Today we’re revisiting the career of one of the perpetrators
of one of the earliest posts on this blog, actor Tony Randall.
Way back in September 2007 I featured The Odd Couple
Sing, the dismal tie-in from the two stars
of the TV series The Odd Couple,
Jack Klugman and Tony Randall. The Odd Couple Sing is a stunningly wrongheaded album, featuring some of
the worst performances I've ever come across. Released in 1973, the mismatched
pair must have blinded by the huge piles of money on offer – or simply unable
to contain their own egos - when they agreed to record this embarrassingly
awful collection.
Flash forward six years and Randall was at it again, only
this time replacing TV’s Quincy ME with actress Lynn Redgrave.
The Power is You is
an utterly bizarre musical project, some sort of self-help album consisting of
catchy Broadway-style show tunes about the power of human potential
interspersed with preachy narration by the record's celebrity hosts.
Issued by Clarus Music in 1979, The Power is You was written by lyricist Rosemary Caggiano and
composer Bernie Fass. The duo also composed the tracks on Randall’s earlier
album Children are People Too and
co-authored the book and accompanying album The Four Seasons
(Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring a Musical Journey for Children Through the Four
Seasons With Eleven Songs and Narration). The
titles of the songs on The Power is You read like the chapter headings of a particularly poor self-help
manual: We’ve Got to Get Back to Basics, Your Power to Dream, There's
Always Room for Change, The Power to Love
and so on. Apparently this nonsense was designed to be used in the classroom,
rather than sold to the general public.
According to the promotional blurb ‘Tony Randall and Lynn
Redgrave campaign for the power of human potential in a new recording by Clarus
Music called The Power Is You. Ten songs in a modern pop style, and appealing
passages by Randall and Redgrave exalt the abilities of the human mind and
form.’ That’s probably about as much as you
need to know, but here are a couple of tracks from the record for your
enjoyment, the opener We’ve Got to Get Back to Basics and the
embarrassingly corny Make People Laugh.
Stephen F Singer established the song-poem label Star-Crest
in the late 50s. Stephen was the son of Mortimer Singer, who founded the
Nordyke song-poem factory in 1943. Laughingly referred to as Star-Crust by collectors because of the dated sound of its releases, Star-Crest is best known
for its albums. The company had two distinct album series, Music of America
– which usually featured a mix of singers
(‘with orchestra’; although, as fellow song-poem enthusiast Bob Purse has
noted: ‘rarely actually featuring more than four instruments, and
often fewer than that’) and the New
Favorites of… series, which would feature
one singer, such as the risibly awful tenor Robert Ravis or the super-bland
Tony Rogers, accompanied by a jaunty pianist. You can find a whole album’s
worth of Ravis’s ravings from Bob’s own collection (if you can bear it) at http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/02/365_days_59_rob.html
I have a couple of Star-Crest albums in my own collection (New
Favorites of Tony Rogers, released in June
1961 and one of the many Music of America albums), but frankly life is too short!
They also released several 45s, four of which I present for
you today.
It’s often difficult to track down exact information about
song-poem companies, but thanks to Singer’s shady practices we can be pretty
certain about how long Star-Crest existed for. Adverts for their wares appeared
in the back pages of magazines such as Ebony and Popular Science
throughout 1959, 1960 and 1961 and then vanish. More than that, because
Star-Crest was one of the few song-poem outfits hauled through the courts for
their dodgy practices, e can ascertain a pretty firm date for when the company
folded.
In late 1960 the Long Beach Independent (Nov 28, 1960) reported (under the headline Composers
Bilked, Says FTC) that ‘the
Federal Trade Commission charged Stephen F. Singer with using false royalty
claims to obtain fees from songwriters for recording their songs’. The FTC complaint said that 'Singer did
not pay royalties as advertised to those whose songs were accepted’. Instead, Singer 'paid them a royalty for
each record sold, but sales were so limited the artists never were able to
recover their investments’.
