According to Library of Congress records (yes, this blog does actual research), in 1967 Jack Lonshein’s Concentric Records registered several tunes written by Bobby Cole. These include “The Debutant,” (that's the masculine spelling, the female is debutante) “Never Ask the Hour,” “When She was In Love With Me,” “Get Off Looking Good,” “At the Darkest Hour,” “I Never Saw the Shadows” and “Checkerboard Life.” Among others.
An acetate demo was made for one side of what I assume was going to be the follow-up to Bobby’s “A Point of View” album. The tracks, in order, are: “Get Off Looking Good,” “Drink this Cup,” “Life Rolls On,” “The Midnight Flower,” “How the Lonely Spend Their Time” and “When She Was In Love With Me.”
The upbeat “Life Rolls On” could have been a single, b/w “I Never Saw the Shadows.” Those two tracks, and most of what Concentric copyrighted eventually surfaced via a CD-R on Jack Lonshein’s invented “A Different Journey” label.
Technically, Concentric registered the copyright so Jack had some authority to authorize...an unauthorized bootleg. Maybe? The songs are copyrighted to "Robert Cole," though. Jack apparently didn’t toss any royalties to the Cole estate, but who knows how many copies were sold and if he even knew an address for any of Bobby's estranged family, and if they or perhaps Karen (the woman he was living with) was in charge of the estate. The CD-R, in these early days of the Net, was not sold through eBay or promoted via YouTube, but was pretty much only discovered by someone doing a Google search and finding the now defunct JazzmanRecords (Ron Meyers) website. The photo above was probably taken by Ron Meyers, hence the sort of oddball credit line.
LIFE ROLLS ON - listen online, download. NO ego passwords. NO self-entitled Paypal demand. NO dodgy download site from Eurotrashia or Putinville
I NEVER SAW THE SHADOWS - listen online, download, etc.
“Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December…”
On December 8th many remember John Lennon, 1980. And on December 19th, a few remember Bobby Cole, 1996. Yes, Bobby covered a Beatles song now and then. I assume Bobby saw John once in a while; Bobby’s apartment was next door to The Dakota. He told me that he sometimes shared a park bench with another resident of The Dakota, Lauren Bacall.
To this day, tourists turn up at The Dakota, sidle close to the spot where John Lennon was shot down, and smile for the camera. They don’t get to go any further. The first time I was actually inside The Dakota was when I was with Bobby. Bobby knew Andrea Akers, a very attractive actress. She appeared in several 1970’s TV shows, though not always in a lot of scenes. Still, she was in “Baretta,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “Police Woman,” “Taxi,” “Dallas,” “Hart to Hart,” and “Dukes of Hazzard.” Her last credits were in a 1986 episode of “Moonlighting” and as the “Blonde Saleswoman” in the 1986 film “Nothing in Common.” (She died at the age of 58 in 2002).
I wasn’t exactly taking notes at the time, but I do remember The Dakota as being pretty gloomy. The interior was spacious, darkly lit, and very quiet. It had the vibe of an empty museum. I could see why it might be suitable for some urban horror movie like “Rosemary’s Baby.” Andra’s apartment had pleasant sunlight coming in, ceilings higher than your average NYC apartment, and once inside, the thick walls kept things very quiet, and there wasn't even the sound of outside traffic.
The talk did get around to acting, and Bobby mentioned his favorite director of all time. “I call him AWESOME Welles,” he said. He dropped the names of some pretty obscure Welles movies (“Black Magic” from 1949 was one). As usual, and just in casual conversation, Bobby revealed himself once again to be far more than a “saloon singer.” He had very esoteric tastes in movies, poetry, and even philosophy. How many half-drunk denizens enjoying him play on a Saturday night, would’ve guessed that on Sunday morning while they were sleeping it off, he’d be at the Church of the Healing Christ, paying close attention to the sermon?
And so it is once again, that December brings thoughts of John Lennon and Bobby Cole. And below? An item from March 1986. There are a few tapes (transferred to digital) of stuff like this. These are random evenings at various nightclubs, caught via a portable cassette recorder slapped down at a table nearby. Bobby may not even have been aware of it. It’s pretty frustrating that these tapes are marred by the mindless chatter of the bar's fun-seekers for whom the music was secondary.
