This is my blog where I write about music, and myself. Vaudeville, burlesque, blues, jazz, novelties, and whatever else I feel like posting. Mostly from my own LPs and 78s. Comments and feedback always appreciated. Please do not link directly to mp3s. It's rude.

The Foursome:
Bidin' My Time
"From "Girl Crazy" - Recorded July 8, 1939
Vocal With Instrumental Accompaniment"

I thought of a funny memory the other day.... When I was in chorus in the 5th grade, we sang two songs that seemed really weird to us 10 year olds. One was "Fascinating Rhythm," and the other was "Bidin' My Time."
These songs stirred up a little controversy with us. "Bidin' My Time" included the line ".. that's the kind of guy I'm," and in "Fascinating Rhythm," we sang "Oh how I long to be the man I used to be."
Some girls started a debate over these lyrics. Man I used to be? They wanted to change the lyrics to "Oh how I long to be the kid I used to be."
"A kid is a baby goat!," was my snotty way of weighing in on the subject.
We went ahead and sang those songs as they were written, but not without a flurry of whispers and snickers every time those lines came up. I guess the concept of singing as storytelling was lost on us.

I just got this set of 3 gatefold albums (6 LPs in all), "Those Wonderful Thirties," released on Decca records some time in the 70s.
7-1 The Stars of Hollywood's Golden Era
7-2 The Stars of Broadway, Night Clubs and Vaudeville
7-3 The Stars of Radio - The Great Bands - The Great Vocalists
The set includes lots of hits, as well as songs I hadn't heard. Mae West, Sophie Tucker, Cab Calloway, Deanna Durbin, Wini Shaw, Harry Richman... many many more. Pretty good stuff.
The Foursome's recording of "Bidin' My Time" is taken from Side 1 of the second set.
Here's the detail of the Foursome from the rather hideous illstration on the back of the album.

Posted by: Kara Mae 2/27/2006  (1) comments

Only a few days ago did I discover that Darlene Love, singer of "Today I Met The Boy I'm Gonna Marry" (ask me to sing this wonderful song anytime, though I'm no Darlene), was also the singer in a movie sequence that I adore, the spectacular extravaganza in Don Knotts' "The Love God," Mister Peacock. I used to watch this clip every day after my coworkers left.

Darlene Love basically rules. She was one of the many singers used and tossed aside by Phil Spector, but in my opinion, her vocals are really unparalleled among those ranks.

A google search turned up Darlene's web page. Apparently she is currently appearing in the Broadway production of Baltimore's own Hairspray. I never had any interest in seeing Hiarspray but now I kind of want to.

Labels: girl groups

Posted by: Kara Mae 2/24/2006  (0) comments

Pete "Oswald" Kirby and Rachel Veach:
Weary Lonesome Blues
On Roy Acuff "Columbia Historic Edition"




(1) I'll start at the very beginning... a very good place to start. If you don't feel like reading a pointless tangent, skip to (2).
The first 78 rpm record that I had was from my grandfather. He had given me a record player and a stack of old records. That man is a packrat. When I had asked him if he had an old 78 player, he replied "I have two but one of them is broken."
The record was "Freight Train Blues," with "Wabash Cannon Ball" on the other side (1936). I became very obsessed with "Freight Train Blues." I went ahead and tried to find the song on CD, but the Acuff "Freight Train Blues" I found was recorded much later. Eventually I found the song on Roy Acuff's "Columbia Historic Edition." Turns out he didn't even sing the song - he was playing the train whistle. So I guess I am not an Acuff fan after all.

(2) "Weary Lonesome Blues." Acuff is on fiddle. One Amazon.com reviewer says, "Weary Lonesome Blues has the distinction of being my least favorite song on this album - it's a great song in its own right, but this recording is afflicted with some fellow's constant belly-laughing, and let me tell you it's the most obnoxious, annoying laughter I've ever heard in my life."
I believe that annoying laugh belongs to Pete "Oswald" Kirby, aka "Bashful Brother Oswald" to "Little Rachel" aka Rachel Veach. I don't think they're really related.
The Oswald laugh, though annoying and forced, does kind of make me think of that excited triumphant feeling you get (if you've ever played music), when you are playing a song and you suddenly realize that you sound damn great. The feeling works vicariously too... but it's been awhile since I've seen a band and felt that way.
Listen to this track and enjoy a great female banjo player, and some sweet harmonizing.


