School Bus Ride

 

Sandy
Acc. by The Uniques

School Bus Ride
Swanger-Sheetz
1:55

Li-1
Released thru the Nova Laboratories
1958

Sandy Swanger
Accompanied by
The Uniques

School Bus Ride
Sheetz-Swanger-Tromp
Juanita Music Co. (BMI)
2:37

Connie 1002
1959

 

Both records are listed by Rockin' Country Style. Li track come from the Buffalo Bop 55069, also previously issued on a Bison Bop LP. Connie track come from the Collector CD 4479 where it's credited for some reasons to Sandy Swandy Swanger & The Uniques, curioulsy clocked at 1:58, but time on label is 2:37. For some reason again.

Date of the first issue come from the copyright : w & m Sandy Swanger ( Sandford Swanger ) & Ronald Sheetz . Sandford Swanger & Ronald Sheetz ; 170ct58 ; Eu546285 

Date of the second issue come from Cash Box : review from the April 4, 1959 issue. A third composer (Tromp) and the Juanita Music publishing company are added, addition which is the most common sign of a second release.

At RCS, there is no location for these labels. Unable to find a thing about Li or the Nova Laboratories, I continued researching the Connie label.

There was a previous release in January 1959 by B. L. & the Tempters (instrumental)  b/w The Tempters (vocal). The vocal side (Come On In) was written by Sam Denoff and published by Tricky Music (ASCAP), owned at the time by George Goldner. The additional composer on Connie 1002 is certainly Grace Tromp, a name associated with Tommy Vastola for one side and Morris Levy-Phil Kahl on the other. (Tico Records 282, 1956, Tico was indeed the George Goldner's latin label. 

Tricky Music was located at 1650 Broadway in New York City but later changed hands apparently and came under the control of the extremely greedy Morris Levy. 

So, yes, I have located the Connie label in New York City, but who was its owner, I'm still unsure. And on these Uniques and Sandford Swanger ? Empty-handed. But Buffalo Bop had their picture (see below)

 

 

There's A Great Day Coming

 

 Chip Young

A: There's A Great Day Coming
B: Just As You Are
Both wr. Joe South, Joe South Music (BMI)

    Esco 200 CY
Sept. 1959

It seems that the Billboard reviewer sensed insufficient promotion from Esco for this Chip Young record ("could step out with plugs" and "could create interest with exposure").  And he was not wrong, at least regarding a national promotion. 

The Esco label (and its Escophonic sound proudly printed on all the labels) was the offshoot of Esco Artists, a local booking agency located at 112 Nathan Rd.,in Atlanta, recording members of its stable [except Joe South] to ensure a regional promotion. At  Esco, the star was Joe South, a NRC recording artist, who penned almost all the songs recorded by the label, which were all copyrighted by his own publishing company, Joe South Music (BMI). Still under contract with Bill Lowery as a recording artist, Joe South didn't have a record issued by Esco. Did he owned that booking agency ?

Guitarist and producer Chip Young died Dec. 20 2014 at the age of 76 in Nashville, Tenn., a month after undergoing triple bypass surgery at St. Thomas Hospital.

Young, a.k.a. Jerry Marvin Stembridge, was born in Atlanta, Ga., on May 19, 1938, and began his remarkable career in the 1950s, playing with guitarist Jerry Reed and singer-songwriter Joe South. In the '60s and '70s, Young lent his notable thumb-picking talents to Dolly Parton's hit 'Jolene,' Elvis Presley's 'Guitar Man,' Charley Pride's 'Kiss an Angel Good Morning' and many other fan-favorite songs.

He was a regular member of Presley's studio band from 1965 until the King's death in 1977. Young worked with other talented artists as well, including Waylon Jennings, Jerry Lee Lewis, Kris Kristofferson, Porter Wagoner, George Jones, Willie Nelson, the Oak Ridge Boys and Reba McEntire, among others.

 

 

Complications

  Bubba Jordan


Complications

Showboat 1503
1959

Bubba Jordan had previously recorded with The Red Counts at the Delta Records studios in Jackson, Mississippi. These tracks remained unissued until the publication by Bear Family of the CD "Diddy Wah Diddy ... Ain't A Town, Ain't A City (Rock 'N' Roll And Hot Country From Jackson, Mississippi).

At the time of the Showboat release, the label was still located in Nashville and still owned by Murray Nash and Ray Scrivener, before the latter took it over with him to Santa Claus, Indiana, where he bought the Santa Claus Castle, new headquarter of the label.