It wouldn’t take long for Billboard to pick up on the scandal, accusing Singer of using ‘false
royalty claims and other deceptions to get fees from songwriters for recording
their songs.’ The report continued to
reveal that the Federal Trade Commission were taking Singer to court because ‘songwriters
never actually collect royalties from Singer, that the recording talent is far
from the “outstanding’ type offered in Singer’s ads, and that his “Music of
America” albums do not, as claimed, contain current hits.’
Singer was given 30 day in which to file an answer the
complaint, which he did, but the FTC won their case. In July 1961 it was
reported that the Federal Trade Commission had been granted an order that ‘prohibited
Stephen F. Singer of the Star-Crest Recording Co., Los Angeles, from using
false royalty claims and other means, to obtain fees from song-writers for
recording their songs’.
The chief cause of this litigation was the wording included
in the contract Singer gave to his songwriters: ‘Our primary interest is in
selling albums and earning money for our writers and ourselves. Writer agrees
to pay for the test recording session at a special 50% scale rate of $96.20. We
have with us some of the most talented and respected singing stars in
Hollywood. Our "Music of America" series will contain well-known
singing hits. Successful numbers that have already sold millions of copies and
are being bought and played every day’. It
was further alleged in the court proceedings that Singer wilfully misled
songwriters in to thinking that their material would be recorded by the
Chicago-based blues singer Jimmy Rogers, rather than the unknown Tony Rogers.
As a result, Singer was issued with a cease and desist order. He could no
longer advertise that hit artists would make his recordings, or that royalties
would be paid to songwriters. For a few months Singer tried to continue without
making these outrageous claims, altering the wording of his ads and removing
any promises of royalties.
In March 1961 the company moved offices, from North Highland
to Lexington Ave (both still Hollywood); the move happened just as Singer was
attempting to move away from song-poems to more legitimate material. The first
album issued by the newly legitimate Star-Crest was Curtain Time by impressionist Arthur Blake. According to a short
news item in Billboard (March
1961) the company had also signed three other acts, Robert Linn, Freddie Bell
and Kenny Miller, but none of them appear to have released any material for
Star-Crest.
Star-Crest vanished for good some time in the early 60s. The
Star-Crest name and logo would reappear, gracing a brace of singles in 1986 by
soul artist El-Roy, but it’s unlikely that the company was in any way connected
with the original Star-Crest.
Still, back to the music.
There’s no definitive discography of Star-Crest on the net,
but the following is a list of all of the company’s known 45s: The ones that
you can listen to today are in bold. So far as I am aware all Star-Crest 45s
were issued in a fragile clear red vinyl. Three of the ones I own come in stock
picture sleeves like those on this page.
1: Tony Rogers - Sin Duda/Fickle Baby
14: Linda Collins with Orchestra - I Love Only You
(Henderson Fisher)/Tony Rogers with Orchestra - On The Oxmore Trail (Andrew
Scruggs)
40: Tony Rogers with Orchestra - Waiting For My Baby
(W.L. Tisdale)/Down In The Valley (Millie Lancaster)
43: Tony Rogers with Orchestra – Winds Across the
Prairie (Rhea Ball)/Flash! Flash! Flash! (Martin Belle-Isle)
88: Linda Collins - Please (Ida Phillips)/Tony Rogers
- My One and Only (Janette Sumrall)
90: Tony Rogers - All Yours (Ruby Sanders)/Linda Collins
- That Old Man Of Mine (Violet Carter)
96: Tony Rogers with Orchestra – Moonlight and
Distant Guitars (Ann C Fautsch)/Won’t You Marry Me? (Ernest Vanilla)
What really intrigues me is massive difference in the
quality of Star-Crest’s product. My guess is that those with a full band
arrangement would have cost the songwriter considerably more than $96.20 to
have had recorded. Several of those songs sound to me like the product of the
Globe studio – home to Sammy Marshall/Sonny Marcell and whose own recordings were
issued on a slew of different labels over the years – but Globe was based in
Nashville, and there’s little chance that a cheapskate like Singer would have
paid for Tony Rogers to travel all that way to lay down a few sides. Could
Globe have provided Star-Crest with music beds which they would then add their
own vocalist to, or did Singer and Rogers travel to Nashville and spend a
couple of days recording as many songs as they had time to fit in? If Gene
Marshall could record 55 songs in one four-hour session couldn’t
Rogers/Star-Crest have done similar? When you consider that the vast majority
of Star-Crest tracks last under a minute and a half the duo could easily have
beaten Marshall’s song-poem record.
