Podcasts about Teresa Brewer

Your Humble Host is here with Volume 178 of Sounds Like Radio as The Great Gildersleeve from June 25, 1952 meets an interesting gal behind the counter of the store's complaint department. He went there to show Leroy how to step up and return an item but once Gildy sees who's handling the complaints he loses his. Oh my, not a shining example for Leroy but Gildy just can't help it, he thinks he's found a million dollar baby. To help out our boy here we've asked Dinah Shore, Fred Astaire, Joni James, Bing Crosby, Peggy Lee, Andy Williams & Teresa Brewer for their advice. Then it's a special bonus time stereo song from Hank Williams.

Board Boys are back, baby, to check out Kutna Hora from CGE, a game about collecting cold, hard silver and fiddling around with a cardboard computer. Also in this episode, we reveal our all-time top ten lists (not legally binding) and that takes up a LOT of the episode. 0:00 - Intro 4:50 - The Boardboys Official Top 10 List 1:07:35 - Kutna Hora Intro 1:11:10 - Silver Dollar by Teresa Brewer 1:12:05 - Kutna Hora Initial Thoughts 1:14:30 - Kutna Hora Pros 1:29:35 - Kutna Hora Cons 1:42:05 - Kutna Hora Final Thoughts and Ratings 1:47:30 - Bump or Dump - Beast 1:50:55 - Outro - Discord - BGA - Patreon - Visit theboardboys.com and leave us iTune Reviews! 1:51:55 - White Silver Sands - Don Rondo          

In their inaugural visit to the year of our lord ninteen hundred and fifty three, Andrew and Dan immerse themselves in a time of novelty songs and jukebox hits. It's the Eisenhower era, baby! America's number one! And so was a young gal who was simply addicting to the idea of waltzing again with someone she knew. That gal's name: Teresa Brewer. 

In tonight's video, I read true stories about Sleep Paralysis, Lucid Dreams and Paranormal Experiences. I don't usually read these types of stories but thought way not. Reading 2 stories in tonights video is InterscareWifey

This really is it folks! Episode 100, final and last Forgotten Songs from the Broom Cupboard podcast. No Sinatra type returns this time. Hope you enjoy this 90 minute trawl through some old favourites. I'm not abandoning the cause and will be using 78rpm records for a couple of drama type projects. Link below to one. The Brownbread Tapes. He's a man who just might have a bit of a dodgy occupation. Twelve episodes in all, done to various 78 records. Short and hopefully sweet.  https://thebrownbreadtapes.libsyn.com Here are the artists in our finale- Bob Skyles, Eddie Peabody, Winifred Atwell, Harry Parry, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Kay Starr, Tenneesse Ernie Ford, Frank and James McCravy, Teresa Brewer, Joe Turner, Jimmie Rodgers, Harry Torrani, Michael Holliday, Billy Banks, Hoagy Carmichel, Michijakko, Bob Hamilton Trio, Bessie Smith, Saunders King, Hot Lips Paige, Lou Ella Robertson, Tiny Bradshaw, Lulu Zeigler and to see us out, Nat King Cole. The utterly marvellous My Flaming Heart. Its been an absolute pleasure. Stay safe, be happy and healthy.

January 17, 1954 - This episode begins with Jack Benny and the gang have lunch at the drug store and ends with Jack fighting a parking ticket in court, References incule Terry Moore's ermine bathing suit, golfers Fred Wanpler, Lloyd Mangrum, Sam Sneed and Ben Hogen, musicians Bing Crosby, Liberace, The Bell Sisters, The Ink Spots, The Fred Waring Choir, and Teresa Brewer with her song "Ricochet Romance". Plus the movie "The Eddie Cantor Story", detective Boston Blackie, and Mandrake the Magician.

Roger Ashby does a deep dive into the artists that shaped the future of music. Listen to the Roger Ashby Oldies Show anytime on the iHeartRadio app.

#067 Broadcast 067 - Episode 063 - The Crooners - 20221203 - 3 in 1 = Teresa Brewer by Jim Reeves

Pete and Ben find themselves pulled between critical poles on this episode, enjoying the charisma of the guest-star but lamenting her musical choices, and also finding that while the backstage runner has aged poorly, the UK Spot might be the greatest musical secret the Muppet Show has ever concealed from American audiences.

It's time for Sounds Like Radio Volume 114 and a Great Gildersleeve from May 14, 1947. You may have noticed we've gone back in time and have not proceeded to the next normally heard Willard Waterman Gildy today which takes place in December of 1950. Why? Because the next several Willard Waterman Gildy episodes are all involving their Christmas season. Rather than play Christmas shows for you in September and October we're going to delay those episodes until our own last week of November. This way the current Waterman Christmas season will synchronize with our own Christmas season. We're not skipping any, we're just not listening to them till the last week of November. Instead today we're going back to the 2 months of Gildy episodes that occurred just BEFORE our Sounds Like Radio Episode One. We started Sounds Like Radio Vol. 1 with the Oct. 22, 1947 show and today we're listening to the May 14, 1947 show. Episodes we've never heard on Sounds Like Radio before. In today's show Peevy, our friendly neighborhood druggist has skipped town. He's missing!!! Where's he gone??? You'll even hear a very rare appearance of Mrs. Peevy today!! We'll find out what's what and to help out will be Kay Starr, the Ink Spots, Jaye P. Morgan, Bing Crosby, Teresa Brewer & Dean Martin who will even sing us an encore classic. A classic Harold Peary Gildersleeve from the period just before we started here in Volume One. Fear not we'll return to the Willard Waterman Christmas season of shows, not skipping any, starting in late November. Now let's enjoy figuring out just Where Is Peevy?

Teresa Brewer was an American singer who was one of the most prolific and popular female singers of the 1950s.

We sure hope you like our podcast episode better than we liked this Muppet Show episode, which had us shaking with rage at Kermit, Scooter, diet culture, and whoever thought this swill was a good idea, even in 1977. This backstage plot really takes the cake and you're just going to have to lettuce workout our feelings about it. We promise to get back to less weighty matters less week. It's not all bad… There are some cute songs, a fourth-wall-breaking Pigs in Space, and we have our own very special guest star, Tough Pigs' Joe Hennes! https://muppeturgy.com/episodes/teresa-brewer

IT'S TIME TO WATCH THE MUPPETS! This week with special guest Teresa Brewer. Distracted rants include but are not limited to our crowded kitchens, Spin City, the final days of Jim Henson, ZipZaps, Playstation, Scooter attractive with no personality, American Pickers, nearing 50 episodes, and much more!"Miss Piggy overhears Kermit tell Scooter that she's getting too fat to do her ballet number next week, so she decides to go on a diet. She breaks a scale weighing herself, and collapses after exercising with a TV show for a few minutes."Follow us:Twitter.com/ittwtmInstagram.com/ittwtm ITTWTM shirts!https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/21898238-ittwtm?store_id=333945 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Donnell Cooper, President of the Greater Houston Frontiers Club, is back. The Greater Houston Frontiers Club (formerly North Houston Frontiers Club) has been a staple in the Houston community and conscious in serving students with scholarships. We talk about the 34th Anniversary of the Greater Houston Frontiers Club Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Scholarship Program on Monday, January 17, 2022. This year will be a virtual presentation of our program airing 9am on KHOU-11. Our theme this year is "I am My Brother's Keeper." Teresa Brewer, Executive Director of the Black Heritage Society, and Lewis Johnson, Chair of MLK Festival, reminds us of the 44th Annual “Original MLK Day Parade & Festival and Weekend Celebration in Downtown Houston. Following the parade is the Houston MLK Festival downtown City Hall on Jan. 17, 2022, starts immediately after the parade until 5 p.m. Featuring live musical performances, kid-friendly activities, art, craft vendors, marketing booths, great food, and more! Free for the public to attend.

More Muppet Show episodes!? It's not as unlikely as you think! In this episode, we cover the following... episodes: Teresa Brewer, Don Knotts, and John Cleese yaaaaaayyyy If you can't get enough Kermitment, follow @KermitmentPod, where we'll tweet fun stuff and interact with our listeners! And you can follow each of us individually: Matt: @MatthewGaydos Sam: @im_sam_schultz

Amici Miei,in questa puntata faremo una piccola carrellata dei disastri culturali, industriali ed ecologici causati dalla dabbenaggine umana! Dall'incendio della Biblioteca di Alessandria all'inondazione di melassa di Boston fino alla follia della Marion County nel Missouri del 1993. Come sempre, sotto la mia delirante voce, una non così disastrosa Colonna Sonora!RROBBA TI COMA PODCASTEPISODIO 057 - DISASTRI CAUSATI DALL'UOMOTRACK LIST01. Walking in your footsteps (The Police)02. The skies do not fall (Agora OST, by Dario Marianelli)03. Circle of life (Artisti Vari)04. Molasses, molasses (Teresa Brewer)05. Dust Bowl Dance (Mumford & Sons)06. Aral (Catherine Lara)07. Tragedy (Bee Gees)08. Chariots Of Fire (Vangelis)09. We are the champions (Queen)

Two great shows for you tonight!

Two great shows for you tonight!

Bings back!

Best tracks and stonking tunes from Tex Beneke, Frankie Froba, Teresa Brewer, Fats Waller, Anita O'Day, Lulu Zeigler, Lorrae Desmond, Lonnie Donegan, Les Paul, Mary Ford, Leslie Hutchinson, Sugar Chile Robinson, Jimmie Rodgers, Harry Torrani, Phyllis Robins, McCravy Brothers, Geoffrey Goodheart, Tiny Bradshaw, Bob Crosby, Marion Mann and Frankie Laine.

This week The Muppet Show welcomes special guest stars Bob Hope and Teresa Brewer! Beaker gets eaten, Animal gets wild, and... Gonna be honest here. We don't have many kind things to say about #222. Because it is not a kind episode. It's mean and not okay. You've been warned. Hi-ho and welcome once again to A Feat of Lunatic Daring, the most sensational inspirational celebrational muppetational podcast about Jim Henson and his Muppets! Things are rough right now. Let's talk about something that makes us happy, namely the unmistakable genius of James Maury Henson. https://www.lunaticdaring.com/sources (Sources Page) https://twitter.com/LunaticDaring (Twitter) https://www.instagram.com/lunaticdaring/ (Instagram) https://www.facebook.com/lunaticdaring (Facebook) Also follow https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9DdpUYDBkCCM4BfGRJcpTg? (Antithesis Audio) on YouTube for future video content Chad Instagram & Twitter: https://my.captivate.fm/twitter.com/chadjshonk (@chadjshonk) Nick Twitter: @https://my.captivate.fm/twitter.com/ntjackson17 (ntjackson17) Music by Seth Podowitz https://twitter.com/audiobookseth (@audiobookseth) © Antithesis Audio

The Wang, Wang Blues- Teresa Brewer, Take me in your arms- Les Paul and Mary Ford, The Duke's idea and Skyliner- Charlie Barnet-, Keep your seats please- George Formby, I never knew heaven could speak- Bob Crosby, vocals Marion Mann, Effie Atherton-Dennis the Menace, Jimmie Rodgers- Away out on the mountain, Harry Torrani- The watermill yodel, Claude Hopkins- Ain't misbehaving, Fats Waller- Vipers rag, Albert Ammons- Boogie woogie stomp, Hobo Jack Taylor- The bum's rush, Wingie Malone-South with the boarder, Johnny Rae- What's the use, Frankie Laine- High Noon.

