About This Time 70 Years Ago… It’s The Hits Of September-ish 1954!

The Hottest Hit On The Planet:

Pop music was in a strange place in the early 50s.

In some ways all the records sounded the same; probably because so many of the records were produced by one man: evil genius, and Head Of Artists & Repertoire for Columbia Records, Mitch Miller.

A man who always seemed to choose the corniest ones. The ones that his pop star minions were the surest to hate. The ones he would therefore have to pull rank to defend, threatening to fire his pop star minions if they didn’t do what he said. They all hated him for it, but Mitch didn’t care. Mitch gave them riches, they gave him resentment.

Other songs on the charts by Mitch’s minions this time 70 Years Ago include “Skokiaan”, a Zimbabwean song originally recorded by The African Dance Band of the Cold Storage Commission of Southern Rhodesia, as recorded in this case by the Canadian barbershop quartet, The Four Lads.

Despite its African origins, Mitch still managed to make it sound like the whitest record you will ever hear.

The Four Lads had only recently had a hit with the faux-German parody “Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzenellen Bogen by the Sea.” Basically, my point is, that Mitch Miller took his hit songs from all over the place.

Pop songs, country songs, quirky foreign jingles: it was all the same to him.

In the case of “This Ole House” the song came from a “singing cowboy”. A “singing cowboy” named Stuart Hamblen.

Whether on radio, or in a Hollywood movie, “singing cowboys” were a whole thing. Many found the mere sight of a cowboy moseying his way through a canyon on his horse, singing a lonesome tune, maybe doing some lonesome yodelling, to be irresistible.

Billy, you see, had cured Stuart of his alcoholism. So total was Stuart’s denouncement of alcohol that he refused to do any more beer commercials and was consequently fired from his “singing cowboy” radio job. But he still had his fellow “singing cowboy” friends, one of which was John Wayne. Together they went hunting together. And together, whilst hunting, they came across an old house.

Inside of this old house was a dead man.

This is made obvious by the sounds of ghosts on the intro. At least I assume they are supposed to be ghosts. It may be the cold wind blowing through the cracks in the wall.

His grisly death is also made clear by the lyrics: the reason the dying man ain’t gonna need the house no longer is because he’s getting ready to meet the saints. This old house is falling apart in the original Stuart version, but not comically so. In the original Stuart version, the old man’s death is the punch line. Dying means that he no longer has to DIY.

Pop radio in the 50s wasn’t about to play a record about death between advertisements for Pontiacs, cigars and liver pills.

For Rosemary’s pop version it’s the house itself that’s the main character:

Lyrically the differences are few. Just enough to switch the song from being in the first person to being in the second, just enough to prevent Rosemary from having to play the role of a dying man – but the impact is huge.

Intentionally or not, in “This Ole House” (Rosemary Clooney’s Version) it’s the house that is going to die. It’s shingles and window frames are going collapse as soon as the song ends. What more could you expect from such a good-for-nothin’ house?

Rosemary may have had her name on the label. But who really steals the show is whoever the hell that is with the baritone! Well I’m hear to tell you who that is with the baritone… it’s – as if this song could not get any more cartoonish:

Actual name, Thurl Ravenscroft!

Rosemary Clooney had sung a song about a house before. It wasn’t that she particularly liked houses. It wasn’t as though she’d always dreamt of being an architect or anything. It wasn’t that she liked singing songs about houses. It was because Mitch Miller liked her singing songs about houses.

Or because Mitch Miller realized that a stupid, annoying song about a house would always sell loads and loads, particularly if it were sung in a foreign accent. This is why Rosemary Clooney ended up singing “Come On-A My House” in the style of an Italian-mama.

She doesn’t do it in that performance, but she usually finished the song off with “that’s a-nice!!”

Once “Come On-A My House” became a hit, Mitch gave her more faux-Italian songs. “Botch-A-Me” for example. Another which will come up in a few months. Rosemary’s Italian accent wasn’t even all that good, which shouldn’t have been a surprise since she was Irish-German.

That it’s an Italian accent and not… I dunno, Mexican? Scottish? Chinese? Jamaican? Indian? You’re trying to imagine all of these now, aren’t you?… is at least partially Rosemary’s fault. Mitch told her she had to do in “an” accent, he was less concerned what the accent was. Italian was the only accent that Rosemary “knew.”

At least that’s one version of events. Other sources say that Mitch had a very specific accent in mind: Armenian.

But Rosemary had no idea of what an Armenian accent sounds like, so that wasn’t going to work. Italian was the best she could do.

Even when not forcing her to put on an Italian accent upon pain of dismissal, Mitch was forcing Rosemary to sing silly songs, using his evil genius production techniques – he was a big fan of including some boogie-woogie harpsichord for some reason – to make them sound even sillier.

This is why, in virtually every piece of Rosemary Clooney footage you will see, Rosemary is wearing the forced smile and pained impression of a woman remembering that time Mitch talked her into doing a duet with Jimmy Boyd – the “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” kid – about “Dennis The Menace.”

“This Ole House” is a 7.

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Meanwhile, in R&B Land:

The last time we visited the 50s, we discussed a whole bunch of R&B records that were “banned” for being too lewd. I’m putting the word “banned” in inverted commas, because we aren’t talking about, like, a nationwide ban or anything. Even the 1950s weren’t that bad. Still, for a kid in Memphis, Houston, or Detroit, being deprived of hearing “Honey Love” by The Drifters, must have felt pretty bad.

For “Honey Love” by The Drifters was banned from nine Houston radio stations, as well as every jukebox and record store within the Houston City Limits:

And “Honey Love” was a record deemed so dirty by the Memphis policy that they confiscated every copy the moment they arrived in town, before it had the chance to contaminate the jukebox machines and the morals of the kids who used them.

