up in a bebop revolution that might have logically included her. Her fortunes as an artist foundered as the 1950s progressed, but changed with 1960’s Don’t Go to Strangers, her debut full-length album recorded for the Prestige jazz label. Don’t Go to Strangers was a commercial success, and many critics have since cited the album as a water mark (it was also earned her the first of three Grammy nominations in her lifetime).

Don’t Go to Strangers would in reality be but one of a large number of highly consistent sessions for Prestige Records during Jones’s reemergence in the first half of the ‘60s. Her unusual reading of “Nature Boy” deserves a special place of honor here. Recorded and released in late 1962, her all-star support included Jerome Richardson (tenor saxophone), Sam Bruno (bass), Bobby Donaldson (drums) and either Kenny Burrell or Bucky Pizzarelli on guitar. Though it didn’t ultimately find much commercial traction, Prestige sensed enough potential in its chugging, Latin beat to release it as a single to the relatively lucrative jukebox/R&B market.

Her Prestige Records run ended in the mid-‘60s, and though Jones was never again quite as prolific in the studio, her performing career resumed with renewed energy for the next decades, a long-time partnership with soul jazz saxophone stalwart Houston Person proving especially fruitful.

Etta Jones passed away in 2001 from complications of cancer.

Posted in Exotica/Space-Age, Jazz Obscura, Rock 'n' roll | 6 Comments

Halloween radio special 9-11pm CST tonight

Posted on 2012/10/31 by Little Danny

This evening on Lost Frequencies:

Two hours of lost ’50s and ’60s bop, mambo, R&B, exotica, soundtracks and oddball surf instrumentals and country. No silly monster novelties, just deep haunted house moods and b-movie atmospherics.

KRTS 93.5FM or stream at http://marfapublicradio.org/ 9-11pm CST.

Posted in Miscellaneous Flotsam | 2 Comments

Black night

Posted on 2012/07/30 by Little Danny

This is one of those weeks where three records get posted alongside each other not because they share some very specific theme or belong, musically- or culturally-speaking, in the same sub-sub-genre. (Jazz, early rock ‘n’ roll, pop, R&B and country all get represented in one form or another here, and in different proportions.)

Rather, they’re grouped together because they fit that way in my mind. There is some logic at work here, though, some shared sensibility that was in play in the post-War decades. Patsy Cline’s “Walking After Midnight” and Peggy Lee’s “Why Don’t You Do Right” belong somewhere along this axis of atmosphere. So do Wanda Jackson’s “Funnel of Love” and Etta James’s “One For My Baby (And One More For The Road).” So do countless female versions of “Summertime,” “Black Coffee” and “Fever.”

Nervous and bittersweet, too fast to be torch songs, too relaxed to be barnstormers, this week’s selections are, in the end, all nocturnal anthems of a sort, collectively oozing mood and sensuality.

1. Cheryl Thompson, Black Night (Deville MKT-1004)
Born in 1944 in Florida, Cheryle Thompson made her way to Las Vegas in 1962 to pursue a singing career. Initially landing work as a showgirl at the Sahara Hotel and Casino, Thompson soon met singer and bassist Norman Kaye, who, along with his sister, anchored the popular Mary Kaye Trio, one of the early lounge combos supplying the swinging, round-the-clock soundtrack for post-War Las Vegas.

Thompson’s first major exposure came in 1963 and 1964, when she was selected as Miss Las Vegas and Miss Nevada. At a time in post-War popular culture when pageants represented a more viable launching pad for acting and music careers, Thompson was able to parlay her talents and new-found visibility, along with her connections through now-husband Kaye, into several recording deals. Among them was the excellent “Don’t Walk Away” (b/w “It’s the End”), a Kaye composition that was released in 1965 on Chicago’s Vee Jay Records and that featured Thompson’s aching, Patsy-Cline-influenced vocals and an effective soul-pop arrangement.

