This is my blog where I write about music, jewelry, and myself. Vaudeville, burlesque, blues, jazz, songs about baltimore, novelties, and whatever else I feel like posting. Mostly from my own LPs and 78s. Subscribe via any of the methods in the right-hand column. Please do not link directly to the mp3 files.

The best known Caravelles track, "You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry," can be found on the Rhino comp Best of the Girl Groups Vol. 2. It has a completely different sound than the other songs on the Rhino girl group collections.
The Caravelles were a duet of London office workers with breathy voices. In the early 60s they had one hit with "You Don't Have to Be a Baby to Cry." Although they never really had any other hits, apparently one of the original members still performs with a new partner as The Caravelles to this day.
They released nine 45rpm singles, but this CD from Belgium has 25 tracks.
Some of their other jams that I've found are pretty good.. some are awful, but "Don't Blow Your Cool" is my favorite. It's probably the Glockenspiel.

The Caravelles Don't Blow Your Cool Story Of...

Labels: girl groups

Posted by: Kara Mae 9/12/2006 01:12:00 AM  (5) comments

Collins & Harlan
Every Little Bit, Added to What You've Got, Makes Just a Little Bit More
Zon-O-Phone Record 846, 1907






This one-sided "Zon-O-Phone Record" came from ebay. I didn't really know much about this vaudeville duo, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of useful websites (a lot more than I found for Marie Cahill, for example).
Together and solo, both Arthur Collins and Byron Harlan were wildly popular recording artists - in a time when "recording artist" was a relatively new concept.
Additional songs by Collins & Harlan can be found on various websites (1, 2, 3), as well as some of the wonderful Archeophone Phonographic Yearbook CDs. I don't yet own the volumes that have these songs, but it's a great series. 1908 appears to have "Every Little Bit," on it, credited to just "Arthur Collins." It's probably the same recording... it probably sounds a lot better.
I also noticed on last.fm, that I was not the first person to listen to a Collins & Harlan mp3. 30 listeners! And their number one song is... "Nigger Loves His Possum (first Version)".
Uhhh, what?! God damnit. So I guess they were more of a minstrel than a Vaudeville act.
Well, the song I've posted contains nothing offensive, unless you just can't stand the surface noise. You hear what I hear... directly from my Califone to you.

Labels: vaudeville

Posted by: Kara Mae 9/09/2006 01:22:00 PM  (0) comments

A common song topic that often goes overlooked is displacement and homesickness. Particularly country music, I have a little collection of songs like this spanning the decades.
This one here is not a country song, but a tune by the immortalized Fanny Brice. You may have heard of the play/movie "Funny Girl," based on her life. Here is a good site comparing the true facts of Fanny's life to the story of "Funny Girl." I should probably watch that movie, but I can't bring myself to. I remember my parents making fun of Baaahbrah when I was a very young child. I think their generation had more class associations with music. I don't really think of anything as "uptight rich people music." Wait, maybe I do. Celine Dion?
Anyway, this song deals with the classic disillusionment of city living, from an immigrant point of view. The rat race. The capitalist dream. It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under.

"'All day long I hear the Song of the Sewing Machine in a factory on Union Square....' The Fanny Brice side [of this LP] closes with an early 20th-century reminder of working conditions of not too long ago in the Garment District of New York."
- (1969) Gerald P. Plano, Fanny Brice/Helen Morgan LP

Fanny Brice
The Song of the Sewing Machine
12/20/1927
from RCA Fanny Brice - Helen Morgan split LP, 1969

I have some more songs with this theme that I want to post, but some of them are newer songs, so I might only keep the files up for a week or so. So keep checking back! If you want me to update more, you should send me an optical mouse, because my mouse is filthy and impossible to use, and it makes me never want to touch the computer again.

Labels: displacement

Posted by: Kara Mae 9/08/2006 12:09:00 AM  (0) comments