Roger Ashby does a deep dive into the artists that shaped the future of music. Listen to the Roger Ashby Oldies Show anytime on the iHeartRadio app.

Music can be therapeutic and evoke memories from the "good old days". But here's to Better Days. Come take a journey down memory lane. If you long to remember times gone by, listen to these memorable songs. Tap your feet, sing along, and smile. "Those were the days."  ***** Join the conversation on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008232395712 **** or by email at dannymemorylane@gmail.comIn this episode you'll hear: 1)     In The Mood by Glenn Miller & His Orchestra 2)     Fly Me To The Moon by Frank Sinatra (with Count Basie and his Orchestra) 3)     Rum And Coca-Cola by The Andrews Sisters 4)     Cab Driver by The Mills Brothers 5)     On The Atchison, Topeka And The Santa Fe by Johnny Mercer And The Pied Pipers 6)     Who's Sorry Now by Nat King Cole 7)     Opus No. 1 by Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra 8)     Pretty Baby by Kay Starr 9)     New York, New York by Steve Lawrence 10) More by Perry Como 11) Old Cape Cod by Patti Page 12) Somewhere There's A Someone by Dean Martin 13) Only You (And You Alone) by The Hilltoppers 14) You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To by Nancy Wilson 15) Chattanooga Choo-Choo by Ray Anthony & His Orchestra 16) I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter by Billy Williams 17) I Left My Heart In San Francisco by Tony Bennett 18) Sidewalks Of Cuba by The Woody Herman Orchestra 19) Every Day I Have The Blues by Count Basie & His Orchestra (featuring Joe Williams, vocal) 20) I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair by Ella Fitzgerald 21) Till I Waltz Again With You by Teresa Brewer & Jack Pleis' Orchestra 22) Hot Toddy by Ted Heath's Orchestra 

Bings back!

PROGRAM OF MAY 30, 2021 LARRY’S SELECTIONS: Esso Einai El Hehorim-Cantor Moshe Koussevitzky-1948 V’Yizku Liros Vonim-Chaim Schwartz-1991 B’Lev Echod-Hedva Amrani-1978 S’iz Shoyn An Alteh Meinseh-Pesachke Burstein-1946 Hinei Keil Yeshuosi-Achva-1985 Ribono Shel Olam-Fraydeleh Oysher-1948 Pushkeh, Pushkeh, Pushkeh (spoof of the Teresa Brewer hit “Music, Music, Music)-Megama-1988 Downtown Strutters Ball (spoof of “Darktown Strutters Ball”)-Mickey Katz-1958 Al […] ↓ Read the rest of this entry...

Bob Thiele and Bobby Hackett ..two records for Flying Dutchman in the 1970's . . "The 20's Score Again" - with Hackett, Pee Wee Erwin, Max Kaminsky, Urbie Green, Buddy Morrow, Johnny Mince, Clarence Hutchenrider, Hank Jones, Art Ryerson, Richard Davis, Ted Sommer . . ."What A Wonderful World" - Hackett, Vic Dickenson, Green, Mince, Hutchenrider and Teresa Brewer . .great, late period Condon-style dixieland --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/john-clark49/support

Teresa Brewer was one of the most popular singers of the 1950s, recording more than 600 songs. She had 28 hits, including “Music Music Music,” “’Til I Waltz Again with You,” and “Ricochet.” She was on the Billboard charts for five years. Record research author Joel Whitburn joins me on this interview and he plays a song Teresa wrote and recorded about a popular baseball star. She’ll also tell us which one of her 28 was her biggest hit record.

We're providing a much-needed stress reliever for the busy holiday season by exploring funny Christmas songs. Artists include Dropkick Murphys, Teresa Brewer, The Snake Oil Willie Band, Paul Evans, The Moron Brothers, Ruth Moore, and Oscar the Grouch. https://jinglejank.com/episodes/013.html

Tonight, we delve into "Punky Punkin" written by Cy Coben, originally performed by Teresa Brewer and "The Great Pumpkin Waltz" written and originally performed by Vince Guaraldi Written, researched, edited, and hosted by Sheila O'Neill Find all of our episodes, contact info, and more at radiotransylvania.com and find full songs, related videos, and vlogs on our YouTube channel.

Join us on the podcast this week for The Muppet Show special guest star: super famous singer we've never heard of, Teresa Brewer! Plus, Star Trek Original Series episode, "The Apple" Praise be to Vaal! What is this love, touching and togetherness you speak of?

Join us on the podcast this week for The Muppet Show special guest star: super famous singer we've never heard of, Teresa Brewer! Plus, Star Trek Original Series episode, "The Apple" Praise be to Vaal! What is this love, touching and togetherness you speak of?

The whole episode is from a charity/ thrift shop haul. Some familiar artists amongst them- Georgia Gibbs, Mugsy Spanier, Eve Boswell, Billy Banks and Teresa Brewer. Otherwise some great discoveries. Shirley Abicair sings the title song from the 1956 film, 'Smiley.' She was Australian, played the zither and came to Britain in 1952. Still with us at the age of 92. Harry James is hardly forgotten but this is a pared back sound from the trumpeter and band leader, Feet dragging blues. Josh White, folk singer and political activist sings I'm gonna move to the outskirts of town. Another of the recordings in did in London in 1950. Tino Rossi, despite his Italian sounding name was a hugely successful French singer of the 1940s and 50s and sold 30 million records world wide.  Roberto Murolo, champion high diver, sings La Mogliera. He specialised in Neopolitan songs. Love this one. The Four bright sparks sing about dreaming in 1930. Orchestras and bands next. John Kirkby with Fifi's Rhapsody from 1941. He was a double bass player and champion of the chamber jazz style. Early 1950s R&B big band sound from Earl Bostick, Lou Preager Orchestra, from the Hammersmith Palais. with The night the floor fell in. Vocals by Paul Rich. My record of the day is the Roy Fox band from The Kit Kat Restaurant, London in 1933. The Denver born bandleader directs Sid Buckman singing My Wild Oats and the vocals of Peggy Dell on We're all riding riding on a rainbow. Peggy Dell was born in Ireland as Margaret Tisdall. Its an unusual voice for a British big band of the time. Happy listening. Stay safe.  

A short one this time round. Some snippets of some old favourites: Roberto Inglez, Leslie(Hutch) Hutchinson, Bob Crosby, Lorrae Desmond, Bob Skyles, Jimmie Rodgers, Billy Williams, Harry Torrani and Teresa Brewer. Its mainly a wee chat about what the programme is all about and why I select the records I play.                                    If you'd like to get in touch I can be emailed at milestubb@gmail.com  

The Hit Parade Jukebox series highlights the music from the days when the jukebox dominated our after-school social activities. And the songs we played with our nickels, dimes, and quarters determined the “hits” of the day. This episode features: (1) Music, Music, Music by Teresa Brewer (w/ The Dixieland All-Stars) (2) L-O-V-E by Peggy Lee (3) Oh Baby Mine by The Four Knights (4) You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To by Nancy Wilson (5) Round And Round by Perry Como (6) Sweet Pumpkin by Freda Payne (7) Snootie Little Cutie by Bobby Troup (8) Are You Certain by Sarah Vaughan (9) Teach Me Tonight by The DeCastro Sisters (10) Come Fly With Me by Frank Sinatra (11) Opus No. 1 by The Mills Brothers (12) Heart Of My Heart by The Four Aces (13) Bugle Call Rag by The Modernaires (14) Midnight Flyer by Nat King Cole (15) Just for Old Time's Sake by The McGuire Sisters (16) Comes Love by Billie Holiday & Her Orchestra (17) Route 66 by The Four Freshmen (18) Melodie D'Amour by The Ames Brothers (19) The Lady Is A Tramp by Sammy Davis Jr (20) Send Me The Pillow You Dream On by Dean Martin (21) Allegheny Moon by Patti Page (22) Where The Blue Of The Night (Meets The Gold Of The Day) by Tommy Mara

We focus on the animated Hardy Boys' Saturday morning bubblegum band! Did you know that Frank Hardy was a member of The Grass Roots? Political bubblegum with Boyce and Hart and The Brady Bunch's Eve Plumb. A dramatic reading from a Hardy Boys comic book! Plenty of great bubblegum pop with The Archies, Ohio Express, The Fun and Games, The Strangeloves, 1910 Fruitgum Company, The Love Generation, Teresa Brewer, Alan Blakely, Soulful Dynamics, and The Grass Roots.

