History's Dumpster = GLORIOUS trash! Kitsch, music, fashion, food, history, ephemera, and other memorable and forgotten, famous and infamous pop culture junk and oddities of yesterday and today. Saved from the landfill of time...
Black Rose was a rock group Cher sang lead vocals for. Most people and many of Cher's own fans aren't even aware of this album because it's never listed amongst most Cher discographies. And for collectors, it's a holy grail to find the original 1980 Casablanca vinyl release with record, jacket and sleeve in pristine condition. Only 400,000 copies were sold worldwide.
In 1980, Cher was romantically involved with rock guitarist Les Dudek and this led to the musical collaboration that became Black Rose. Cher had just released two disco records for Casablanca in 1979, Take Me Home and Prisoner. But Black Rose was different. It wasn't disco, it
was actually something closer to a mainstream rock album for that time.
On the album, Cher sang vocals, but only appeared in a group photo on the back of the LP.
She was not even mentioned on the cover. Cher and Dudek were conscientiously trying to avoid the spotlight on Cher and make Black Rose a group effort rather than just another solo Cher album.
In spite of Cher's incredible network of connections in Hollywood that could have INSTANTLY made them nationally famous stars, Black Rose took the high road, playing gigs at smaller LA nightclubs. Everything the hard way.
Well, almost everything. They got an A-list team of songwriters, such as David Foster, Valarie Carter, Bernie Taupin, Mike Chapman, Carole Bayer-Sager, Vinnie Poncia and Allee Willis. As well as a deal with the one of the biggest record labels in the world at that time. The other members in Black Rose were seasoned LA session musicians. With side help from members of Toto (who would also appear on Cher's later '80s albums.)
The music was very well produced for it's time, as you could imagine. In fact, it was overproduced really. No catchy hooks. Everything really sounds forced to it's limits.
And comically beyond, as Cher's vocals on "Never Should've Started" painfully prove. It was the first single from the album and it was largely ignored by the radio.
But the new sound was alienating to her '60s and '70s pop fans as well as her disco era fans. Some critics thought they were trying to clone Blondie. And that Cher's voice was unsuited to the material she was singing. She went an a small tour to promote the album as The Black Rose Show.
It was darn nigh
impossible for women in rock in the 70s. There wasn't a mold if you were
a woman and you were in the entertainment in the 70s. You were probably
a disco diva or a folk singer, or simply ornamental. Radio would play
only one woman per hour. Read more at: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/903004
It was darn nigh
impossible for women in rock in the 70s. There wasn't a mold if you were
a woman and you were in the entertainment in the 70s. You were probably
a disco diva or a folk singer, or simply ornamental. Radio would play
only one woman per hour. Read more at: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/903004
It was darn nigh
impossible for women in rock in the '70s. There wasn't a mold if you
were a woman and you were in the entertainment in the '70s. You were
probably a disco diva or a folk singer, or simply ornamental. Radio
would play only one woman per hour. Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/annwilson412555.html
It was darn nigh
impossible for women in rock in the '70s. There wasn't a mold if you
were a woman and you were in the entertainment in the '70s. You were
probably a disco diva or a folk singer, or simply ornamental. Radio
would play only one woman per hour. Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ann_wilson.html
It was darn nigh
impossible for women in rock in the '70s. There wasn't a mold if you
were a woman and you were in the entertainment in the '70s. You were
probably a disco diva or a folk singer, or simply ornamental. Radio
would play only one woman per hour. Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/ann_wilson.html
But sales of Black Rose were still very low and copies of the LP could be found in the cut-out budget bins at your local record store nine months after it's release for $1.99.
For those of you who love those old budget label Christmas records (the kind your parents randomly picked up at the drug store just as something different to play on the stereo around the holidays.) I have a tub of pure Cheez-Whiz for you today.
In the 1950s and well into the '80s, It wasn't uncommon to see racks of super cheap anonymous Christmas records in your local drug store or supermarket selling for anything from 88 cents to $1.98. A cheap "impulse" thing you bought when your Christmas spirit was high, but money was tight. This made an even balance. You got your gifts and wrappings, ornaments for the tree, a quart of dairy egg nog and...Wait...I gotta have tunes!
And there they were. Conveniently close to the check-out stands for ridiculously low prices. Problem. Solved. Granted, it was "mystery music". But who knows?
Sometimes these records became family heirlooms, others donated to the thrift shops. But there's always been a soft spot for those over 40 who can still remember seeing these records at drug and discount stores.
And a very special thanks to Kaiwaza for finding some of these aural samples.
"Christmas With The Caroleers" The Caroleers (Promenade/Diplomat/Spin-O-Rama, 1963)
First, let's get started with the biggest known of the budget label acts (and absolutely mandatory in any collection of cheapo vinyl); The Caroleers.
As mentioned here, "The Caroleers" weren't technically an actual group. Although some Caroleers tracks have the same vocalists, it appears to be the generic umbrella name for anonymous holiday material from Synthetic Plastics Company (famous for their Peter Pan label of cheap kids records) and their various subsidiary labels regardless of the actual performer. Many of the same songs also appear across several Caroleers LPs on the various Peter Pan/SPC label LPs, 45s and EPs in the 1960s.