Three more singles followed a year later on Decca Records (and its subsidiary Coral Records). Cut very much in big-production Nashville countrypolitan mode, these included the modest 1966 hit “The Third Person,” which Thompson co-authored.

“Black Night” is the most obscure of Thompson’s sides. It seems to have been Thompson’s very first recording, and while it’s tough to pinpoint its exact recording date, it did see release in 1964 (including a U.K. issue). Most importantly, it’s a terrific record, a wicked intersection of rock ‘n’ roll, atmospheric pop and Nashville-style production values.

The 1960s passed and family life called, and Thompson effectively retired from the music business, joining Kaye in managing their expanding real estate business. Cheryle Thompson passed away in 2003 in Las Vegas.

Sources: Las Vegas Sun

2. Honey Sanders, Some Like It Cool (Brighton 777-A)
Honey Sanders was a singer, actress and entertainer first and a recording artist second.

Born in 1927, Sanders evinced musical talent from an early age, and came up in New York City show business. And Sanders – some time in the ‘50s for child-rearing notwithstanding – would remain in that world, returning to the stage in the late ‘50s, with various theatre and Broadway appearances over the next decade or two. (If period accounts are to be trusted, she was sometimes finding roles as the “jolly fat type.”)

Released in 1963 on the obscure New York City-based Brighton Records label, the seldom-heard “Some Like It Cool” and its flipside “(Johnny Guitar) My Restless Lover” were both penned by songwriter, composer and conductor Pembroke Davenport, another Broadway veteran. “Some Like It Cool,” featuring Sanders’s sultry, coolly understated vocal, is not only one of the more effective recorded turns by a theatre-based vocalist, but – with its jazzy sensibility, tight guitar interplay and some atmospheric bongos pattering through its three minute course – it’s one of the hippest, too.

Sanders would go on in the ’80s to open the Sanders Agency, a theatrical talent agency, in New York and Los Angeles. She continued in the theatre world as a producer as well, remaining active from the ‘90s onwards before her death in 2003.

“Some Like It Cool” would be Honey Sanders’s only solo recording.

Sources: Variety

3. Barbara Pittman with Gene Lowery Singers, Handsome Man (Phillips International 3553)
Singer Barbara Pittman is best remembered for her handful of excellent 45s recorded for Sam Phillips’s legendary Sun and Phillips International labels between 1956 and 1960.

Pittman was born in 1938 and grew up musically inclined, one of twelve children in a large, poor family from North Memphis. Unlike many of the white kids who went on to record for the Memphis-based Sun Records, Pittman wasn’t necessarily a country- or gospel-raised singer first – she was drawn early on to big band sounds and blues.

Which isn’t to suggest Pittman couldn’t sing country. After initially being rebuffed by Sun, Pittman dug in, building her chops with two different Western groups, Clyde Leoppard’s Snearly Ranch Boys and Lash Larue. With the former group Pittman recorded her first record in 1956, after finally convincing Sam Phillips. “I Need a Man,” a rare female rock ‘n’ roll release for Sun Records, epitomized the label’s classic aesthetic – all lusty vocals, slapback bass and wild guitar and piano.

Over the next few years a small schedule of Sun 45s ensued, none of them particularly commercially successful. There would be some missteps (the overwrought “The Eleventh Commandment”), along with some more great rock ‘n’ roll (the Jerry-Lee-Lewis-inspired “I’m Getting Better All the Time”) and several excellent ballads (“No Matter Who’s to Blame,” “Two Young Fools in Love,” “Cold Cold Heart.”)

“Handsome Man,” released in 1960, was Pittman’s fourth and final record for Sam Phillips. I’m in the minority here but for me it ranks as the most attractive side in Pittman’s discography. Penned and arranged by the Charlie Rich, still a young Memphis session whiz at this point, “Handsome Man” didn’t draw directly from Sun’s chart-proven country or rock ‘n’ roll style. It rocked in its own way, but Pittman’s sultry, assertive lead vocal and Rich’s complementary support put its sensibilities somewhere closer to torch-lit clubland.