“A Day in the Life” doesn’t exactly lend itself to a jazz treatment, but Bobby gets off on the quiet and mournful opening. He and his trio take a cool detour on the instrumental passage, which sounds very much more booze-fueled than the hallucinatory Pepper version. And then it’s back to “I heard the news today…” And some days, the news is rather sad, isn’t it? But today, the news for a select few is that there’s another item posted on the blog, remembering Bobby.
A Day in the Life - Listen Online, Download. NO ego password. NO paypal begging. NO dodgy download site from Eurotrashland or Putinville
Back in the 50's and early 60's, a mild form of piracy was the "cover song." Somebody has a hit, and some weasel, usually on an indie label, tries a sound-alike version to divert sales. "The Chipmunk Song" was such a smash hit, Paul Sherman covered it, even though it had to take time to mess around with the speeded-up vocals of his faux-chipmunks.
"The Chipmunk Song" was a masterpiece in a way; a novelty that captured the greed of snot-gargling high-pitched incomprehensible brats...but made it lovable and funny by turning them into cartoony chipmunks. The brats sing about how they can't wait to get their toys ("Me, I want a hooooola-hoooop") and one of them is too obnoxious to care if he's on key ("Alvin!")
In the original, the parental voice of "David Seville" was supplied by the song's actual creator, Ross Bagdasarian (Sherman's version doesn't quite spell his name correctly). Ross's previous novelty hits included the noxious "Come Onna My House" (creepily sung by Rosemary Clooney in dialect) and, just a half a year earlier, "Witch Doctor," where speeded-up vocals included an infectious nonsense-word chorus most people knew by heart "Ooo eeeh, oooh ah ah...ting tang walla walla bing bang..."
Paul Sherman? A fan of novelty songs, Paul was dubbed "The Clown Prince of Rock and Roll" when he DJ'd at WINS, along Murray The K and Stan Z. Burns. He joined the station in 1943, well before it became the hot spot on the dial for teen music fans. Born July 10, 1916 in Brooklyn, Paul, like most of the WINS crew, grew up a fan of Big Band music and hipster jazz. Murray the K called his show a "swingin' soiree," which was hardly a hip term his teen audience could relate to. When he was hanging with The Beatles, he was twice their age and wearing a pretty silly-looking hipster hat. When he first tried novelty singles, he chose to cover The Treniers' "Out the Bushes," with dated slang terms like "fan it" mixed in.
40-something Sherman, a graduate of Queens College, worked with Dickie Goodman on the 1958 novelty "Santa and the Satellite," released on the Luniverse label. It was clumsily credited as "A Buchanan and Goodman prod. with Paul Sherman." The same year, he went over to Baton, a small label run by Sol Rabinowitz, and created his "Chipmunk Song" cover. Baton was best known for R&B singles, having had a hit with its very first release, "A Thousand Stars" by The Rivileers. Rabinowitz had walked the song into the local black music station, WWRL, and managed to get DJ Tommy "Dr. Jive" Smalls to play it.
No such luck happened with Paul Sherman's single, which wasn't fast enough to exploit The Chipmunks' success. "The Chipmunk Song" arrived in November of 1958 and climbed to the top of the charts by Christmas. The album “Let’s All Sing with the Chipmunks” was quickly recorded in December of 1958 and included “Alvin’s Harmonica” which was released in February of 1959, as the follow-up single. It nearly reached #1 as well, landing at #3. Paul's single, "The Chipmunk Song" b/w "Alvin's Harmonica," probably came...and went...around February or March.
Paul didn't become a WINS dj with clout until around 1962, when he replaced Bob Lewis as a weekend music spinner. It doesn't seem that he tried to push another novelty song even when he had more power. Murray the K, by comparison, dubbed himself "The Lone Twister" and played his own record (also called "The Lone Twister" and released by Atlantic) without telling listeners it was him.