Putting names and faces to this music is next to impossible. SPC/Peter Pan (as well all the other budget labels) only paid their studio performers a flat rate with no royalties. They rarely had credits for anyone.
But in my research last week, I made a major breakthrough. I found one actual person that not only appeared on some Caroleers tracks, but could very well be the mysteriously female sounding voice on the "Nuttin' For Christmas" song I wrote about a few weeks ago that was credited to Bobby Stewart as well.
Her name was Toby Deane, a comedienne and voice actress. Bob Purse has an excellent post on Toby's career on his blog, The Wonderful and the Obscure. Toby Deane recorded for Peter Pan/SPC label records and various other budget labels from the 1950s to the 1970s. Her voice is believed to be on several hundred children's records.
And the Eddie Maynard Orchestra. But once again, I run into the same dead ends in my research while looking for Eddie. All that is known is they appear across several Peter Pan/SPC label albums and their holiday music appears on LPs credited to The Caroleers.
Santa Claus Is Coming To Town The Caroleers (Diplomat/Tinkerbell, 1970)
With
the release of this album, the sound of The Caroleers radically
changed. No more old recycled tracks, here was a
Caroleers album of mostly actual original material. Sung by Toby Deane and Ray Dorey. A pop vocalist who, like Toby Deane, also performed with Benny Goodman's Orchestra in the 1940s. Ray was also a fixture on Boston area on radio and TV in the 1950s and in later years, recorded chidren's records and other material for Peter Pan/SPC.
It
sounds more cohesive than other Caroleers albums in that it wasn't a
grab bag of whatever was in the SPC/Peter Pan vaults and that it was single group in a session specifically for this album.
Christmas Is For Children; Merry Favorites from Santa's Little Helpers (Design Records DLPX-2, 1957)
Toby Deanealso appears on this album. In fact, many of the Caroleer vocalists from the Peter Pan/SPC labels appear on this Pickwick distributed LP. It appears there were no exclusive contracts to the budget labels, as these performers seemed to appear on nearly all of them.
Design
Records was Pickwick's subsidiary label. They're best known today as
where Lou Reed got his first break in the music industry as a staff
songwriter and recording as session musician and occasional vocalist
with some musicians who would later form The Velvet Underground. While
most of Design's output was knockoff cover versions of pop songs and
sound-alikes, Design occasionally licensed older material of various pop
acts. When stereo LPs became the norm, Design took a few, shall we say,
liberties with their licensed material (Such as this infamous Roy
Orbison "remix".)
And down here, I dug out some of the earliest stuff that was available back
in the day. Perennial, old-timey fruitcake-like music you probably heard
dropping from the automatic record changers inside your
parents/grandparents BIG console stereos of the time. Choruses, orchestras and pipe organ music. Mostly playing public domain
traditional carols.
Christmas At Our House; Favorite Christmas Carols Martha Tilton and other Great HOLLYWOOD Vocal Stars, George Mather at The Console (Tops Records,1956)
Martha
Tilton was called "The Sweetheart of Swing", best known for her 1944 hit "I'll Walk Alone". After 1950, Big Band swing music had given way to the pop balladeer and her career was fading and she was recording for
Tops.
This album also features Marni Nixon, who was a movie playback singer (she recorded the vocals for Deborah Kerr's singing parts in The King And I.) She is also fondly remembered in the Seattle area as the host of KOMO-TV's kids TV show Boomerang.
Thurl Ravenscroft was a radio and animation voice actor and basso singer who sang the classic 1966 version of "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch" (not on this album.) and the legendary voice of Tony The Tiger in TV commercials for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes.
Doris Drew (Not to be confused with Doris Day) was a jazz singer and like Marni Nixon, often recorded songs for actress singing parts in movies. Norma Zimmer would join Lawrence Welk's orchestra as it's religious singer. John Gabriel would find later fame as a soap opera actor in the '60s, '70s and '80s. and probably best known as Seneca Beaulac in Ryan's Hope. All that is known about John Gustafson is he had an uncredited role as a background singer in the 1954 movie musical Brigadoon. And I can't find anything at all on Bill Reeve.
Tops
Records was a typical budget label that specialized in the "knockoff",
sound-alike record and often sold packaged compilations of these. When
the LP was invented, they changed to recording originals by fading and
B-List stars. At their peak in the late 1950s, they were the most
popular budget label in America.
They also pioneered the "cheesecake"
album cover (With Hollywood actresses on the covers, including Jayne
Mansfield, Mary Tyler Moore - who appeared on several Tops LP covers.
Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak.)
Jayne Mansfield
Mary Tyler Moore
Rita Hayworth
Kim Novak & Rita Hayworth
But then after a strange merger with failing Geiger counter maker Precision Radiation Instruments in 1958 (which established it's own subsidiary record label)
and a couple years later, a disastrous acquisition by an investor who
was completely inept to the record business, Tops was bankrupt and it's
catalogue was sold to Pickwick Records just two years after the
acquisition.