In 1962, Bubba Jordan was the vocalist on "Snake Eyed Woman" issued by The Sundowners and in 1963, there was a single on Buccaneer as by Bub Jordan (with The Del Solds on one side).

Fulton Anderson Jordan (1941-2024)

From his obit :
Fulton Anderson Jordan, known to many as "Bubba," passed away peacefully on April 4, 2024, in Jackson, Mississippi, at the age of 83. Born on March 25, 1941, in Jackson, Ms, he was a beloved husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather, brother, and friend.

Fulton, a proud Air Force veteran, served his country with honor. Following his military service, he embarked on a successful career path. Starting at IBM, he later transitioned to Gainey and Associates, where he excelled in insurance sales. Eventually, he established his own agency, Jordan and Associates, serving as a general agent until his retirement in 2009.

His passion for music was evident throughout his life. Fulton was a talented musician and singer, having produced two records. He shared his musical gifts at First Baptist of Jackson, where he worshipped, sang in the choir, and devoted his time to teaching Sunday school to high school boys.

Payola

 

Ben Took and The Investas
Payola
Dart 125 (1959)

Sarcastic rocker about payola. Lyrics written by Bill Camfield & Dave Naugle, music by  Bill Smith & Georges Campbell. Bill Camfield (1929-1991) & Dave Naugle were both with KFJZ, Fort Worth. Bill was "Icky Twerp" on "Slam Bang Theater" while Dave Naugle was a broadcaster in the same station, doing some skits sometimes with "Icky Twerp". David Naugle (1923-2002) was the first to announce the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the Fort Worth-Dallas area on KFJZ 1270-AM radio Dec. 7, 1941, as an 18-year-old intern. 

In 1959, Major Bill Smith set up the LeCam record label and production company in Fort Worth with George Campbell; the name derived from that of Smith's wife Letitia, and Campbell, a songwriter, arranger, pianist, and bandleader in Fort-Worth for over 50 years.

Cash Box, December 26, 1959

Dick Clark, a payola survivor
"Payola ? What is it ?"

 

 

 

I Stubbed My Toe

Bryan Legs Walker - I Stubbed My Toe 

Bryan Legs Walker - Trick Or Treat

 

From 1959. Both sides written by Bill Jacoby, who also probably produced the record. Bill Jacoby (1925-2008), a musician and music teacher (touring with the Spike Jones band in 1948) also opened two music stores in Maywood, California and also in Temple City in the fifties.

Bryan Walker (1940-2013)

Bryan Walker served in the US Army from 1962 to 1964.  He was a saxophone player in the 50s (he played the saxophone in the movie Shaggy Dog) and was a driver in the entertainment industry of Universal Studios for many years.

Party Line

 


Party Line
(J. Schram, Kavelin BMI)

Kip Shane
Lute Records LU-159
(1959)

Obscure first release on Lute Recordsl, missing until now, from the label discographies available online.

Wax to watch 10/10/59 — KFXM 590 AM
(San Bernardino, California )

"Love Is the Thing", the flip side, was featured in The Cape Canaveral Monsters, a movie released in 1960. It's one of the four songs coming from the characters' transistor radio. The three other songs had be also issued by Lute Records. : "Please Somebody," written by Jerry Coates and performed by Terry Miller (issued on Lute 5903); "Love is the Thing," written by John Nieel Jr. and performed by Kip Shane; and "Think of Me" and "I'll Find a Way," written by Morey Bernstein and performed by Jerry Savoy.[both issued on Lute 5912]

Note the different composer credited for the songs, : J. Schram on label, but John Nieel Jr. on the movie opening credits.

I have a strong suspicion that Kip Shane is actually just another [undocumented] pseudonym for Kip Tyler. Anyway, the singer sounds remarkably like him.

Jazz Vs. Rock And Roll

Woody Byrd



Jazz vs. Rock And Roll

R. Bloomberg - L. Barr
Bettina Music Co., BMI
Jaro International J 77000
1959

Initial release on this Top Rank International Records' subsidiary.  Masters were probably bought in Philadelphia from unknown independent producer(s), or perhaps from Leonard "Chick Barr (Dean Martin's uncle?) and Ron Bloomberg, a songwriter duo active between 1958 and 1960.

The only known record by Woody Byrd, perhaps a pseudonym.