Tubeway Army - That's Too Bad (1978)  All tracks on the original vinyl single were credited to 'Valerian', the name that Numan (born Gary Webb) had chosen for himself prior to Tubeway Army's début album; these would be his last releases using that nom de plume; henceforward he would call himself Gary Numan. Tubeway Army - Oh! Didn't I Say (1978) Tubeway Army - My Shadow In Vain (1978) Gary Numan - Metal (1979) Parliament - I Call My Baby Pussycat (1970) Which came first?  The Jaggerz - I Call My Baby Candy (1970) Which came first?  The Jaggerz - I'll Be Okay In The Morning (1975) The Jaggerz - (That's Why) Baby I Love You (1969) The Jaggerz - With A Little Help From My Friends (1970) More Cocker than Ringo. In fact, an almost identical copy.  Wolfman Jack (w/The Jaggerz) - The Rapper (1973)  Bee Gees - Dear Mr. Kissinger (1973)  Riley Wildflower - Electric California (196?)  'The Smog Song'/'Electric California' (Beacon Records BCN-1) 196? Previously in The Gentle Soul. This was probably late 1968 or 1969.  It appears that Riley Wyldflower's real name is Riley Cummings. He hooked up with Peter Tork and played with Tork's group in 1968-69. Striking out on his own, he formed a group called 'Peter Tork And/Or Release' with girlfriend Reine Stewart on drums (she had played drums on part of 33⅓ Revolutions Per Monkee), Riley "Wildflower" Cummings on bass and - sometimes - singer/keyboard player Judy Mayhan. Tork said in April 1969, "We sometimes have four. We're thinking of having a rotating fourth. Right now, the fourth is that girl I'm promoting named Judy Mayhan." "We're like Peter's back-up band", added Stewart, "except we happen to be a group instead of a back-up band." Release hoped to have a record out immediately, and Tork has said that they did record some demos, which he may still have stored away somewhere. According to Stewart the band were supposed to go to Muscle Shoals as the backing band for Mayhan's Atlantic Records solo album Moments (1970) but they were ultimately replaced. They mainly played parties for their "in" friends and one of their songs was considered for the soundtrack to Easy Rider, but the producers - who had also produced Head - eventually decided not to include it. Release could not secure a record contract, and by 1970 Tork was once again a solo artist." Adriano Celentano - Prisencolinensinainciusol (FM Jackson Remix) (2015) Sha Na Na - Only One Song (1972) Written by Scott Simon, who co-write "Sandy" for the movie Grease.    Steely Dan - Glamour Profession (1980) Teresa Brewer (and Oily Rags) - Mama Sure Could Swing A Deal (1973) Oily Rags is the stage name for musical duo, Chas Hodges and Dave Peacock, who are joined by a bassist and drummer, two percussionists, three guitarists (including Pete Frampton), an electric keyboardist, and a 6-piece horn section on this track. The Brady Kids - Drummer Man (Sam Redmore Remix) (2013) The Collage - She's Just Laughing At Me (1968) The Everly Brothers - Yves (1970) The Four Seasons - Wall Street Village Day (1969)  The Move - Do Ya (original version) (1971) The Move - Message From The Country (1971)  Tingling Mother's Circus - New York Mining Disaster 1941 (1968)

The first Forgotten Songs from the Broom Cupboard to be recorded as a podcast. Its the same format as ever, an eclectic mix of lesser known, forgotten and neglected artists and songs. Some 'B' sides too. All on good old 78rpm. Its a Scottish start -  the Trinidad born pianist Winifred Atwell launches us with Highland Boogie. Listen out for the mad bagpipes. A proper pipe band with The Bowhill Colliery Pipe Band next(pictured). They won the Pipe Band World Championship in 1947. Kay Starr, Kitty Kallen, Lonnie Donegan, Bill Haley - with more Boogie. Richard Tauber on a Parlophone Odeon Label is our oldest record - 1942. Otherwise its 1950s all the way. Teresa Brewer was one of the most prolific singers of the 1950s, covering all genres she is reckoned to have recorded over 600 tracks in the decade. Here she sings Wang, Wang Blues. Is it just me or is it rather naughty? Then we have a new discovery for me: Arthur Godfrey, U.S radio and TV broadcaster and entertainer. A troubled man by all accounts. It's an entertaining record though.            There's more of course.

Episode: 1841 "All I want is Loving you and Music,Music, Music!"  Today, music, music, music!

An all 78rpm episode. The usual eclectic mix of little played or forgotten songs and artists. Presented by Miles Tubb Amongst others:  Tennessee Ernie Ford, Teresa Brewer ( a long carreer- she was even a guest star on The Muppets) , Ted Heath      (Britain's most popular post war big band leader), Kay Starr, David Whitfield, Josephine Bradley(ballroom dancer, teacher and strict tempo bandleader) , Nat King Cole, Everly Bros, Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington, Frankie Laine and Fletcher Henderson's Livery Stable Blues- Henderson, along with Duke Ellington, is considered to be be one of the most influential arrangers and band leaders in jazz history.

Jack talks record collecting, hunting down rare old 78s and discusses the music of: Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians, Rudy Vallee and his Connecticut Yankees, The Five Jones Boys, Fred Astaire, Dan Russo and his Oriole Orchestra, Ink Spots, Red Foley with Anita Kerr Singers, Bob Skyles and his Skyrockets, Andy Kirk and his Clouds of Joy, Lonnie Johnson and Elmer Snowden, Teresa Brewer with the Keys and Jack Pleis and his Orchestra. Visit: www.JackSpinsShellac.com for more info. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jackspinsshellac/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jackspinsshellac/support

Il y a fort longtemps…Il fut d’usage, pour s’octroyer les faveurs d’un peuple,que les puissants de ce monde distribuèrent pains et divertissement à foison.Depuis, le pain est devenu plus sucré ou plus gras et les jeux, par moins bien sanglants,n'ont presque plus lieu dans les cirques et portent des noms sur lequel chacun peut capitaliser.Dans cette émission que 100 % de celles et ceux à avoir apprécié ont écouté...Il est autant question de jeux que de jouets.Jazz Atlas, une émission à jouer seul ou à plusieurs, à la maison comme en plein air.. Os Mutantes (Brésil)Panis Et Circenses (Tropicalia : Ou Panis Et Circencis, 1968). The Ray Charles Singers (Etats-Unis)A Toy for A Boy (Songs For Lonesome Lovers, 1964)Extrait – A Ram Sam SamComptine chantée par les enfants de l’école Andrée Chedid à Rennes, France. Tom Tom Club (Etats-Unis)Wordy Rappinghood (Tom Tom Club, 1981). Teresa Brewer (Etats-Unis)Baby, Be My Toy (Miss Music, 1958). Cannonball Adderley With Bill Evans Trio (Etats-Unis)Toy (Know What I Mean?, 1965). Beastie Boys feat. Santigold (Etats-Unis)Don’t Play No Game That I Can Win (Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, 2011). Miriam Makeba (Afrique du Sud)Forbidden Games (The World Of Miriam Makeba, 1963). Narciso Yepes (Espagne)Romance Anonyme (Bande Originale du film Jeux Interdits, 1952). Jorge Ben (Brésil)Zagueiro (Solta O Pavao, 1975). Caroline (Canada)Le Jeu Du Téléphone (Fleurs De Papier, 1967). Horace Heidt And His Musical Knights Featuring Frankie Carl (Etats-Unis)Toy Piano Jump (Toy Piano Jump / Toy Piano Minuet, 1941)Extrait – Matauli Rowon, Flore Rovan et Wini Rovales (Ouest de Gaua, Vanuatu)Jeux d’eau (Musiques du Vanuatu : Fêtes et Mystères, 2013.Collecté par Alexandre François et Monika Stern entre 1997 et 2011). Rosalie Sani et Betula Haviha (Nord de Pentecôte, Vanuatu)Tutubwau (Musiques du Vanuatu : Fêtes et Mystères, 2013.Collecté par Alexandre François et Monika Stern entre 1997 et 2011). Huit hommes et deux enfants de l’ile Mungiki (Iles Salomon)Singing Games A, B, C (Polynesian Songs And Games From Bellona (Mungiki),Solomon Islands, 1976. Collecté par Jane Mink Rosen pour Smithsonian Folkways)Extrait – Pablo And Frank Huerito (Etats-Unis, nation Apache)Mocassin Game Song : Crow Song (Enregistré par Laura Boulton entre 1933 et 1940pour Smithsonian Folkways, album Navajo Songs, 1992). A. Paul Ortega (Etats-Unis, nation Apache)Mocassin Game (Three Worlds, 1974). Tommy Edwards (Etats-Unis)It’s All In The Game (It’s All In The Game, 1958). The Olympians (Etats-Unis)Appollo’s Mood (The Olympians, 2016). Randy Newman (Etats-Unis)You’ve Got A Friend In Me (Bande Originale du film Toy Story, 1995)

