Miriam (and Clu Gulager incidentally)

 

Miriam

Catwalk

"In 1967"

Both wr. (created by) Clu Gulager, Excalibur Music, BMI
Prod. by B. Williams, R. Woods

    Tanqueray 20101
9808 Wilshire blvd. , Beverly Hills

1966

 

Cash Box, review, November 19, 1966

Miriam [Gulager]  also recorded previously with her husband Clu Gulager on DeVille Records in 1964, she can be (furtively) heard on one side only "Tennessee Waltz" (DeVille 116).

In 1971, there was "Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh" with the Benny Carter's Orchestra recorded for Decca which was featured on the  "Red Sky At Morning" soundtrack (Decca DL7-9180). And that was the end of her recording career. 

She copyrighted several songs in 1972 : Child  Of  My  Own;, Don't  Know  Where  I  Am  Anymore ; Goin'  Home; and Windin'  Me  Down, all published by Denim Music, a publisher just as obscure as Excalibur Music, the publisher of the Tanqueray 45.

Clu, Miriam and son John (1962)

From Office Naps (article no longer available) :

“Catwalk” is the handiwork of the Hollywood actress Miriam Byrd-Nethery and her husband Clu Gulager, an actor, too, and later an aspiring filmmaker.

Miriam Byrd-Nethery (born 1929 in Arkansas) and Clu Gulager (born a year earlier in Oklahoma) met in the theater department at Baylor University, married and found their first professional theater and television work in New York City. Relocating to Hollywood in the late ‘50s, Gulager would go on to distinguish himself as a prolific genre actor in both movies and television, including deputy sheriff Emmett Ryker in TV’s The Virginian, rig-hand-and-ladies-man Abilene in The Last Picture Show and contract killer Lee in The Killers. Starting with 1985’s Return of the Living Dead, Gulager’s work as horror movie stock character revived an acting career that continues today, albeit at a subdued pace.

Miriam, too, managed her own small-time acting career in Hollywood, but if it was Gulager who enjoyed the spotlight, theirs would first be a marriage, then family, energized above all by a spirit of collaboration and the noblest of artistic endeavors: filmmaking. Their obsession with producing films - including the family’s eight years in Tulsa trying unsuccessfully to realize their grisly serial killer horror noir Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! (its saga detailed in an engrossing 1997 LA Weekly article) - put them on the brink of starvation.

None of this does anything but increase the charm of this maverick and quintessentially American couple, whose lust for creative, budget-minded expression reached early fruition on “Catwalk,” a slice of pure Sunset Strip eccentricity from 1967 [1966 actually]. Ever wonder what really goes inside the actors studio? This is it.

Miriam Byrd-Nethery passed away in 2003. 

 

Miriam (directed by her husband in his unfinished masterpiece)

Regarding the movie Clu Gullager tried to realize [I quote from Beautiful Dreamers, the LA Weekly article linked above  :

At its end, a young serial killer named Jake, played by Tom Gulager, enters an old lady's home at night. He falls asleep watching TV while she slumbers in her room. When she awakens the next morning, a now naked Jake orders her to strip and shoots her in the stomach, then in the face. As she lies on the floor gurgling blood, the killer urinates along her nude body and into her mouth.

and 

Addressing complaints about the scene in which Tom urinates on Miriam, Clu says, "To be perfectly candid, I think penises are pretty good to put on film. An artist's compulsion is [what's] really pornographic - not the penis pissing on the old lady, or forcing the child into sexual abuse. What's pornographic is the artist's nature to gamble everything - everything - to destroy everything to get the art. The work is the important thing."

That's it. I think it's enough to give you a good idea of the Clu Gulager's artistry. If not, you can also watch this interview which includes "new found footage".  A legend, they say.

