Tex Ritter

Most country music is not cowboy music, and, if you ask Ian Tyson, he will tell you that cowboy music is not country music. Tex Ritter, though, was a country singer who did cowboy music. Make no mistake. And he is as corny as they come.

He did dozens of movies and TV besides making records. His son was John Ritter, who was the guy in the TV show Three’s Company.

This is a collection called High Noon & Other Hits; it’s a prerecorded cassette and it was only ever released in that format, at a budget price besides. I don’t remember where I got it; maybe it was Sears, maybe it wasn’t Sears. Maybe it was Country Music Centre. Who knows. There are nine tracks, including two of the three of the top 100 chart singles he had after 1955. Missing is The Americans (A Canadian’s Opinion) from 1974, a song (narration really) written, if I’m not mistaken, by the late Canadian TV journalist Gordon Sinclair.

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Tex Ritter:

• High Noon – The ultimate ballad of personal conflict. The lyrics at face value are over the top, and obviously so, but just under the surface anyone who has had any conflict with, say, a mean boss, can relate. There is a lot at stake here; not only is he fighting for his life, but he is doing so on his wedding day, thus providing the subtheme of emotional support in the most trying of circumstances. The song is from the movie High Noon, released in 1952, and it was a hit for Ritter, who sang it at the first ever televised Oscars, and I have versions by Frankie Laine, and by Walter Brennan.
• Jingle, Jangle, Jingle – From about 1942, a ballad of the happy bachelor cowboy life. I don’t think that this is the original recording; it is too stereo for the 40s.
• The Wayward Wind – A song of restlessness, and hit for Gogi Grant. Ritter’s version found itself on the charts in the fall of 1956.
• Just Beyond The Moon – A song of love and loss and coping. This was from 1967. It was number 13 on the country chart.
• There’s A New Moon Over My Shoulder – The original version of this is from 1944, but this version is a rerecording, very obviously, with female chorus and all. It’s a song of longing and disappointment.
• I Dreamed Of A Hill-Billy Heaven – One of those country music tributes that seem to turn up regularly (think To Be A Country Star by The Statler Brothers). This was specifically about departed country stars, but at the end he sees himself. In fact, Ritter died in 1974. This record reached number 20 on Billboard in the summer of 1961.
• Growin’ Up – A song about, well, growing up. One of those spoken / narrated song. From 1969.
• Rye Whiskey – Originally recorded in 1935, and originally rerecorded in 1948. A semi-humorous ode to alcohol addiction.
• Daddy’s Last Letter – Subtitled “Private First Class John H. McCormick.” Hokey but sad all the same. A soldier writes home. The record features Tex’s narration accompanied solely by an church-like organ. This is from 1950, when the Korean War was all the rage. Words to keep: “…so I have to help fight these men and keep them from coming where you and Mommy live.”

Mose Allison

I knew Mose Allison the same way I knew Willie Dixon; his name was on umpteen songs. Well it seemed to be. Really it was just a few. But I never heard a note he sang or played until I picked up Allison Wonderland at the HMV store in Garden City Shopping Centre. And all the Mose Allison I’ve ever heard is on that. I have the CD, actually own it. The songs here are the ones that fit on cassette, so there is one or two missing.

He plays piano, and the majority of these tracks he is accompanied by bass and drum and that's it. Later he got a horn section going on. And Mose Allison? Well, he’s a phenomenon, He has style, he has attitude, he has personality – sardonic, cynical, slightly misanthropic. How can you not love him…

