Tuesday's Twosome # 16

April 9, 1966: Billboard announces the release of a certain Tune-Tone LP (about which more in a second). Several months later, in the October 22 issue of the same year, the Billboard announcement is repeated (for whatever reasons) and the said LP was awarded a mediocre 3-star rating; the album was categorised as »popular«. After that, we hear nothing more of the said LP.

Tune-Tone LP # 121 (04/1966)

The artists featured on the said LP are Bonnie & Clem, prominently billed on the cover as »The Aero-Dynamic Singers«. I really have not the faintest idea what this was supposed to mean, and if you search for »Aero-Dynamic Singers« using the various net ressources at our disposal you'll get a mere 0 results. However, the singers are familiar enough, maybe even household names to some aficionados: Bonnie Davis and Clem (Clement) Moorman, wife and husband at this stage of their career (they divorced only several years after in the early 70's).
Bonnie Davis (this being her stage name; for the law she was Gertrude Melba Smith) was born in New Orleans and grew up in Alabama. She met pianist Clem(ent) Moorman in or around 1942 when both worked in Newark. Clem was playing at the local Piccadilly Club, forming the house band, i.e. a trio made up of himself (piano), Al Henderson (bass), and Ernie Ransome (guitar). They soon became the Piccadilly Pipers, Al Henderson was replaced by Henry Padgette, and that's how they finally encountered Bonnie Davis. Bonnie on the other hand was around Newark as a singer with saxophonist Teddy Hill's band and in 1942, when the Piccadilly Pipers were looking for a female singer, all teamed up together. Early on, they also recorded as the »Bunny Banks Trio«. Their first sessions with Savoy produced a #1 R&B hit (»Don't Stop Now«), and their follow-up records during the 1940's were likewise more or less successful. But it was only in 1949 that the group appeared officially, for the first time, as »Bonnie Davis And Clem«. -- Well, this is just a digest of a much longer and more interesting story which was researched in detail by Marv Goldberg (read it here: »The Piccadilly Pipers«). Equally informative proved a long entry at Google Answers, read it here. There, reference is also made to the study of Barbara J. Kukla: Swing City: Newark Nightlife, 1925-50, Philadelphia 1991 (I haven't checked this reference).

The Piccadilly Pipers (feat. Bonnie Davis)

The Piccadilly Pipers (feat. Bonnie Davis) recorded into the mid-50's, after which Bonnie went to Decca (the group was by then already under contract with Coral, a Decca subsidiary) and started a solo career (of sorts; Clem of the Pipers was playing piano at all her sessions). This didn't lead anywhere, and soon The Piccadilly Pipers were back in business, with changed personnel. They continued to record until the end of the 50's before they finally disbanded. Bonnie & Clem went ahead as a duo, touring supper clubs and lounges, thus sharing the fate which the merciless 1960s had in store for many late-40's/early 50's artists who had lost, it appears, touch with the younger audience, were by now lacking overall success and in any case were regarded by many as relicts of the past; musicallywise they usually offered, or were forced to offer, the somewhat outdated tunes popular in the cocktail lounge circuit which still appealed to an elderly, white middle-class public.

Publicity shots of Bonnie Davis, from the 1950's

Their Tune-Tone LP, released only in 1966 (according to Billboard; Marv Goldberg mentions the earlier date of 1964), was hopelessly outdated when it was released (at least if measuring it at what was current on the charts of the time). In fact, even the portraits of Bonnie & Clem on the cover probably date to the 1950s, as becomes apparent if comparing Bonnie's photo with some of her former publicity shots. Weirdly, the back cover of the album has no complete song list but features, among other things, two short career sketches of Bonnie and Clem and a list of places »both have appeared as a duo«. All texts on the back cover focus heavily on their TV and concert appearances and downplay their former history as »The Piccadilly Pipers«; probably the LP was meant to be sold after their stints in the various clubs. The disc labels yield the following song list:

• A1   No Man Is An Island
• A2   Basin Street
• A3   The Heart Of A Fool
• A4   You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You
• A5   Madeira
• A6   All I Want Is You
• B1   Just A Little Lovin'
• B2   Exodus
• B3   Capucciana
• B4   Moonlight In Vermont
• B5   When I Lost You
• B6   It's Alright With Me

