It was great to get this email from FH Reader Sam Ward last week, commenting on some of our recent posts ... and sharing a few musical gems I wasn't aware of.
Hi there, FH Readers!
I must say that I have a very heavy heart today, Tuesday, April 25th.
Not only have my brand new hearing aids that I've had for less than two weeks just quit, but also today, I learned that both Harry Belafonte and April Stevens have passed on ... and I enjoyed both of their recordings very much.
In August of 1996 when I was visiting my parents on Cape Cod, I heard about a concert at the Cape Cod Melody Tent featuring Harry Belafonte and jazz clarinetist Pete Fountain. I thought my Dad would be thrilled that finally I didn't want to go to a rock concert, and he'd take me to see these people in Hyanis.
Regular FH Readers will realize that I am totally blind. But he didn't like large crowds, so he basically told me "forget it."
As for April Stevens, I think she had one of the sexiest voices I've ever heard on record. So let's start with her.
If you think that Teach Me Tiger was a suggestive song (and it certainly was), here's a very early song of hers from 1951 that absolutely could not be played on any radio stations, not in 1951. The song is called Don't Do It.
Kent, you mentioned that Ross Bagdasarian wrote the song Come On-a My
House, which was a number 1 pop hit in 1951 for Rosemary Clooney. Well,
not only did he write the song, but he was actually the first person to record it, along with the famous playwright William Saroyan, who was apparently his cousin, six months before Clooney's version.
It was originally written as an Armenian folk song, and Saroyan talks at the
beginning of the song, while Ross Bagdasarian sings basically what William Saroyan has first said. Rosemary Clooney never wanted to record the song at all, but Mitch Miller, who was sometimes pretty heavy handed at Columbia Records, told her that if she didn't sing the song, she would no longer have a contract with the label. Decades later in an interview, she said she could still hear the anger in her voice as she sang this song she did not want to record at all.
On the other hand, after the introduction, Ross Bagdasarian does the song at a much faster tempo, and the piano in the middle really takes off. I just think it's a better all around version of the song, and you'll notice that the ending is quite different as well.
Did you know that Come On-a My House actually has an answer song?
I know nothing about this artist, but his name is Robert Q Lewis, and his
answer song is called Where's-A Your House? This is one of those answer songs that is hardly known at all. While some answer songs made it big. like Jeanne Black's answer to Jim Reeves' He'll Have To Go called He'll Have To Stay, this answer song is a pretty rare one.
Kent, I agree with you 100% that Ross Bagdasarian, or perhaps under his
recorded name of David Seville, should definitely be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, because he was the first person to record sped up vocals. This was really cutting edge technology, and it was definitely something brand new at the time.
Of course it inspired a number of imitators like Dancer, Prancer and Nervous for the Christmas 1959 song The Happy Reindeer and the Nutty Squirrels. Remember the Grasshoppers' album that came out around that time? And even PAMS Production Company sped up vocals in a couple of their early sixties jingles in their series 14 and 16 packages.
Speech had been sped up before, in Buchanan and Goodman's Flying Saucer or, if you really want to be hard core, From The Earth To The Moon. But actually singing slowly and clearly enough for the words to still be understood at double speed was really something that no one had ever done before.
Did you know that David Seville's song The Witch Doctor was actually recorded in stereo? I think this stereo version is rather rare, but most versions I've seen of this recording have been in mono. But here's the rare stereo version of The Witch Doctor for you folks.
And finally, nearly everyone seems to forget this one.
Yes, he recorded The Witch Doctor, and then as the Chipmunks in three part harmony, just in time for the holiday season of 1958, The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late) with that almost total instrumental Almost Good on the B-Side. But, between the Witch Doctor and The Chipmunk Song, he recorded a song called The Bird On My Head. You'll notice that his voice isn't sped up nearly as much in The Bird On My Head as it is in either The Witch Doctor or the Chipmunk Song. So here's another interesting David Seville song that predates the Chipmunks.
Hope you folks enjoy these selections.
Sam Ward in Ontario Canada
Wow, some real treasures here, Sam!
That April Stevens song, recorded in 1951, is something else!!! No, there is NO way the record company was going to try and push that one as a single ... I'm amazed they let her record it at all!!! (Although her recording of "Gimme A Little Kiss" did reach #27 ... I'm thinking she likely would have found many takers on that offer at the time!!!)
I first discovered "The Bird On My Head" when I bought "The Witch Doctor" as a Liberty Records Golden Oldie 45 in the '70's. It managed to crack The Top 40 in Billboard, peaking at #34 in 1958.
Funny you should mention Dickie Goodman ...
He is another artist who I feel absolutely belongs in The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.
The man literally invented sampling, a recording technique employed today on probably 75% of the most successful hip hop songs. Incredibly, Goodman and his then partner Bill Buchanan went to court ... and won ... when the judge ruled that their use of other hit records was not a copyright infringement because the NEW piece of work technically constituted a new, unique copyright of its own. This paved the way for any legal action moving forward ... and really came into play some four or five decades later. (Funnier still, after "The Flying Saucer" was a chart success and they ended up getting sued, they were bold enough to record a NEW break-in record called "Buchanan And Goodman On Trial!!!" Now THAT takes some balls!!!)
Add him to the top tier of Deserving And Denied Artists consistently overlooked by The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame ... who have completely sought sight of their original purpose in honoring these recording heroes. (kk)