Acknowledgment : Andreas Michalke

 

Inka Dinka Doo

Ginny Tiu

(from LP Era Records 101 "All this And Ginny Tiu", 1959)

Inka Dinka Doo

Ginny Tiu was discovered in Hong Kong playing the piano in her father's hotel by BenStahl, an American artist. She was introduced to the American public by Don McNeill on his popular network radio show, "The Breakfast Club". She subsequently made two appearances on the Ed Sullivan show and Life Magazine gave her a two page spread in their April 27, 1959 issue. 

More Fun :

Take Me To Your Leader

"Take me to your leader" is a popular catchphrase said by an extraterrestrial alien who has just landed on Earth in a spacecraft to the first human it happens to meet. . It started, presumably, with a 1953 cartoon by Alex Graham in The New Yorker magazine. This showed two aliens telling a horse “Kindly take us to your President!”.

I was quite surprised to find, during a research, a profusion of songs copyrighted in 1958 and 1959. The very first, by Timmie Rogers, obviously inspired by Chuck Berry, was on Cameo Records.  What has stimulated that music craze in the late fifties is not known.  Perhaps a popular sci-fi sitcom or a TV show ?

Take Me To the Link NOW

Record	Credits	© date
Not recorded?	w & m Carl Kent;	Jan. '58
	Take Me To Your Leader w Kal Mann m Bernie Lowe  Timmie Rogers        Cameo  C131	Feb. '58
	Take Me To Your Leader w & m Eddie Safranski & George Spota © Erica Music Jonathan Winters With The Martians     Coral 9-61988	Apr. 58
Not recorded?	w & m Berdie Abrams & Hank Levine; 12 May58	May '58
	Take Me To Your Ladder (I'll See Your Leader later) w & m Robert H. Babcock & Marvin Milligan     Buddy Clinton Madison M144	Jul. '58
Not recorded?	w & m Nathan Starr; 11aug58	Aug. '58
	Take Me To Your Leader, Cha Cha Cha   w Mel Mandel, m Danny Davis © Knollwood Music Corp. Sam Space And The Cadets Cabot CA-127	Dec. '58
	Take Me To Your Leader w & m Marc Mittendorf & Dee Da Costa ©Alan-Edwards, Inc. The Lancers Imperial X5564	Jan. '59
	Take Me To Your Leader Nick Smith and Rae Temple Arr. Nick Smith The Vi-Counts Donick DR 100	Mar. '59 (or earlier)
Not recorded?	m Hugh Halliday & Homer Denison 27Mar59	Mar. '59
	Take Me To Your Leader w, m & arr. Ben Hunter & Steve Steventon (G.H. Steventon) Bernie Parke on Dynasty	Apr. '59
Not recorded?	w & m Everett J. Welsh  22Apr59	Apr. 59
Not recorded? Not recorded?	w & m Stephen Ondek, 23may61 Louise Waller & Leslie Waller. 1961-07-26	May '61 Jul. '61

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

South Of The Border

Angie & The Saints

South Of The Border

Kennedy & Carr, Shapiro-Bernstein ASCAP

Dwain DWR 807
1959

Angie & the Saints were Italo-Americans perhaps? You know me, if I knew something about Angie or about The Saints, I would tell you. But no, nothing to say. At the time of this release, the label was managed by Billy Martin, a songwriter.  Dwain was underwritten by an investment firm from Wall Street. I don't think they made much money out of it. This New York label lasted only two years.

Without Your Precious Love

Norman Kara
with Henry Jones Band

Without Your Precious Love
Sanders-Karajulles, Tulane Pub. BMI

Cimota Records
[1959]

One of the first songs published in 1959 by Tulane Music Publishing recently incorporated by Tony Conino who started in 1961 a new distributorship  in New Orleans called Central Records Distributing Company, the appointed distributor for the southern market for the Nashboro, Excello, Concert-Disc, Lute, Conversaphone, Joy, Stand, Frolic Dodge, Hollywood, Playtime, 90th Floor, Smart, Lucky Four, and Ivory labels.

I'm A Witch

Terry Joy

I'm A Witch

Song penned by Don Hunt a.k.a. Donald Henry Stinson released in 1959 reviewed by Cash Box in October 1959. That's all about I can say.