Several of these songs were recorded, I presume, in the years before 1966, but I cannot give any dates. »You're Nobody Till Somebody Loves You«, for example, was recorded by Bonnie & Clem in 1959 for the first time. Moreover, Clem appears as a duet partner of Bonnie in only about five songs; the rest are Bonnie solos (with Clem on the piano). The two duets which, to my mind, stand out from the rest are »All I Want Is You« and »Just A Little Lovin'«. The first tune is an original Davis-Moorman composition, exhibiting much witty playfulness and even some features of a typical novelty song; the second tune, classically romantic, is much different in mood and performance as you will easily notice ... so in between these songs we can capture the wide range of musical styles Bonnie & Clem could cover with much charm and skill:

Bonnie & Clem: »All I Want Is You« / »Just A Little Lovin'« from the Tune-Tone LP # 121 (1966):

* * *

Anyhow, there are still two things to consider here, one biographical and the other musical.
    The biographical bit: It may not be remembered generally that Gertrude Melba Smith (aka Bonnie Davis) is the mother of known singer Melba Moore. However, the surrounding details are somewhat unclear: Both Bonnie and Clem said later that they fell in love the moment they met in Newark, that is, in 1942 at the latest. Melba was born in 1945 while Bonnie was married still to Teddy Hill (the bandleader of her for- mer engagement), and Melba was nine when Bonnie remarried Clem Moorman. So was she married before to Clem, divorced him sometime before 1945 and remarried him in c.1954? Or maybe the mention of a remarriage is a mistake and Bonnie actually married Clem for the first time in c.1954, although they had been in love for a considerable time before. Melba, in any case, later acknowledged to have been much influenced by her stepfather Clem and even took her stage name »Moore« from Clem's family name »Moorman« (while »Melba« refers, obviously, to her mother). In the July 1970 issue of Ebony (p. 31), we read the following about Melba Moore:

As a child growing up in New York and Newark, she was "turned on" to show biz by her parents, both of whom performed with a group called the Piccadilly Pipers. "I met a lot of people through them," Melba relates, "for they have a great facility for making friends wherever they go. My initial impulse was to get into nightclubs singing and playing the piano, since that's what they do, and I thought I could get started in that most easily. My brothers, my sister and I were all musically inclined and we enjoyed taking lessons. At one time I was really heavy into jazz piano."

   The musical bit: There is one song on this LP, another duet, entitled »Capucciana« (which Bonnie & Clem consistently pronounce »Capuccina«). It obviously is meant to be a funny pun on cappuccino and is partly sung in Italian, one of the myriad of pseudo-Italian songs popular in the early 1960's and impossibly kitschy for my personal taste (but well-suited to a supper club audience which presumably had often its fair share of nostalgic Italo-Americans). Now, there is no such song, really, as »Capucciana«,and the song is little more than an adaption of Nicola Arigliano's hit single »Permettete, Signorina« from 1960. The Italian parts run, in case it is of interest:

          Permettete signorina
          Vi dispiace se vi chiedo di ballar
          Non c'e' bimba piu' carina
          Che mi possa questa sera far sognar   ... ... ...
          O mia bella signorina
          Baciami ancor
          Dammi dammi un bacio
          Un lungo bacio
          E ciao ciao ciao amor!

Bonnie & Clem: »Capucciana« from the Tune-Tone LP # 121 (1966):

* * *

Still Reminiscing ...

... ah well, I am still thinking, with no little nostalgia, about my late summer trip to Greece ... while around here the golden leaves are falling on the ever colder ground and the sun, when she does appear through the misty haze of the autumn sky, struggles more and more every day to reach her meridian over the horizon. At night, the moon is often obscured by batches of dark clouds as if his silver disk is waylaid by a swarm of hungry bats. So best I can come up with today are two songs which dispel my gloomy autumn mood and bring back the memories of sunnier days ... and of places like this, on a lonely beach in southern Crete called Sweetwater:

(Click to enlarge)