  Welcome to episode twenty-six of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. Today we’re looking at Fats Domino and “Ain’t That A Shame”. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. —-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. The best compilation of Fats Domino’s music is a four-CD box set called They Call Me The Fat Man: The Legendary Imperial Recordings. Pretty much all the information in this episode comes from Rick Coleman’s Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock ‘n’ Roll. I’ve leaned on that rather more than I normally lean on a single source for this episode, because it’s the only biography of Domino I know of, and we’re looking at Domino in more depth than most other artists we’ve looked at so far. I reference two previous episodes here. Those are episode eight on The Fat Man, and episode twelve, on Lawdy Miss Clawdy. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Today, for the third time, we’re going to look at the collaborations between Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew, and Cosimo Matassa, and the way they brought New Orleans music into the R&B and rock and roll genres. It’s been a few months since we talked about them, so you might want to refresh your memory by listening to episode eight, on “The Fat Man”, and episode twelve, on “Lawdy Miss Clawdy”. After his brief split from Imperial Records, and thus from working with Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew had returned to Imperial after Domino helped him on “Lawdy Miss Clawdy”, and the two of them resumed their collaboration. The first new track they recorded together was an instrumental called “Dreaming”, featuring members of both Domino’s touring band and of Bartholomew’s studio band. It’s credited on the label to Bartholomew as a writer, but other sources have the instrumental being written by Domino: [excerpt: Fats Domino, “Dreaming”] Whoever wrote it, the most popular hypothesis seems to be that the song was written as a tribute to Domino’s manager, Melvin Cade, who had died only five days before the session. Domino had been sleeping in the back of Cade’s car, as Cade had been speeding to get them to a show that they were late for. Cade had lost control of the car, which had been thrown ten feet into the air in a collision. Domino and the other passengers were uninjured, but Cade died of his injuries. While this was obviously tragic, it turned out to be to Domino’s benefit — Domino’s contract with Cade had given Domino only a hundred and fifty dollars a day from his shows, with Cade keeping the rest — which might often be several times as much money. With Cade’s death, Domino was free from that contract, and so the beginning of September 1952, with the death of Cade and the renewal of Domino and Bartholomew’s partnership, marks the start of the second phase of Fats Domino’s career. One of the things we’ve touched on in the previous podcasts about Dave Bartholomew and Fats Domino is the strained nature of their songwriting partnership — although this is using “strained” in a fairly loose sense, given that they continued working with each other for decades. But like with so many musical partnerships where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, both men did consider their own contribution to be the more important. Bartholomew considered himself to be the more important writer because he came up with literate stories with narrative arcs and punchlines, coupled with sophisticated musical ideas, while Domino considered himself more important because he came up with relatable, simple, ideas and catchy hooks. And, of course, Domino’s piano style and distinctive voice were crucial in the popularity of the records, just as Dave Bartholomew’s arrangement and production ideas were. And the difference in their attitudes shows up in, for example, “Going to the River”, one of the first fruits of their renewed collaboration: [Excerpt: Fats Domino, “Going to the River”] Dave Bartholomew called that “a nothing song” — and it’s easy to see what he means. Other than the tresilo bassline (and a reminder for those of you who don’t remember what that is, it’s that “bom, BOM bom” rhythmic figure that you get in almost every record Dave Bartholomew had a hand in) there’s not much of musical interest there — you’ve got Domino playing his usual triplets in the right hand on the piano, but rather than the drums emphasising the backbeat, they’re mostly playing the same triplets as the piano. The chord sequence is nothing special. and the lyrics were simplistic. But at the same time, the track did go to number two on the R&B charts, and probably would have gone to number one if it hadn’t been for the cover version by Chuck Willis: [Excerpt: Chuck Willis, “Going to the River”] That went to number four on the R&B charts. For once it wasn’t a white man having a hit with a black man’s song, but another black man, who’d heard Domino perform it live before the record was released and got in quickly with his own version. On the other hand, it wasn’t like Domino was the perfect judge of what made a hit, either. Bartholomew wrote the song “I Hear You Knocking” for Domino, but when Domino decided not to record it, Bartholomew recorded it for another artist on Imperial Records, Smiley Lewis, getting the great New Orleans piano player Huey “Piano” Smith to play in an imitation of Domino’s style: [Excerpt: Smiley Lewis, “I Hear You Knocking”] That went to number two on the R&B charts, and a cover version by the white singer Gale Storm went to number two on the pop charts. So both Domino and Bartholomew were capable of coming up with big hits in the style they perfected together, and both were capable of dismissing a potential hit when it wasn’t their own idea. But their partnership was so successful that Dave Bartholomew actually regarded Smiley Lewis as a “bad luck singer”, because when Bartholomew wrote and produced for him, the records would *only* sell a hundred thousand copies or so, compared to the much larger numbers of records that Domino sold. Domino was becoming huge in the R&B world — in early 1954 Billboard listed him as the biggest selling R&B star in the country — and he was managing to cope with it better than most. While he would miss the occasional gig from drinking a little too much, and he’d sleep around on the road more than a married man should, he was essentially a well-adjusted, private, man, who had five kids, phoned home to his wife every night, and never touched anything stronger than alcohol. That wasn’t true of the rest of his band, however. In the 1950s, heroin was the chic drug to be taking if you were a touring musician, and many of Domino’s touring band members were users. He would often have to pay to get his guitarist’s instrument out of the pawn shop, so they could go on tour, and once even had to pay off the guitarist’s back child support, to get him out of jail, as he would keep spending all his money on heroin. The one who came out worst, sadly, was Jimmy Gilchrist, who would sing with Domino’s backing band as the support act. Gilchrist died of an overdose during one of Domino’s tours in early 1954. Domino replaced him with a new support act, Jalacey Hawkins, but he only lasted a couple of weeks. According to Domino, he fired Jalacey for being too vulgar on stage, and screaming, but Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, as he would soon become known, claimed instead that it was because Domino was jealous of Hawkins’ cool leopard-skin suit. But through this turmoil, Domino and Bartholomew, with Cosimo Matassa in the control room, continued recording a whole string of hits — “Please Don’t Leave Me”, “Rose Mary”, “Something’s Wrong”, “You Done Me Wrong”, and “Don’t You Know” all went top ten on the R&B charts. For two and a half years, from September 1952 through March 1955, they would dominate the rhythm and blues charts, even though most white audiences had little idea who Fats Domino was. But slowly Domino was noticing that more and more white teenagers were starting to come to his shows — and he also started incorporating a few country songs and old standards into his otherwise R&B-dominated act, catering slightly more to a pop audience. Their first crossover hit definitely has more of Domino’s fingerprints on it than Bartholomew’s. Bartholomew was unimpressed at the session, saying that the song didn’t tell a complete story. Once it became a hit, though, Bartholomew would soften on the song, saying “‘Ain’t That a Shame’ will never die, it will be here when the world comes to an end.” He may not have been a particular fan of the song, but you’d never know it from his arrangement. Listen to the way that horn section in the intro punctuates the words, the way it doesn’t just go “You made me cry”, but “You made — BAM BAM — me cry — BAM BAM” [excerpt: Fats Domino, “Ain’t That A Shame”] That’s the kind of arrangement decision that can only be made by someone with a real feel for the material. And this is where Dave Bartholomew’s real importance to the records he was making with Fats Domino comes in. It’s all well and good Bartholomew doing great arrangements and productions for his own songs, or songs mostly written by him, but he put the same thought and attention into the arrangements even where the song was not to his taste and wasn’t his idea. Domino’s biographer Rick Coleman — to whose biography of Domino I’m extremely indebted for this episode — suggests that Dave Bartholomew’s arrangement owes a little to the old Dixieland jazz standard “Tin Roof Blues”. I can *sort of* hear it, but I’m not entirely convinced. Listen for yourself: [Excerpt: Louis Armstrong, “Tin Roof Blues”] Another possible influence on “Ain’t That A Shame” is a record by Lloyd Price, who of course had worked with both Domino and Bartholomew earlier. His “Ain’t It A Shame” doesn’t sound much like “Ain’t That A Shame”, but it does have a very Fats Domino feel, and it would be very surprising if neither Bartholomew nor Domino had heard it given their previous collaborations: [excerpt: Lloyd Price, “Ain’t It A Shame”] Indeed, early pressings of “Ain’t That A Shame” mistakenly called it “Ain’t It A Shame”, presumably because of confusion with the Lloyd Price song. Bartholomew and Matassa also put more thought into the production than was normal at this time. When mastering Domino’s records, now that Matassa’s studio had finally switched to tape from cutting directly on to wax, they would speed up the tape slightly — a trick which made Domino’s voice sound younger, and which emphasised the beat more. This sort of thing is absolutely basic now, but at the time it was extraordinarily unusual for any rhythm and blues records to have any kind of production trickery at all. It also had another advantage, because as Cosimo Matassa would point out, it would change the key slightly so it wouldn’t be in a normal key at all. So when other people tried to cover Domino’s records “they couldn’t find the damn notes on the piano!” Of course, with success came problems of its own. When Domino was sent on a promotional tour of local radio stations, DJs would complain to Lew Chudd of Imperial Records that Domino didn’t speak English. He did speak English — though it was his second language, after Creole French — but he spoke English with such a thick accent that many people from outside Louisiana didn’t recognise it as English at all. Domino’s relative lack of fluency in English is possibly also why he wrote such simple lyrics — a fact that was mocked on national TV when Steve Allen, the talk show host, read out the lyrics to “Ain’t That A Shame” in a mock “poetry recital”, to laughter from the studio audience, causing Bartholomew and Domino to feel extremely upset. Of course, this is an easy trick to play, as almost all song lyrics sound puerile when recited pompously enough. For example, I can recite: Lets go to church, next Sunday morning We’ll see our friends on the way We’ll stand and sing, on Sunday morning And I’ll hold your hand as we pray That, of course, is a lyric written by Steve Allen, who despite having written 8500 songs by his own count, never wrote one as good as “Ain’t That A Shame”. As with all black hits at this time, there was a terrible white cover, in this case by Pat Boone. Boone’s cover version came out almost before Domino’s did, thanks to Bill Randle. Bill Randle was a DJ in Cleveland, a colleague of Alan Freed, who is now a much better-known DJ, but in the early fifties Randle was possibly the best-known DJ in America. While Freed only played black rhythm and blues records, Randle, whose first radio show was called “the Inter-Racial Goodtime Hour”, played records by both black and white people. As the country’s biggest DJ, he was sent an advance copy of “Ain’t That A Shame”, and he liked it immensely. According to Lew Chudd, “He liked it because it was ignorant, because he was an English professor”. That’s sort of true — Randle wasn’t a professor at the time, but in the 1960s he ended up getting degrees in law, journalism, sociology, and education, and a doctorate in American Studies, all while continuing to work as a DJ. Randle would regularly send copies of new R&B records to white record executives he knew, and it was because of Randle that the Crew Cuts and the Diamonds, among others, first heard the black recordings whose style they stole. In this case, he sent his acetate copy of “Ain’t That A Shame” to Randy Wood, the owner of Dot Records, a label set up specifically to record white cover versions of black records. Randle was an odd case, in this respect, because he *was* someone who truly loved rhythm and blues, and black music, and would play it regularly on his show — early on, he had actually been fired from one of his first radio jobs for playing a Sister Rosetta Tharpe record, though he was soon rehired. But he seems to have truly bought into the idea that the white cover versions of black records did help the black performers. There are very few examples of how little that was the case more blatant than that of Boone, a man whose attitude is best summed up by the fact that when he recorded his version, he tried to change the lyrics to “Isn’t That A Shame” because he thought “Ain’t” ungrammatical. [excerpt: Pat Boone, “Ain’t That A Shame”] Boone would later go on to commit similar atrocities against “Tutti Frutti”, among other records. In a 1977 interview, Domino said of Boone’s cover “When I first heard it I didn’t like it. It took two months to write and he put it out almost the same time I did. It kind of hurt. The publishing companies don’t care if a thousand people make it.” Talking to Domino’s biographer Rick Coleman, Dave Bartholomew was characteristically more forthright. “Pat Boone was a lucky white boy. He wasn’t singing” — and here he used an expletive that I’m not going to repeat because I’m not sure what makes something qualify as adult content in iTunes — “Randy Wood was doing un-Constitutional type stuff. He was successful with it, but that don’t make it right!” Bill Randle would play both versions of the record on his show, and both went to number one in Cleveland as a result. But in the rest of the country, the clean-cut white man was miles ahead of the fat black man with a flat top from New Orleans. Boone’s misunderstanding typifies the cultural ignorance that characterised white cover versions of R&B hits in this period. A few months later, a similar thing would happen again with Domino’s hit “Bo Weevil”, and here the racial dynamics were more apparent: [Excerpt: Fats Domino, “Bo Weevil”] That was covered by Teresa Brewer, and obviously her version did better on the charts: [Excerpt: Teresa Brewer, “Bo Weevil”] But the thing is, that song celebrates boll weevils — pests which destroy cotton, and which have become regarded in African-American folklore as humorous trickster figures, because they bankrupted plantation owners — and while boll weevils didn’t reach the USA until after slavery had ended, you can understand how a pest that destroys the livelihood of cotton plantation owners might have a rather different reputation among black people than white. But despite these white covers, Domino continued to make inroads into the white market himself. And for all that Domino’s music seems easygoing, it was enough that even before his proper crossover into the pop market, Domino had shows canceled because the promoters or local government couldn’t handle the potential of riots breaking out at his shows. That only increased when “Ain’t That A Shame” hit, and white teenagers wanted to come to the shows. Police would try to shut them down, because white and black kids dancing together was illegal, and often shows would be canceled because of the police’s heavy-handed tactics – for example, at one show in Houston, the police tried in vain to stop the dancing, and eventually said that only whites would be allowed to dance, so Domino stopped the show, and the kids in the audience defiantly sang “Let the Good Times Roll” at the police. At another show in San Jose, someone threw a lit string of firecrackers into the audience, leading to a dozen people requiring medical treatment and another dozen being arrested. “Ain’t That A Shame” was one of two hit songs recorded on the same day. The other, “All By Myself”, would also become a number one hit on the R&B charts. While “All By Myself” was credited to Domino and Bartholomew, it was based very closely on an old Big Bill Broonzy record. Here’s Broonzy’s song: [excerpt, Big Bill Broonzy: “All By Myself”] And here’s Domino’s: [Excerpt, Fats Domino: “All By Myself”] As you can hear, while the verses are quite different, the choruses are identical. Domino here for the first time plays in his two-beat piano style, yet another of the New Orleans rhythms that Domino and Bartholomew would incorporate into Domino’s hits. A standard two-beat rhythm is the rhythm one finds in polkas, or in, say, Johnny Cash records — that boom-chick, boom-chick, walking or marching rhythm. But the New Orleans variant of it, which as far as I can tell was first recorded when Domino recorded “All By Myself”, isn’t boom-chick boom-chick, but is rather boom-boom-chick, boom-boom-chick, with quavers on the first beat, and slightly swinging the quavers. Indeed by doing it two-handed (with the bass booms in the left hand and the treble chicks in the right), Domino also sneaks in a bass quaver at the end of the “chick”, syncopating it, so it’s sort of “a-boom-boom-chick, a-boom-boom-chick”. The two-beat rhythm would become as important a factor in Domino’s future records as his rolling piano triplets and Dave Bartholomew’s tresillo rhythms already had been. Domino’s music was about rhythm and groove, and whereas most of his contemporaries were content to stick with one or two simple rhythms, Domino and Bartholomew would stack all of these different rhythmic patterns on top of each other. A lot of this is the basic musical vocabulary of anyone working in any of the musics influenced by New Orleans R&B these days, which includes all of reggae and ska as well as most African-American musical idioms, but that vocabulary was being built in these sessions. Domino and Bartholomew weren’t the only ones doing it — Professor Longhair and Huey “Piano” Smith and Mac Rebennack were all contributing, and all of these performers would take each other’s material and put their own unique spin on it — but they were vital parts of creating these building blocks that would be used by musicians to this day. “Ain’t That A Shame” was just the start of Domino’s rock and roll stardom. He would go on to have another seven R&B number ones after this, and his records would consistently chart on the R&B charts for the next seven years — he would have, in total, *forty* top ten hits on the R&B chart in his career. But what was more remarkable was the number of *pop* chart hits he would have. He had fourteen pop top twenty hits between 1955 and 1961, eleven of them going top ten, including classics like “I’m in Love Again”, “I’m Walkin'”, “Blue Monday”, “Valley of Tears”, “I Want to Walk You Home” and “Walking to New Orleans”. Almost all of his hit singles were written by the Bartholomew and Domino songwriting team, and almost all of them were extraordinarily good records — there were almost no fifties rockers who had anything like Domino’s consistent quality. So we’ll be seeing Fats Domino at least once more in this series, when he finds his thrill on Blueberry Hill…

