LaVerne Baker

Alright let’s talk about the library again. This one is here in Montreal, and it’s called La Grande Bibliothèque du Québec, that’s Quebec’s big library – “grand” means big, not grand – and it is big.

It is an imposing building, at least I believe so, but I’ve only ever seen it twice from the outside, though I’ve been there probably hundreds of times. I go straight from the Metro station, so I never go from outside, which is just as well, because apparently said library is architecturally challenged, and big chunks of it have fallen and hit people on the head, or almost hit people on the head.

But inside, so far, it’s safe. I borrow books there, and the truth is that I have found books there that I would not find elsewhere, but the real truth is that the main reason I go there is surprise, surprise, for the music.

They have a CD collection like no library I’ve ever seen. It is particularly rewarding if one is interested in classical music; whatever you want, they have. So I go now every Tuesday on my lunch hour, and that seems to work.

Now I’m cheating here, because I’m writing about my LaVerne Baker collection, because she comes between The Penguins and Muddy Waters, but right at that spot I’ve only got 4 tracks: “Tweedle Dee,” “Jim Dandy”, “I Cried A Tear,” and “Saved.” And I will tell you that they all came from various Atlantic Records compilations, and leave it at that. But it was at the Grande Bibliotheque that I found Souls On Fire: The Best Of Lavene Baker, and it comes later, as part of my MP3 collection, but I can’t help it. So I’m cheating by putting it here. I’ve been having a crisis of conscience about this, and I may not sleep well for a while, but it can’t be helped.

Briefly, Laverne Baker was the Aretha Franklin of her day, in a way. They both recorded for Atlantic, and neither compromised her sound or style. She switched to Brunswick around 1966, Laverne did, and she wasn’t much heard from after that.

It happens that she had 20 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, and that there are 20 tracks on this disk, but they are not the same 20 tracks. One of the 20 hits (“Think Twice” – not the Brook Benton song) was on Brunswick. But what of the others? Missing in action here are: “Tra La La”(1956), “Humpty Dumpty Heart” (1957), “Tiny Tim,” “If You Love Me” (1959), “Shadows Of Love,” “Wheel Of Fortune”(1960),“Bumble Bee,” “You’re The Boss(1961), “Fly Me To The Moon” (1965).

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Laverne Baker:

• Soul On Fire – Her first hit.
• Tomorrow Night – always promising…
• Tweedle Dee – her big breakthrough from early ’55. It has been said that it was an attempt to tame her style with a ‘cute’ song; maybe so, but tamed she wasn’t. This song fairly rocks. She rode it to number 14 on Billboard; Georgia Gibbs put it up to number 2
• That’s All I Need
• Bop-Ting-A-Ling – “Tweedle Dee” redux, after a fashion
• Play It Fair
• Jim Dandy – a top 20 hit in early 1957
• My Happiness Forever
• Get Up, Get Up (You Sleepy Head)
• Still – this was the B-side of “I Can’t Love You Enough,” and it reached number 97 on its own merits. Covered by the Fontaine Sisters, and it was not the Bill Anderson song
• I Can’t Love You Enough – from the fall of ‘56
• Jim Dandy Got Married – maybe he married Peggy Sue. This was from the spring of ’57.
• I Cried A Tear – this is the exact same song as “What Am I Living For” (Chuck Willis) with different words. It was her only top 10 single, and that was in early 1959.
• Whipper Snapper
• I Waited Too Long – from the spring of ‘59
• Shake A Hand – a worthy cover of the Faye Adams classic
• How Often
• You Said
• Saved – a song of religious conversion, not to be confused with the Bob Dylan album of the same name. Laverne sounds like she’s having a heck of good time being saved… it was a hit in the spring of ‘61
• See See Rider – the perennial. Laverne’s take on this was a hit in early ’63.
  
  
  

The Penguins

The Penguins weren’t much, just another bird group. And they did one of the most astounding doo-wop records ever. After “Earth Angel” was a hit, they signed with Mercury, and never had another hit. Still, their place in history is assured.