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Mose Allison

• Lost Mind – Percy Mayfield wrote this; he wrote Hit The Road Jack, but it suits Allison’s style exactly – a wry commentary on his own broken heart. “Words would fail me if I tried to describe her, though I know that she’s not all that she should have been.” Rare pop music acknowledgment of the imperfection of one’s love interest.
• Back Country Suite: Blues (aka Young Man Blues) – A bit of whining about how hard it is to be young. The Who covered this on Live At Leeds.
• Parchman Farm – Probably the most covered Allison song, with versions by Cactus, Blue Cheer etc. It’s about a guy who shoots his wife and does time.
• If You Live – All the tracks so far were recorded in 1957.
• The Seventh Son – A Willie Dixon song that came up now and then. A hit for Johnny Rivers in 1965. From 1959.
• Eyesight To The Blind – Written by one of the Sonny Boy Williamsons. The Who used this on Tommy. From 1961
• Baby, Please Don’t Go – By Joe Williams. Them had a hit with this in 1965 (the A side of Gloria) and The Amboy Dukes did a kind of garage band freak-out with it. It is also on a Dylan bootleg.
• Fool’s Paradise – About a guy who thinks he’s having a good time, ha ha.
• V-8 Ford Blues – Driving as a metaphor for life itself.
• Ask Me Nice – Let me be who I am, basically.
• Hey Good Lookin’ – Mose Allison does Hank Williams. Doesn’t sound much like Hank Williams when he gets through with it.
• Back On The Corner – Everything comes full circle. We are into 1962 by now.
• Your Mind Is On Vacation – “And your mouth is working overtime.” Nuff said.
• Meet Me At No Special Place – One of the most unique songs about relationship discord you are likely to hear. He did not write this, though it is so completely in his style.
• I Don’t Worry About A Thing – Not because everything will be fine, but because nothing will be fine. Interesting
• I Ain’t Got Nothing But The Blues – A Duke Ellington song.
• Swingin’ Machine – Automated groovin’…
• I’m Not Talking – “I’m not talkin’, it just don’t pay” sings Allison. Just causes confusion…
• I’m The Wild Man – A song about the wayward life…
• Stop This World – Theme for a misanthrope.
• Your Red Wagon – It’s your bed, kind of thing.
• Foolkiller – We’re up to 1964. Johnny Rivers did a cover of this.
• Wildman On The Loose – As always he is half serious and half sarcastic. About the guy who goes nuts on Saturday night and he’s back to work on Monday morning. Some wild man, eh?
• You Can Count On Me To Do My Part
• Smashed – A live track recorded in 1965 and released in 1966. Mose waxes poetic about the vagaries of inebriation.
• I Love The Life I Live – Another live track, this one written by Willie Dixon, recorded by Muddy Waters.
• That’s Alright – The third live track. You wouldn’t think that Mose Allison would write a song called “That’s Alright” and you’d be right; this is by Jimmie Rogers.
• If You’re Going To The City – Get back honky cat, sang Elton John – similar idea. This is from 1968, and his style had changed remarkably little in 11 years.
• Everybody Cryin’ Mercy – How bad can things get. A song about disingenuousness
• Feel So Good
• Your Molecular Structure – Undoubtedly the best ode to a good looker ever…
• Monsters of The Id – The sound here is fleshed out, horns added to the basic lineup of bass, drums, and Allison’s piano.
• Hello There, Universe – A man looks at his place in the cosmos.
• I Don’t Want Much – Self-effacement, one of the themes underlying so much of his music.
• You Call It Jogging – How can one thing mean such different things to different people…
• How Much Truth – More philosophical insight. We are into the 70s now.
• I’m Just A Lucky So And So – Another Duke Ellington song. Chuck Berry covered this, and so did Ella Fitzgerald.
• The Tennessee Waltz – Now we are into the 80s. Odd that he would do this song. A huge hit for Patti Page in the early 50s.
• Ever Since The World Ended – Another bit of philosophy, putting everything in a certain perspective.
• Top Forty – For someone who never had a top forty hit, Mose has much to say about it…
• Josephine – Not the same song that Les Paul & Mary Ford did. A typical song of adulation, rare for Allison.
• Gettin’ There – Autobiography. The irony, if it is irony, is that the title related to his being downhearted.
• Big Brother – Not all that different from Rare Earth’s Hey Big Brother.
• The Getting’ Paid Waltz – A song about getting paid – or, actually, not getting paid.
• Fool’s Paradise – Live version.

Peggy Lee

The first time I saw Peggy Lee was on Ed Sullivan, and, youTube aside, it was probably the last time. I hadn’t heard of her then, but the audience obviously had, judging by the reception.

This is a straightforward collection consisting of a series of 3 CDs, one after the other. Her Capital recordings (1945 – 1951) are on The Capital Collectors Series. The Decca recordings, (1952 – 1956) are on The Best Of The Decca Years, which has half of her Decca hits (1 out of 2). And the second set of Capital recordings are on Fever & Other Hits, which has 6 out of her 9 hits from that period.

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Peggy Lee:

