Thursday, April 19, 2018

Eileen: "The M.T.A. Song" Boston novelty sung in French



    Here’s something peculiar for you: a folk song about the Boston underground…sung in French. Why would the French care? And what could they make of a schmuck named Charlie who can’t simply get off a train? And what about his even more ridiculous wife, who throws him sandwiches when she could easily toss one with a few coins in it so he can pay the fare? 


    One of the lousy things about travel is that you generally have no idea how to get around. Unless you take a cab and don’t mind being stiffed all the time and driven the longest way possible, you’re stuck with mass transit. Most every city has its own infuriating rules. Coins allowed? NOT allowed? Do you have to wait on a line and get a TICKET? I haven't been in France in a while, but the last time, I recall some odd business about getting a pass with a photo ID on it. I don't remember if I used the pass itself or had to buy individual  tickets for every subway (metro) or bus ride.


    The gimmick with the Boston system at the time (and maybe even now) is fare zones. I haven't been in Boston in a long time. I do recall their "underground" as being pretty dinky. I think at least you could actually take an easy commute from Logan Airport into mid-town or even Cambridge.


      Back in the 50's, it cost ten cents to get on the train, and then, depending on the destination, passengers had to pay at least another nickel to get off. A politician named Walter O’Brien wanted to change policy and the tax structure in Boston. In his run for mayor (he finished with less than one percent of the vote) he enlisted Bess Lomax Hawes (daughter of Almanac singer John Lomax)  and Jackie Steiner to create a catchy tune for him. 

        Their campaign song turned into a novelty number. They were partying with two friends (Sam and Arnold Berman) and Sam mentioned how weird it was that if you didn't have the extra nickel you might have to stay on the MTA and "never get home." This became "never return," since Bess recalled an Almanac Singers number called "The Train That Never Returned" (which borrowed music from "The Wreck of the Old 97." 

          The song ended with "Vote for Walter A. Obrien and fight the fare increase! Get poor Charlie off the MTA!" The song was recorded by Sam Berman on vocal, with his brother Arnold, Jackie Steiner and others playing backup instruments and singing along. The song was played live at rallies, and the recording was hooked up to a truck and played at various locations to bewildered onlookers. Eventually Will Holt heard the song and managed to get an actual record label to release it.

    Will Holt was a nice man, and I enjoyed talking to him about some aspects of his career. I think he considered “The MTA Song” one of his lesser achievements. After all, it didn't become a hit. Coral edited the song when there was a worry that the "Vote for" line was actually mentioning a real person. The Kingston Trio eventually covered the song, streamlining some of the lyrics and shouting out the fictitious name "Vote for George O'Brien!" at the end. 


      Hold came up with his own original lyrics for “Lemon Tree," which was a big hit for Trini Lopez. He figured his enduring achievements were in the musicals he wrote for the stage. (Most of YOU know this thing and "Lemon Tree" most of all).  

    So why not see if it could roll in other countries, too? The singer here is EILEEN. She’s better known as a Nancy Sinatra impersonator (in France, at least) but she took on a variety of American tunes to Frenchify. An interesting thing about her is that she is proof that it’s who you know…but also if you know other languages. Eileen’s father Michael Goldsen founded Criterion Music. (Yeah, yeah, you wonder who losted it. Ha ha.) Born in New York, a language teacher in Los Angeles, she taught French, and was asked to translate some of the popular folk songs of the day into that language. 


    In 1963 the teacher journeyed to Paris, married over there, and managed to get a record deal offering her specialty of being able to sing perfectly in two languages, and knowing the cultures of both. She did both an English cover version of Nancy Sinatra songs and foreign language variations. Since she learned a bit about the music biz from her father, it’s not much of a surprise that after her brief days as a singing idol ended, she started her own music publishing firm, French Fried Music. She still lives in France. 


Hop aboard: Le Métro De Boston (M.T.A. The Boston Subway Song) download or listen online

DICKIE GOODMAN Boris Karloff Monster Mash into A HARD DAY’S NIGHT


    Dickie Goodman’s birthday is today (April 19, 1934) but he’s not around to make jokes about it. Let’s not dwell on his self-inflicted ending (November 6, 1989) . For many decades, he did his best to cheer up people with ridiculous “break-in” novelty singles and, now and then, peculiar “concept” albums that involved his own singing skills.

