Rockin and Rollin

Keen followers of The Worlds Worst Records will remember Wesley Horning of old - back in March I brought you the great Frank Perry with another or Wes's compositions, Dig That Beat.

As a little pre-Christmas favour I present to you today what has to be one of the single most peculiar recordings I have ever come across, W L Horning's performance of his own composition Rockin and Rollin.

 

It's insane; there's no other word for it. And no, that's not a skip you can hear on the record or a bad edit - it actually sounds like that. Basically what you have here is the backing track to Wesley's earlier composition Kiss Me, Kiss Me Baby sped up and played over three or four times with Wes singing the words to his latest 'hit' over the top. Kiss Me, Kiss Me Baby only lasts for a little over a minute at its normal speed, which is why in this crazed, hyperventilating version Wes is forced to skip the needle back to the beginning of the track time and time again.

 

The man is either nuts or brilliantly inventive - I know which description I prefer.

 

From next week, along with my faithful fellow bad music sleuth Ross Hamilton I'm going to be bringing you a collection of dreadful Christmas-inspired music, a new song each week through December, but for now enjoy the ramblings of Mr W L Horning and Rockin and Rollin

Here Pussy Pussy

UPDATE, October 2021: I’ve added some extra biographical information as well as an extra cut, you lucky people! For some bizarre reason, this is by far and away the most popular post on the blog, amassing almost 50,000 views since it was first uploaded, back in November 2020.

  

A two-for-one today (well, three-for-one now!), thanks to another contribution from the always reliable Ross Hamilton, who writes: "I have heard about this album down the years but never found a copy of my own until now. I don't know too much about it I am afraid, but it comes under the category of adult albums like (those by) Kay Martin and her Bodyguards, full of double entendres and sexually suggestive lyrics."

I too have come across this before, it’s always cropping up on those 'bad album art' sites but had never heard any of its contents until Ross passed these cuts on to me.

There are just 10 tracks on the Beacon Records album My Pussy Belongs to Daddy, subtitled For Adults Only - Spicy Songs Sung By Outstanding Artists. Four artists are credited, none of them outstanding. The title song, credited to Faye Richmonde, is fairly mediocre and like so many of these simpering, sniggering, so-called 'adult' albums, aimed at the stag party market, but the other track I'm sharing with you today - He Forgot His Rubbers, performed by Angelina - is great; it reminds me of the wonderful Davy's Dinghy by Ruth Wallis, a Dr Demento standard and one of my favourite comedy records of all time. Coincidentally, Davy's Dinghy was recorded in 1956, just one year before My Pussy... was released.  

It seems that Faye was born in Homestead, PA., a small steel mill town (if you believe the sleeve notes to her album A Little Spice), although later in life she relocated to Philadelphia and married a gentleman by the name of Ernest Taylor. From an early age, her ambition was to become a singer. Despite the whiter-than-white models that always appeared on the covers of her albums, she was African-American.

She broke into show business after winning a dance contest with her brother, where one of the prizes was a two-week engagement at a local nightclub. The pair soon turned professional and toured the country with a band. Faye’s big break came when the singer became ill and she was called on to substitute for her at short notice. From then on, Faye was performing solo at nightclubs throughout the country.

It seemed that Beacon began by specialising in these kinds of releases. Their first album, Hot Pepper, featured the same line up as My Pussy Belongs to Daddy (augmented by Nancy Steele) and included such 'classics' as I'm a Virgin, But I'm On The Verge, It Was Hard When I Kissed Her Goodbye and, not being the kind of outfit to let anything go to waste, the album also includes an earlier outing for My Pussy....cheapskates!  

Beacon was owned by Joe Davis, and all of the recordings made for him by Faye also turned up on collections on his own Davis Label. My Pussy Belongs to Daddy and Tony’s Got Hot Nuts, which both appear on this album as well as the Davis label release Girlesque, were coupled together and issued on a 45, also on Beacon in 1957. Because of the nature of the records, there is very little information about who played on what, but bassist Abie Baker is known to have played on several of the sessions: Baker, who recorded with everyone from King Curtis and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, to the Coasters and The Drifters, will be best known to lovers of kitsch as the performer of The Web, the theme tune to the camp classic The Brain That Wouldn't Die.  

On the strength of these records, Davis was charged with the distribution or manufacture of pornography in New York, although it appears that the charges were dropped. Sadly Faye passed away in 1959, from complications following the birth of her third child. Ernest took a second wife, Mary Hope, the sister of bandleader Lynn Hope.

Enjoy these classic slices of 50s cheesecake:

 

Download Pussy HERE

Download Tony HERE

Download Rubbers HERE