"The Kwella Stroll" Lou Berrington & The African Kamp (Parkway,1966)

 

This song, "The Kwella Stroll" is the HILARIOUS B-Side of a tune called "The Kwella" (Which was actually a fad dance in 1966)

Just play this. All the way through... 

"Bay-Hay Bee Doll" The Swingers (JCPenney/RCA Custom, 1966)

A. "Bay-Hay Bee Doll" The Swingers

B. "Bay-Hay Bee Doll (Instrumental)" The Swingers (Links: WFMU's Beware Of The Blog )

Play this record at your own risk. Because once it gets inside your head, you can't get it out.

And in a surprisingly good way. The bass and drum playing are insanely catchy, if the lyrics and vocals are simply awful - even for an early bubblegum rock prototype, as this song seems to be.

This 45 was a complimentary extra with the purchase of it's latest colour-coordinated, polyester/cotton blend sportswear line, The Swingers. However I read on WFMU's page on this record that it was an extra with a doll called Bay-Hay Bee Doll. But I've never seen any evidence of this doll (and I really hope such an evil thing does not exist.)

If The Swingers sound familiar, bear in mind there were literally dozens of bands in 1965/1966 called The Swingers, or some variation (The Swingle Singers, The Swingin' Blue Jeans, The Swingin' Medallions, et al.) I'm guessing "swinger" also didn't quite have the sexual connotations at that time that it would be infamous for throughout the '70s.

The song was written by someone named Warren Parker. However, the musician roster on this track as well as any session information have been lost to time (or more likely, never kept. As it was considered a commercial marketing one-off and not a legitimate band.)  

"Dear Mr. Jesus" Sharon Batts & PowerSource (1986)

Listen here.

Oh no, it's another one of those damn child singer records. But on a more serious subject.

PowerSource were a Texas based Christian pop group. Like many acts in this genre, they were/are largely unknown outside these circles. And "Dear Mr. Jesus" is unquestionably a Christian themed song about child abuse, sung from the perspective of a 6 year old girl writing a letter to Jesus after seeing a TV news report of "a little girl beaten black and blue". Not only that, she confesses at the the end "Please don't tell my daddy, but my mommy hits me too."

Six year old Sharon Batts, the lead vocal on this song, wasn't the designated lead singer of the group. Just on this particular song. And thankfully, she wasn't physically abused.

This song almost became a Top 40 hit in 1987. CHR, Adult Contemporary, Country and of course, Christian radio stations were playing this in December of 1987 shortly after the track was added to the playlist of New York City's influential Z-100 and the song broke. A distribution deal was quickly secured, leading to a nationwide re-release of the song.

It was also timely, as the story of a little New York City girl named Lisa Steinberg made national headlines then after she died after being beaten by her adoptive father while he was under the influence of crack cocaine.

The song made #61 on the Billboard Hot 100 and remained on the charts for seven weeks.

Co-Star: The Record Acting Game (Co-Star/Roulette, 1957/1977)

In the late 1950s, somebody at Roulette Records got an idea. And Roulette Records had lots of ideas. Being mobster founded and funded and all. If you know what I mean (nudge-wink). 

 

This was also a surprisingly well known secret, even in the scandal-ridden 1950s. But everybody was getting too worked up over phantom communists in Hollywood to bother to notice the corruption going on amongst the mobsters in New York.
But if there was a one-up to Roulette, they were remarkably cutting edge for their time. They gave their artists total creative freedom in their sessions. But there was a price to pay for that. The Mob isn't 100% benevolent, you know....Just a little off the top. (In the case of Tommy James & The Shondells, it was $30,000,000 off a $40,000,000 career.)


They released this awesome series of 15 vinyl LPs in 1957. Each features the named actor reading one part in a two-character scene, and includes a script with both parts so that the listener can play the scene opposite the star. A terrific novelty item, probably more fun now than it was originally. 


Some of the actors were superstars, others were stars who have begun to fade. And even a few of Roulette's own recording artists (who weren't necessarily actors in their own right, such as Jimmie Rodgers and Pearl Bailey.) After all, when you're working for a record company owned by The Mob, who you gonna say no to?


It must have been popular with young boomers, because Roulette Records reissued the entire series in 1977 on it's 20th anniversary. Sadly, it never got a further reissue to CD.

