You Know You're Getting Old When...

      My birthday was a few months ago. This one has special significance to me.

     There was a thread in the old inthe00's message board that had the title (if I remember the exact title right,) "You Know You're Getting Old When". I wrote a post that said (again, if I remember the exact words,) "You remember watching Dick Clark when he was younger than you are now."

     I watched "The $25,000 Pyramid" a lot when I was a teenager, and there was a moment when one of the celebrities asked Dick "How old are you?" The audience got involved, yelling for him to say it. I wanted to know, too. After pausing for a moment, he begrudgingly said "I'm 57." This was followed by applause from the audience.

     I have reached that point, folks. I can now say, without a doubt, that I watched Dick Clark on something when he was my age now. And earlier, too. I remember when the $10,000 pyramid went up to 20, among other things. When I started hitting 50, I didn't like being reminded that it was my birthday. But now, at my age, and with that memory to look back on, I don't mind it that much now.

     I know, folks, 8 months. So without any dang more ado, let's please have this now.

     Bob Purse's "The Wonderful and the Obscure" blog has this Sammy Marshall 45. Bob mentioned a previous version of both of those songs, by George Bryan. Again, without any further ado, I've had this awhile, and here it is.

A Dancing Pair of Shoes - George Bryan Download

On My Bended Knees - George Bryan Download

     I've got a complete song-poem album in my next post, which'll be a lot sooner than 8 months. As Bob Caudle said "... until then, so long for now."

PART 1 of the "Cupid's Thing" Trilogy!

      I'm gonna try to not blame anyone else for my crazy decision. No, Sammy, nobody put any guns to your head making you go and do this. It's just that sometimes, something comes along and gets me interested, then I see a record for sale online, and I think I just have to plunk down and get it. That's the situation with the 45 I have here.

     There's a post on Bob Purse's "The Wonderful and the Obscure" that has a couple of intriguing songs. After reading about, and of course hearing, these songs, I got curious, and did a search for that "Cupid's Thing" song that those other songs seem to be discussing. And in the words of Clara Peller, what else can I say, "I found it". So here's the 45.

Let's start with side 1.

Please Don't Call Me Again - Gene Marshall Download

And now...

Cupid's Thing - Gene Marshall Download

     So now, we add another name to the list of folks who sent in out-there words to song-poem companies. Thomas Guygax, James Wilson, Jr., Michael Kasberg - and now John E. Lester.

     Finally, I have another Gene Marshall 45 that has a song with this title. I got the photo from the E-Bay listing I ordered this from.

It's Clock Time - Gene Marshall Download

Well doggonit, if HE can have Bob Gerard records, I can have one too.

      First of all, let me show you how great AI is! I put a question to my phone last week, and here was it's wonderful AI response:

     

     Now, folks...

     After hearing those Bob Gerard records on Bob Purse's "The Wonderful and the Obscure", I decided to buy one of my own.

     First, let's go to the ones in "The Wonderful and the Obscure".

https://bobpurse.blogspot.com/search?q=bob+gerard

     One obvious thing you hear in these songs - most of 'em anyway - is a bass that played out-of-tune a lot. A couple of those 45's, done later than the others, had either a different bass player, or the same one played better. Whatever the case, those are not as fun to me. Looking through the 45's, I noticed the catalog numbers of the ones with the weird bass playing went from 390-402. So I looked for a Bob Gerard record somewhere in that 390-402 range, and found 395. So here it is!

Cadillac Love - Bob Gerard Download

Everytime We Kiss - Bob Gerard Download

     PS: I also went & bought my own copy of "Proon Doon"! A prized possession, I tell ya.

My first, and my latest - And guess who it is that does it!

     I'm at a situation where I don't know the words to begin with, and I can only hope my words are understandable. But, here it is.

     In 1987, my dad, who worked at a southern-gospel radio station, brought home a box of 7-in. records, mostly 45's, sitting at a shelf in the production room, "rejects" that the station didn't play.

     One of the records had one Jesus-related song, which is why I guess it got mailed off to the station. The labels on this record were all black, with white lettering listing the names of the songs, and peoples' name and address under each title. And the company name on top in big capital letters - "HALMARK", with "Sound of Excellence" in smaller letters under that. Now, there are things that are obvious now, after some 38 years, but at the time, 18-year-old me had no idea what the heck to think of this.

     Then I heard one of the songs, named "China Dolly". The least I can say is that it was very intriguing. Let me look through "The Wonderful and the Obscure" to find a Halmark record that has the same music track it had.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

     Good, here's one. "Her Kind".

     As I recall, it was a duet with Mary and a different male singer who had this sortof "soul"-type voice. But anyway, much like what I read about people who sang on Halmark records, they indeed sound like they were ad-lib "singing along" with the words. One of my brothers said it sounded like they were making the song up as they went along. Try as other records might as they passed my ears, I still call it the worst song ever recorded.