In 1965, WINS was sold to Westinghouse Broadcasting, and one day the music died. The beloved rock and roll station ceded to Cousin Brucie's WABC, and to the WMCA "Good Guys," and became "all news." Some fans couldn't believe it. WHO would keep the dial on a news channel all day? People did. People also turned it on periodically for the weather, sports or traffic info. The need for such a station was almost immediately justified by the notorious New York City blackout in November. Transistor radios were all tuned to all-news WINS. Paul Sherman had been retained by the station, and easily transitioned into his new job. In fact, Paul became part of the news in 1974 when Joey Gallo (yes, immortalized via a Bob Dylan song) was shot. The killer wanted to surrender, and avoid being "accidentally" gunned down by police. His lawyer called on...Paul Sherman at WINS for help.
Sherman retired after 38 years at WINS, and like a good New Yorker, moved to Florida. He died two years later, at the age of 66.
Today, few kids "want a plane that loops the loop" or a hula hoop. They'd rather have a drone and some drugs. Still, around this time of year, "The Chipmunk Song" returns as a nostalgia item. The speeded-up vocals still mimic the high-pitched, snot-nosed whining of actual children. Yes, kids STILL are incomprehensible at that age. Some things never change.
PAUL SHERMAN'S VERSION of THE CHIPMUNK SONG - instant download, listen on line. No hidden links to creepy re-direct websites. No Paypal donation requests. No egocentric passwords.
“This Christmas” is a gift from The Refugees, and like so many Christmas presents, it's being re-gifted. In this case, to YOU. It’s being sent with this dick of a caveat: “If you like Darlene Love’s “Christmas: Baby Please Come Home” or “Jingle Bell Rock,” you might find their harmonizing intensely cheerful!
If you can't take more than 15 seconds of this thing, that's ok, as long as you get the idea that this trio is talented and that their try at commercial Christmas immortality is no worse than John or Paul's solo offerings. You wouldn't listen to "Wonderful Christmastime" and think the guy incapable of writing "Yesterday." Here, The Refugees are creating an original that harks back to pop Christmas tunes they loved growing up. In reality, their CDs mostly offer rock that fits on the shelf with any good country-tinged group. If you have The Eagles or other Californians of that type, you might try The Refugees. I bought an autographed CD from their website, as I did with Bryndle, a similar bunch of solo singer/songwriters who came together to form a kind of modest super-group.
Bryndle's male vocalists are no longer with us; Kenny Edwards and Andrew Gold. The female vocalists were Karla Bonoff (still on the road solo) and Wendy Waldman, who joined The Refugees. Wendy recorded many a solo album, and her music's been covered by artists from Vanessa Williams (“Save the Best for Last”) to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (“Fishin’ in the Dark”). Fun trivia: her father, Fred Steiner, wrote the “Perry Mason” TV theme.
Deborah Holland was the lead singer for Animal Logic, which included Stanley Clarke and Stewart Copeland. She issued four solo albums, but found steady work as a Professor of Music at Cal State. Apparently shrewd enough to not quit her day job, she enjoys the on-again off-again touring and recording that being in The Refugees provides.
As mentioned on another blog entry years ago, many of the best known Christmas songs were written by Jews. It's a sick irony that some asshole firing bullets in a synagogue in Pittsburgh and screaming that all Jews must die, probably spent every December sobbing over "White Christmas" and giggling over "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" and other songs written by those awful-awful Jews. Two of the Refugees singing "This Christmas" are Jewish.
The third member is the former Cindy Bullens, who was always a rougher rocker than the other two. She adds some edge to the sweet tendences of Wendy and Deborah. Bullens has been mentioned several times on this blog. Quite simply, “Somewhere Between Heaven and Earth” (1999) is the greatest concept album by a solo artist since ‘Blood on the Tracks.’ I have an autographed pressing on her Blue Lobster label, but happily Artemis (Zevon's label) picked up and re-released it. Now known as Cydney Bullens, next year should feature his first solo album under his new name.
And so this is Christmas, and what have you done? Avoided the awful songs piped into stores…including the ones from John and Paul? And you're thankful most of John and Paul's stuff has nothing to do with Christmas? Thanks Refugees, for creating a typical upbeat radio-friendly tune...and for offering a lot more variety on the CDs. Their gift of “This Christmas" is indeed a gift, as it's downloadable from therefugees' website). While there, check out their store, and the brand new CD with all those NON-Christmas songs.