When I looked through some of my records, summer songs proved less easy to find than I thought! At the end, I ended up with a version of Gershwin's classic »Summer- time«, by Brenda & The Tabulations (recorded in Philadelphia and released on their one-and-only Dionn LP # 2000 Dry Your Tears in May 1967). Following up their hit »Dry Your Tears«, Brenda & The Tabulations rushed out, as was common, an accompanying album which, for all the speed with which it was produced, contained many covers and known standards, among which the said song. A Billboard critic of the epoch (June 3, 1967 issue, p. 86) nevertheless stated that Brenda's mono version of »Summertime« gives an »excellent treatment« to the tune, so it did no go unnoticed. There will be some out there who have never heard Brenda's version before, and although I do not think that hers is the definitive version of that tune it strikes me as a particularly melancholic version, and the song in itself is essentially melancholic! (Thus it well fits my actual mood ...) Brenda's high-pitched voice, somewhat echoing and distant in the recording, confers an almost mystic atmo- sphere. And mind that at around 02:18 into the song, before the organ sets in, there is a noticeable break which must be due to bad cutting, I guess. In any case, it does not seem caused by the LP nor by the pressing.

As for the second tune, I took it from an album you all know, yet it arguably is - given that almost all songs from this album have become landmark recordings - the least remembered of them all: Aretha Franklin's »Hello Sunshine« from her 1968 Atlantic LP Now. The song was penned, in or little before '68, by King Curtis and Ron(ald/nie) Miller. As you know, Curtis was present in person at the December, 19, 1967 session which produced the track, and the backing vocals are due to none less than The Sweet Inspirations ... Like »Summertime«, »Hello Sunshine« is again a melancholic song, even if Aretha's room-filling powerhouse voice wasn't fitted to produce a version you could call »mystical«. As only she could (and, well, can), she effortlessly blasts the tune away into the blissful heaven of immortal recordings!

Brenda & The Tabulations: »Summertime« from the Dionn LP # 2000 (1967, mono) /
Aretha Franklin (feat. The Sweet Inspirations): »Hello Sunshine« from the Atlantic LP # 8186 (1968):

The Return of the Jedi

Oowee, ... about time to breath life again into this blog which I left sadly orphaned for two months!
Not that I was idle, really. Rather, I set out to purify my mind and soul, and fortu- nately I found some very beautiful places to do so. So, for example, I went here:

(Click to enlarge)

This spectacular lagoon is known by the name of Bálos and is situated on the northwestern tip of Crete. It is hard to reach, only either by boat or afoot, but the view (and, once descended, the turquoise water) is obviously worth the effort. And yes, during the weeks past I toured the island of Crete, leaving my hard discs, records and all the rest safely at home. I had never been to Crete before, and my first visit was truly a ravishing experience. Most parts of Crete, especially those near the sea, are equally lovely, so it doesn't matter much where you go. And it's more than an island, in many ways, not the least because of its size: its length exceeds 150 miles, yet there is but one motorway (mostly with one lane only!) and the rest of the isle is crisscrossed by more or less winding roads which often climb steep mountains in long serpentines ... and may, on occasion, give you cold sweats if you start looking into the abyssal ravines beside the road. A lot of places you can only (thanks God, for it keeps the masses away) reach on bumpy dirt tracks or by walking.

* * *

To give you a better idea, here are two more panorama views of this beautiful Mediterranean isle. The first shows Elounda Bay, near Spinalonga. It is situated to the north of Agios Nikolaos (and the reputedly chic VIP resorts of Elounda have lately seen the visits of Lady Gaga and Brad Pitt ... just saying). The second photo shows the view over Mokhlos (the shining white village below at the seaside, in front of the little island) and the Gulf of Mirabello (as the Venetians, the former lords of Crete before the Turkish conquest, called it). Both scenarios are in Eastern Crete:

(Click to enlarge)

(Click to enlarge)

Now, this was a beautiful trip indeed. Back home, I then continued moving house ... and finished TODAY !! That is, today I finally relocated the last bits and pieces from my old apartment and left it, metaphorically speaking (but not much), more or less vacuum clean. Since this move from my old to my new home occupied me for the last five or six months, I can't tell you what I am feeling right now: exhaustion, joy, you name it. And a good day it is to »reopen«, as it were, this blog. Happy homecoming!