The Fernando Lamas record is close as I can come to a complete package. Here's a Here's a link to the MP3s. But unfortunately. I could not find a script for any of these titles with matching MP3 dialogue life of me. But maybe there's a brand new way of doing this: Create YOUR OWN responses to the dialogue. By the way, Fernando Lamas is the father of eternal chick magnet, Lorenzo Lamas.

Here are a few of the stars you'll be "acting" with.....(You'll ALWAYS sound better than that screechy drama chick in high school drama class you knew, TRUST ME.) 

 

(CLICK ON PHOTO) This is an example of the stock back cover Roulette used for these records. Only the performer and session information are changed from each album.

Oldies: They Aren't What They Used To Be

Every now and then, I would run into a someone over 60 who would grumble about why there's no oldies on the radio.

Actually, there are LOTS of oldies on the radio. But just not OLDIES. Today, the industry lingo for them is "Classic Hits". The change in term dates back to the late 1980s, when Baby Boomers of the late 1960s and early '70s felt uncomfortable with that term "Oldies" applied to their music.

They're pining for the sock-hopping tunes of the 1950s and early '60s. Elvis, Buddy Holly, The Coasters, The Robins, The Orioles, Gene Vincent, et al. And even the fans of late '60s and early '70s pop are finding fewer and fewer choices on the radio. Hardly anyone plays The Beatles or The Monkees anymore either. And they were once mega-superstars.

The sad answer is they have simply been aged out of the demographic spectrum of radio.

They're becoming a victim of what their parents went through a few decades earlier, when the Big Bands of Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington began vanishing en masse from the AM radio airwaves in favour of News/Talk and Sports formats.

Your warning sign. Photo: http://www.gaasch.net

But it's not just an age shift. More importantly, it's an economic one. As you get older, your spending becomes more frugal. Fewer people receive pensions and rely on their Social Security checks. When you live on a fixed income, you don't have what is referred to as disposable income. The very words of which seem very alien these days.

You can blame President Obama as much as you want. But radio began to be deregulated and more tightly corporately controlled under Reagan and President Clinton threw gasoline on it by signing the Telecommunications Act of 1996 into law, which allowed one corporation to own up to eight radio stations in one market. The bottom line is when people talk about the glories of unfettered capitalism, take it with a grain or two of salt. There are ALWAYS casualties. BAD ones.

It's pointless to complain to your local oldies station (not like they actually care about you anyway.) Most are corporately owned and they get their marching orders from wherever the corporate headquarters may be. They have to make a gross (and I do mean gross) profit to their CEOs and board of directors, as well as the shareholders in the corporation. Otherwise, they change their format completely. That's just how it is in commercial radio these days.

The oldies format began in earnest back in the early 1970s. Oldies radio tends to focus on songs that are 15-20 years old. You can map it out simply like this; in 1972, a 15 year old song was new in 1957.

As the 1980s came, the '60s became all the rage with the economically powerful Baby Boomers, in the 1990s, the '70s experienced a revival and in the 2000's, the '80s were cool again.

Remember this show?

Here we are in the 2010s and today it's the '90s. Another way of looking at it is this, "The Real World" Matchbox Twenty, "Fly" Sugar Ray and "Baby One More Time" Britney Spears are bona-fide oldies now.

Frightening, isn't it?

And it's only going to get worse, kids. One of these days (and following this formula, it's sooner than you think), Nickelback and Justin Bieber are going to get ad nauseum airplay on the local "Classic Hits" station. And you too will get old. By this time, the '90s will be the soundtrack of retirement homes.

So to all my Boomer friends, take it from someone who's been in the radio biz and has seen it all come apart. Outside of some of your VERY few locally owned, operated and programmed radio stations remaining (many of which stream online) finding those awesome '50s and '60s songs are getting harder and harder to find. But that's where good radio has gone - online.

Granted, they're not much more than MP3 jukeboxes with none of the personality and features you remember. But at least some of them have the music. And online, it's an infinite dial and you're closer to finding what you're looking for there than you ever will in most areas locally. But bear in mind most of the online operators are hobbyists who run the stations at a personal level, to offer something you can't hear at all anymore on the terrestrial dial. But it still costs them money. When you find an online-only station you like, please donate what you can to help keep them going. Your record collection is nice, but what REALLY matters is $$$. As computer servers as well as uploading 24/7 is not cheap. Not to mention royalties (they're not immune to this either.)

It's a strange new world we're in these days. But it's one we only have ourselves to blame for not paying attention to radio like we should have. It's like the old saying "Use it or lose it". We've taken radio for granted.

And this is the end result.