THIS CHRISTMAS - The Refugees - listen online or download. No ego passwords, Paypal demands or creepy sites re-directing you to Spywareland
Yes, it’s the dreaded holiday season. As the sage says, “It's the most wonderful time of the year…if you’re twelve.” If you’re OVER twelve, it’s probably just a lot of stress.
There aren’t too many shopping days till Christmas. Chanukah? It’s going on right now. Your Chanukah present isn’t a somber cover of “Kol Nidre,” and most certainly not one of the terrible “Chanukah Oh Chanukah” songs that tried and failed to nudge “Frosty the Snowman” off the charts. Nor is it something self-deprecatingly bit of novelty from Adam Sandler or Tom “Chanukah in Santa Monica” Lehrer. It’s “Three Hebrew Prayers,” which is more reformed than orthodox. It shows the artist's influences, which seem to include Afro-Cuban jazz, experimental classical, semi-traditional choral (of the “Carmina Burana” Carl Orff variety perhaps) as well as Semitic melody.
It’s the work of the former Goetz Gustav Ksinski, who was born in Germany, October 28, 1922. When the Nazis came to power, Goetz went to the only secure homeland for Jews: Palestine. The 16 year-old farmer (he worked on a kibbutz) taught himself piano, and was soon getting gigs with jazz bands in Jerusalem. (Yes, jazz bands in Jerusalem!)
Like the fictional “Hey Now” announcer on “The Larry Sanders Show,” Ksinski adopted a more American last name: KINGSLEY. He played organ in various California synagogues, and graduated from the LA Conservatory of Music. He appeared as an accordionist in the 1953 film “The Juggler.” The major concert halls were on the East Coast, and remarkably, within a few years, Kingsley was the musical director for Laurence Olivier’s hit “The Entertainer,” and for Josephine Baker's solo shows. He provided the music on productions of “Porgy & Bess” and others, winning Tony and Obie nominations. For TV, he worked with Lotte Lenya for a special, “The World of Kurt Weill.”
In his spare time, he wrote a lot of religious music, some of it, as John Rutter was doing in the church, was pretty hip. However, for those who aren't too keen on odd choral work and experiments melding jazz and opera and the kitchen sink, you'll find Kingsley's better known ELECTRONIC POP stuff here:
https://soundcloud.com/gershon-kingsley
Mr. Kingsley is generously streaming a wide variety of his experimental and quirky electronic work. He’s one of the rare musicians who uses Bandcamp without a pitch for money, and with no interest in a record deal. He’s put out plenty of records, starting in 1966.
That was the year Vanguard released (now it's called "dropped") “The In Sound from Way Out,” an upbeat moog exercise that featured Jacques Perrey. “Kaleidoscopic Vibrations” and “Music to Moog By” followed, and in 1970 Kingsley created the “First Moog Quartet.” They made history by performing synthesized music live at Carnegie Hall. The reaction was…not great. Experimental electronic classical music also baffled most critics (Morton Subotnik's "Silver Apples of the Moon" was released by Nonesuch circa 1967). Moog music would succeed more as a novelty, with Walter Carlos "switching on" Bach, and in 1972, Kingsley skipping up the charts with “Popcorn.”
Kingsley's "The In Sound" album amused me but my appreciation for him deepened when his "First Moog Quartet" appeared on a WGBH-produced public television broadcast. It was hosted by Arthur Fiedler, of all people. The Boston Pops conductor's series was pretty mainstream in its musical guests, but the maestro knew something was happening, and commissioned a work for his full orchestra. I remember it well: “Concerto Moogo.” For some reason, it’s not been recorded on vinyl or CD. The soundtrack from the TV show lays in a vault at WBGH in Boston.
Kingsley created a musical logo for WGBH which they still use, and did well when various TV commercials needed snazzy zappy electronic plops and fizzes to call attention to their products. He wrote TV themes in England and Germany, and in the 80’s when synth rock was something new, The Master recorded on the Relativity Theory record label. Into the 90’s the eccentric and eclectic composer offered “Cristobol,” a musical based on the 500th anniversary of Columbus allegedly discovering America, and then “Tierra,” an opera performed in Germany. “Voices from the Shadow,” with lyrics on the Holocaust, was first performed at Lincoln Center in 1998. Ten years later, and another opera appeared, “Raoul,” about the Schindler-esque Raoul Wallenberg.