Armpit # 6

Armpit # 6

Screamin' Jay Hawkins
(Red Top 126, 1959)

Credit : Ethbaal —  CC BY-SA 3.0, 

When Oh When

Honest Jess
And His Western Cavaliers


When Oh When

Honest Jess Records
both sides

1959

 

Out of Amarillo, Texas. The vocalist is uncredited. But is not Honest Jess. I do believe the vocalist was Jerrell Messer who wrote the lyrics, while Virgil Hume composed the music of the flip side titled Suzanne, Quit Rocking To The Can-Can.  Jerrell Winfred Messer (1924-1975) was born in Memphis (Hall County, Texas). A WW II veteran, he died in California of a massive heart attack. 

 

Honest Jess Williams was a Western Swing guitarist in the 40s and 50s, with “Billy Briggs and the XIT Boys” and “The Sons of The West”.

 

Williams was lastingly grateful to be back home in Amarillo after his wartime-combat experiences. His European Theatre service had left the genial extrovert with a chronic-to-acute case of shell-shock anxiety that could be triggered by something as commonplace as an automobile’s backfire. In becoming ever more the local celebrity, Williams branched into television, beyond the X.I.T. Boys’ radio-and-teevee appearances, as an after-school kid-show host. He furthered his “Honest Jess” moniker as a Chevrolet salesman and a horse-trainer and riding coach. And he raised musically inclined offspring, including guitarist Ron Williams and drummer Lynn Williams, who would become prominent sidemen on the rock-band scene around and beyond Texas’ Panhandle region.

The 1950s found their ensemble sound essentially unchanged from the progressive fusion of idioms they had developed during the 1940s. Neither Briggs, with his taste for coaxing bizarre, stinging chords and a jazz-rooted shuffle-boogie pattern from his long-leggéd and homemade nine-string steel, nor Williams, with his blues-based heartbeat strumming, could be pegged as a typical hillbilly artist.

But Briggs and, especially, Williams found rhythm-and-blues and prototypical rock ’n’ roll appealing enough to explore, even within the resolutely anti-rock confines of their principal showplace, a diehard honky-tonk nightclub called the Avalon Ballroom, out on the wild-side-of-life northeastern fringes of Amarillo, Texas. The X.I.T. Boys’ 1947 independent-label recording of “X.I.T. Song,” combining a romantic complaint with a salute to an annual reunion of cowhands from the historic X.I.T. Ranch, proves downright subversive in retrospect: A review in the show-business tradepaper Billboard characterized “X.I.T. Song” as “very close to playing race swing.” It helps to know that Briggs and Williams were frequent after-hours sit-in players at the La Joya Hotel, a black nightclub and gambling den at the northwestern edge of Amarillo.

Jess Williams demonstrated a willingness to rock out with such local-label 45-r.p.m. releases of his own as “Suzanne (Stop Rockin’ to the Can-Can)” and a variant thereof called “Suzanne (Quit Twistin’ to the Can-Can).” These oddities surfaced while Jess was still holding forth at the Avalon Ballroom with a post-Briggs band called the Western Cavaliers, descended from the X.I.T. Boys.

Acknowledgment : Michael H. Price

Say It, Say It

Betty Jo Baxter

Say It, Say It

Freddy

(1959)


 

Betty Jo Baxter, born in 1930, performed regularly with the Freddy Guerra Orchestra and was also a regular on WBZ, a Boston, Mass. radio.  She was married to Jim Pansullo (a New England disc jockey) at the time of her first Vik single.

She also had records on Vik Records (1957-1958) and Brass Ring (1962)

Mack The Knife

Willie Restum : Mack The Knife

From The Gone Records LP "Willie Restum At The Dream Lounge"

1959

Willie Restum, Allentown's irrepressibly effervescent baritone saxophonist and lounge entertainer died in Los Angeles from a stroke in 2006 . He was 76.

Dressed in his trademark outfit of black Clark desert boots, black socks, Bermuda shorts and loose, loud shirt with kangaroo pouches, the well-known entertainer performed at venues from the Allentown Fair to the Dream Lounge in Miami Beach to the Playboy Club in Hollywood. Mixing stardust standards, Arabic dance numbers and jokes of all stripes, he shared bills with Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett and other stars.

Meg Andre : Mack The Knife

Another interesting version of "Mack The Knife" by the unknown Meg Andre from 1968 on the Al Furth's AlphaPop label.