Another strange coincidence was Tops
Records were also pressed at the same South Central Los Angeles pressing
plant as the Bihari brothers' infamous Crown Records. Just what connection Tops had with
Crown is still unclear with many collectors. It's believed the plant
was originally owned by Tops and sold to Crown and then used again by
Tops as a cost cutting measure. Even some Tops recordings appeared on
Crown (attributed to different artists) and vice-versa. At this time,
Crown's record quality was still fairly decent. But after Tops folded in 1962,
Crown's quality tanked. And like Crown, Tops covers were known for
splitting at the seams as they were just two pieces of cardboard held
together by a cover slick.
Hail To Christmas Peter Raymond Carolers (Wyncote, 1966)
On this album, it appears the lead caroler on some tracks on Side 1 is a very off-key caroler who sounds like he's trying to shout over the orchestra. He also botches the lyrics in "Jingle Bells".
It takes work to botch up the lyrics in "Jingle Bells".
Wyncote was owned by Cameo-Parkway Records, a major independent label based in Philadelphia and named for a Philadelphia suburb.
You'd
think Wyncote, being owned and operated by a major independent would
have better quality albums than the usual budget label dreck. But
nothing could be further from the truth. They were amongst the very worst
budget labels I have ever seen. Every Wyncote record I ever owned (all
of them clean and some close to mint) was plagued with ghastly surface
noise, the vinyl often had bumps and even a few air bubbles. Like
Tops/Crown, Wyncote covers were slapped together with no inner paper or
plastic sleeves and the quality of the music? Well, let this sink in.
Christmas Favorites
The International Choristers and Orchestra Featuring George Mather (HIM
again?) at The Mighty Console (Craftsmen/Golden Tone/Tops, 1959)
Nothing says international
Christmas like four random average American-looking white people from
the Midwest and a rather annoyed looking sidewalk Santa, who seems to be
pondering "How much did they say I was getting for this stupid photo
shot again?"
And it really shows on this album in particular. They sing in perfect English with exaggerated German and French accents.
From here, we go to the late '70s and the disco-themed Christmas budget albums.
Christmas And New Year's Party - Irwin the Disco Duck with The Wibble Wabble Singers and Orchestra (Peter Pan, 1977)
Disco Noel Mirror Image (Pickwick, 1979)
Mirror Image was Pickwick's house band in the 1970s. They appeared on several "sound-alike" Pickwick albums of the 1970s.
Disco Noel included a free disco dance lesson.
Pickwick was so confident in the success of the Disco Noel album, it was immediately followed up with Yuletide Disco.
And they did sell quite well, in spite of disco rapidly falling out of popularity at this time.
But this would be the end of the era of the budget label Christmas record. Pickwick had been sold to PolyGram earlier in 1979 and would soon cease operations and Peter Pan/SPC would concentrate solely on their kids records.
Still, it was an era. And it still feels weird walking into a discount retailer and not seeing the bins of budget label Christmas records like I used to.
Whether or not this is the very first ever true rap song, a jury of
hip-hop scholars will probably forever be out. But this is widely considered to be the earliest known prototype of the genre.
Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham (1904-1981) was a vaudeville comedian in the 1920s and '30s, later moving into acting and singing. He got the name "Pigmeat" from an early act of his, where he declared himself as "Sweet Poppa Pigmeat".
For decades, Markham's career was severely limited to only nightclubs and theatres that accepted black entertainers called the "Chitlin' Circuit", as Jim Crow racism and segregation was still dominant in every aspect of American life in those days. He was little known among white audiences until the 1960s when Pigmeat Markham released several comedy albums that crossed over.
Sammy Davis Jr. performed the "Here Come The Judge" act on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. The success of Sammy Davis Jr.'s rendition of Markham's act later got Markham himself a deal to appear on Laugh-In for one season. The success of which spawned this single, which made it to #19 on the Billboard Top 40 charts in 1968.
A lost indie pop classic, "TV" was a song by The Judy's, Texas' (Pearland, specifically) most famous New Wave band.
This song got airplay on some wavy Seattle radio stations and this was where I first heard this song. But being on a local Houston area independent label, getting a copy of their album Washarama was nearly impossible since the label didn't have any national distribution. But The Judy's were unquestionably popular in the Lone Star state in the early 1980s. Their other hits included "Guyana Punch", "Her Wave", "Grass is Greener" and "Milk"
And "TV" is perhaps the only song to ever mention Allied TV Rentals, which was a famous national TV rental company, where you rented TVs by the week. A model that grew into today's rent-to-own businesses, such as Rent-A-Center, ColorTyme and Aaron's. Allied TV Rentals itself however went out of business nationally in 1987.
In spite of some worthy press and incredibly catchy singles, The Judy's never got the national fame and chart success they deserved. However, they still maintain a website where you can order their albums.