Beecher Kirby "Pete", Jess Easterday, Roy Acuff, Rachel Veach, Lonnie Wilson "Pap"

Labels: country

Posted by: Kara Mae 2/08/2006  (3) comments

MGM Records Presents "THE BEST OF BURLESQUE." Narrated by: Sherry Britton. Top Banana: Tom Poston.




I think this record is probably my favorite out of all of my burlesque records. I wanted to save it for later, but "Burlesque With The Nuts Inside" was skipping, so lucky you, I decided to go ahead and start with this one. The embittered essay from the sleeve, posted below, refers to the 1942 ban on burlesque in New York City, advocated by the Society for the Suppression of Vice and Mayor Fiorello La Guardia.
Sherry Britton was a very beautiful and famous stripper, and her intelligence and sense of humor shine through her narration on this record. I have about three or four more installments I will be posting. Be patient - keep reading my blog, suckers!


From the record sleeve:

"The album you are now holding represents all that remains of an art form that was invented in America for Americans. On that bleak day in 1942 when a rumpled New York City politician with a penchant for chasing fire-trucks signed a ukase banning Burlesque, an era of unique entertainment ended. With the banishment of Burlesque from Broadway, this medium was stigmatized in the minds of the masses and, when transplanted across the Hudson River, the dry rot of vulgarity and synthetic sex completed the conspiracy. The new overlords of the runway forgot that the word "Burlesque" means parody or travesty, that originally the burlesque show had satirized and lampooned the topics of the times and contemporary musical theatre, and that Freudian and Kinseyesque overtones had no place in its initial concept. Thus it was that real Burlesque, along with the whooping crane and the passenger pigeon, passed into extinction.
What you are about to hear is a reconstruction of a burly show of the late 'Thirties. You have passed into the purlieus of roccoco architectural indescretion known as "Renaissance RKO" or "Early DeMille." Seated in the orchestra, you are overpowered by a miasma of cigar smoke thick as a prarie fire. Through it, dimly, you see the runway, a bridge of thighs cherished by devotees of dimpled derrieres, for it permitted propinquity to the "ponies" and the seats adjacent to it were tabbed the "bald-headed row." A cross-section of the male species, with a sprinkling of females, surround you. Stevedores, store-clerks, bookkeepers and home-wreckers, all they have in common is a limited entertainment budget and a thirst for adventure. An expectancy falls over the audience as the orchestra, toupees askew, files into the pit. The newspapers, racing-forms, tout-sheets and tattered copies of "Captain Billy's Whiz-Bang" are put down, fresh Bayuk Phillies are ignited, and all settle back in anticipation of an hour's escape from the reality of dull days and empty nights; maybe Burly was banal and tawdry, maybe it was sleazy and tarnished, but to many millions it was the only theatre they could truly call theirs. Sic transit gloria Minsky!" - Jack Vaughan





(1) PROLOGUE: Emmett Rose

(2) NARRATOR: Sherry Britton

(3) OVERTURE: The Band

OPENING:
(4) "Hello, Everybody"
and
(5) "Autumn Salutation"
Nelle's Belles

Labels: burlesque, comedy, glamorous

Posted by: Kara Mae 2/07/2006  (4) comments

Mae West:
A Guy What Takes His Time (1933)
A Guy What Takes His Time (1955)

Here we have two versions of one of my favorite Mae West songs, "A Guy What Takes His Time."
The first version was recorded in 1933, and is available on several of the common Mae West CDs. She sings the song in the movie "She Done Him Wrong," although it is highly cropped due to film censorship. Watching Mae sing these songs in her films is strange... she rolls her eyes and smiles as she purrs "ooooh," and it sounds really weird.
The second version I don't like so much. I found this 1950s Mae West record "The Fabulous Mae West," which features a few of her hits re-recorded, as well as some new-ish songs. The production just doesn't suit her. Her songs are better when presented more simply... one would imagine them being performed in a sleazy saloon or nightclub. Singing with a big full band doesn't have the same effect. In the 1930s version of "A Guy What Takes His Time," the character singing is Lady Lou (aka Diamond Lil.) In the 1950s version, the character singing is Mae West. By the time she recorded it she was already pushing 60 years of age.



Pick up Mae West "I'm No Angel," from the amazing Venerable Music site, to hear this and some other great Mae songs.

Also, check out the Mae West blog, which is basically my favorite blog ever.

Labels: cinema, comedy, glamorous, jazz era, mae west

Posted by: Kara Mae 2/04/2006  (1) comments