Today, many of Kingsley’s blips and bops have been stolen…er…sampled…by hip hop acts. His own “Popcorn” was been covered and re-covered and was re-done via Grand Royal, the label run by the Beastie Boys. As late as 2015, Kingsley was adding tracks to his Bandcamp page. Here's wishing a happy Chanukah to Gershon Kingsley, who has created a vast array of sumptuous music...and who has to know that a lot of Christmas trees are being decorated to the sound of "Popcorn."
Three Hebrew Prayers - download or listen online. No ego passwords, no creepy Russian cloud server, no re-directs
Funny thing, if some novelty songwriter, or their estate, objects to having an entire album tossed around the Internet...the reaction is serious. As in: "Why don't they like SHARING? Why ruin our FUN in enjoying their comic music free? Capitalism is fucked up and copyright is copywrong. Comrade. Good thing they can't touch us if we use Russian websites and servers! Har har! Can you stop us? NYET!"
As we see from the headlines, nothing stops Russia and its pals...North Korea, China, Syria, or Russia's hemorrhoid, Croatia. At best, play nice, give aid, keep trading with them (but let's BDS Israel, says Peter Gabriel). ALEXANDER LITVINENKO? Who? The list of famous and ordinary people who have been killed not only in Putin-controlled countries, but in “free” countries, is a long, long list. So would be a list of jailings, pogroms and beatings meted out to a variety of creative people. PUSSY RIOT, anyone? The days of the Gulag are far from over. Ukraine, home to many powerful boxers and MMA fighters, trembles as Putin sniffs hungrily at its borders.
Back in 1959 Spencer & Spencer gave radio listeners an idea of what would happen if music was controlled the Russian way. Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" was turned into "Russian Bandstand," and yes, Comrade, a song could be a bullet up the charts, or an artist could get a bullet in the head.
The humor was a bit dark, but many comedians were having problems finding something nice to say about the guy running Russia, Nikita the K. He was the guy who pulled off his shoe and banged it on a table at the U.N., and frankly warned, "We'll Bury You." Over at the Hungri i, when Nikita the K had announced he would come to the USA and wanted to tour Disneyland, Mort Sahl simply said, “I don’t think that Red killer should be here.” He was surprised to be in the minority on this point.
Now, nearly 60 years later, and we simply accept the atrocities of Putin and his pals Kim and Assad and the others. Like hapless artists who have their fans re-upping files or using Russian servers, people in the free world shrug and say, "Nothing we can do. We can yelp a protest and look weak, or ignore this shit and try to make the best of it." Instead of saying NO to the Putin mentality, the rest of the world elects people just like him. So the guy in America and the guy in Saudi Arabia ignore protests over a slain journalist.
As those who've downloaded the entire Paul Simon discography might note, one track shrugs off depression with the message "Have a good time." Living well is the best revenge, especially if the money you save on music can go toward buying drugs or booze. In fact, a good time can be a preoccupation with downloading just for the sake of downloading, and if the Russians toss some spyware or malware in the download or it comes through via an ad on a dodgy website, at least you're not gonna die from it, like ALEXANDER LITVINENKO.
Spencer and Spencer was the name used by Mickey Schorr and Dickie Goodman for a few novelty tracks in 1959. Previously, Dickie Goodman’s singles were credited to Buchanan and Goodman and his partner was Bill Buchanan. It’s possible Dickie didn’t want it to seem like he had a permanent new partner, but it’s also possible that since the new combo traded more in gags and less in “break-ins,” it would raised DJ expectations and disappointed everyone to put the needle on the groove and NOT hear questions answered with cut up versions of pop tunes. After the Schorr teaming, Dickie went solo for decades of "break-in" singles, some becoming hits. They've all been gathered on compilation CDs sold (but, strangely, not tossed onto Russian servers for everyone's enjoyment) by his son Jon.
There's probably a Russian server hosting somebody who is giving away the entire Goodman discography, and some fans squealing in shoutboxes, "Thank God for Russia!"
RUSSIAN BANDSTAND - listen on line or download, no spyware, porn ads or egocentric passwords