Today’s selection comes courtesy of WWR regular Ross
Hamilton, who found this virtually unlistenable nonsense hidden away as an
extra track on the third disc of the otherwise excellent compilation Love
Poetry And Revolution: A Journey Through The British Psychedelic And
Underground Scenes 1966 To 1972.
Sung virtually acapella by a gaggle of young kids (save for
sparse accompaniment from a badly-plated flute and a drunk bashing away at a
piano), this atonal version of the Beatles’ classic I am the Walrus originally appeared on the 1971 album Ear of the
Beholder, issued by Lol Coxhill via John Peel's Dandelion label.
George Lowen Coxhill, who passed away in 2012 at the age of
79, was a noted figure on the UK underground jazz and rock scene. His saxophone
playing appeared on recordings by Kevin Ayers (Coxhill was a member of Ayers’
group The Whole World), Caravan, John Otway and even The Damned. Recorded
between July 1970 and January 1971, the Ear of the Beholder was Coxhill’s first solo album, and features
contributions from Ayers, Mike Oldfield and David Bedford amongst others. A
peculiar grab-bag of an album, it features everything from covers of outdated
music hall songs such as That’s Why Darkies Were Born (performed
by Coxhill in protest at its ridiculousness), tracks recorded al
fresco with children from a Brixton primary school and poorly-recorded,
interminable improvisations such as Rasa Moods. Genuinely everything including the kitchen sink.
Although he had been playing professionally for many years,
it was Coxhill’s relationship with Peel that brought the free-improvising
saxophonist to prominence: he is reputed to have been spotted by Peel while
busking outside the Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank in 1968. Coxhill
forged strong links with the Canterbury scene, playing in jazz-rock groups
including Kevin Ayers and The Whole World and Delivery, later working in small
groups and intimate duos with the likes of Canterbury pianist Steve Miller. He
was well known for his unpredictable solo improvising and for gigging in
unconventional locations – such as his infamous 2004 tour of Yorkshire market
towns, Lol Coxhill In A Skip.
Called ‘one of the most uncompromising albums of its age’ by Goldmine magazine, the original double album sold very few copies and is now
quite hard to find. Luckily (or unluckily, depending on your viewpoint) it has
been reissued a couple of times in recent years.
It’s another Friday, which naturally means more bad music,
although I think some of you will actually enjoy today’s choice – an album with
a sweet, ethereal charm of its own.
Like the debut albums from Mrs Miller and Madame St Onge, The
Space Lady’s Greatest Hits is a bit of a
misnomer as titles go: the lady in question has never had a ‘hit’ in the real
sense of the word. However she has proved a bit of a hit with the public in her
own particular part of the world, and last year embarked on her first ever world
tour – even appearing in my home town.
Her peculiar. echo drenched covers of pop classics (Ballroom
Blitz, Shakin’ All Over, Born to be Wild),
show tunes (Puttin’ on the Ritz)
and frankly bizarre originals won’t be to everyone’s taste but I quite like
her. There’s a minimalist, Flying
Lizards quality to what she’s doing, and the whole album is well worth checking
out (You can listen to if for free on Spotify or if you go to Mr Weird andWacky (one of my favourite blogs) you can pick up the whole album.