The “collection’ comes from Echoes Of A Rock Era. If you’ve been following this then you know that I got that at the West Kildonan Library.

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The Penguins:

• Earth Angel - One of the greatest Saturday night prom songs of ever. The Crew Cuts did this, not well, but they were Canadian so we forgive them.

[Otis Williams &] the Charms

Another two singles that I picked up at Argy’s, I’d assumed that both these records were by the same group with a slightly different name in each case. I’m not sure now; the second record may actually be a different group. Williams is on both, and he is not Otis Williams who was a member of the Temptations.

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The Charms:

• Hearts Of Stone – the first time I heard this it was by The Blue Ridge Rangers, who were actually John Fogerty, and it was their / his follow-up to Jambalaya, but it only ever got played on the radio once or twice. But once I heard that “no no no no no no no no” there was no way I was gonna forget it. so when I picked this up, I knew right away it was that song I’d heard by BBR. Fogerty is good, but he can’t match the original. The Fontane Sisters put it at number 1 (The Charms’ version reached #15) but their version is typically bleached.

Otis Williams And The Charms:

• Ivory Tower - This was a year or two later. It was covered by Gale Storm.

The DeCastro Sisters

I don’t have to tell you about Argy’s, because you can read about it on the web. I found it not long after it opened, it wasn’t so far from where I worked for a year, that was 1983 – 1984, and mostly what they sold was records.

They got out of the record business, Ray did, that was the owner, Ray, later, 1989 to be exact. They concentrated on collectibles, cards, comics, that kind of thing. That was after he moved. But it was fun while it lasted. And he may have gotten back into vinyl, if the web site is an indication.

And there was this one time, there was this one time, I guess he bought out an estate or something, it was a shipment that came from the States, he told me, and I would have known anyway by the record labels, and he’d picked up hundreds of old 45s, hundreds.

I picked up a handful, one of which was “Teach Me Tonight,” a scratchy old 45 by the DeCastro Sisters. They were Cuban, apparently, and one of so many sister groups that were popular in the 50s (deJohn Sisters, Fontaine Sisters, Lennon Sisters, Dinning Sisters – all deriving their style more or less from The Andrews Sisters).

This is the only song I have by them. They had a follow up called “Boom Boom Boomerang,” but I don’t have it. Alas.

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The DeCastro Sisters:

• Teach Me Tonight – there is something not quite healthy about this, and I don’t think it would pass muster in today’s world. “Should the teacher stand so near my love?” Ah but the world was so innocent back then wasn’t it.
  
  Wasn’t it?
  
  George Maharis covered this in 1960.

Joan Weber

Wayne Janick wrote The Billboard Book Of One-Hit Wonders. It’s a whole other phenomenon, one-hit wonders. I won’t get into definitions here – one hit on the top 40? One hit on the top 100? Let others decide today.

Joan Weber, she was the consummate one-hit wonder. I don’t know if she is in Janick’s book; maybe the period he covers starts later. But here it is, she was signed up to Columbia by Mitch Miller himself, then when her big hit was riding the top of the charts she went and had a baby, so she couldn’t tour, so poof goes the promotion, and she recorded more songs, but she never had another hit.

And this all amuses me, because her song, “Let Me Go Lover,” was number on the Billboard chart released on January 1, 1955, (according to Whitburn anyway; I have another book that says it was “Mr. Sandman:, phooey), and 1955 is generally considered to be the first year of the “rock and roll era,” which is, among other things, the era of the one-hit wonder. So how prescient was that.

I picked this up on a K-Tel type album that I got at Comic World. I will tell you about Comic World but that will have to wait.

And why, anyway, did Billboard publish an edition on January 1? Didn’t they have New Year’s Day back then?

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- sound bite: Bandstand Boogie - theme from American Bandstand, by Lex Baxter. It bookends this collection. Wait for it to come round again...

Joan Weber:

• Let Me Go Lover – a weepy ballad this is, and the words are basically a prewrite of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” which the Supremes did 12 years later. There were competing versions by Teresa Brewer and by Patti Page, and Hank Snow did it, but he sang “Let Me Go Woman” and the way he spit out “woman” was like a swear word, and Homer & Jethro did it, but they called it “Let Me Go Blubber.”