Further reading :

Into The Night With Clu Gulager

From Shakespeare to Shoot-em-Ups: The Remarkable 70-Year Career of Clu Gulager

Miriam Byrd-Nethery: Meet Clu Gulager’s Wife And Kids 

 

I The Dentist

 

Brook Arnold - I The Dentist

 
From Columbine Records NST 20 (The Now Sounds Of Today)

 

Ay Ya Ya Ya........

 

You're Mine, You

 

Bill Marshall
with The Sig Galloway Orchestra

You're Mine, You
(J. Green-E. Heyman, Famous Music Corp. ASCAP)

R-Dell Records 108
1958

Not listed at 45cat, and at Discogs neither. The R-Dell label (ex-Aardell) was founded by Bob Ross in 1955 and established at Selma Avenue in Hollywood.

Big-band trumpeter turned would-be record exec , Bob Ross founded the Harmony Recorders recording studio in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Owned or co-owned numerous record labels: Rosco Records, Aardell, R-Dell, Chartmaker and publishing companies: Teresa Music Co. aka Teresa Music and Teresa, Cadenza Music Co., Bob Ross Music Service, Chartmaker Productions, Inc etc.

"You're Mine, You" was first recorded by Guy Lombardo & His Royal Canadians in 1933. For a list of cover versions, see the useful SecondHandSongs here

Bill Marshall was probably the vocalist with the Raymond Joe Sanns Orchestra featured on four sides issued on the Bel-Tone label in 1945 or 1946. These 4 sides can be heard HERE

Repressed Hostility Blues

 

Katie Lee, The Grand Dame of Dam Busting, in 1957

 Katie Lee - Repressed Hostility Blues

From her album Katie Lee sings Songs Of Couch and Consultation issued by Commentary Records, a small company formed by Bud Freeman and his colllaborator Leon Pober in Hollywood .

Kathryn Louise Lee (1919–2017) was an American folk singer, actress, writer, photographer and environmental activist.

From the 1950s, Lee often sang about rivers and white water rafting. She was a vocal opponent of Glen Canyon Dam, which closed its gates in 1963, and called for the canyon to be returned to its natural state.
 

Allmusic:

Jazz saxophonist Bud Freeman came up with the idea for Songs of Couch & Consultation, a cult classic comedy album that pokes fun at psychoanalysis and psychiatric jargon. Freeman wrote a dozen songs' worth of lyrics, which Leon Pober set to music and Bob Thompson arranged. Katie Lee, an extraordinarily pretty folk singer who previously recorded an album for Specialty called Spicy Songs for Cool Knights, was brought in to sing and pose for the cheesecake album cover. The songs describe an assortment of neuroses and psychiatric conditions in a variety of musical styles, delivered with a heavy dose of hand-wringing self-scrutiny. There's ragtime, big-band blues, and even cowboy music as Lee coos her way through topics such as schizophrenia, repressed hostility, and maladjustment. "Hush Little Sibling" lampoons parenting manuals and the venerated Dr. Spock, and "The Will to Fail" identifies a drive Nietzsche missed. The irony is that the sophisticated humor targets an educated audience that is also the group most likely to embrace psychiatric jargon and theories. Reprise reissued the album with a less striking cover, so the original Commentary Records pressing is the one to find.

 

The Fading Tribesmen

 

The Fading Tribesmen had two singles on Indian Records produced by Jimmie Addington, a booking agent and promoter for many years and actor appearing in many early westerns playing mostly Indian parts. Jimmy passed away in 1996.

All songs composed by Cherokee Cody (aka Cody Bearpaw, 1936-2001). Publisher : Pink Poodle Music, publishing company possibly owned by Bill Woods. Nothing is known of these Tribesmen. Was Cherokee Cody a member of the band ?

Below the songs of their second single :

More Feathers

Rain Dance

 

Stranger in the Manger

 

Stranger in the Manger
(Monahan, Heart Bugle Music, BMI)

Terminators Of Endearment
Subterranean Records
Berkeley, Calif.
1987

See info at Discogs

Just by looking at these artists' names, I'm not usually curious to listen to the record. In this case, I would have been wrong as "Stranger in The Manger"  has a good rockabilly sound.

