I Like to Rock 'n' Roll Slowly

Lynn Marshall
with Dale Fitzsimmons' Orch.

I Like to Rock 'n' Roll Slowly

Mitchell Tableporter, Choice Music ASCAP

Crest 1046

1958

Her last record (of four) on Crest Records. Lynn Marshall was the daughter of Hollywood arranger Jack Marshall, best known for scoring the Peggy Lee classic 'Fever'.

She warbled in and around Hollywood since the early fifties (Lancer's Quartette, "Tears in My Heart", Serenade Records, 1952). She had also a record on Neely Plumb's Star Records.

If you have see her name before that's probably because Eddie Cochran played on one of her Crest sessions. Not sure if Eddie is on this, but unmistakenly I can hear Buddy Holly playing with something in the background...

★

Speaking of death (Eddie & Buddy are dead, that's the transition!) , I'm just learning today that music lovers can now be immortalised when they die by having their ashes baked into vinyl records to leave behind for loved ones.

A UK company called And Vinyly is offering people the chance to press their ashes in a vinyl recording of their own voice, their favourite tunes or their last will and testament. Minimalist audiophiles might want to go for the simple option of having no tunes or voiceover, and simply pressing the ashes into the vinyl to result in pops and crackles. We live in a such great time!

Here how it works :

1. Confirm with us your location and the viability of these services in your area
2. Identify a family member or a chosen representative who will accompany you (your ashes) to the pressing of your records
3. Establish audio and cover art content
4. Attend the mastering of your record
5. Receive playable proof sample of your record and cover
6. Die
7. Get cremated
8. Your family member or chosen representative books and attends the sprinkling and pressing of your records
9. Your chosen recipients will be sent details of where to collect their copy of your personal record
10. Live on from beyond the groove

That's so easy (with the possible exception of point #6). Interested ? Then go to their site HERE



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The Girl From Saginaw Michigan

Linda Manning

“The Girl From Saginaw Michigan”

b/w

“Boo On You”
(wr. Dave Dudley)

Produced by Jimmy Key

Rice 5010

1964

Answer to Lefty Frizzell's "Saginaw, Michigan", a song written by Don Wayne (Donald William Choate) and Bill Anderson.

Tom T. Hall and Don Wayne wrote the answer song.

For a Linda Manning bio and discography, see http://oldwax.blogspot.fr/2011/12/peaceful-protest-of-charlie-mcdig.html.

Billboard, Nov. 16, 1963

Nashville booker (Key Talent agency) and co-owner, with Jimmy Newman, of Newkeys/New Keys Music, Jimmy Key founded Rice Records in 1964.



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Second Hand Lipstick

The Frankie Herman Band
Vocal by Bobby Sykes

Second Hand Lipstick
(wr Joe Vivier)

Franz Schubert Music

1957
(probably recorded in 1956)

Bobby Sykes
r.n. Bishop Milton Sykes

Born August 6, 1928 - Died November 1994. Worked for Marty Robbins for nearly a quarter of a century. In the same time, Bobby had an extensive recording career of his own, being no mean vocalist himself., recording for Epic (1959-60), Columbia (1961-62) Starday (1963 RIC (1965), Sims (1966) as by Johnny Freedom, Wayside (1967) as by Bob Bishop, JED (1967), ABC (1968-69) as by Bob Bishop, Happy Tiger (1970), Boyd , JMI and J&B.

Before he joined Marty Robbins in 1958, Bobby Sykes had records on Franz Schubert Records and on Decca ("Touch of Loving").

He was singing on a Nashville television show (soon to be cancelled) when he was approached in late summer 1958 by Marty Robbins.

"One day at the Clarkston Hotel coffee shop, I was going in and Marty Robbins was coming out. We said hello and passed by each other, and I heard, "Hey,Bobby.' So I turned around, and Marty said, "What are you doing now that the show's gone off the air? " I said, "Nothing," He said, "you want a job? " I've got an eighteen-day tour coming up. Why don't you take that tour with me ?"

Bobby Sykes discography

Bobby Sykes with the Jordanaires
Having Myself A Ball


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Girl of my Best Friend

The Creations

Girl of my Best Friend

JKJ Records, Inc.

1964 or later

Cover of the song written by Sam Bobrick and Beverly Ross, first released in 1959 by Charlie Blackwell and made famous by Elvis Presley.



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The Pink Camel Walk

Four Daddy’O’s

"The Pink Camel Walk"
Yancey-Boyster-Patton
Gaylord Music BMI

Logan Record Co.
Madison, Tennessee

1959

No info about the band.

The Logan label was owned, in all likehood, by Hal Smith (James Harrell "Hal" Smith, born in Alabama in 1923) whose one of the most prosperous ventures was Pamper Music, a publishing company affiliated with BMI.