  Welcome to episode twenty-six of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. Today we're looking at Fats Domino and "Ain't That A Shame". Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. ----more---- Resources As always, I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. The best compilation of Fats Domino's music is a four-CD box set called They Call Me The Fat Man: The Legendary Imperial Recordings. Pretty much all the information in this episode comes from Rick Coleman's Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock 'n' Roll. I've leaned on that rather more than I normally lean on a single source for this episode, because it's the only biography of Domino I know of, and we're looking at Domino in more depth than most other artists we've looked at so far. I reference two previous episodes here. Those are episode eight on The Fat Man, and episode twelve, on Lawdy Miss Clawdy. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Today, for the third time, we're going to look at the collaborations between Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew, and Cosimo Matassa, and the way they brought New Orleans music into the R&B and rock and roll genres. It's been a few months since we talked about them, so you might want to refresh your memory by listening to episode eight, on "The Fat Man", and episode twelve, on "Lawdy Miss Clawdy". After his brief split from Imperial Records, and thus from working with Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew had returned to Imperial after Domino helped him on "Lawdy Miss Clawdy", and the two of them resumed their collaboration. The first new track they recorded together was an instrumental called "Dreaming", featuring members of both Domino's touring band and of Bartholomew's studio band. It's credited on the label to Bartholomew as a writer, but other sources have the instrumental being written by Domino: [excerpt: Fats Domino, "Dreaming"] Whoever wrote it, the most popular hypothesis seems to be that the song was written as a tribute to Domino's manager, Melvin Cade, who had died only five days before the session. Domino had been sleeping in the back of Cade's car, as Cade had been speeding to get them to a show that they were late for. Cade had lost control of the car, which had been thrown ten feet into the air in a collision. Domino and the other passengers were uninjured, but Cade died of his injuries. While this was obviously tragic, it turned out to be to Domino's benefit -- Domino's contract with Cade had given Domino only a hundred and fifty dollars a day from his shows, with Cade keeping the rest -- which might often be several times as much money. With Cade's death, Domino was free from that contract, and so the beginning of September 1952, with the death of Cade and the renewal of Domino and Bartholomew's partnership, marks the start of the second phase of Fats Domino's career. One of the things we've touched on in the previous podcasts about Dave Bartholomew and Fats Domino is the strained nature of their songwriting partnership -- although this is using "strained" in a fairly loose sense, given that they continued working with each other for decades. But like with so many musical partnerships where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, both men did consider their own contribution to be the more important. Bartholomew considered himself to be the more important writer because he came up with literate stories with narrative arcs and punchlines, coupled with sophisticated musical ideas, while Domino considered himself more important because he came up with relatable, simple, ideas and catchy hooks. And, of course, Domino's piano style and distinctive voice were crucial in the popularity of the records, just as Dave Bartholomew's arrangement and production ideas were. And the difference in their attitudes shows up in, for example, "Going to the River", one of the first fruits of their renewed collaboration: [Excerpt: Fats Domino, "Going to the River"] Dave Bartholomew called that "a nothing song" -- and it's easy to see what he means. Other than the tresilo bassline (and a reminder for those of you who don't remember what that is, it's that "bom, BOM bom" rhythmic figure that you get in almost every record Dave Bartholomew had a hand in) there's not much of musical interest there -- you've got Domino playing his usual triplets in the right hand on the piano, but rather than the drums emphasising the backbeat, they're mostly playing the same triplets as the piano. The chord sequence is nothing special. and the lyrics were simplistic. But at the same time, the track did go to number two on the R&B charts, and probably would have gone to number one if it hadn't been for the cover version by Chuck Willis: [Excerpt: Chuck Willis, "Going to the River"] That went to number four on the R&B charts. For once it wasn't a white man having a hit with a black man's song, but another black man, who'd heard Domino perform it live before the record was released and got in quickly with his own version. On the other hand, it wasn't like Domino was the perfect judge of what made a hit, either. Bartholomew wrote the song "I Hear You Knocking" for Domino, but when Domino decided not to record it, Bartholomew recorded it for another artist on Imperial Records, Smiley Lewis, getting the great New Orleans piano player Huey "Piano" Smith to play in an imitation of Domino's style: [Excerpt: Smiley Lewis, "I Hear You Knocking"] That went to number two on the R&B charts, and a cover version by the white singer Gale Storm went to number two on the pop charts. So both Domino and Bartholomew were capable of coming up with big hits in the style they perfected together, and both were capable of dismissing a potential hit when it wasn't their own idea. But their partnership was so successful that Dave Bartholomew actually regarded Smiley Lewis as a "bad luck singer", because when Bartholomew wrote and produced for him, the records would *only* sell a hundred thousand copies or so, compared to the much larger numbers of records that Domino sold. Domino was becoming huge in the R&B world -- in early 1954 Billboard listed him as the biggest selling R&B star in the country -- and he was managing to cope with it better than most. While he would miss the occasional gig from drinking a little too much, and he'd sleep around on the road more than a married man should, he was essentially a well-adjusted, private, man, who had five kids, phoned home to his wife every night, and never touched anything stronger than alcohol. That wasn't true of the rest of his band, however. In the 1950s, heroin was the chic drug to be taking if you were a touring musician, and many of Domino's touring band members were users. He would often have to pay to get his guitarist's instrument out of the pawn shop, so they could go on tour, and once even had to pay off the guitarist's back child support, to get him out of jail, as he would keep spending all his money on heroin. The one who came out worst, sadly, was Jimmy Gilchrist, who would sing with Domino's backing band as the support act. Gilchrist died of an overdose during one of Domino's tours in early 1954. Domino replaced him with a new support act, Jalacey Hawkins, but he only lasted a couple of weeks. According to Domino, he fired Jalacey for being too vulgar on stage, and screaming, but Screamin' Jay Hawkins, as he would soon become known, claimed instead that it was because Domino was jealous of Hawkins' cool leopard-skin suit. But through this turmoil, Domino and Bartholomew, with Cosimo Matassa in the control room, continued recording a whole string of hits -- "Please Don't Leave Me", "Rose Mary", "Something's Wrong", "You Done Me Wrong", and "Don't You Know" all went top ten on the R&B charts. For two and a half years, from September 1952 through March 1955, they would dominate the rhythm and blues charts, even though most white audiences had little idea who Fats Domino was. But slowly Domino was noticing that more and more white teenagers were starting to come to his shows -- and he also started incorporating a few country songs and old standards into his otherwise R&B-dominated act, catering slightly more to a pop audience. Their first crossover hit definitely has more of Domino's fingerprints on it than Bartholomew's. Bartholomew was unimpressed at the session, saying that the song didn't tell a complete story. Once it became a hit, though, Bartholomew would soften on the song, saying “‘Ain’t That a Shame’ will never die, it will be here when the world comes to an end.” He may not have been a particular fan of the song, but you'd never know it from his arrangement. Listen to the way that horn section in the intro punctuates the words, the way it doesn't just go "You made me cry", but "You made -- BAM BAM -- me cry -- BAM BAM" [excerpt: Fats Domino, "Ain't That A Shame"] That's the kind of arrangement decision that can only be made by someone with a real feel for the material. And this is where Dave Bartholomew's real importance to the records he was making with Fats Domino comes in. It's all well and good Bartholomew doing great arrangements and productions for his own songs, or songs mostly written by him, but he put the same thought and attention into the arrangements even where the song was not to his taste and wasn't his idea. Domino's biographer Rick Coleman -- to whose biography of Domino I'm extremely indebted for this episode -- suggests that Dave Bartholomew's arrangement owes a little to the old Dixieland jazz standard "Tin Roof Blues". I can *sort of* hear it, but I'm not entirely convinced. Listen for yourself: [Excerpt: Louis Armstrong, "Tin Roof Blues"] Another possible influence on "Ain't That A Shame" is a record by Lloyd Price, who of course had worked with both Domino and Bartholomew earlier. His "Ain't It A Shame" doesn't sound much like "Ain't That A Shame", but it does have a very Fats Domino feel, and it would be very surprising if neither Bartholomew nor Domino had heard it given their previous collaborations: [excerpt: Lloyd Price, "Ain't It A Shame"] Indeed, early pressings of "Ain't That A Shame" mistakenly called it "Ain't It A Shame", presumably because of confusion with the Lloyd Price song. Bartholomew and Matassa also put more thought into the production than was normal at this time. When mastering Domino's records, now that Matassa's studio had finally switched to tape from cutting directly on to wax, they would speed up the tape slightly -- a trick which made Domino's voice sound younger, and which emphasised the beat more. This sort of thing is absolutely basic now, but at the time it was extraordinarily unusual for any rhythm and blues records to have any kind of production trickery at all. It also had another advantage, because as Cosimo Matassa would point out, it would change the key slightly so it wouldn't be in a normal key at all. So when other people tried to cover Domino's records "they couldn't find the damn notes on the piano!" Of course, with success came problems of its own. When Domino was sent on a promotional tour of local radio stations, DJs would complain to Lew Chudd of Imperial Records that Domino didn't speak English. He did speak English -- though it was his second language, after Creole French -- but he spoke English with such a thick accent that many people from outside Louisiana didn't recognise it as English at all. Domino's relative lack of fluency in English is possibly also why he wrote such simple lyrics -- a fact that was mocked on national TV when Steve Allen, the talk show host, read out the lyrics to "Ain't That A Shame" in a mock "poetry recital", to laughter from the studio audience, causing Bartholomew and Domino to feel extremely upset. Of course, this is an easy trick to play, as almost all song lyrics sound puerile when recited pompously enough. For example, I can recite: Lets go to church, next Sunday morning We'll see our friends on the way We'll stand and sing, on Sunday morning And I'll hold your hand as we pray That, of course, is a lyric written by Steve Allen, who despite having written 8500 songs by his own count, never wrote one as good as "Ain't That A Shame". As with all black hits at this time, there was a terrible white cover, in this case by Pat Boone. Boone's cover version came out almost before Domino's did, thanks to Bill Randle. Bill Randle was a DJ in Cleveland, a colleague of Alan Freed, who is now a much better-known DJ, but in the early fifties Randle was possibly the best-known DJ in America. While Freed only played black rhythm and blues records, Randle, whose first radio show was called "the Inter-Racial Goodtime Hour", played records by both black and white people. As the country's biggest DJ, he was sent an advance copy of "Ain't That A Shame", and he liked it immensely. According to Lew Chudd, "He liked it because it was ignorant, because he was an English professor". That's sort of true -- Randle wasn't a professor at the time, but in the 1960s he ended up getting degrees in law, journalism, sociology, and education, and a doctorate in American Studies, all while continuing to work as a DJ. Randle would regularly send copies of new R&B records to white record executives he knew, and it was because of Randle that the Crew Cuts and the Diamonds, among others, first heard the black recordings whose style they stole. In this case, he sent his acetate copy of "Ain't That A Shame" to Randy Wood, the owner of Dot Records, a label set up specifically to record white cover versions of black records. Randle was an odd case, in this respect, because he *was* someone who truly loved rhythm and blues, and black music, and would play it regularly on his show -- early on, he had actually been fired from one of his first radio jobs for playing a Sister Rosetta Tharpe record, though he was soon rehired. But he seems to have truly bought into the idea that the white cover versions of black records did help the black performers. There are very few examples of how little that was the case more blatant than that of Boone, a man whose attitude is best summed up by the fact that when he recorded his version, he tried to change the lyrics to "Isn't That A Shame" because he thought "Ain't" ungrammatical. [excerpt: Pat Boone, “Ain't That A Shame”] Boone would later go on to commit similar atrocities against "Tutti Frutti", among other records. In a 1977 interview, Domino said of Boone's cover "When I first heard it I didn't like it. It took two months to write and he put it out almost the same time I did. It kind of hurt. The publishing companies don't care if a thousand people make it." Talking to Domino's biographer Rick Coleman, Dave Bartholomew was characteristically more forthright. "Pat Boone was a lucky white boy. He wasn't singing" -- and here he used an expletive that I'm not going to repeat because I'm not sure what makes something qualify as adult content in iTunes -- "Randy Wood was doing un-Constitutional type stuff. He was successful with it, but that don't make it right!" Bill Randle would play both versions of the record on his show, and both went to number one in Cleveland as a result. But in the rest of the country, the clean-cut white man was miles ahead of the fat black man with a flat top from New Orleans. Boone's misunderstanding typifies the cultural ignorance that characterised white cover versions of R&B hits in this period. A few months later, a similar thing would happen again with Domino's hit "Bo Weevil", and here the racial dynamics were more apparent: [Excerpt: Fats Domino, "Bo Weevil"] That was covered by Teresa Brewer, and obviously her version did better on the charts: [Excerpt: Teresa Brewer, "Bo Weevil"] But the thing is, that song celebrates boll weevils -- pests which destroy cotton, and which have become regarded in African-American folklore as humorous trickster figures, because they bankrupted plantation owners -- and while boll weevils didn't reach the USA until after slavery had ended, you can understand how a pest that destroys the livelihood of cotton plantation owners might have a rather different reputation among black people than white. But despite these white covers, Domino continued to make inroads into the white market himself. And for all that Domino's music seems easygoing, it was enough that even before his proper crossover into the pop market, Domino had shows canceled because the promoters or local government couldn't handle the potential of riots breaking out at his shows. That only increased when “Ain't That A Shame” hit, and white teenagers wanted to come to the shows. Police would try to shut them down, because white and black kids dancing together was illegal, and often shows would be canceled because of the police's heavy-handed tactics – for example, at one show in Houston, the police tried in vain to stop the dancing, and eventually said that only whites would be allowed to dance, so Domino stopped the show, and the kids in the audience defiantly sang “Let the Good Times Roll” at the police. At another show in San Jose, someone threw a lit string of firecrackers into the audience, leading to a dozen people requiring medical treatment and another dozen being arrested. "Ain't That A Shame" was one of two hit songs recorded on the same day. The other, "All By Myself", would also become a number one hit on the R&B charts. While "All By Myself" was credited to Domino and Bartholomew, it was based very closely on an old Big Bill Broonzy record. Here's Broonzy's song: [excerpt, Big Bill Broonzy: "All By Myself"] And here's Domino's: [Excerpt, Fats Domino: "All By Myself"] As you can hear, while the verses are quite different, the choruses are identical. Domino here for the first time plays in his two-beat piano style, yet another of the New Orleans rhythms that Domino and Bartholomew would incorporate into Domino's hits. A standard two-beat rhythm is the rhythm one finds in polkas, or in, say, Johnny Cash records -- that boom-chick, boom-chick, walking or marching rhythm. But the New Orleans variant of it, which as far as I can tell was first recorded when Domino recorded "All By Myself", isn't boom-chick boom-chick, but is rather boom-boom-chick, boom-boom-chick, with quavers on the first beat, and slightly swinging the quavers. Indeed by doing it two-handed (with the bass booms in the left hand and the treble chicks in the right), Domino also sneaks in a bass quaver at the end of the "chick", syncopating it, so it's sort of "a-boom-boom-chick, a-boom-boom-chick". The two-beat rhythm would become as important a factor in Domino's future records as his rolling piano triplets and Dave Bartholomew's tresillo rhythms already had been. Domino's music was about rhythm and groove, and whereas most of his contemporaries were content to stick with one or two simple rhythms, Domino and Bartholomew would stack all of these different rhythmic patterns on top of each other. A lot of this is the basic musical vocabulary of anyone working in any of the musics influenced by New Orleans R&B these days, which includes all of reggae and ska as well as most African-American musical idioms, but that vocabulary was being built in these sessions. Domino and Bartholomew weren't the only ones doing it -- Professor Longhair and Huey "Piano" Smith and Mac Rebennack were all contributing, and all of these performers would take each other's material and put their own unique spin on it -- but they were vital parts of creating these building blocks that would be used by musicians to this day. "Ain't That A Shame" was just the start of Domino's rock and roll stardom. He would go on to have another seven R&B number ones after this, and his records would consistently chart on the R&B charts for the next seven years -- he would have, in total, *forty* top ten hits on the R&B chart in his career. But what was more remarkable was the number of *pop* chart hits he would have. He had fourteen pop top twenty hits between 1955 and 1961, eleven of them going top ten, including classics like "I'm in Love Again", "I'm Walkin'", "Blue Monday", "Valley of Tears", "I Want to Walk You Home" and "Walking to New Orleans". Almost all of his hit singles were written by the Bartholomew and Domino songwriting team, and almost all of them were extraordinarily good records -- there were almost no fifties rockers who had anything like Domino's consistent quality. So we'll be seeing Fats Domino at least once more in this series, when he finds his thrill on Blueberry Hill...