     I would love to have that record again, but in 2002 - >ulp< - a very close friend, there we go, thought they had no more use for it, and threw it away. This is how dumb my stupid friend was. He did keep a copy of the song in one form or other until the 2012 "purge".

     To add - heck, forget salt, how about vinegar - to the wound, it was only maybe a couple of months later when I found that ASPMA site, where I learned about song-poems. And I used up enough space already, so I'll skip to where I looked up that "discography" page and found out that Halmark was indeed a song-poem label.

     So that Halmark record with "China Dolly" was my first song-poem record. I can not make myself forget how that went. I can remember everything of how that rendition sounded.

     Fast-forward - heck, "hyperspace" is more like it - to maybe a week ago. I decided to look up Discogs to see if "China Dolly" could be there. The Halmark record wasn't there, but I found out that, of all people, Gary Roberts did a version of it. Here are a couple of his songs. And the writer's name was very familiar with me because of all the times I saw it on that Halmark label - Gerald Momy. Doggonit, there weren't any copies for sale, so I couldn't get that.

     But then I saw a 45 listed by another singer that had "China Dolly" as side B. And someone had it for sale, so I snatched it up. "China Dolly" was on my first song-poem record, and on my latest one.

     And buddies, look who actually did his version of it.

     From what I vividly remember of that Halmark version, this was up there on the scale of a difficult set of lyrics to navigate. Much like Gene was able to improve on "Beautiful Joyce", let's hear how he does with this.

China Dolly - Gene Marshall Download

     There are no "I love you"s here! I guess Gerald took those out when he sent the lyrics to Preview, because the Halmark version had a lot of them. Anyway, it turns out I didn't remember all of that song. Some of the words I heard here reminded me of parts I forgot. As for Gene, what can I say? He did what he could with what he was given. They should've started fading out at about 2 1/2 minutes, all that stuff didn't have to be sung again (the Halmark version didn't do that), and for gosh sake, that jazzy part at the end with Gene's trademark "Yeah!" at the end should not have been done. The one thing both versions have that is glaringly wrong is - "The land of the rising sun" is Japan, not China!

     Anyway, The question hanging over my head is, how does that Gary Roberts version sound?

There's a Beautiful Day Coming - Gene Marshall Download

Not THAT Album, but Another One

     As rough as it is to believe, this century is, or is almost 1/4th of the way through! I'm reminded of something I told one of my brothers on New Year's Day, 2010: "I'm in denial. 1980 was not 30 years ago." Well, it sure isn't. Make it 45 now.

     A realization recently hit my brain pretty hard, when I saw the 2023 phone book laying in our living room: For what I think is the first time in my life, our house had its first year without a phone book.

     I have memories of phone books past. The US maps with the time-zone borders, the promotional section with zillion-line phones and that corny photo of the "picture-phone" of the future that ended up being outmoded by I-Phones before we could ever have one of our own, the yellow-page ads for Farmbest milk and Falstaff beer years after they were no longer in stores in our area, Talking Fingers (which deserves a whole post of its own), the warning against not "relinquishing" a phone booth when someone else needs it for an emergency, the all-purpose 1776-present calendar... So many memories. In recent years, the phone books shrunk, and didn't have those things. Phone books have been a pretty good part of my life, and I hate to think we won't get them anymore. Oh well...

     Now to the latest record in my collection. It's a JOiFU album! Not the one touted in the promotional typing on that 45 sleeve, but their next album.

     On Discogs, there are a few JOiFU 45's listed from 1978-80. And an album with all the songs on the 45's. I figured I'd get the album with those songs instead of the 45's. So here it is.

     Perhaps you can try to read and decode the broken grammar in this promotional stuff while enjoying (ehh) these songs. The photos open in a new tab when you click them, so you can still hear this page. All the songs are credited to the singers "and the Biji Roks".

     I might get around to scanning the labels later, but I figure after this dang long, I might as well post this album now than to wait till then.

Side 1

Ev'ry Time I Hold You in My Arm - Connie Heywey Download

I Like To - Big Jim Biji Download

Gee, why is one line of this song swimming in my brain?

Love Is So Smooth - Connie Heywey Download

Sweet Baby Mine - Big Jim Biji Download

Rocking with Barbara - Big Jim Biji Download

Side 2

Big Hai from Tokyo - Big Jim Biji Download

Going and Coming - Big Jim Biji Download

Use a Little Pressure - Connie Heywey Download

When You Just Said Goodbye - Connie Heywey Download

I Said Hello to Love - Big Jim Biji Download

     "Uncle Mistletoe" got me looking up Buddy Max, and here's a Discogs listing of his work, ranging from 1975-2002. (He died in 2008.) Unfortunately, the "Tribute to the Challenger" album isn't listed, but Discogs don't list everything. But this is pretty neat.