When is Bob Storm NOT Bob Storm?

Or maybe the better question is, who was/is Bob Storm?

One of the most confounding things - among many - about the Halmark label is its artist credits. Much of the time this was handled simply - the artist wasn't credited. But when they DID credit a singer, more often than not, the name given was Bob Storm. When I started collecting song-poem records, I thought I had a fairly good idea who Bob Storm was - the Halmark tracks featuring a pompous, overblown, unctuous baritone, usually singing with a remarkably ridiculous amount of vibrato. That was Bob Storm. Most of the songs, sung by a male singer, that weren't sung by the trebly, somewhat tinny-voiced singer on Halmark. That was Bob Storm. 

In fact, here's a perfect example of the Bob Storm I came to know and love, on a typically turgid piece called "Wonderful Heaven Waiting for You". This one has the astounding extra benefit of having Mr. Storm offer up a spoken word introduction, which makes it just that much more special!

The problem is that, while Bob Storm is the most frequently identified singer on Halmark 45's, the records bearing that name do not always actually feature the singer you just heard on one side of today's disk. I am aware of at least four singers, including one woman, who had releases on Halmark which came out credited to Bob Storm. Most frequently, this happened to the other singer I mentioned up there, Jack Kim. On the other hand, I have one record - my favorite Halmark record of all, "Lady Off Pedestal at Notre Dame", which is credited to Jack Kim, but the singer is clearly the man heard on the track I just shared, the one I always think of as Bob Storm.

The flip side of this record, a rather pedestrian tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, titled "Sleep On, Dr. King", is also credited to Bob Storm. And while this isn't Jack Kim (or the female singer I mentioned), I just don't think this is the usual Bob Storm, either (unless he was capable of MUCH more vocal manipulation than most singers. The range, the style and the overall performance quality are not really in the same ballpark. I'm not sure I even recognize this vocalist from other Halmark records!



So who is/was Bob Storm? Was there actually a singer by that name (as there was for Jack Kim - real name Jack Kimmel)? Or was that just a catchall artist credit that Halmark used on those releasees where they named a singer, with no actual person by that name or even assumed name. Will we ever know?

His Carolina Woman

Here's a record I was quite pleased to be able to pick up, a few months ago. I've known this side of the record for years - it was shared with me on a best-of-his-collection CD by an internet friend of mine... oh, I'd guess it was nearly a decade ago. The song - "My Carolina Woman" - is a good one. It's strong, without crossing over into the rarified air of something really special, as a tune, but what really grabs me about it are the places where Rodd Keith goes into triple harmony with himself. More than a few of my favorite Rodd discs contain this feature, although he didn't do it all that often.

The section from 1:10 to 1:20, and a similar moment about a minute later, have often rung throuigh my brain, in the decade since I first heard it, and the whole soulful production makes for a nice little record.



The flip side is titled "The Singing Hills", and I was initially underwhelmed by it. That didn't last, however - I listened a bit more deeply, and was quite taken with the borderline gorgeous backing track. For half of the track, it seems to be made up entirely of stringed instruments - bass and guitars. If there is a drummer there, he's playing very subdued brushes. About half way through, the piano makes itself known, again, buried in the mix, gradually playing more of a role, while remaining well in the background.

It's just a lovely track, and it matches the sweet, lovely lyrics (written by the same song-poet as the a-side, by the way) extremely well. One of the most laid-back tracks I've heard from Rodd Keith, and a real winner.

Eddie Eltman's Greatest Hit

Here's some sweet relief for all of you who have been patiently waiting for a bit of song-poem sharing featuring the fantastic sounds of Eddie Eltman! There may not actually be anyone out there who has actually been waiting for this, because Mr. Eltman is only documented (on the AS/PMA site) to have appeared on one song-poem record, and this is that record, all 206 seconds of it (that's the total of BOTH sides, not of one song!).

And a sweet little record it is, too. "Honey Bee Bug" came out some time in 1959, and it sounds much like any number of hits and near hits from 1958-59, with the exception of some hamfistedness on the part of the band, particularly the bass player. With a little sanding on the edges of this one, and a better producer, I imagine this could actually have made the charts in that era.



The first thing you may notice about the flip side, "God, You and Me", is that it sounds a whole lot like "Honey Bee Bug". This track has the same strengths and weaknesses as its flip, and while I'm partial to that flip, I could see this one being just as enjoyable to others, and again, this sound could easily have been molded into something chartworthy, during the time it was recorded.

I wonder sometimes about these singers who show up just once or twice on a song-poem label - what's the story there. Sometimes they are vanity recordings, made by the writer of the songs, but that's clearly not the case here, and in other ways, this record doesn't differ much from the TPA style of the day, which was to recreate what was selling (and much more effectively than some other labels did). Anyone with insight into this is most welcome to chime in!