  Welcome to episode twenty-six of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. Today we’re looking at Fats Domino and “Ain’t That A Shame”. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. —-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. The best compilation of Fats Domino’s music is a four-CD box set called They Call Me The Fat Man: The Legendary Imperial Recordings. Pretty much all the information in this episode comes from Rick Coleman’s Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock ‘n’ Roll. I’ve leaned on that rather more than I normally lean on a single source for this episode, because it’s the only biography of Domino I know of, and we’re looking at Domino in more depth than most other artists we’ve looked at so far. I reference two previous episodes here. Those are episode eight on The Fat Man, and episode twelve, on Lawdy Miss Clawdy. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Today, for the third time, we’re going to look at the collaborations between Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew, and Cosimo Matassa, and the way they brought New Orleans music into the R&B and rock and roll genres. It’s been a few months since we talked about them, so you might want to refresh your memory by listening to episode eight, on “The Fat Man”, and episode twelve, on “Lawdy Miss Clawdy”. After his brief split from Imperial Records, and thus from working with Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew had returned to Imperial after Domino helped him on “Lawdy Miss Clawdy”, and the two of them resumed their collaboration. The first new track they recorded together was an instrumental called “Dreaming”, featuring members of both Domino’s touring band and of Bartholomew’s studio band. It’s credited on the label to Bartholomew as a writer, but other sources have the instrumental being written by Domino: [excerpt: Fats Domino, “Dreaming”] Whoever wrote it, the most popular hypothesis seems to be that the song was written as a tribute to Domino’s manager, Melvin Cade, who had died only five days before the session. Domino had been sleeping in the back of Cade’s car, as Cade had been speeding to get them to a show that they were late for. Cade had lost control of the car, which had been thrown ten feet into the air in a collision. Domino and the other passengers were uninjured, but Cade died of his injuries. While this was obviously tragic, it turned out to be to Domino’s benefit — Domino’s contract with Cade had given Domino only a hundred and fifty dollars a day from his shows, with Cade keeping the rest — which might often be several times as much money. With Cade’s death, Domino was free from that contract, and so the beginning of September 1952, with the death of Cade and the renewal of Domino and Bartholomew’s partnership, marks the start of the second phase of Fats Domino’s career. One of the things we’ve touched on in the previous podcasts about Dave Bartholomew and Fats Domino is the strained nature of their songwriting partnership — although this is using “strained” in a fairly loose sense, given that they continued working with each other for decades. But like with so many musical partnerships where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, both men did consider their own contribution to be the more important. Bartholomew considered himself to be the more important writer because he came up with literate stories with narrative arcs and punchlines, coupled with sophisticated musical ideas, while Domino considered himself more important because he came up with relatable, simple, ideas and catchy hooks. And, of course, Domino’s piano style and distinctive voice were crucial in the popularity of the records, just as Dave Bartholomew’s arrangement and production ideas were. And the difference in their attitudes shows up in, for example, “Going to the River”, one of the first fruits of their renewed collaboration: [Excerpt: Fats Domino, “Going to the River”] Dave Bartholomew called that “a nothing song” — and it’s easy to see what he means. Other than the tresilo bassline (and a reminder for those of you who don’t remember what that is, it’s that “bom, BOM bom” rhythmic figure that you get in almost every record Dave Bartholomew had a hand in) there’s not much of musical interest there — you’ve got Domino playing his usual triplets in the right hand on the piano, but rather than the drums emphasising the backbeat, they’re mostly playing the same triplets as the piano. The chord sequence is nothing special. and the lyrics were simplistic. But at the same time, the track did go to number two on the R&B charts, and probably would have gone to number one if it hadn’t been for the cover version by Chuck Willis: [Excerpt: Chuck Willis, “Going to the River”] That went to number four on the R&B charts. For once it wasn’t a white man having a hit with a black man’s song, but another black man, who’d heard Domino perform it live before the record was released and got in quickly with his own version. On the other hand, it wasn’t like Domino was the perfect judge of what made a hit, either. Bartholomew wrote the song “I Hear You Knocking” for Domino, but when Domino decided not to record it, Bartholomew recorded it for another artist on Imperial Records, Smiley Lewis, getting the great New Orleans piano player Huey “Piano” Smith to play in an imitation of Domino’s style: [Excerpt: Smiley Lewis, “I Hear You Knocking”] That went to number two on the R&B charts, and a cover version by the white singer Gale Storm went to number two on the pop charts. So both Domino and Bartholomew were capable of coming up with big hits in the style they perfected together, and both were capable of dismissing a potential hit when it wasn’t their own idea. But their partnership was so successful that Dave Bartholomew actually regarded Smiley Lewis as a “bad luck singer”, because when Bartholomew wrote and produced for him, the records would *only* sell a hundred thousand copies or so, compared to the much larger numbers of records that Domino sold. Domino was becoming huge in the R&B world — in early 1954 Billboard listed him as the biggest selling R&B star in the country — and he was managing to cope with it better than most. While he would miss the occasional gig from drinking a little too much, and he’d sleep around on the road more than a married man should, he was essentially a well-adjusted, private, man, who had five kids, phoned home to his wife every night, and never touched anything stronger than alcohol. That wasn’t true of the rest of his band, however. In the 1950s, heroin was the chic drug to be taking if you were a touring musician, and many of Domino’s touring band members were users. He would often have to pay to get his guitarist’s instrument out of the pawn shop, so they could go on tour, and once even had to pay off the guitarist’s back child support, to get him out of jail, as he would keep spending all his money on heroin. The one who came out worst, sadly, was Jimmy Gilchrist, who would sing with Domino’s backing band as the support act. Gilchrist died of an overdose during one of Domino’s tours in early 1954. Domino replaced him with a new support act, Jalacey Hawkins, but he only lasted a couple of weeks. According to Domino, he fired Jalacey for being too vulgar on stage, and screaming, but Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, as he would soon become known, claimed instead that it was because Domino was jealous of Hawkins’ cool leopard-skin suit. But through this turmoil, Domino and Bartholomew, with Cosimo Matassa in the control room, continued recording a whole string of hits — “Please Don’t Leave Me”, “Rose Mary”, “Something’s Wrong”, “You Done Me Wrong”, and “Don’t You Know” all went top ten on the R&B charts. For two and a half years, from September 1952 through March 1955, they would dominate the rhythm and blues charts, even though most white audiences had little idea who Fats Domino was. But slowly Domino was noticing that more and more white teenagers were starting to come to his shows — and he also started incorporating a few country songs and old standards into his otherwise R&B-dominated act, catering slightly more to a pop audience. Their first crossover hit definitely has more of Domino’s fingerprints on it than Bartholomew’s. Bartholomew was unimpressed at the session, saying that the song didn’t tell a complete story. Once it became a hit, though, Bartholomew would soften on the song, saying “‘Ain’t That a Shame’ will never die, it will be here when the world comes to an end.” He may not have been a particular fan of the song, but you’d never know it from his arrangement. Listen to the way that horn section in the intro punctuates the words, the way it doesn’t just go “You made me cry”, but “You made — BAM BAM — me cry — BAM BAM” [excerpt: Fats Domino, “Ain’t That A Shame”] That’s the kind of arrangement decision that can only be made by someone with a real feel for the material. And this is where Dave Bartholomew’s real importance to the records he was making with Fats Domino comes in. It’s all well and good Bartholomew doing great arrangements and productions for his own songs, or songs mostly written by him, but he put the same thought and attention into the arrangements even where the song was not to his taste and wasn’t his idea. Domino’s biographer Rick Coleman — to whose biography of Domino I’m extremely indebted for this episode — suggests that Dave Bartholomew’s arrangement owes a little to the old Dixieland jazz standard “Tin Roof Blues”. I can *sort of* hear it, but I’m not entirely convinced. Listen for yourself: [Excerpt: Louis Armstrong, “Tin Roof Blues”] Another possible influence on “Ain’t That A Shame” is a record by Lloyd Price, who of course had worked with both Domino and Bartholomew earlier. His “Ain’t It A Shame” doesn’t sound much like “Ain’t That A Shame”, but it does have a very Fats Domino feel, and it would be very surprising if neither Bartholomew nor Domino had heard it given their previous collaborations: [excerpt: Lloyd Price, “Ain’t It A Shame”] Indeed, early pressings of “Ain’t That A Shame” mistakenly called it “Ain’t It A Shame”, presumably because of confusion with the Lloyd Price