    One of the first artists to challenge copyright rules on “sampling,” Goodman and his then-partner Bill Buchanan offered up an indie single called “The Flying Saucer” in 1956, which, love it or detest it, involved using fragments of popular songs as punchlines. Goodman’s main schtick was the fake news interview, his voice a kind of Jewish version of Walter Winchell. 


    Billboard charged “The Flying Saucer” at #3 and while he would never get to #1, Goodman kept on going and going, with, eventually an entire set of Walter Winchell singles…all keyed to Winchell’s role as narrator of TV’s “The Untouchables.” These were: “The Touchables,” “The Touchables in Brooklyn” and “Santa and the Touchables,” which all landed in the Top 100. 


    Goodman did try to break away from sampling now and then.  “Russian Bandstand” was a “what if American Bandstand was broadcast in Communist Russia” notion, and issued as “Spencer and Spencer” with new partner Mickey Shorr). 


    One of his early non-break-in albums was “My Son the Joke.” Along with Stan Ross, who put out a similar album of Jewish novelty tunes, the idea was to grab off some of the sales Allan Sherman was enjoying. Figuring that sex sells, and that doity Jewish comedy (ala Belle Barth and Pearl Williams) would not be something Sherman would ever try, Dickie offered up songs on everything from menstruation (“Red River Sally”) to “Harry’s Jockstrap,” an overt twist on Sherman’s “Sarah Jackman.” 


    Below is “Balling my Zelda,” typical of that album. Dickie didn’t grab all the same public domain folk songs that Allan used. “Balling my Zelda” is of course based on “Waltzing Matilda,” which Sherman never quite got around to messing with. Allan’s “My Zelda” is based on the Harry Belafonte calypso hit “Matilda.” 


    Through the 60’s and 70’s, almost any hot news subject or movie got a cash-in tweak from Dickie Goodman. This included the Nixon slam “Watergrate,” a novelty single on the “Energy Crisis” and when the movie “Jaws” was a hit, there he was, doing “Mr. Jaws.” A few years later, out came “Kong,” keyed to a remake of “King Kong.” All of this stuff got into the Billboard Top 100 in the 70’s, and “Mr. Jaws” actually hit #4, his best showing in nearly 20 years.  


    Apparently in 1980 Dickie recorded “The Monster Album,” which was obviously ill-timed to any current trend. I would’ve thought he recorded it back in 1964, when it would’ve been a fairly fresh and commercial idea. That’s when the craze for monster comedy peaked. It grew with “Monster Rally” on RCA and “Spike Jones in Stereo” on Warners, led to Bobby “Boris" Pickett's huge hit “Monster Mash” for Garpax. Below, “A Hard Days Night” done with the Karloff narration style that made Bobby “Boris” Pickett a star. 


    Thanks to Rhino, which specialized in promoting a lot of offbeat novelty stuff, Goodman was finally off his indie labels (such as Wacko), and hoping for a return to glory. No, “Return of the Jedi Returns” in 1983 did not do it for him, and by 1987, he was back to financing his own singles and releasing “Safe Sex Report” via Goodname, which he thought was a good name. Debts and depression overcame him, age 55, and it just wasn’t very funny. 


    A few years later, and nostalgic Demento-types were hunting up every 45 rpm single on all his bizarre indie labels from Luniverse to Rainy Wednesday, with some 78's fetching big eBay bucks. CDs, authorized or not, began to offer cleaned up, good quality versions of those manic old break-in numbers. His son Jon was instrumental in pushing for Dickie’s fair share of fame and honors as a pioneer of novelty singles.  While much of what Dickie did is now dated, and most people don’t get all the break-in recognition humor references, there are still a lot of people out there who are in his groove. And they wish he was around to hear a heartfelt “Happy Birthday, you wacko.”


Hard Days Night - Karloff Style - download or listen online - no Zinfart passwords no misdrection links no Russian yaddiyadda

Allan Sherman going dirty? BALLING MY ZELDA

GENYA RAVAN's BIRTHDAY...Apr 19th - BIRD ON THE WIRE




Here's a little tribute the the lady with the big, big voice, born April 19, 1940. The great GENYA RAVAN. 

