Japaneese Rhumba

Wayne (Bob) Roberts


Japaneese Rhumba

Rhythm & Range 45-102 B
"Reavis Studio" in the deadwax |Nashville studio]

1956
Nashville, Tennessee

Record listed in Rockin' Country Style (no location)

Kicks Magazine #7 published a review of this record (see above). And we learn a little more about it. 

This was a posthumous release :

"According to the accompanying promo sheet, Wayne Roberts was an aspiring crooner and when he met with an untimely death Mama Roberts had a band pop the bop onto some of his old tapes and ished & promoted the disc herself : "As his mother since his unfortunate accident I have taken it on myself to try to make to him what he always wanted to be"

Nothing is greater than a mother's love.

Note: the only other known record on Rhythm & Range (#101) was by Little Hank singing two Roy Hall compositions. See https://oldwax.blogspot.com/2022/09/hank-rhythm-kings-rhythm-range-45-101.html

"Japanese Rumba" is an example of a GI song, a type of song composed for American soldiers stationed in postwar Japan. G. I. songs were broadcast on the Far East Network and issued on souvenir records that the soldiers could take home. "Japanese Rumba" was written by Jerry F. Miller, an arranger for an air force dance band, when he was stationed in Nagoya, Japan. First performed in 1949, the song was later issued on the 1951 souvenir EP World Famous Japanese Hit Melodies in an arrangement by the Japanese Itsuro Raymond Hattori and sung by Japanese American soldiers Nobuo Nishimoto and George Shimabukuro.

The song, which features lyrics in Japanese—or, more accurately, "bamboo English," a pidgin form of Japanese used by non-Japanese speaking soldiers to communicate with the locals—pokes fun at the linguistic struggles of Americans in Japan. The first verse roughly translates to "Where go, here come / Hey, well, good morning," the second to "What mama-san, hurry up papa-san, yes / Hey, girl, wait a moment, please," and the third to "What, well, nice makeup, yes / What do, eh good afternoon."

US covers were done in 1955 by Jayne & Audrey Meadows on RCA and the Twin Tunes on Sound.                        

   

Del Swade on the Production label

 

Rockin' Country Style has no location for this label which issued two records both by Del Swade in 1959 and 1960, "A Sound Production Recording, released through Fajam Enterprises " on both labels.  

Del Swade was a member of Local 10-208, Chicago , Ilinois, certainly the location (of his own, no doubt) Production label.

Francis E. Shimandle (his real name) was active in Chicago at least until 1965, when he performed backed by The Key Notes. The group included Dennis Nix, durmmer, formerly with the Benny Goodman band; Eddie Kay of the Dick Contino Show and Riley King.

 

 

I'm A Long Gone Daddy

 

Bud Gay

I'm A Long Gone Daddy
(Hank Williams, Fred Rose Music, BMI)

Nashville Records CD-1003

Early seventies

Record listed at RCS (no location) 

*

This Nashville label (indeed located in Nashville, Tennessee) had few releases in the early seventies (including two singles by Bob Folsom and one by Bob Rash).  Charlie Dick, the widower of country legend Patsy Cline, was it's owner, perhaps with the idea of giving a new life to the old Starday's subsidiary, still releasing albums, but no more singles. But the time of the good old country music was over.

Charlie Dick, at this time, was also a promotion man for Starday-King in Nashville.  

Patsy Cline & Charlie Dick