I’m not sure if “Honey Love” was banned in Detroit, but another Drifters record was. We’ll get to that.

It’s honestly difficult to figure out what about “Honey Love” that the Memphis police found objectionable.

The concern, apparently, was over the use of the word “it”, and what “it” could possibly mean.

I mean, obviously “it” means “sex.” And her “honey love” means sex. I get that. But Clyde doesn’t even sing “it” suggestively. Not really. There are a couple of moments towards the end where he goes “mmm” in a manner that’s perhaps a little bit sexual, but even future Drifters’ lead singer, Ben E. King, sounded hornier whenever he went “mmm”, and Ben E.’s “mmmm”s – of which there were a lot! – were amongst the most chaste in pop!

Perhaps the Memphis Police were just being extra careful following the reputation of Clyde’s previous group, Billy Ward and The Dominos. Which Clyde had recently quit, finding it odd that he was singing on big hit records, but did not have enough money to even buy a Coke – most notably their hit “Sixty Minute Man” (it’s a 10).

Clyde hadn’t been the one singing the more suggestive lyrics on “Sixty Minute Man”, he was just doing some high-pitched backing vocals.

…Clyde’s mode of seduction was to sound playful and innocent. He played it cute, with cute songs and cuter titles. You would think that he’d have been able to get away with it.

But apparently not.

It feels as though virtually every record from this early Clyde McPhatter era of The Drifters got banned somewhere in America. Having their records banned seems to have been an occupational hazard for The Drifters. They may have been the least controversial looking, the least controversial sounding, controversial band of all time!

Sure, he soon had to dump them because they were rubbish, and get another bunch of singers, but they were all gospel singers too! The Drifters do not come-across as a bunch of kids out to corrupt the morals of American youth!!

The Drifters’ previous single “Such A Night” had also gotten banned. This time in Detroit. By radio station WXYZ. They claimed to be “The Last Word In Radio” (Get it?)

They even banned the quite excellent Johnnie Ray version. So apparently did the BBC over in the UK. The Drifters version didn’t get a release in the UK, but they probably would have banned that version as well. Actually, come to think of it, being a ”white” radio station WXYZ probably weren’t planning to play The Drifters’ version anyway.

A gay man, wearing a conspicuous hearing aid, with the ability to cry on demand, singing a party song about a one-night stand, a few years after getting arrested for attempting to solicit a one-night stand from an undercover police officer in, oh look at that, Detroit.

Coincidence? Who can say? That would have been such an article! Such a performance! “Such A Night”!

Almost as soon as “Honey Love” hit, Clyde was called up to join the U.S. Special Forces. In terms of career momentum this wasn’t exactly disastrous, since he was never sent abroad. He was only sent to Buffalo. He could come down to play in New York on the weekends.

Once he was discharged from the Army however, Clyde decided to go solo, becoming one of the most popular R&B singers of the late 50s.

The Drifters just found a new lead singer and kept going. Finding new lead singers and just keeping on going would be a hugely successful strategy for The Drifters. They would eventually go through twelve of them.

Despite both Charlie Thomases coming from Virginia, and despite having previously known each other, they were in fact two completely different Charlie Thomases!

I’m sure I’ll have an opportunity to write about them again.

“Honey Love” is an 8

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Meanwhile, in Cool Jazz Land:

You know “Misty” of course.

But before there was “Misty” the song, there was “Misty” the instrumental piano piece. Written by Erroll Garner on a flight from San Francisco to Chicago. They’d just flown through a storm, a stressful experience for all involved, but that had passed and now there was a rainbow in the sky. And misty dew drops on the window. And a tune in Erroll’s head.

Erroll didn’t have a piano handy – he was after all, on a plane, and sure it was the Golden Age Of Air Travel, but even back then they couldn’t just wheel a piano down the aisle for you – so Erroll played his knees and hummed to himself.

But you need to be “a little bit funny in the head” to write a tune like “Misty”, and certainly to play a tune like “Misty” the way that Erroll plays it.

The amazing thing about “Misty”, at least the way that Erroll plays it, is:

This is the way jazz is supposed to work, but sadly, only very rarely does.

Jazz piano always sounds more impressive when you are watching it, watching fingers do so many things so quickly, that it ought to be physically impossible, so here’s that. I wonder if that’s how he played it on the plane? No wonder the little old lady thought he was crazy.

Just how this pretty piece of piano became a jazz, a pop, and even a novelty country standard, is a long story.

Weirdly enough, we probably have to thank Mitch Miller. For Erroll recorded for Columbia. He seems to have recorded for virtually everyone. A Black jazz pianist recording for Columbia was a bit of a rarity at the time.

Sure they had Duke Ellington, but the Duke was operating at a whole other level – so Erroll was selling a whole lot more than his contemporaries like Bud Powell or Thelonious Monk – a live album the next year would sell over a million copies! –  even if the album titles didn’t really sound all that appealing.

Since Mitch Miller was basically ruling Columbia Records at the time, and consequently had his own orchestra, it was only a matter of time before Mitch decided to invite Erroll in for a syrupy symphonic session.

And a couple of years later, Johnny Mathis was racing up the charts with his version.

Now, Johnny Mathis had already heard “Misty.”

But surely having your producer – Mitch – previously produce a version, and one of similar sweetness, why, that’s just kismet! Even better, what with belonging to the same record company and all, Erroll just happened to be wandering by.

And he wandered in. It must be weird to hear a song that you wrote, becoming a pop standard.

“Misty” (the Erroll Garner Original) is a 9.

So’s Johnny’s version, for that matter.

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