Ravan (pronounced "Raven") sounded like a "black bird," and her version of "Bird" starts softly, with a beautiful gospel touch, before rising into a crescendo of emotion. I told her I thought she was the real deal, and that Janis Joplin was just a "high wind." Genya did not choose to agree or disagree. She was, to paraphrase Dylan being a "diplomat." She kept mum and stroked her siamese cat. No, really. She had it on her shoulder for a while. Another was wandering around her apartment. 

If you want to know more about Genya's amazing life and times (and see pix from her men's magazine days) get her autobiography.
 
I've always believed Genya to be one of the greatest female vocalists of all time. Just listen to what she does with that BIRD ON THE WIRE. 

Bird on the Wire - listen on line or download

No capcha codes, no pop up ads, no moronic egocentric Zinfart passwords.

I Do The ROCK - get no Pulitzer Prize - birthday man TIM CURRY


    Here’s a live version of “I Do De Rock” from Tim Curry, born April 19, 1940. Back when he was touring in support of this song and others on his solo albums, he told me that he was very serious about having a career in rock. He wasn’t just trying to make a buck off his rock star cult status from “Rocky Horror.” He liked, appreciated and wanted to be a part of ROCK, more than movies. (PS, in person the mild-mannered fellow was nothing like Frank-N-Furter.) 

    Maybe he loved the rock too much; for many listeners his first album's tracks were a bewildering mix of rock and pop genres, including a strut (“Birds of a Feather”), a stomp (“Wake Nicodemus”), cabaret balladry (“Alan”), oldies bombast (“Anyone Who had a Heart”) and the obligatory Beatles cover (“I Will”). When he had the chance to trade on “Rocky Horror” he didn’t. His cover of “All I Want” (by Joni Mitchell) has a line, “bop till I drop in some jukebox dive.” That was his substitution for Joni’s original “rip my stockings in some jukebox dive.” That’s how much he did NOT want to carry over his crossdressing image...which probably disappointed the "Rocky" cult. 

 
    The next album, still hoping for a big rock audience, had some punchier rock, with Dick Wagner one of the co-producers. Alice Cooper could’ve sung some of the rock-angst-roll numbers (“Hide This Face” “Right on the Money”).  Tim had another Joni cover, rocking up “Cold Blue Steel,” and even a campy bit of comedy in “Charge It” (about trendy shopping).  As for “I Do The Rock,” it was reggae rock…with a dash of parody (one would assume...he co-wrote it). And he brought all this, and more, to his tours, but like everyone from Jim Carroll to Warren Zevon, he was a critics’ darling, seemed to have manic fans, but the cult was actually small. Small clubs, small sales. And soon he was back to making movies.  


    You do de rock…and you don’t always get de respect. Have you noticed that rockers get real stupid when talking about their art form? Maybe that's why classical and jazz have always been taken more seriously as an art form. Classical and jazz tend to appeal to people with expensive tastes, and you wear a suit to a concert and buy state-of-the-art stereo equipment. Rock? Not so much. Consider the truly moronic anthem “I Love Rock and Roll.” How about the dimwitted and jeering “I Know It’s ONLY Rock and Roll (But I Like It).” You can throw in witless song titles like “Rock and Roll Never Forgets.” Maybe this is why doing de rock NEVER got anyone a Pulitzer. Not The Beatles. Not Dylan. Not Paul Simon. Not Joni Mitchell. Not Leonard Cohen. NOBODY. 


    The Pultizer Prize for music, for the past 70 years, has ONLY been awarded to  CLASSICAL and JAZZ. Until a weird exception last week. 


    The irony is this: can any reasonable music lover name a worthwhile piece of classical music composed later than World War II? No. Prokofiev was the last gasp. Can anyone name a challenging piece of modern jazz that isn’t a discordant shit-mess? Miles was the last gasp, and nothing past the Vietnam War. So who was winning the Pulitzer Prize classical music honors from 1945 onward, with the spice of some jazz victories now and then? Go ahead and Google and you’ll find hideous classical from Roger Sessions and numbing jazz from Wynton Marsalis. You won’t find experimental works that you can stand for more than five minutes. 


    What about experimental works such as “Revolution #9” by The Beatles? What about those Frank Zappa albums which he orchestrated with fanatical care? You can be experimental…even unlistenable…in other categories besides CLASSICAL and JAZZ, can’t you? Not according to the Pulitzer Prize committee. But last week Kendrick Lamar could’ve sung, “I DO DE PULITZER.”