Lemon Prequel

mid-week gospel

Savoy LP # MG-14149 (1966)

Tonight only with a small »prequel« to the post I have in mind for next Sunday ... from the 1966 Savoy LP by the Howard Lemon Singers from Detroit, Michigan. (The album has one of the many covers by Harvey which make the '60s LPs of Savoy so special.)
You can hear them below with a swinging up- tempo version of »Amazing Grace«. On piano: Howard Lemon; lead: Joyce (Lawson) Moore, accompanied by Burnadette (!) Gaudy, Patricia Green and Brenda McDonald and, possibly but uncertain, Catherine Massey Stovall.

The Howard Lemon Singers: »Amazing Grace« from the Savoy LP # 14149 (1966):

Bessie Smith Tribute Contest (1st part)

»After You've Gone«

Being one of the queen mothers of modern jazz, blues and ultimately soul as well, Bessie Smith and the songs she recorded have inspired many. On March 2, 1927, Bessie recorded four popular songs, Turner Layton's & Henry Creamer's »After You've Gone« among them. (The song was first recorded in July 1918 by Marion Harris: listen to it here; find out more about it here and here.) At the time and later on as well, Bessie's choice of popular tunes was often criticized. Chris Albertson writes:

Blues purists - who, oddly enough, don't complain about Bessie's 1923 record- ings of lesser-known pop fare - have bemoaned her "commercial" repertoire for this session, and critics have rationalized it as an attempt to regain lost ground. But Bessie's popularity was not threatened at the time, and her recordings reflected only a part of her actual repertoire. Her treatment of these songs offers delightful evidence of her talent for turning banal material into something special. (...)
Just as the sudden popularity of theatrical blues (as opposed to the street corner variety) had turned "sweet" singers into blues divas overnight, so it was easy for blues singers to venture beyond their regular domain. Bessie did this routinely on stage, but even a song like "After You've Gone" almost be- came a blues when she handled it ... (Bessie, rev. and expanded ed., New Haven 2003, p. 148 f.)

The least one can say is that Bessie made the song her own, so that until today nobody (I guess) associates it with Marion Harris but rather with Bessie Smith. Thus we find it on two »Bessie Smith Tribute« LPs from the late '50s, the one, famous enough, by Dinah Washington, the other, truly obscure, by Becky Hall.

AAMCO LP # 324 (1959?)

Let's start with the second, entitled A Tribute to Bessie Smith (AAMCO # ALP-324). Strangely, the singer is nowhere mentioned on the cover; instead you'll have to read the sleeve notes on the back in order to finally stumble across the artist's name in about one of the last lines. On another blog, the writer is as clueless as I am about who Becky Hall really was. In fact, it is not even clear whether one of the two women posing in the cover photo is Becky Hall or not (my guess is that she isn't, because on many other AAMCO 33⅓ covers there is no picture of the artist but rather a more or less kitschy, if not outright trashy or freaky, tableau composed of otherwise unrelated models) ...!
     The low-priced AAMCO label (a subsidiary of some sort of Alison Enterprises) was established in summer 1958 and barely a year later, in June '59, Alison-AAMCO already filed for bankruptcy (see Billboard, June 29, 1959, p. 7). However, if running across the net you'll find release dates for AAMCO LPs ranging from 1956 to the mid-'60s ... Conventionally, Becky's LP is assigned to 1959, and this makes sense because Georges Rhodes (who was Sammy Davis's accompanist) is mentioned as the arranger in the notes on the back cover. Rhodes joined Alison-AAMCO only at the beginning of '59 (see JET, Jan. 29, 1959, p. 64), thus 1959 seems to be about right as the release date of the album.
     For the curious among you I can add that it is worthwhile to look for other AAMCO LP releases ... you'll find everything from serious jazz by famous soloists and bandleaders to mildly bizarre releases of more or less exotic stuff: Torero (Music of the Bull Ring) (»a 66 piece band captures the pageantry of bull ring«), Favorite Polkas, Mazeltov, Flamenco, The Scots Guards Bag Pipes (»Stirring songs of Scot- land«) and, my favorite album, Tarik Bulut's In An Egyptian Garden (»Sensuous songs of the exotic Middle East«). Also noteworthy is the respective cover art of many of these LPs, and not without good reason at least one AAMCO album made it on the Bizarre Records website ...