• Waitin’ For The Train To Come In – Put your life on hold, waiting for your loved one. Doesn’t sound like a plan to me. But it’s a great record. From 1945.
• I’m Glad I Waited For You – There you go. Worked out, didn’t it… From 1946.
• I Don’t Know Enough About You – Echoes Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World a bit. An interesting idea, how much do we ever know about our partners anyway. From the spring of 1946.
• Linger In My Arms A Little Longer, Baby – A goodnight kiss song. I think I would expect to hear this in a male voice; hearing it sung by a woman changes the perspective. This is from 1946.
• It’s All Over Now – Also from 1946. Not The Stones song, and not the Dylan song (with Baby Blue). A song, predictably, about the end of the affair. She does not sound too sad though…
• It’s A Good Day – A happy song. From 1947.
• Everything Is Moving Too Fast – The Beat Goes On, sort of. From 1947.
• Chi-BaBa, Chi-Baba (My Bambino, Go To Sleep) – Still in 1947. A lullaby of some kind.
• Sugar (That Sugar Baby Of Mine) – The oft-used sugar analogy. The Pointer Sisters did a song called Sugar, and The Chordettes did Lollipop. There must be millions of songs like that.
• Golden Earrings – Some kind of Gypsy superstition about wearing earrings and finding love. It was a straight line from this to The Impressions’ Gypsy Woman. From 1947. I don’t know if the Dutch group named themselves for this song.
• I’ll Dance At Your Wedding – From 1947. It’s never made clear whose wedding she will dance at, but it’s fine.
• Mañana (Is Soon Enough For Me) – It’s got that Latin thing going on, a bit of a novelty song. From 1948.
• All Dressed Up With A Broken Heart – Trying to get over a romance is never easy is it… From 1948.
• Talkin’ To Myself About You – From 1948.
• Why Don’t You Do Right (Get Me Some Money Too)
• ‘Deed I Do
• Don’t Smoke In Bed – Sultry. I like the way Julie London does this, too. From 1948.
• Caramba! It’s The Samba! – From 1948.
• There There Eyes – Q. Do you really fall in love with eyes? A. Yes
• Baby, Don’t Be Mad At Me – That’s cute. Sometimes it just comes down to that, don’t be mad. From 1948.
• Bali Ha’i – From 1949. A song about the islands.
• Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair – This is from… um… South Pacific!
• Ghost Riders In The Sky (A Cowboy Legend) – She is a strange one to be doing this. A hit also for Vaughn Monroe, and the Sons Of The Pioneers. Later it was a hit for The Outlaws in an instrumental version, and Johnny Cash put in it on the charts much later. For what it’s worth, this version reached # 2. From 1949.
• The Old Master Painter – Think of Picasso’s Last Words by Paul McCartney & Wings. Ok, don’t think of it. From 1950.
• Show Me The Way To Get Out Of This World (‘Cause That’s Where Everything Is) – This isn’t a song about suicide; it’s just a comment on the expression “out of this world.” I think it’s supposed to funny, but the title kind of doesn’t let that happen. From 1950.
• Lover – This is where the Decca years start. This is from 1952. From the movie Love Me Tonight
• This Is A Very Special Day – She wrote this herself. From The Jazz Singer. An It's A Good Day redux.
• Just One Of Those Things – From 1952 A Cole Porter song from Jubilee.
• Be Anything (But Me Mine) – From 1952. Connie Francis put this back on the charts in 1964.
• Black Coffee – Another great smoky bar room song. The Pointer Sisters did a great version of this on one of their Blue Thumb albums.
• He’s A Tramp – From Lady And The Tramp.
• It Must Be So – A duet with The Mills Brothers, another Peggy Lee original.
• Where Can I Go Without You? – How heartbreak takes the meaning out of things. From 1954.
• Somebody Loves Me – Pining for a guy…
• Sans Souci
• The Possibility’s There – A cutesy-poo song with Bing Crosby. They sing about sharing breakfast. I think listeners were supposed to get they were planning to get married, but they don’t say that.
• I Hear Music Now – Newfound romance. Phil Spector rewrote this, sort of, called it I Can Hear Music, gave it to The Ronettes. And The Supremes did I Hear A Symphony. Another song from The Jazz Singer.
• Johnny Guitar – The complications of dating a musician. Think of Superstar by Rita Cooldege / The Carpenters. This is from some move called Johnny Guitar.
• The Siamese Cat Song – From Lady And The Tramp. Dumb.
• He Needs Me
• Mr. Wonderful – A song of unrepentant adulation. A hit in the spring of 1956.
• Fever – Her piece de la resistance. If there’s been a better song about sexual passion I’ve never heard it. The original was by Little Willie John, and Elvis did a smokin’ version, but Miss Lee’s is best by far. The drums-bass-finger pops arrangement is brilliant. From the summer of 1958.
• My Man – Similar musical idea to Fever, a little more fleshed out instrumentally. Lyrically it’s the opposite of Mr. Wonderful – he’s bad, he beats her etc. but she loves him. Sheesh. From the winter of 1959.
• Alright, Okay, You Win – A declaration of romantic submission. From the winter of 1959, the other side of My Man.
• Hallelujah, I Love Him So – A slight change of gender, but this is the Ray Charles song. Great version, plus there is a good one by Eddie Cochrane. From the spring of 1959.
• (You Gotta Have) Heart – “Corazon” the guys sing in the background. Didn’t Carole King so something like that?
• A Doodlin’ Song
• I’m A Woman – Credited to Leiber & Stoller, but it’s really a variation of Bo Diddley’s I’m A Man. Not The Helen Reddy song. Same idea except with an acknowledgement of the erotic. From the winter of 1963.
• Big Spender – She is singing, maybe, about Sean Connery playing James Bond. I don’t pop my cork, she says, for every guy I see. Indeed. From 1966.
• The Alley Cat Song – As Alley Cat it was a hit for Bent Fabric. Here are the words.
• Is That All There Is – An out of character Leiber & Stoller song. But by 1969 they were in the wilderness. This is a great record, a freak hit in the fall of 1969, and I remember it well, the only Peggy Lee song I remember hearing on the radio. I sing it to my kids when they complain that there aren’t enough food choices in the house…