    Why this happened, who knows. Nobody dares to complain, either, the way they did when Bob Dylan got the Nobel Prize after 50 solid years of great, challenging, artistic music in many genres, and classic songs everyone knows and loves. “Damn” is the name of his album, and my reaction to his fucking Pulitzer. His brand of rap is being taken way too seriously, which certainly has to piss off Jay-Z and Kanye and even Cardi B. Sapristi, Roger Waters’ brown-shirts must be wondering, “What about THE WALL?” I mean, how obnoxious do you have to be before the Pulitzer people take notice? And let’s not ask why “Sgt. Pepper” or “Tommy” or various “classical rock” concoctions and hybrids 

(“Preservation Act I and 2” by The Kinks) never made it. I could add Jethro Tull’s discs but that would be living in the past. The fact is, the present belongs to some pretty bad music, and we can add Ed Sheeran, Sam Smith, Adele, Taylor Swift, Coldplay, and almost all of today’s “faves” to the stinking stew. But let’s return to our spicy bit of Curry. 

    “I Do The Rock” didn’t get nominated for a Grammy for “Best Comedy Performance,” and Curry’s stuff, when vinyl died and CD took over, barely made it to one “Best of” that was quickly remaindered. Do the ROCK, and you do not get de respect or de Pulitzer Prize. Funny, Lamar’s album might also be the FIRST Pulitzer Prize winning music you can actually find via piracy downloads for free. In this case, it’s worth every penny you spent. 

I Do the ROCK from the Bottom Line in NYC - no dopey passwords or "your Adobe is out of date download spyware" game

Monday, April 09, 2018

April 9, 2018 - TOM LEHRER is 90


What a surprise. TOM LEHRER was trending on TWITTER today...not because he died, but because it's his 90th birthday. 

Lehrer was a pioneer of "sick" comedy back in the early 50's, and his work is, happily, as disturbing now as it was then. And just as funny. A bit more disturbing is that there will not be another like him, and the odds of independent singers of ANY type having fame and success continues to shrink like the polar ice cap. 

Tom Lehrer had some places to play. He didn't pay to play. He was good, so he got some bookings. The audience was response was good. He decided to pay somebody to record his songs. He decided to pay somebody to press some albums. He sold his albums at his gigs and by mail. He got reviewed not by blogs, but by REAL columnists who mattered. When his albums sold out, he printed more, and then got a deal with Reprise. 

What's the alternative now? A budding Tom Lehrer tosses his files on Spotify and YouTube? He "networks" on Facebook with a million others? If he's "lucky" he makes a few pennies in royalties before self-entitled hipsters start giving away his work? When Tom Lehrer started, he didn't have self-entitled egotists and parasites copying his songs and either demanding "tip jar" payments or "nice comments" to give it away. ("Copyright remains with the artist. And, by the way, copyright IS copy WRONG. Har har. Pirates, if you LIKE it, buy it. Maybe. Nah.") Yeah, some gas bags, losers and senile fools like to pretend they're in show biz by giving shit away. They will never meet Lehrer, or any other performer, so they won't be in a position to say, "Hey, I am a real fan, I gave away all your music via Fuckheadshare! I got some nice comments, too! Owwww....."

An irony with Tom Lehrer is that he always had a day job, and he preferred teaching to performing. Not everybody is a natural ham, and Tom didn't even bother to put his picture on his album covers. He told me that after he got his laughs in nightclubs, and on a few TV shows, that was enough. Another factor was that his main interest was in parodying music genres. Eventually, he ran out of them. He destroyed folk, waltz, lullabye, tango, march, country, ragtime, etc. As The Beatles and rock became popular, he slipped into Academia and stayed there.

He had modest tastes and a professor's salary was fine. Besides, a professor gets a pension. How fortunate he wasn't like hundreds of others who thought, "I'll just keep singing and touring, and I'll always have my health, and always have royalties coming in for my music..."

Lured out of retirement once in a while, he recorded some whimsical stuff for Public Television (including "LY" and "Silent E" for the kiddies). He also recorded "Chanukah in Santa Monica" for his people, most of whom unaware of his Jewish heritage. He left the field to Weird Al who switched words on rock songs. Rock didn't interest Tom. In fact, he told me that folk rock wasn't interesting to him either. His parody "Folk Song Army" was, he said, aimed squarely at a certain folkie popular in 1965, named Phil Ochs. You might recall Tom's realist final line to that song: "Ready, Aim, Sing!" Maybe Phil would've been amused and even complimented, knowing it was he, not Dylan, that pissed Tom off the most!