Pittman moved to California in 1962 and found work there as a session musician and club singer. While she never enjoyed breakthrough success, she remained committed to a singing career, and, after marrying and moving to Houston, would reestablish herself in the early ‘80s with a set of younger fans of early rock ‘n’ roll.

Barbara Pittman passed away in 2005 at the age of 67.

Sources: Elvis Australia, Rockabilly Hall of Fame

Posted in Country, Jazz Obscura, Latin, R&B/Vocal Groups | 5 Comments

Feel a whole lot better

Posted on 2012/07/10 by Little Danny

The Byrds’ “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better,” first released as a B-side in 1965, was several things. It was, along with its A-side (“All I Really Want to Do”) the much-anticipated follow-up to the group’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” the Columbia Records debut 45 that enjoyed massive commercial response a few months earlier. Penned by the group’s lead singer, Gene Clark, it was also a relatively rare – at least amongst the Byrds’ early chart-topping hits – original group composition to be promoted as a single.

“All I Really Want to Do,” however, was not a huge hit. And, despite a label push, neither was “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better.” But through some peculiarity in its composition – its robust, propulsive melody, its straightforward emotion and “put down” message, its energy, its relative technical simplicity – “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better” tended, of all the Byrds’ songs, to get adapted by dozens of period garage bands. It didn’t hurt that it also rocked like little else in the Byrds’ oeuvre.

I have yet to hear a bad ’60s version of “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better.” This week we take a look at three of the best.

1. The Unknowns, I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better (Marlo 1550)
The Unknowns were an accomplished rock ‘n’ roll band from Belleville, Illinois (across the river from St. Louis). The group made some excellent folk-rock 45s in the mid-‘60s, later, having renamed themselves Spur, releasing the album that remains their best-known recording amongst collectors, 1968’s Spur of the Moment.

The Unknowns first came together in 1964, with Jimmy Fey (guitar) Larry Wilson (drums) and Rick Willard (vocals and bass). Their debut 45, which appeared on the St. Louis-based Marlo Records in 1965, was “You Want Me Too,” backed with a cover of the Beatles’ “Baby’s in Black.”

With the addition of Ed Kalotek on guitars and keyboard, and Jimmy Fey’s replacement by guitarist Stan Bratzke, the Unknowns would record their second 45 – this selection. (Incidentally, Fey would return to the group in 1967 and this line-up, a sequence of drummers notwithstanding, would remain largely consistent throughout the rest of the band’s career.)

Released in 1966, their “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better” bursts with the ringing guitar lines and raw exuberance that was so characteristic of period versions of the song. (Flipside “The Modern Era,” though sombre, was also good.)

A year later the Unknowns released their third 45 (“All Over the World” b/w “You Could Help Me Ease the Pain”) on the local Cinema label. Its folk-rock sound restated the group’s folk-rock leanings, its world-weariness presaging an aesthetic that eventually culminated in Spur of the Moment, their album of fully-realized “mature” folk-rock, country-rock and psychedelia.

The band’s story is better documented elsewhere (see excellent commentary at Record Fiend). The Unknowns’ trajectory is, in retrospect, similar to other ambitious regional rock ‘n’ roll acts in the ‘60s. They began during the British Invasion with several youthful, of-their-time 45s. And they would arc out of the ‘60s (and into the early ‘70s) with a full-length album and turned-on sound.

But, aside from their obvious musical talent, what interests me about the Unknowns, this selection included, was their attraction, from the outset, to the minor-key sound of many of the early wave of folk-rock bands (the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Grateful Dead and the Youngbloods come to mind). This proclivity is heard persisting in their handiwork as Spur, with all of their recordings mirroring these better-known groups’ development from folk-rock into psychedelia and country-rock.

The cream of recordings – studio, live and unreleased-in-their-time – by Spur (as well as the Unknowns) has been recently compiled and released by Drag City. Well worth seeking out.