EmArcy LP # MG-36130 (1958)

Second, Dinah Washington. Her album Dinah Sings Bessie Smith (EmArcy LP # MG 36130) was out in February 1958. It doesn't need much of an introduction, I think. It features 10 songs made famous by Bessie Smith and recorded by Queen Dinah in December '57 and January '58, accompanied by her then-husband, the saxophonist Eddie Chamblee, and his band. »After You've Gone« in particular was taped at Universal Recorders, Chicago, on January 7, 1959. On the back cover of the EmArcy LP, the tune is explicitly mentioned as »one of a handful of non-blues songs among the 160 (which Bessie put on wax during her eleven years as a recording artist).«

Below, you can listen to Becky Hall's version of »After You've Gone«, followed by Dinah's. I personally feel that putting Becky's version first is doing her a favor, really. Maybe this is because I am, by personal inclination, unshakably partial to the art of Ruth Lee Jones. Anyhow, Becky's every so often strident voice is less forceful and less modulated than Dinah's, especially in the upper registers, and vocally she tackles the song as if it were kind of a French chanson. Finally, and quite indepen- dent from both the artists' respective talents, Dinah's voice was recorded way clearer and more up front than was Becky's. But well, there is always something to listen to with interest, if not delight:

Becky Hall ('59)/ Dinah Washington ('58): »After You've Gone«:

Can't Nobody ...

mid-week gospel

... tell me that this isn't a beautiful LP! A gifted artist and a piano. That's about all you need. And Martha Abbott does give it to us, in abundance, on her 1976 Hoyt Sullivan LP Precious Is His Name (HSE LP # 1458): eight songs, a marvelous voice and about 85 ivories in black & white.

From the cover of HSE LP # 1458
(changed to B&W)

Martha Abbott's first HSE LP was recorded in Nashville and probably released in (late?) 1976; however, three songs from the album were filed for copyright only in January 1977 (if that is to mean anything). The album features two songs by Martha and several more or less known tunes by others.
     Mrs Abbott, daughter of Rev. and Mrs. John H. Clark from Columbus, Ohio, and married to deacon Robert Abbott, dedicated her life to church music. In 2001, she was among the inductees of the Columbus Senior Musicians Hall of Fame and I understand that she is still active in several Columbus baptist communities and occas- ionally gigging. Apart from this, information about her is scarce.

Several months ago, Alex on his blog posted a piece on Martha Abbott. He writes that he called her (you'll actually find her phone no. on the back of the HSE LP!) and eventually had a nice conversation after overcoming some (understandable) diffidence on her part. She said that »Precious Is His Name« (listen to it on Alex's blog) was the first song she ever wrote and that her first HSE LP was recorded in Nashville. After that, she recorded in her hometown of Columbus instead and released a total of eight LPs. Locally, Martha is a known artist and her LPs sold well throughout Ohio and in neighboring states. »You can find them everywhere« she added. Not less importantly, Mrs. Abbott stressed that she feels blessed to have been able to perform her music for so many people for such a long time. »It's all about Jesus,« she said. (Read more here) ... and yes, the cover photo from her HSE LP seems to be the only known »official« photo of her. It does seem to come, in style and posture, from a by-gone epoch so that's why I changed it to B&W above. Not so her music which resonates today.

On most songs of her LP, Martha Abbott is accompanied (almost shyly and much in the background) by an electric organ; on »Precious Is His Name« and »All Of My Life« we have only her and the piano. Some of the tunes are church ballads, but two others are true downhome piano stompers, with a hint of barrelhouse: James Cleveland's »It's So Hard To Get Along« and Andrae Crouch's »Can't Nobody Do Me Like Jesus« (which means »can't nobody treat me like Jesus« as the lyrics say at one point). It's just what I felt I needed to hear today. Hope you feel the same!

Martha Abbott: »It's So Hard To Get Along« / »Can't Nobody Do Me Like Jesus« from the HSE LP # 1458 (1976):

* * *