Tom, like most everyone who has recorded, and actually been IN the business, is aware that just as songs don't really change the world, nobody can change the attitude of the dopey Dutch, the sleazy Swedes, the creepy Communists in Croatia and Russia, the jerks in Germany, the tiny-dicks in South America or the ladyboy fuckers in Asia who regularly throw entire discographies around by the torrent, offer goody bags on their blogs, and are happy Santas who want a "nice" comment or a "Paypal tip" for giving away music. Irony that it's not really the Americans or the Brits who give away the American and British music as much as the world's least hip people in the world's shittiest lamest countries. What can be said when "We like FREE" says it all. Fuck the record companies, record stores, music studios, artists and the dwindling venues, too. Stay home and download it ALL.

No, there's no discography of Lehrer here, no "sure, buddy, you got it" response to any "please upload every Tom Lehrer song, best regards." The question: what should be a sample for the uninitiated, or those who need a reminder? From the reminder, hopefully there will be the desire to actually buy the boxed set, or a few of the CDs that eBay sellers are now desperately pricing at only a few bucks. Tom was beyond having a good "batting average" on his records. He was more like an MMA fighter. Find his first 30 songs, and you can say he's maybe 24-4-2, with 24 ko's 4 ordinary draws, and maybe two clinkers. That's impressive.

 Unlike Weird Al, Tom Lehrer had a brilliant ability to mimic genres. His "Masochism Tango" is a great tango. His "Vatican Rag" is great ragtime. The lyrics were almost always delightedly evil. The best way to make fun of sentimental waltzes, love songs, college drinking songs etc. was to make the lyrics as sick as possible. And this was before Lenny Bruce. This was when sick humor was confined to some fringe magazines that often had girlie pix in them, and cartoons with captions like, "Drink your soup before it clots." Tom sang about boy scouts pimping their sisters, pigeons being poisoned in the park, and the comforts of "powdered happiness" courtesy of a dope peddler. His march song was for his cause: "Smut...and nothing but!" Equal to Cole Porter, Lehrer's rhymes were witty and unexpected ("try and hide" with "cyanide") and he'd drop classical and pop in-jokes into the melodies, too. So, which song...hmm....

Since it’s his 90th Birthday, he’d probably not say “HAPPY” birthday, and instead hope that when he goes, everyone else goes, too. Nuclear disaster is STILL on the table, after all. So down below, the choice is “We Will All Go Together When We Go,” which is an example of just about everything Tom Lehrer did so brilliantly. You'll hear an original melody AND clever rhymes (including some internals -- wait for "funeral" sneaking into "sooner or later..."). A true musician, he changes tempo (and works in a fine pun on "Down By the Old Mill Stream.") Most of all he's on target with his chosen weapon for the kill: brutal satire. 

Tom Lehrer





Well, Who Knows what "Diddy Wah Diddy" means? Peg Leg Sam?


Now that's the face of the blues, huh? Scarred up "Peg Leg Sam" also had one leg, which made him quite an authentic and colorful sight for the white musicologists who haunted small Southern towns trying to document the origins of rhythm and blues. 

Not quite as unlikely as Andrew McCrew, hobo Arthur Jackson (December 18, 1911 – October 27, 1977) survived his hobo railroad accident, and hobbled along, with humor and style, singing all kinds of tunes. Below is his take on "MR. DITTY WA DITTY." 

If you want to spend your time studying word origins, you'll find that "Diddy" in most slang dictionaries, is a variation on "Titty." You'll also find a cousin in "Diddly," which generally means nothing. Literally. "You don't mean diddly" is a popular term in the South where most people not only don't mean diddly, they don't mean diddly squat. Unless they're singing a ditty. 

If you feel like it, you can go way past Bo Diddley and his "Diddy Wa Diddy" (which he recorded in 1956 and credited to himself (as Elias Daniel) and co-writer Willie Dixon) to the old days of Fats Waller and his pal Andy Razaf. It was Razaf who wrote "That's What I Like About the South," which mentions a certain town:

“Did I tell you about the place called Doo Wah Ditty? It ain’t no town and it ain’t no city. It’s awful small, but awful pretty, that Doo Wah Ditty.”  Among those mystified by the lyrics was Jack Benny. When Phil Harris had a hit with “That’s What I Like About the South,” Jack got into a comic argument with Phil: “What is a Doo Wah Ditty? That’s all I ask!” Replied Phil: “Doo Wah Ditty is a town located in the southern part of the state at the foot of the Wah Doo Ditty Mountains and on the bank of the Ditty Wah Doo River…famous because it runs backwards.” 