song. Bartholomew and Matassa also put more thought into the production than was normal at this time. When mastering Domino’s records, now that Matassa’s studio had finally switched to tape from cutting directly on to wax, they would speed up the tape slightly — a trick which made Domino’s voice sound younger, and which emphasised the beat more. This sort of thing is absolutely basic now, but at the time it was extraordinarily unusual for any rhythm and blues records to have any kind of production trickery at all. It also had another advantage, because as Cosimo Matassa would point out, it would change the key slightly so it wouldn’t be in a normal key at all. So when other people tried to cover Domino’s records “they couldn’t find the damn notes on the piano!” Of course, with success came problems of its own. When Domino was sent on a promotional tour of local radio stations, DJs would complain to Lew Chudd of Imperial Records that Domino didn’t speak English. He did speak English — though it was his second language, after Creole French — but he spoke English with such a thick accent that many people from outside Louisiana didn’t recognise it as English at all. Domino’s relative lack of fluency in English is possibly also why he wrote such simple lyrics — a fact that was mocked on national TV when Steve Allen, the talk show host, read out the lyrics to “Ain’t That A Shame” in a mock “poetry recital”, to laughter from the studio audience, causing Bartholomew and Domino to feel extremely upset. Of course, this is an easy trick to play, as almost all song lyrics sound puerile when recited pompously enough. For example, I can recite: Lets go to church, next Sunday morning We’ll see our friends on the way We’ll stand and sing, on Sunday morning And I’ll hold your hand as we pray That, of course, is a lyric written by Steve Allen, who despite having written 8500 songs by his own count, never wrote one as good as “Ain’t That A Shame”. As with all black hits at this time, there was a terrible white cover, in this case by Pat Boone. Boone’s cover version came out almost before Domino’s did, thanks to Bill Randle. Bill Randle was a DJ in Cleveland, a colleague of Alan Freed, who is now a much better-known DJ, but in the early fifties Randle was possibly the best-known DJ in America. While Freed only played black rhythm and blues records, Randle, whose first radio show was called “the Inter-Racial Goodtime Hour”, played records by both black and white people. As the country’s biggest DJ, he was sent an advance copy of “Ain’t That A Shame”, and he liked it immensely. According to Lew Chudd, “He liked it because it was ignorant, because he was an English professor”. That’s sort of true — Randle wasn’t a professor at the time, but in the 1960s he ended up getting degrees in law, journalism, sociology, and education, and a doctorate in American Studies, all while continuing to work as a DJ. Randle would regularly send copies of new R&B records to white record executives he knew, and it was because of Randle that the Crew Cuts and the Diamonds, among others, first heard the black recordings whose style they stole. In this case, he sent his acetate copy of “Ain’t That A Shame” to Randy Wood, the owner of Dot Records, a label set up specifically to record white cover versions of black records. Randle was an odd case, in this respect, because he *was* someone who truly loved rhythm and blues, and black music, and would play it regularly on his show — early on, he had actually been fired from one of his first radio jobs for playing a Sister Rosetta Tharpe record, though he was soon rehired. But he seems to have truly bought into the idea that the white cover versions of black records did help the black performers. There are very few examples of how little that was the case more blatant than that of Boone, a man whose attitude is best summed up by the fact that when he recorded his version, he tried to change the lyrics to “Isn’t That A Shame” because he thought “Ain’t” ungrammatical. [excerpt: Pat Boone, “Ain’t That A Shame”] Boone would later go on to commit similar atrocities against “Tutti Frutti”, among other records. In a 1977 interview, Domino said of Boone’s cover “When I first heard it I didn’t like it. It took two months to write and he put it out almost the same time I did. It kind of hurt. The publishing companies don’t care if a thousand people make it.” Talking to Domino’s biographer Rick Coleman, Dave Bartholomew was characteristically more forthright. “Pat Boone was a lucky white boy. He wasn’t singing” — and here he used an expletive that I’m not going to repeat because I’m not sure what makes something qualify as adult content in iTunes — “Randy Wood was doing un-Constitutional type stuff. He was successful with it, but that don’t make it right!” Bill Randle would play both versions of the record on his show, and both went to number one in Cleveland as a result. But in the rest of the country, the clean-cut white man was miles ahead of the fat black man with a flat top from New Orleans. Boone’s misunderstanding typifies the cultural ignorance that characterised white cover versions of R&B hits in this period. A few months later, a similar thing would happen again with Domino’s hit “Bo Weevil”, and here the racial dynamics were more apparent: [Excerpt: Fats Domino, “Bo Weevil”] That was covered by Teresa Brewer, and obviously her version did better on the charts: [Excerpt: Teresa Brewer, “Bo Weevil”] But the thing is, that song celebrates boll weevils — pests which destroy cotton, and which have become regarded in African-American folklore as humorous trickster figures, because they bankrupted plantation owners — and while boll weevils didn’t reach the USA until after slavery had ended, you can understand how a pest that destroys the livelihood of cotton plantation owners might have a rather different reputation among black people than white. But despite these white covers, Domino continued to make inroads into the white market himself. And for all that Domino’s music seems easygoing, it was enough that even before his proper crossover into the pop market, Domino had shows canceled because the promoters or local government couldn’t handle the potential of riots breaking out at his shows. That only increased when “Ain’t That A Shame” hit, and white teenagers wanted to come to the shows. Police would try to shut them down, because white and black kids dancing together was illegal, and often shows would be canceled because of the police’s heavy-handed tactics – for example, at one show in Houston, the police tried in vain to stop the dancing, and eventually said that only whites would be allowed to dance, so Domino stopped the show, and the kids in the audience defiantly sang “Let the Good Times Roll” at the police. At another show in San Jose, someone threw a lit string of firecrackers into the audience, leading to a dozen people requiring medical treatment and another dozen being arrested. “Ain’t That A Shame” was one of two hit songs recorded on the same day. The other, “All By Myself”, would also become a number one hit on the R&B charts. While “All By Myself” was credited to Domino and Bartholomew, it was based very closely on an old Big Bill Broonzy record. Here’s Broonzy’s song: [excerpt, Big Bill Broonzy: “All By Myself”] And here’s Domino’s: [Excerpt, Fats Domino: “All By Myself”] As you can hear, while the verses are quite different, the choruses are identical. Domino here for the first time plays in his two-beat piano style, yet another of the New Orleans rhythms that Domino and Bartholomew would incorporate into Domino’s hits. A standard two-beat rhythm is the rhythm one finds in polkas, or in, say, Johnny Cash records — that boom-chick, boom-chick, walking or marching rhythm. But the New Orleans variant of it, which as far as I can tell was first recorded when Domino recorded “All By Myself”, isn’t boom-chick boom-chick, but is rather boom-boom-chick, boom-boom-chick, with quavers on the first beat, and slightly swinging the quavers. Indeed by doing it two-handed (with the bass booms in the left hand and the treble chicks in the right), Domino also sneaks in a bass quaver at the end of the “chick”, syncopating it, so it’s sort of “a-boom-boom-chick, a-boom-boom-chick”. The two-beat rhythm would become as important a factor in Domino’s future records as his rolling piano triplets and Dave Bartholomew’s tresillo rhythms already had been. Domino’s music was about rhythm and groove, and whereas most of his contemporaries were content to stick with one or two simple rhythms, Domino and Bartholomew would stack all of these different rhythmic patterns on top of each other. A lot of this is the basic musical vocabulary of anyone working in any of the musics influenced by New Orleans R&B these days, which includes all of reggae and ska as well as most African-American musical idioms, but that vocabulary was being built in these sessions. Domino and Bartholomew weren’t the only ones doing it — Professor Longhair and Huey “Piano” Smith and Mac Rebennack were all contributing, and all of these performers would take each other’s material and put their own unique spin on it — but they were vital parts of creating these building blocks that would be used by musicians to this day. “Ain’t That A Shame” was just the start of Domino’s rock and roll stardom. He would go on to have another seven R&B number ones after this, and his records would consistently chart on the R&B charts for the next seven years — he would have, in total, *forty* top ten hits on the R&B chart in his career. But what was more remarkable was the number of *pop* chart hits he would have. He had fourteen pop top twenty hits between 1955 and 1961, eleven of them going top ten, including classics like “I’m in Love Again”, “I’m Walkin'”, “Blue Monday”, “Valley of Tears”, “I Want to Walk You Home” and “Walking to New Orleans”. Almost all of his hit singles were written by the Bartholomew and Domino songwriting team, and almost all of them were extraordinarily good records — there were almost no fifties rockers who had anything like Domino’s consistent quality. So we’ll be seeing Fats Domino at least once more in this series, when he finds his thrill on Blueberry Hill…