Sources: Record Fiend, Rick Willard

2. The 4 of Us, I Feel a Whole Lot Better (Hideout H-1012)
The Four of Us, from Detroit suburb Birmingham, began playing together in 1965. Their core included Jeff Alborell and Gary Burrows on guitars and vocals, though accounts conflict on the rest of the group’s personnel, which seems to have been fairly flexible either way. (I am obliged to note that future Eagle Glenn Frey briefly sang with the band, though he’s not heard on this selection.)

A popular draw locally, the Four of Us, despite lineup changes, managed to make the most of their brief existence. First and foremost, the band were regulars at the Hideout Club, an all-ages spot that played an important part in the very active teen rock ‘n’ roll scene outside of inner city Detroit. Operated by local entrepreneurs Dave Leone and Ed “Punch” Andres, the Hideout would flourish for a few years in the mid-‘60s, and featured many of the hipper area teen rock ‘n’ roll bands from suburban Detroit in its time; Bob Seger and Suzi Quatro, among many others, would play the Hideout early on.

The Four of Us released two 45s, both on Hideout Records, the label that served as a direct outlet for many of the club’s resident bands. Three Four of Us songs – “I Can’t Live Without Your Love,” “Feel a Whole Lot Better” and an unreleased-on-45 version of “Baby Blue” – also appeared on the rare Best of the Hideouts album, a full-length compilation released by Hideout Records in 1966.

This side, released in 1966, would be the second of their two mid-‘60s 45s. Their first, “You’re Gonna Be Mine” is perhaps better known to garage band collectors, but the band’s reading of “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better,” with its harmonies, jangling guitars and surging energy, stands out as the group’s finest moment.

The Four of Us dissolved by late 1966.

3. The Hitch Hikers, Feel a Whole Lot Better (Cuca J-6741)
This version of “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better” was released in a comparatively late 1967.

This is perhaps the least known of this week’s selections. The most immediately recognizable aspect of this 45, in fact, is that it’s on Cuca Records. Democratic if nothing else, Cuca Records was a crazily prolific label and recording studio founded by James Kirchstein, who ran his operations between the late ‘50s and early ‘70s out of Sauk City, Wisconsin. An exemplary post-War indie label, Cuca and its several subsidiaries would serve as a sort of clearinghouse for many area artists. In addition to the garage band and R&B and soul releases for which it’s best remembered, stretches a catalog of hundreds of 45s, with polka, pre-British-Invastion rock ‘n’ roll and surf, country, gospel, teen pop, easy-listening and blues and jazz all amply represented.

The Hitch Hikers themselves hailed from the small Wisconsin town of Platteville, part of the University of Wisconsin system. (Nearest city was Dubuque, Iowa – Sauk City was seventy miles away.) The group included Jim Hake (lead guitar), Rick Tryne (rhythm guitar), Bart Bell (keyboards), Mike Hendrickson (bass) and Larry Popp (drums). They played local college parties along with area shows in southern Wisconsin as well as eastern Iowa and northern Illinois.

This 45’s flipside is a solid, uptempo treatment of the rarely-covered Bob Dylan song “One Too Many Mornings.” This 45, released in April of 1967, would be the band’s only recorded output.

Sources: Gary Myers’s On That Wisconsin Beat, Dominic Welhouse

Posted in Garage Bands | 4 Comments

A slightly new look

Posted on 2012/06/29 by Little Danny

It’s needed to happen for forever but I just got around to changing Office Naps’ look; i.e., getting away from some of the more obvious WordPress formatting.

Lots of obvious tweaks in form/function still need to be made over the weekend. All and any feedback is appreciated, but if anyone (especially any web programmers/designers) notices any esoteric issues then please let me know in the comments or via email. Thanks.

Posted in Updates | 2 Comments

Check my recent post on Jeri Simpson for some updates and terrific and rare photos.