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Straighten Me Out

Bob Ehret (Air-it)

Straighten Me Out
Ehret, Marchman, Neufeld, Reed Publ. BMI - Sam, Bill & Jones (BMI)

Trans-Western Records
in association with S.B. & J. Products

Produced - arranged by Earl J. Foster, Jr, directed by S. Goldberg



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Rock an' Roll Shuffle

Mary Handy
with The Butterflies

Rock an' Roll Shuffle
(Lewis)

L&J Records

1958?

From San Francisco/Oakland Bay Area. Label probably owned by one Lewis and partner named J...

Robert J. Troutt aka Pastor Bob, a member of "The Mystics" was making extra money when he also acted as a background singer for "Mary Handy and the Butterflies" along with the "Sputnicks" from Los Angeles.

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Money : the answer

Chris Cerf on Dielectric
Money played last week

Chris Cerf get 76 votes, Wayne Cochran 26 and poor Chuck Gregg.... none!

The correct answer is Chris Cerf and I'm rather proud of you, Dead Wax followers, because, as I can see, you do have a rather good musical knowledge. Issued on the undocumented Dielectric label, one side has two Chris Cerf songs. Other side is by different artists. The record was pressed by Shelley Products in Huntington Station, probably in 1963.

Chris Cerf make his recording debut, while still a student at Harvard, and had several songs on the Vanitas LP titled The Harvard Lampoon Tabernacle Choir Sings At Leningrad Stadium recorded in 1961. The successful "The Penguin" was subsequently issued on a single in 1962.

Chris Cerf :

I’ve always been interested in music and when I was a kid, (I’m old enough to have been around when rock and roll was really popular), I especially liked New Orleans style of piano like Fats Domino, and I was taking piano lessons, but not in that. I was much more interested in figuring out how to play doo wop music and blues than in classical.

When I learned how to do that well enough, I tried to write funny rock songs when I was in college. When I was on the Harvard Lampoon we actually made a record of some of them and the reason that’s relevant, I was hired to work on Sesame Street for quite different reasons right after it started but the music director had gone to Harvard with me and remembered I could write rock and roll, so when they need some for Sesame Street, he said, Do you want to try?

Sesame Street songs were really used in Irak by interrogators. The use of music as torture, as weapon or any other purpose other than aural pleasure is a fascinating subject with incredible ramifications.

One of the most interesting internet reading that I've found is the (academic) article by Suzanne G. Cusick published in Revista Transcultural de Música (Transcultural Music Review) : "Music as torture / Music as weapon"

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Lucille (live)

The Chessmen

vocal Ernie Jennings

Lucille

Riot-Chous
3205 Meadow Lane
Decatur, Illinois

1964

A popular Decatur dance band doing a cover of the Little Richard classic (live recording).

Later some Chessmen joined by three members of another local band, the Casuals, formed a R&B group in 1966 named "The Reel Blues".

RCA account 877T = Technisonic Record, St. Louis, MO


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Rock Meeting

Johnny King

Rock Meeting
Wr. Phil Medley, Nine Rock Music BMI

Dot Records
June 1958


Original release on the Nine Rock label located
at Rockfeller Plaza, New York City

I wonder how many original releases exactly had Dot Records ?

★

Johnny King may also be the same artist on the Monticello label (Rochester, New York, 1959), on Florence Greenberg's Tiara Records ("Gondola Rock", 1959) and on Guy Records (1961).

★

Writer and director of the Nine Rock/Dot singles is a pre-"Twist and Shout" Phil Medley.

Biographical details on this prolific songwriter, producer and bandleader are surprisingly rather sketchy for a such prolific and talented songwriter (339 titles listed in the BMI online database). See BMI database HERE.

I believe I've found one of the earliest mention (AND picture) of Phil Medley :



Sgt. Medley former cadet, this talented GI from Boston organized and directed the Cadet Glee Club whose reputation as a musical group is widely known. A former student at Virginia State College, where he was a versatile athlete and scholar, Sgt. Medley was recently selected the outstanding soldier at TAAF (i.e. Tuskegee Army Air Field, Alabama]. He is married to the former Miss Carolyn Holland of Danville, Va., his college sweetheart.

The Afro-American (August 26, 1944)






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I Got A Rocket in my Pocket

Another batch of space-themed label pics. Curiously enough, there is NO Rocket label listed in the huge Bob McGrath's RnB discography.

Any comment including the words "Elton" and "John" will be ignored.

Cincinnati, Ohio
country singer Jay Johnson own label
Pressed by King Records, 1962

Appleton, Wisconsin
Gold Star Recording Company
Capitol custom press, 1962
Jerry Williams and his Rockets
(member Bob Timmers, of Rockabilly Hall of Fame fame)

Nashville, Tennessee
A product of the ultra-primitive Globe Recording Studio above Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, the famous liquor haunt around the corner from the Grand Ole Opry. (Cub Koda)

Friendswood, Texas
contemporary square music

Boston, Massachusetts
1958
For the label story, see Mellow's Log Cabin

Branson, Missouri
Baldknobbers
King Records custom pressing

Crowley, Louisiana
(Glen Owens)
Owner J.D. Miller renamed it Rocko
late fifties

Unknown location
(I'll found one in the end)
(Don Bishop)
A great mystery!