According to a short piece I found in The Guardian, the Space Lady - also known as Suzy Soundz but more
correctly Susan Dietrich Schneider - was a regular sight on the streets and
subways of Boston in the early 80s. Playing an accordion her husband had found
in a junkshop – which she couldn’t play at first but, as she says: “(On) my
first time out, I made both decent music and decent money.” Unfortunately an
encounter with a drunk on the subway left the accordion in pieces and her hopes
of a career as a ‘street level superstar’ in tatters.
Joel encouraged Susan to continue, using a mic, amp and
battery-powered reverb to sing acapella. As it was close to Christmas Susan sang
carols and the money came in: on Christmas Eve she made $200 busking, enough to
purchase the cheap Casio keyboard she uses on her only album (to date anyway).
Back on the streets and in the subways of Boston, she mixed songs written by
her husband with a perverse selection of covers, many of which appear on The
Space Lady’s Greatest Hits.
Joel, The Guardian
reports: ‘had played with a string of 60s rock bands and knew all
about making an impression, so they plugged the Casio into a phase-shifter, ran
Susan's voice through a full-on echo unit and created a light show by pimping
her tip box with a pile of twinkling lights. A winged helmet topped with a
blinking red ball was placed on Susan's head and off she'd go’. Although still only busking, Susan was able to earn
enough to support her family. In early 1990 Susan recorded some of the songs
she had been singing on the streets for her album.
Championed by Irwin Chusid (who featured her cover of the
Electric Prunes’ I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night on the second of his Songs In The Key Of Z
collections) sadly Joel died in 2000 and Susan abandoned music and moved back
home to Colorado. However her story doesn't end there: in 2014, seemingly out
of the blue, she embarked on a huge world tour, playing art house cafés and
small venues around the US and Europe. She’s on Facebook: go say hello.
Here are a couple of brilliantly odd tracks from The
Space Lady’s Greatest Hits for you: Born
to be Wild and Radar Love.
You know what to do if you want to hear more.
Happy New Year everybody! Welcome to 2015, and to the ninth
year of the World’s Worst Records. My, doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun?
To kick off this year I bring you Apology at Bedtime - the 1963 45 from one Dick Whittinghill, US
singer, radio DJ, actor and voiceover artist - in all its winsome, sickly
niceness. The sad tale of a father’s regrets, Apology at Bedtime is a maudlin little ditty, intoned over a deathly
instrumental backing in which Whittinghill lists the many, many occasions on
which he lost his temper and humiliated his young son - usually without reason.
I know that not everyone will agree with me, but I think that it’s a nasty
record: a feeble act of contrition from a bully of a father masquerading as a
sweet tale of paternal love and forgiveness.
It wasn’t that I didn’t love you
It was that I was expecting too much of youth
I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own age
And son, I am sorry
Blech!
Born in Montana in 1913, Whittinghill’s early music career
included being a member of The Pied Pipers, a vocal group which sang with Tommy
Dorsey's big band. For three decades, beginning in 1950, Whittinghill was the
popular morning disc jockey at KMPC in Los Angeles. Among the features of his
program were the "story records," sent in by listeners, in which a
short anecdote was completed with a line from a song. For example, the spider
told Little Miss Muffet, "You can keep the curds but give me all the
whey. Whitinghill would then play Frank
Sinatra's song All the Way.
In 1965 he issued the album The Square, which included Apology at Bedtime as
well as the 45s B-side Musings of a Father,
the saccharine saga of life in a typical 60s American home. The title track was
also issued as a single and scraped in to the Record World top 200 charts at
number 144. The actor Jackie Gleason had previously recorded a version of Apology
at Bedtime (and issued it as a killer
twofer, backed with To A Sleeping Princess)on Capitol.
Whittinghill’s discs were issued by Dot, home – of course – of our old friend
Pat Boone.
Whittinghill, who appeared in several Hollywood movies
(including Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter)
would go on to have a successful TV career, appearing in several episodes of Perry
Mason and Dragnet as well as in Lassie, Bonanza and many, many others. He passed away, aged 87, in
January 2001.
Today we’re revisiting the career of one of the perpetrators
of one of the earliest posts on this blog, actor Tony Randall.