Born Loser

It's always a nice day around here when I get to spin a Norm Burns record. And today's selection even goes for a bit of comedy, and while it's hit-and-miss on that score at least, it's fun to hear Norm fooling around with a country bumpkin accent and singing goofy lyrics. This song seems to be at least a cousin, of sorts, with another Norm favorite, "I Ain't Got No Nothing", a song which actually ends with the lines "when the time arrives, I just know that I will be shot". This one doesn't go quite that far, but it's also perhaps a slightly better constructed lyrics, without some of the rhyming reaches of "No Nothing". 

And plenty of moments here work as Jackie Vernon-esque self-depreciating comedy, from the singer's mother's comments when he was dropped on his head, to the meaning of the principal's statement that he was "the most responsible kid in school", to where he went to find a wife.  Other moments are clunky in terms of writing, fitting the words to the backing, or both. 

I don't have much to say about the flip side "Dreamer of Dreams" (perhaps it was the lead track on Norms "Speaker of Speech" album, or maybe it was to be called "Hummer of Hums"). It's not very good, as a song or a performance, and it's not bad enough to be interesting. The only thing marginally curious about this song is the repeated reference to the belief that we'll reach the moon at some point in the future. The thing is, that that AS/PMA discography for Sterling does a decent job of indicating when which records came out, and based on this one's label number, it's fairly clear that this record was made in late 1970, nearly 18 months after the first moon landing. Ah, well, the mysteries of the song-poets, and of the song poem industry in general.

Hummin' and a Strummin'

Time is fleeting this week for various reasons, and I'm way behind in sharing this week's tracks. So just a few words on the Gene Marshall numbers I've chosen for this week. Although "Hummin' and a Strummin'" is written in the first person, I sense a strong feeling of disdain for the singer, on the part of the lyric writer, who was perhaps lumping all of those hippies together in writing this song about one of the laziest people ever described. Her ability to construct and portray a realistic person while simultaneously showing his foibles does not exactly rival the talents in this area of Randy Newman - an unfair comparison, I suppose, but if you're going to shoot for this sort of thing, you need to hit the target without being as obvious about it as the lyrics are here, doncha think?  

The flip side, "Shifting Sand", is an average level lyric containing a common sentiment and experiment. I've heard better, and in listening to song-poems, I've heard a lot worse, MANY times. This writer, at least, manages to hold my attention and put together some moderately affecting words. And it helps that Gene Marshall turns in another masterful vocal.

A Song-Poem For Your Mother

Ah, Mother's Day. A day for flowers, gifts, an outpouring of thanks, a nice dinner, perhaps at the fanciest place in town, a phone call if you can't be together and, of course, Frank Perry and the "Big Sound" of the Film City Chamberlin. For those who struggle to express a single original thought, and for whom even Hallmark's cards seem a bit too edgy, I offer here, free of charge, a song to give to your mother, containing the blandest of mother's day wishes imaginable: 

That sound sure is big, huh? Of the flip side, the seemingly endless "I Thought You Knew", the less said, the better:

Caveman Music!

I've seen very few records on the Caveman label. There are only two in my collection, I've seen two others on other blogs, and there are only four listed at the AS/PMA site. It seems to have been one of these catch-all labels, putting out the products of a variety of other song-poem factories, producers of vanity recordings and who knows what else. Based on the records I've seen or which are listed, I can't see any direct connection between the various Caveman records (i.e. the same company, the same writers, etc.) that are often so evident on the smaller song-poem offshoot labels.

Of those Caveman records I've heard, one is far and away the best, and it's also the one which actually sounds like it could be caveman music. That record - one of my favorites ever - can be found at another wonderful blog, here. I'm partial to "White Rose Gal" but both tracks are a hell of a lot of fun. Have a listen, and thank me later!

Today's item on Caveman Record features the very un-caveman like Cara Stewart, doing what Cara Stewart did best, singing in a lovely voice over a slinky Lee Hudson backing track. The words of "Sugar" could stand to be improved quite a bit - I'm fairly certain, for example, that "much" doesn't rhyme with "church", and the phrase "I just idolize your charms" is not one which rolls musically off the tongue. But if you just lean back and let Cara's voice work it's magic, none of that will matter by the time the record is over.



As much as I wish this was a two sider for Cara, the reality is that the flip contains another typical performance, in this case, Sammy Marshall, Samming it up on a forgettable Globe entry titled "Dewdrops":



Interestingly, although the Caveman numbering system seems to be virtually at-random (various releases have  three digits, four digits and five digits), AS/PMA shows a record with the exact same label number as this one (81462), but minus the C/D following the number, having been released as an EP, with both of these songs on one side (and both identified as being sung by Sammy Marshall) with two Joan Auborn songs on the other side.