[The Jeff Gray version has been posted here two years ago]

Sonya And The Capris

Sonya And The Capris
Scarlet Records Inc.
45-999
(1959)


Extra Extra



Private Party

Label owned by Noel Ball, Nashville's first and most flamboyant rock n roll disk jockey. Noel Ball produced the two following singles in 1961 on Sonya at the FAME Studios in Muscle Schoals and issued on the Dot label (Noel also was the head of the Southern Division of Dot Records) :

16235 - Sonya - Little Red Rooster / We Kiss In A Shadow - 1961
16356 - Sonya - For Your Love / Seventeen Years One Dark Night - 1962

Sonya who? Her last name remains unknown and no info has be found.  Unknown as well are the  Capris apparently unrelated to the many other recorded Capris.

Note the early Buzz Cason song composition ("Extra Extra") published by Conmay Music, probably a printing error for Conmar (a Bill Connor-Kenny Marlowe joint venture)

Rock N' Roll Music Box

"Toad" Fraley With The Tadpoles

Rock N' Roll Music Box
Wr.: Charles Nathan, Dave Heisler (Chase Music Co.)

Singing-guitar player  Freddie “Toad” Fraley, who doubles as a professional wrestler, with his first release –  and possibly his last - on the Allied label, subsidiary of the Allied Record Manufacturing Company, one of the oldest independent pressing plant dating back to the thirties.

The Fraleys, a wrestling father and son team
Pat and Freddie Fraley (1958)

Wild

Recorded for the Mecca label, in West Seattle, by Joe Boles in 1959.  The Vanguards added the Du-ettes as vocalists, and performed together on the Seattle Bandstand TV show.  The Du-ettes (Bonnie Dee Sloan and Annie Laurie Sloan) were the daughters of Sterling (Bud) Sloan, owner of Mecca Records (920 3rd Avenue Seattle, Washington)

 

Wild

 

Jelly-Bean

Obscure group on the equally obscure Carthay label.  The Galaxys 45 is rare, that's all about I can say about them. 

Incorporated in January 1959, Carthay Records, first located at 1614 N. Argyle in Hollywood,  released their first release in April 1959,  an unreleased master recorded the previous summer by the thrush Mimi Harp and heavily promoted by KLAC radio. According to Cash Box, August 16, 1958

     . . . To help bring talent to the attention of record companies,

    radio  station KLAC-Hollywood, Calif, inaugurated a “Sun-

    day Scoop” series Sunday, Aug. 3rd, with a spin every 15

    minutes from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. of an unreleased master record.

    The first waxing to get the treatment was “Going To Heaven

    Ridin’ a Mule”, recorded by Mimi Harp. Total plays were 52 for the period.

Shortly after the first release, Carthay moved not too far at 1608 N. Argyle and issued five more singles in 1959 and 1960.  A last release, five years later oddly enough, were on a Denver, Colorado band, The Fogcutters, record which was leased to Liberty Records.



Carthay label discography

101      Mimi Harp    

A - The Morning After (The Night Before) (Winn, Gould, Lidville BMI)

B -  Goin' To Heaven (Ridin' On A Mule) (Joe Lilley, Mark Warnow ASCAP)

     Arranged And Conducted by Danny Gould

     Promotion :  Irwin Zucker

     Master purchased (but not issued?) by Ed Brown prexy of Mun Rab Records

102      Zola And His Horn

A - The Slide (H. Winn, Moonbeam Music Co. BMI)

B - Marching To The Coliseum (E. Alperson Jr., N. Malkin, Fairlane Music, Lansdowne Music (ASCAP)

103      The Galaxys

A - Jelly-Bean (Dwight Davis, Moonbeam Music Co.)

B -  A Lover's Prayer (Robert Robertson, Moonbeam Music Co.)

104      Mickie Adrienne

A -  I'll Remember Johnny (Walter Straub, Moonbeam Music Co)

B -  Mr. Heartbreak (R. Freed, B. Weber  , Fairlane Music ASCAP)

105      Johnny Prophet

A -  (I've Got) Two Arms (Winn-Gould, Lidville Music Co BMI)

B -  Find A Penny (Winn-Gould, Lidville Music Co BMI)

Arranged And Conducted By Danny Gould

110      Bob Grabeau (1960)
A - (I'm Gonna) Be You (Alperson-Winn, Fairlane Music Corp. ASCAP)

B - Passing By (Alperson-Winn, Fairlane Music Corp. ASCAP)

777      The Fogcutters (1965)
A - You Say  (Eric Karl Circle Seven BMI)

B - Cry, Cry, Cry!  (Don Cameron, Circle Seven BMI) 

           Leased To Liberty Records, Issued on Liberty 55793

Jelly-Bean