I Chew Chew Choose You

Just before Christmas I introduced you to Grace Pauline Chew, American voice teacher, soprano and song composer, and the author of a number of releases on the Philadelphia-based Musicart label during the 1950s. No doubt you’ll remember Mamie Watson’s dirge-like You Don’t Remember Any More and Hank and Jimmy’s ridiculous You’re The Only One For Me, with its spectacularly inept hand clap solo.

Well, today I present some more of Mrs Chew’s compositions for you, again issued by Musicart, and again equally moronic.

First up is I Don’t Know Where I Stand With You, performed by Phyllis Moore and the Magictones from a circa-1954 45. Now I do not know who Phyllis Moore is (or should that be was?), but I’m guessing from her delivery, especially with the throwaway line right at the end, that she was some sort of Vaudeville performer. It’s certainly not the same Phyllis Moore who has released a number of gospel recordings in more recent years – well, not unless she’s in her 90s that is. The recording was described as “soprano with organ backing in an amateur sounding effort” by Billboard in February 1955. Says it all, really. There’s a quote from a Phyllis Moore in a 1943 edition of Billboard where she calls herself a “concert hula dancer” and says that when she works “in nightclubs the waiters are the only ones applauding”. I’d love it to be the same person.

I’m also including its B-side, Helpless by Richard Rossiter and the Nightingales, for completeness’ sake. Banal and dated, even for 1954, it sounds to me as if its come from an early 30s musical, and the cinema organ accompaniment drag it back to the days before the talkies. The odd rumbling noise you hear from time to time and the distortion when Richard hits a high note are all present on the disc itself - maybe there was someone in the next studio banging on the wall, trying to make him stop.

I’ve also managed to pick up another Musicart 45, the 1952 release by Bud Brees with Art Smith, It’s Just Because I Love You backed with an Art Smith-performed instrumental entitled Will You although it’s just boring, rather than truly dreadful, notable perhaps for the fact that the A-side is credited to Chew-Brook – the first instance I’ve come across of anyone apart from Grace Pauline Chew receiving a writer’s credit on a Musicart release.

So, for now, enjoy (if that’s the word) more from the febrile mind of Grace Pauline Chew