Teddy Wilson

Jazz pianist and band leader, recorded with Billie Holiday.

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Teddy Wilson:

• As Time Goes By – From Casabanca. Too many versions of this around, but the best are by Harry Nilsson and Peter Allen.

Vic Damone

Another crooner. The world was full of crooners; they were mainstream. In the 60s crooners became “your parents’ music.” Then they became fossils, as the rock and roll generation became adults. I don’t know what their status is now; there are some around, I think they are some kind of esoteric taste in today’s world.

I got this album at one of those fundraising sales, Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, or Winnipeg Folk Festival perhaps. I don’t remember the exact name. Damone had 5 Columbia hits on the top 100, and 3 are on here. He also had one on Mercury, and one of Warner Brothers, by the way.

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Vic Damone:

• On The Street Where You Live – Describes a romantic obsession as if it were the normal course of a relationship. Damone’s biggest hit, from the summer of 1956.
• Maria – From West Side Story.
• If I Ever Would Leave You – A backhanded song of romantic commitment
• We Kiss In A Shadow – A song of illicit romance. Cf Walk On By by Leroy Van Dyke, Dark End Of The Street by James Carr, Me And Mrs. Jones by Billy Paul, Kiss And Say Goodbye by The Manhattans, 90 Miles An Hour On Dead End Street by Hank Snow, all of which are better than this one.
• Almost Like Being In Love – The must be a word to describe the phenomenon of describing something by calling not exactly the thing; well that’s what this song is. Damone steps a bit into Tony Bennett territory with this one, but Bennett does it better.
• Gigi – This is a movie, or a play or something. A song about a girl that’s grown up; she used to be small, now she’s not. From the spring of 1958.
• The Second Time Around – About, what? A second marriage, the reunion of old lovers? Love is more comfortable, he sings, but is that what we’re after?
• The Pleasure Of Her Company – A song about a great date.
• An Affair To Remember – I don’t think it’s about an affair affair. But maybe it is. See We Kiss In A Shadow. From the fall of 1957.
• Separate Tables – These aren’t people who have separated, this is about people who have not yet met.

Esquerita

When you dig around into the history of pop / rock and roll / R & B, and you get off the beaten path a bit, the curiosities you find are fascinating.

Esquerita was a Little Richard wannabe from South Carolina, with a presentation and style similar to Richard but with a voice range about 2 octaves lower. This track comes from an LP I picked up at the Centennial Library.

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Esquerita:

• Rockin’ The Joint – Just another party record, one that fell through the cracks..:

Screamin' Jay Hawkins

One of the more colourful figures in Rock / R & B history, the template for Arthur Brown, Tom Waits, Alice Cooper (sort of). The collection is called Cow Fingers And Alligator Pie, and it came from the West Kildonan Library. I don’t think this is the whole thing…

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Screamin' Jay Hawkins:

• I Put A Spell On You – The song was never a hit for Hawkins, but it put a spell on the music world, with covers by Nina Simone, The Animals, Alan Price, Arthur Brown, Creedence Clearwater Revival. It’s been honoured by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and listed as one of the greatest songs of all time by Rolling Stone. Not bad for a song that never made the top 100.
• Little Demon – Keeping with the theme I guess. Kind of like Chuck Berry with a problem.
• You Made Me Love You – The standard from the 30s. I guess she put a spell on him. You have to hear this to believe it. Harry Nilsson did this, but it’s barely the same song…
• Yellow Coat
• Alligator Wine – Makes the jungle sounds in Stranded In The Jungle sound like Starbucks.
• Take Me Back To My Boots And Saddle - From the unlikeliest of cowboys.
• Frenzy – Pretty much sums it up.
• There’s Something Wrong With You – About as straightforward as it gets.