Marshall, Texas
(Ray Strong)
Starday custom series, pressed by King Records in Cincinnati

Chicago?
The Staccato's
Arr. Lew Douglas
Pressed in Chicago by "Midwest Record Pressing", 1963

Alamogorda (sic), New Mexico
(Bill Lamm)
early seventies
Mastered by Sound of Nashville

Unknown location
(The Velvets)
Pressed in Cincinnati by Rite Records
1960

Rochester, New-York
(Ronny Hines)
Fine custom recording

Portland, Oregon
(The Five Men of Swing, vocal Jack Scott)

A product of the Air-Tone studios, Philadelphia
(Johnny Toto and the Nostalgics)



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All Thru The Night

The Moore Twins
(Larry & Gary)

"All Thru The Night"

(J.O. Duncan, J.D.A. Music)

Cue Records #1053

1963 or 1964

The flip, "I'm Still Around", has an annoying female backing and can be heard indeed on YouTube, purveyor of great, of not so great and, mostly, of very bad music.

★

Larry and Gary Moore, twins from Brazosport, played the guitars and sang at various venues, radio and television in and around Freeport, Texas. It seems that they were very popular as some people are still remember them. Sheila Skaggs Hale, anwsering to a Fxxxbxxx inquiry inform us that "Larry Moore is in Hollister MO. I'm sad to report that Gary died many years ago.". Not much to add except that they also had another single, on the Todd label : "It Can Never Be The Same / Rosemary " (1964).

★

Cue Records was owned, in Houston, Texas, by Jimmy Duncan, songwriter, singer, composer, author, arranger and producer, best known for his 1957 song "My Special Angel", a #1 country/western hit for Bobby Helms.

I must say that I've been doing a lot of internet searches and that I'm still confused by several contradictions and little mysteries regarding the biography of Mister Jimmy Duncan. For now, I'd rather not say.

★

Cue Records had four different numerical series at various times :


79xx series - 1955-1957

Starting in 1955, just before Christmas, there was Cue #7923/4 by Jimmy Duncan himself (Goodbye To Love / I Asked The Lord). followed thru 1957 by a dozen of singles by the Scholars (member : Kenny Rogers), the Saints and the Sunny Land Trio.


1200 series - 1958

Four singles by The Angel Sisters, Don Angelo and the Saints. These four singles all resulted from some sort of a (rather surprising) deal with famed New-York producer George Goldner.


1050 series - 1963-1964

Dormant between 1959 and 1963, the Cue label was reactivated but had only a handful of singles, the most notable being by bluesman Gatemouth Brown (Summertime / Leftover Blues)


750 series (date unknown)

Two singles only (by Louise Hart and another by Chano)

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Orbit With Me

October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the world's first artificial satellite. That's was the start of a craze. At such extent that Irwin Zucker jokingly devised a parody of Top Ten :

Billboard (December 16, 1957)
Hollywood – Now that we’re concerned with satellites, sputniks and the like, disk promotion man Irwin Zucker figures ther’s gotta be an « Outer Space Top Ten» To help the Martian d.j. programming, Zucker compiled the following list :

1 The Last Time I Saucer Paris
2 Ol’ Rocket Chair’s Got Me
3 It’s Moon In January
4 Don’t Satellite Under The Apple Tree
5 How Comet You Do Me Like You Do, Do, Do ?
6 Martian Thru Georgia
7 You’re Getting To Be An Orbit With Me
8 Oh, How I Missile You Tonight
9 I’ve Grown Accustomed To Your Space
10 My Sphere Lady

There was an explosion of new space-themed label names, among them, Orbit.

I've collected here pictures of the different Orbit labels that I can find. Only one picture for each label.

Detroit, Michigan

Eugene, Oregon
The Orbit Sound "Heard 'Round The World"

Detroit, Michigan

Williamson, West Virginia

Glendale, California
Pre-Sputnik (early fifties)

Hollywood, California

"The Sound That Out Of This World". Pop label launched by Richard Vaughn's High Fidelity Recordings in 1958.

M-G-M Records subsidiary

Name changed to Cub when, according to Billboard (April 7, 1958) it was learned by MGM that there were four other labels on the market employing the Orbit name.

Hollywood, California

unknown address

Texas

DeKalb, Texas

Nashville, Tenn.

unknown location

Nashville, Tenn., eighties

New-York City, 1964

Houston, Texas

Starday Custom Series

Frederick, Maryland

Cape Canaveral, Florida, 1962

unknown location

Macon, Georgia

Hunstville, Alabama

St. Joseph, Missouri - 1961

Syracuse, New York, seventies

241 W. 82nd St., Los Angeles, Calif.

Detroit, Michigan - 1976

282 11th Avenue, Newark, New Jersey

Rochester, New York, 1958

Centerport, New York - 1978

And finally :

Almost Orbit. A Bobby Towers production.

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