Margaret Louis Ebey (born October 5, 1935), known professionally as Margie Singleton, is an American country music singer and songwriter. In the 1960s, she was a popular duet and solo recording artist, working with country stars George Jones and Faron Young. Singleton had her biggest hit with Young called "Keeping Up With The Joneses" in 1964. She managed a successful solo career in the 1960s, recording 9 Top 40 Billboard Country singles, including a Top 5 hit.   In addition to being a solo and duet star, she also sang as a back-up vocalist with The Jordanaires. Numerous performers recorded many of her songs, including Teresa Brewer, Tammy Wynette and Charley Pride. In 1964, Singleton teamed up with singer Faron Young. Together they recorded the song "Keeping Up With The Joneses". That year, the song reached the country top 5, and became Singleton's biggest hit.   Now, at the age of 82, Margie Singleton is back with a new single and video for her song, “Jesus Is My Pusher.”   https://www.facebook.com/margiesingleton35/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margie_Singleton

In this episode of Seated2Serve with Jeff Bickerstaff, Tricia Brewer, owner of Treasured Blossoms Flower Market in Rowlett, Texas, talks with Jeff about her work in the community and what moves the needle in her business. Like many of you, Tricia enjoys her work and pours her heart into it. Over the years, she's become familiar with her clients and it's made the journey a rewarding and enjoyable experience. Discover how this translates to insight about her arrangements that keep her front of mind in her customer's eyes! Go to FloristofRowlett.com or call 972-412-5356 Jeff Bickerstaff has worked with the city councils of Richardson, Murphy, Forney, and Garland, and currently holds place 6 in Sachse, Texas, knowledgeable firsthand of the importance of small family business relationships and how communities work. To be a guest or advertise on Seated2Serve, call 972-771-4992. Seated2Serve is produced by OffBeat Business Media for the OBBM Network and affiliates, and is available at OffBeatBusinessMedia.com. Listen to Seated2Serve each Tuesday at 7 AM and 7 PM on OBBM Radio and the OBBM Network podcast, also available on Google Play, iTunes, and your OffBeat Business app! Contact 972-771-4992 for guest and sponsor information today. Seated2Serve is sponsored by Jeanie Marten Realty, MartenTeam.com and LCSTravel.com. For network production, programming, and promotional information, contact OffBeat Business Media at 214-714-0495.Support the show (https://offbeatbusiness.com/discountmembership/#join)

Margaret Louis Ebey (born October 5, 1935), known professionally as Margie Singleton, is an American country music singer and songwriter. In the 1960s, she was a popular duet and solo recording artist, working with country stars George Jones and Faron Young. Singleton had her biggest hit with Young called "Keeping Up With The Joneses" in 1964. She managed a successful solo career in the 1960s, recording 9 Top 40 Billboard Country singles, including a Top 5 hit.   In addition to being a solo and duet star, she also sang as a back-up vocalist with The Jordanaires. Numerous performers recorded many of her songs, including Teresa Brewer, Tammy Wynette and Charley Pride. In 1964, Singleton teamed up with singer Faron Young. Together they recorded the song "Keeping Up With The Joneses". That year, the song reached the country top 5, and became Singleton's biggest hit.   Now, at the age of 82, Margie Singleton is back with a new single and video for her song, “Jesus Is My Pusher.”   https://www.facebook.com/margiesingleton35/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margie_Singleton

A special story of a high school senior who wanted to appropriately honor her grandfather…Show Tunes Spotlight falls on Porgy & Bess…Witness to War preserves the stories of our combat veterans. And great songs by Teresa Brewer, Pat Boone, George Harrison, Elvis Presley and more. Thanks for spending an hour with The Greatest Memories! Click […]

At age 82, Margie Singleton has released her new music video, "Jesus Is My Pusher"   Margaret Louis Ebey (born October 5, 1935), known professionally as Margie Singleton, is an American country music singer and songwriter. In the 1960s, she was a popular duet and solo recording artist, working with country stars George Jones and Faron Young. Singleton had her biggest hit with Young called "Keeping Up With The Joneses" in 1964. She managed a successful solo career in the 1960s, recording 9 Top 40 Billboard Country singles, including a Top 5 hit.   In addition to being a solo and duet star, she also sang as a back-up vocalist with The Jordanaires. Numerous performers recorded many of her songs, including Teresa Brewer, Tammy Wynette and Charley Pride. In 1964, Singleton teamed up with singer Faron Young. Together they recorded the song "Keeping Up With The Joneses". That year, the song reached the country top 5, and became Singleton's biggest hit.     https://www.facebook.com/margiesingleton35/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margie_Singleton

We focus on the animated Hardy Boys' Saturday morning bubblegum band! Did you know that Frank Hardy was a member of The Grass Roots? Political bubblegum with Boyce and Hart and The Brady Bunch's Eve Plumb. A dramatic reading from a Hardy Boys comic book! Plenty of great bubblegum pop with The Archies, Ohio Express, The Fun and Games, The Strangeloves, 1910 Fruitgum Company, The Love Generation, Teresa Brewer, Alan Blakely, Soulful Dynamics, and The Grass Roots.

Interview with Steel Guitar Hall of Famer Jody Carver and his reflections on his career in music as well as his relationship with Fender Guitars, Leo Fender, Don Randall and numerous musicians. Songs from Teresa Brewer, Vaughn Monroe, Elton Britt and more.Learn how the name Telecaster came to be as well as other Fender guitars.Hear Jody on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts as well as an incredible version of Wabash Blues with Arthur Godfrey backing up on ukulele. If you have never heard a steel guitar "talk", this is your opportunity. Also the story behind Bob Dylan's publicity photo for Fender guitars and why he is holding a bass guitar. Great stories and music. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week’s show celebrates simple human friendship, whether that be expressed with a firm shake of the hand, a slap on the back or perhaps even, perish the thought, a hug. We have some borderline terrifying children singing about Jesus, … Continue reading →

S02e22 - Teresa Brewer Dsp (themuppetarchive)

S02e22 - Teresa Brewer Dsp (themuppetarchive)