Dreck of Cards

We’re going way back for today’s blog post, back to the 1940s, just a couple of years after the War had ended and almost a full decade before rock ‘n’ roll had infected the world’s youth.

 

Deck of Cards has been recorded umpteen times by umpteen different artists. Every single version is horrible. The story, of how a soldier uses a pack of playing cards as a stand in for the Bible, first appeared at least two hundred years before anyone got around to recording it: he earliest known reference was written by Mary Bacon, a British farmer's wife, on 20 April 1762, and can be found in Mary Bacon's World, published by Threshold Press in 2010. The story was also included in 1865 book The Soldier's Almanack, Bible And Prayer Book. In that version the usually anonymous soldier is given a name, Richard Middleton.

 

The version I bring you today was recorded by Linn Burton, best known to US readers as a radio announcer and DJ, working initially in Chicago. In later years he became a well-known face on TV, doing live ads for furniture stores and car dealerships for over a quarter of a century. Born Burton Adolph Ofstie in Minneapolis, in the 1960s he also branched out into restaurant ownership with Linn Burton's Steak House.

 

Burton’s recording of Deck of Cards was issued in 1948; it failed to chart, but several other versions of the song would. T. Texas Tyler (the Man With a Million Friends) also recorded the track in 1948; this version credits Tyler himself with having adapted and arranged the song. Versions by Tyler (generally assumed to be the first) and Tex Ritter were both listed on the same charts in June 1948, and other artists also issued versions that same year.

 

Burton’s version does not credit Tyler and uses a different tune. It has no writer credit, only ‘adapted from the original English story’ printed on the label under the title. The disc is first mentioned in Billboard in April 1958, just a week or so after the Tyler version begins to get any coverage. The flip side of Burton’s release, Letter to Mother, was getting more notice than Deck of Cards, offering someone else the perfect opportunity to sweep in and steal its thunder.

 

Did Tyler hear Burton’s version and decide to claim it as his own, or was it the other way around? We’ll probably never know. Tyler has gone down in the annals of recording history as having been the originator, and Burton’s version has been consigned to the trash can… until now.

 

In 1954 Pee Wee King updated the song as Red Deck of Cards to reflect the then-current hysteria surrounding the encroaching menace of communism.  Others would also alter the lyric to make the song more relevant to people worried by the effects of the Korean or Vietnam wars. In 1959 Wink Martindale’s version would reach number seven on the Billboard chart and number five in the UK. In 1973 popular British recording star Max Bygraves issued his version of the song and which reached number 13 in the charts; Martindale’s version was re-issued around the same time and reached number 22.

Anyway, here are both sides of the 1948 Linn Burton release, Deck of Cards and A Letter to Mother. 

Enjoy!

Download Deck HERE

 

 Download Mother HERE