 

Skinny Myrt In The Mini Skirt

 

Guy Chookoorian and the "In" Sultans

Skinny Myrt In The Mini Skirt
Lightning R-2337 (1968)

Guy Chookoorian , “The Armenian Mickey Katz”

Like Katz, who did ethnic versions of popular songs by rethinking Billboard hits as Yiddish
comedy, Chookoorian made a national reputation (amongst Armenian record buyers) in the late 40s by recording his first single, “Toore’ Patz Dikran, “ an Armenian translation of
“Open The Door, Richard.” Bit that is just one facet of the jewel that is his career. The Kenosha, Wisconsin born Armenian-American moved to Southern California at a young age (the L.A. region has an estimated Armenian population of 500,000) and quickly followed his showbiz dreams leading to a diverse career that spans more than half a century.

Read more below : Guy Chookoorian interview by Jane Austen published in the Roctober magazine

Santa Is A Dirty Old Man

 

This is The Gino Sisters, as The Wardettes, named after Jay Ward from Ward Productions. who probably asked Sam Gino and his arranger, Scott Engel, to record the song, that was possibly featured in one of their early Bullwinkle cartoons. Or not, because the NBC TV perhaps objected to the title and lyrics. Written by George Atkins of Ward Productions. 

From the minds of Jay Ward and Bill Scott two cartoonists of Ward Productions, the animation studio, Pongo-Britt was how everybody called Ponsonby. Ponsonby Britt was the credited—but fictional—executive producer of the television series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Fractured Flickers, Hoppity Hooper, and George of the Jungle.

Someone, Ward explained, wondered if we had an executive producer. We didn’t. Since all the big shows have executive producers it seemed rather undignified for us not to have one. So we dreamed up Ponsonby.  The biography of Britt written by Ward and Scott of course describes him as half Lawrence of Arabia half Captain Cook and half Little Lord , his financial backing it says comes from estranged aunt. Lady Maud. 

Britt eventually became the executive producer credited for all Jay Ward productions; even a fake official biography for Britt was crafted for promotional press releases.  

This release was followed the next year by another Jay Ward related song : "Rocky's Theme" by Billy Joe and The Checkmates.

Santa Is A Dirty Old Man

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.

Mirror, Mirror

 

Miss Marian (Marian Hall)

 Mirror, Mirror

wr. Pete Beck, Mayon Music (ASCAP)
Produced by Hal Southern
Boxoffice 1128 N. Hobart, Hollywood, Calif., 90029 

1970

Marian Hall (1934-2006) : Marian deserves to be better known for her many accomplishments as a live television pioneer, resourceful and innovative steel guitar soloist, vocalist and songwriter. Marian became a familiar face on live TV in Los Angeles in the 1950s as part of the Town Hall Party cast along with “superpickers”, Joe Maphis and Merle Travis. Marian spent time gigging with Tex Ritter's Ranch Party, Tex Williams band, and even Spade Cooley's all-girl orchestra. [quote from the Steel Guitar Forum]

Interesting reading here at the Vintage Guitar Magazine website.

Learning To Rock

Joan Gardner
Learning To Rock
(Gardner, Mitchell & Halpern)

Hollywood Recording Guild 1024
1956

 

Joan Gardner (1928-1992)

Joan Gardner was an American voice specialist. Screenwriter, songwriter, actress, author and composer, educated at Los Angeles Community College. She began working in films in 1946, worked in television for seven years, and later joined the UPA studios. Joining ASCAP in 1964, her chief musical collaborators included Adelaide Halpern (her mother), and her popular-song compositions included "Learnin' to Rock", "Spelling Rock 'n Roll", "Good Ship Rock 'n Roll", "Toy Piano Boogie", and "Holly Time".

