A couple of tracks from a wonderful and rare song-poem album
that I’ve owned for a number of years but have not blogged before, the
wonderfully-titled
Delick Records Invites You to Pick a Delick Record of “The
12 Most Unpopular Songs” in the Little Yellow House of Icka-Delick-Music.
The
12 Most Unpopular Songs, to use the more popular short version of the
rather unwieldy title, was produced for lyric writer Francis E Delaney by Lew
Tobin’s Five Star Music productions company.
Most of the discs that emanated from Five Star – and its associated
label, Sterling – feature full group performances: this album is different in
that it features Five Star’s two best-known vocalists, Norm Burns and Shelly
Stewart (Mrs Lew Tobin), accompanied by the solo piano of Mr Tobin himself. Tobin
proves himself to be a more than capable pianist, and both Burns and Stewart are
perfectly serviceable – if somewhat emotionless - vocalists.
The 12 Most Unpopular Songs was issued around 1968 on
the tiny Delicks Records label from Icka-Delick-Music of Chicago Ridge,
Illinois. The label also put out at least three 45s, Betty Bond’s wonderful Blinky,
The Blue Nosed Snowdeer (1971), Shelly Stewart’s Gentle On My Body (backed
with Yummy, Yummy, Dum-Dum, although I do not know whether that is the same
version as appears on the album), and the 1969 single The Quiet Americans
by the Chain Reaction. Three of the four tracks on the two singles were also
written by Francis E Delaney, known to his friends as Frank, but whereas Blinky,
The Blue Nosed Snowdeer is very much the kind of thing you would expect
from our Francis after listing to this album, the Chain Reaction single is a
slice of garage rock, with fuzz lead breaks, out-of-tune rhythm guitar and a
plaintive vocal from a teenage male singer. The B-side, the rocking Only the
Bleeding (Hey, Boy!) was penned by Raymond L. Lovato, presumably a member of
the band.
A Raymond Louis Lovato worked in advertising, ran a tourist
resort in Palm Springs and now writes fiction with lifelong friend Michael
Black. I’ve no idea if that’s the same man, but as this one wrote and published
poetry in high school and college I reckon it’s a fairly safe bet. Like
Raymond, Frank – who was born in 1936 - also saw himself as a bit of a writer, self-publishing
the 1978 book
When Elvis Played His Music: (the World Began to Sing) and
the 2006 collection
Memories Minutes in Time: Poetry, Words and Music and
Love.
Frank was born in 1936, to Martin and Mary Delaney. As he
wrote, ‘My father met my mother at Marshal Fields during the depression. They
got married and in three short years, she was the mother of five step-sons and
two sons of her own… My six brothers were in the U.S. Army, Marines and the
Canadian Air Force. I watched all my brothers go to war and watched them all
come back alive. I was the lucky one I didn't have to go.’ Frank recalled that
he ‘Graduated from Mount Carmel High School class of 54. I played cornet and
piano. I started writing poetry and wrote my first song at age 21. From
1969-1971, I took a correspondence course with the Berklee College of Music in
Boston. Didn't finish it, did 17 of 20 lessons. Wish I did finish it…’ He died
in January 2023, at the grand age of 86.
As well as the album and singles, Frank wrote or co-wrote
many other songs, some of which he seems to have sent Mr Tobin’s way, including
1977’s
MOE (More of Everything), but for others - including
Dance Your
Cares Away,
I’m Returning to Georgia,
The Way you Wear Your Hair
(all 1977),
Love is Wanting, too! (1978),
Real Live Toy (1979), and
Tantalising Music Magic (1980) – he worked with other musicians able
to translate his ideas. His songs appeared on at least one more album:
Boots
on the Floor,
The Man in Me, and
The Way You Look at Me all
turned up on a 2000 CD from Nashville Records. His last known song was
Ribbon
on a Tree, a tribute to the victims of 9/11.
Anyway, here are a handful of tracks from The 12 Most
Unpopular Songs, Norm Burns and Lew Tobin with My Love Note Tree, and The Hickory Kick, and Shelly Stewart and Lew Tobin with Stop It, Stupid and the ridiculous and misogynistic Yummy,
Yummy, Dum-Dum.
Enjoy!
Download Tree HERE
Download Yummy HERE