The Best Part Of Me

Marsha Lyn

Alibi Records

The Best Part Of Me



Johnny B. Goode

Marsha Lyn

 

Recorded at the Valtron Studios in Helena, Montana,
owned & operated by Les Liedle (picture above)

My Father The Pop Singer

Sam Chalpin

Sam Chalpin had mostly sung at lodge meetings and was a cantor at his synagogue. Ed Chalpin, his son and head of the PPX Record Production Company, decided that if Mrs. Miller gained some fame for her series of shrill and off-key renditions of popular songs, then why not make a similar record with his father -" and Ed would make sure that his father worked for nothing. Existing tracks, a studio he owned and a free singer - investment zero!" 

After Sam Chalpin had finished recording the ten tunes of this Atco disc, Ed Chalpin had contacted Ahmet Ertegun [head of Atlantic Records], to whom he stated that his father, who was sixty-five years of age, had made his first recordings.  The tunes were issued on the Atlantic Records' Atco subsidiary in 1966.

Sam Chalpin died in 1969.

Satisfaction

Mike Rashkow, the recording engineer, has told the story of these recordings at Spectropop.com :

Excerpts:

Sam could not read English very well, maybe not at all. If he could read, then he couldn't see. If he was taught the lyrics, he'd forget them. The melody and meter? He had two chances of getting in the vicinity of either one - slim and none. Slim done took the train. Supposedly, he'd learn the song, then Ed would bring him in and we put the head phones on him. I think we actually had to tie them on him - he didn't like it. We'd start trying to overdub him by a): feeding him the old vocal in the cans; b): not feeding him the old vocal in the cans; c): letting him listen over and over again to the line or two he was going to yelp at, and d): Ed standing next to him waving his arms and threatening him with violence.

I swear on my children's lives that Ed made his father cry at least once, maybe more, during these sessions. It was terrible for me to watch, and possibly criminal to be involved in. Today, Ed would be arrested for Elder Abuse, and I would be the one who dropped the dime on him.

If we did one punch-in on a song we did 100. I did so many punch-ins, trying to get a single chorus done, that when the record was complete I was punch drunk. This is not exaggerated. The poor old man couldn't sing, couldn't read, couldn't remember and, most of the time, didn't have a clue what was going on. I may make it sound funny, but truly it was an awful thing for one person to put another person through, let alone a son to his father.

My Father The Pop Singer

Acknowledgements : nuggets from the moon (YT channel)

Look At That Baby

Loose Juice


Look At That Baby

This is Tommy Law alias Thomas Richard Laidlaw of  Baldwin Park, California

 

Two unissued Tommy Law recordings.  "Loose Juice" later issued on Crest Records as "Cool Juice", same backing but with a different vocal track.  Probably recorded in 1957 (?), "Loose Juice" was written by John Mangiagli who later recorded as Johnny Knight and Gamma Goochee Himself, among others pseudonyms.

On the Crest label, the credited backing band is King Richard and The Dukes (actually The Counts).

 

The group were led by 19-year-old King Richard (Dick Macklin) of El Monte, guitar, Lanny Seigel,  17,  sax, from Baldwin Park, Dick McLean, 17, drums, from El' Monte ; Al Wilkins, 17, sax, from Baldwin Park; Johnny Winfield, 17, guitar, from El Monte and Jimmy Starsiak, 19, string 'bass, from Baldwin Park.

Jim Aguirre, during daylight hours an engineering designer at Caltech's jet propulsion laboratory, took over management of the group, and it was him who sold the masters to Crest Records in 1958.

Boston Baby

Boston Baby

Russ Kendall (unissued)

Hey Jude

Hey Jude
The Bermuda Merry-Makers
Edmar Records

Bright Lights Big Cities

Dwight T. Ross

Bright Lights Big Cities

(Jimmy Reed)

Black Foot BF 186

1985

For info on this artist, see Sir Shambling

Tipsy Topsy Turvey

Lee Scott



Tipsy Topsy Turvey

Song-poem issued on Hollywood's Columbine Records on one of their "The Now Sounds Of Today" albums. The song has been also compiled on Songs in the Key of Z (volume 3).

Columbine Records made hundreds of different albums with this exact same title and cover art. They were never sold in stores. They only pressed 50 or so copies of each, which were only offered for sale to the people who actually had songs on them.  Columbine would also send a few copies to radio stations (as promised in their ads), who would always throw them away unopened.

From Philadelphia, Lee Scott made her initial appearance on records for the Wynne label in 1959 . She has appeared on radio and television in the Philadelphia area, and has also appeared in some of the leading supper clubs throughout the country.  Her musicial talents were not merely confined to vocalizing. She studied piano for many years and gained quite a reputation in her native philadelphia as a popular jazz and concert pianist.

She was also a songwriter herself.  Among the songs she wrote : Six Button Benny (The Nite Riders, Teen and Swan),  By Now (Billy Duke, Sound), Forget Me Not (The Fabulous Dials, D'n'B) and "The Conservative"(The Orlons, Cameo Records in 1962)

Her real name was Dollee Escourt, a name she also used for writing or recording songs.  (there was at least one record issued as by Dollee Escourt on the Malvern label)

Anna Caspelle, the composer of Tipsy Topsy Turvey, died in 2008 in Rapid City, South Dakota.  Also known as Natalie Leonesio, she copyrighted several songs and stories in the mid-seventies, "The Planet Crazoid Speaks" and "Star Gazer and Vega (The Blue One)",  just to name a few.

Above : Columbine Records ad

From Ebony Magazine, July 1981