Oh. But you can go backward even further. Arthur Blake (aka Blind Blake) recorded "Diddie Wah Diddie" in 1929: 

"There's a great big mystery
, and it sure is worrying me: 
this diddie wah diddie,
 this diddie wah diddie. 
I wish somebody would tell me what "diddie wah diddie" means.

Some little girl about four feet four:
"Go in, papa, and get me some more
...of your diddie wah diddie,
 your diddie wah diddie." 
I wish somebody would tell me what "diddie wah diddie" means...." 


It's likely most white people, especially the clueless Dutch and the Swedes, first heard the question sung by Leon Redbone. Leon is Dickran Gobalian, born in Cypress back on August 26, 1949.  Critics loved his cool way of wearing all white, quietly sitting with his legs crossed, and using a black singing voice. Especially if the alternative was listening to "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" (written by Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, and turned into a white hot hit by Manfred Mann, after it was first recorded by The Exciters.) 

Whatever you think a Diddy might be (and Sean Combs switched to Puff Daddy and then to P. Diddy because he thought it was cool to P with his Diddy), you'll enjoy Peg Leg's authentic take. So take it: 

Mr. Ditty Wa Ditty listen online or download - no egocentric passwords, tip jar requests or jerky "Enjoy!" exhortations 
 

ILL-USTRATED SONGS #44 WHAT KIND OF SCENT IS THAT? R&B 78rpm


Cats, one of the most popular topics for raunchy blues numbers is a raunchy twat. 

The rather delicately phrased "What kind of scent is that" is sung here with a slow strum by Bo Carter. Poor Bo, he's home alone, and his lady comes home around midnight. His ears prick up, but not his prick:

"Now baby, what kind of scent is that? Baby, what kind of scent is that??" He can't sleep. He can only ask that question again and again. As Brother Greg (Dick Gregory) used to say, "You see, we all have problems." Or to put it mathematically, sometimes cooze=blooze. 

Bo Carter, aka Armenter Chatmon (June 30, 1893 – September 21, 1964), originally worked out of Mississippi, but later sang in Memphis. As is typical with "dirty R&B" cats, he usually sang about the cock, not the twat, using the usual euphemisms: "Banana in Your Fruit Basket" and"Please Warm My Wiener" and, on a sadder note, "My Pencil Won't Write No More."

There was a time when 78rpm "dirt" was confined to either "race" records found on obscure labels in the South, or some very "sophisticated" jazz numbers sold under the counter in urban record shops and in some nightclubs. Since some people don't even get what tuxedo-wearing fellows like Dwight Fiske were singing about, it's no surprise that you'll find many more CD compilations of THIS kind of thing...them raunchy R&B tunes that put it right in your lap.

SCENT by download...or you can just listen on line. No stupid passwords or Russian spyware/link service

ILL-USTRATED SONGS #43 "I CAN TELL BY THE WAY YOU SMELL" 78 rpm


Walter Davis (March 1, 1911-October 22, 1963) is singing this sad ol' blues tune: 

"You come in here walkin' just like a goose, look like somebody just turned you loose. Doin' something wrong. Doin' something wrong...(I can) tell by the way you smell." 

Do you suppose if a fan turns at 78rpm, it makes SOME women a bit mo' tol'able? 

Born in Mississippi, Walter Davis learned early on, Missouri loves company. It was in St. Louis that his career took off, and unlike some blues guys, he did work for a major label, cutting dozens and dozens of tracks of RCA Victor's Bluebird division. He recorded sad songs like "Tears Came Rollin' Down" and dirty songs where the tears came rollin' down for a very different reason. 

78's began to go out of fashion by the time Davis suffered a debilitating stroke in 1952. He found less strenuous work sitting behind a desk at a local hotel, checking out the people as they checked in. And if some guy turned up with a ho' well, he could probably tell by the way she smelled.  

Dat Twat Smell Like a Rat - listen online or download on the down low