She wrote the screenplay of "The Beach Girls and the Monster" (1965) produced by her husband Ed Janis, and "A Man For Hanging" (telefilm, 1972)

Thinking Girl

 

Julia Bates

Thinking Girl
wr. Bill Huskey

Jakebil Records 102
1969

Julia Bates was the second wife of the owner of Jakebil Records, Bill Huskey. 

Bill Huskey (1932-2021), country music songwriter, performer and record label owner. wrote songs and recorded in Nashville and Memphis, notably at Sun Studios and in association with Quinton Claunch. Founded Jakebil Records in Newport, Arkansas and continued the venture when he moved with his family to California in 1969. He recorded and released the earliest records by his daughter, Kenni Huskey, who was discovered by Buck Owens as a teen and recorded on Capitol and Warner Bros. during the 1970s.

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.

En Mi Barquito (Ooo-Wee Baby)

 

 Tiny Morrie

  En Mi Barquito (Ooo-Wee Baby)

This is "Sea Cruise", the old Frankie Ford hit from 1958, sung in spanish by Tiny Morrie (Morrie Sanchez). From 1975.

Amador Mauricio “Tiny Morrie” Sanchez (born 1940 in Ojo Zarco) is a leading New Mexico artist. Influential since the rock ‘n’ roll era, well through, to the modern era.

Stairway To Love

 

Stairway To Love
(Aiken-Salisbury-Davis)

The Poka-Dotts

Modern 945

1954

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 :

Twangin Machine

 

The Accidentals
Beau Monde Records 1933

Tetlon Publishing (BMI)

Twangin Machine

 1962

Presumably The Accidentals were Norm Heinz, Don Macken, Bob Chuatal, Larry Barrickman, Paul Lewis & Phil Blommendahl who composed both sides of the record. This Beau Monde label, out of Los Angeles, isn't to be confused with the earlier namesake one located in Van Nuys, Calif.

I'm almost certain that Ulyess Lee Tett (yes Ulyess, more on him later hopefully) owned the label and Tetlon Publishing as well.

Wooly Booly

Melveen Reed
Bernie Hal-Mann Orch.

Wooly Booly

Ligaya L-5002

Melveen Leed - born Melveen Ku'uleipuanani Leed, "Da Tida", was born and raised on the island of Molokai. She attended Kilohana Elementary & Intermediate School,Molokai, Radford High School, Honolulu (1961 grad.), Honolulu Business College,and Maui Technical School, Kahului, Maui (1963). As far back as her early childhood she liked the art of music and especially to sing. As she developed her talent for vocalizing, there were many avenues for her to follow. The music native to her people and the islands was foremost, but also she liked to delve into jazz, country, and mainstream pop music. During the mid nineteen sixties, Leed was honored as Miss Molokai and at about the same time began her "long and winding road" as one of Hawaii's premier performers.

Broken Down Ugly Thing

 

Billy Hines

Broken Down Ugly Thing

Ball Records 510
1961

Ball Records label launched by John Dolphin in 1957.  John Dolphin was killed at his record company in 1958 by a disgruntled songwriter. His wife, Ruth Dolphin, took over Dolphin's of Hollywood after his death.

Billy Hines has recorded for Tin Pan Alley, Ball and his own Wa-Tusi label. I'm unable to find much details on him (euphemism), he came possibly from Jamaica to New York in the fifties before finding his way to California.

Now Hear This

 

 

Gwenn Johnson
and the Rick Jones Quartet
Galanlads, vocal group

Now Hear This
Rick Jones-Bob Moody
Monzahalla Music Publ., BMI

 

I've found so much discordant information about this recording, that the best thing to do is probably to just relax and listen again and again to this bewitching love song.

Song was first issued in 1956 on Steve Riggio's PIV label. Arjay is probably a second issue from the late sixties/early seventies issued by Rick Jones on his own label [my guess]. Gwenn Johnson may be or not the sister of Plas Johnson.

On the PIV single, the vocal group is credited to The Mad Hatters, but co-composer Bob Moody was member of The Galanlads, credited on this Arjay release. Go figure !