January 1955

This is where the fun starts.

Here are some songs that were on the music charts in January, 1955. I have the blue ones. I don’t have the black ones.

…yet...

• Let Me Go Lover – Joan Weber
• Mr. Sandman – The Chordettes
• Melody Of Love – Billy Vaughn
• This Old House – Rosemary Clooney
• Teach Me Tonight – The DeCastro Sisters
• I Need You Now – Eddie Fisher
• Count Your Blessings – Eddie Fisher
• That’s All I Want From You – Jaye P. Morgan
• Papa Loves Mambo – Perry Como
• Make Yourself Comfortable – Sarah Vaughan
• Dim Dim The Lights (I Want Some Atmosphere) – Bill Haley & His Comets
• Shake Rattle & Roll - Bill Haley & His Comets
• Mr. Sandman – The Four Aces
• Hearts Of Stone – The Fontane Sisters
• No More – The DeJohn Sisters
• Let Me Go Lover – Teresa Brewer
• Mambo Italiano – Rosemary Clooney
• Hearts Of Stone – The Charms
• Home For The Holidays – Perry Como
• Naughty Lady Of Shady Lane – The Ames Brothers
• Ling Ting Tong – The Five Keys
• Let Me Go Lover – Patti Page
• Earth Angel – The Penguins
• Open Up Your Heart – Cowboy Church Sunday School
• Let Me Go Lover – Sunny Gale
• Sincerely – The McGuire Sisters
• Tweedle Dee – LaVerne Baker
• Ling Ting Tong – The Charms
• Melody Of Love – Frank Sinatra and Ray Anthony
• Melody Of Love – The Four Aces
• Melody Of Love – David Carroll
• No More – The McGuire Sisters
• I Got A Woman – Ray Charles

Vaughn Monroe

The Best Of Vaughn Monroe

There were two organizations in Winnipeg that had fund-raising record sales – one was the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, who eventually established a full-time store, and the other was the Winnipeg Folk Festival – and I think that they shared an inventory and an infrastructure. They took turns holding sales at Eaton Place or Portage Place, downtown shopping centres.

And so they would charge $3.00 for an LP, and they wouldn’t bargain. And I would pick up 5 LPs and offer $10, and whoever was selling would count them and say 5 LPs that’s $15, and I would say I’m offering you $10, and they didn’t get it. But I said I’m not paying you 15 getit? But I will give you 10, and that’s money for your organization, or I will leave the LPs here, and give you nothing. But they wouldn’t budge.

So I would pick one out of the 5, and that’s it.

That’s where I got Vaughn Monroe, but I don’t remember which organization was in charge that day.

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So Vaughn Monroe, this is his greatest hits, and they were all hits during the 40s, before my time. but I know a lot of these songs:

• There! I’ve Said It Again – a hit for Bobby Vinton in 1964
  
  
• Riders In The Sky (A Cowboy Legend) – we already heard this by The Sons Of The Pioneers. It was hit in the early 60s by The Ramrods, and in the 80s by Johnny Cash, and it was covered by everyone from Peggy Lee to Dick Dale. This version isn't my favourite.
  
  
• Someday (You’ll Want Me To Want You)
  
  
• Mister Sandman – this is apparently a later recording, seeing as how the song was written in 1954. It was a huge hit for The Chordettes and a lesser one for The Four Aces. They all should have just let The Chordettes have it, and leave well enough alone.
  
  
• Sound Off (The Duckworth Chant) – a military hymn of sorts
  
  
• Racing With The Moon (Vaughn Monroe’s Theme Song) – who thought he’d need a theme song…
  
  
• Ballerina – also a hit for Nat King Cole, not the Van Morrison song
  
  
• There I Go – his first hit
  
  
• There’ll Be Some Changes Made
  
  
• The Maharaja Of Magador
  
  
• Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! – also recorded by Ella Fitzgerald. I bet neither ever lived in Canada