Although my time out and about during our masked-up pandemic present has been fairly limited, no bargain bins have remained unpillaged when the opportunity presented itself. Side note: If you're reading this column when it's new (April 17, 2021), the St. Vincent de Paul record sale is taking place right now, at the Williamson Street location. And even during this era when used records are disappearing from stores seemingly as fast as staff can put them out, a lot of good music can still be found for a song. If you’re willing to experiment, that is. Here's another roundup of recent finds.
Regional records I haven't heard are an easy “yes” when I run across one for a buck or two. Native Sons by Bill Miller was a definite buy when I ran across a copy. Today, the Wisconsin-born Miller is a music legend as a songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and performer, as well as a visual artist and Native American activist. Native Sons is his debut album, recorded in 1982 at OM Recording Studios in Boscobel, and a very assured debut it is. Except for a bit of synth on one track and likely some electric bass at times, this is an acoustic folk record, as I expected (and hoped). But it also has a less expected pop edge, thanks to an intriguingly constructed band (often three guitars, congas, and violin), Miller's strong, clear singing, and good harmony vocal work. Combined with the driving guitar work, those harmonies remind me of the Moody Blues on a couple songs. In an era when Dan Fogelberg, for example, was regularly on the radio, this should have fit right in and gotten some airplay.
The players on Native Sons include Mark Roeder on violin (more recently seen behind the steel guitar with Madison-area band The North Westerns); Tim Konrad, Roeder's then-bandmate in Wet Behind the Ears; and Dan Sebranek, a long-time musical partner of Wisconsin singer-songwriter Johnsmith (and also still on the scene as a solo performer). Native Sons was a lucky find. Keep an eye on Miller's Facebook page for periodic livestream concerts while touring is on hold. (Windspirit Music WSM-101, 1982)
1950s California jazz vocal group The Hi-Lo's also features a Wisconsin connection: Bass-baritone Gene Puerling was a Milwaukee native. The Hi-Lo's, I Presume, is their second LP; the standard 12-inch version I found is a reissue, which features 11 songs to eight on the original 10-inch version. I've seen Hi-Lo's records around for years but had only ever listened to one — The Hi-Lo's Happen to Folk Songs — which I picked up specifically due to my 1960s folk fandom. I remember enjoying it and honestly am somewhat regretting not keeping it because I would like to hear it again. The Hi-Lo's certainly must have been influenced by The Four Freshmen, as the quartet's manner of building unexpected harmonies is reminiscent of the Freshmen's unique sound. However The Hi-Lo's are a lot more aggressive (or irreverent, depending on your taste) about reinterpreting the standards they take on; that sense of humor also made the folk album a bit different from what is typical. On this and their other early recordings, backing is provided by a simpatico orchestra led by Frank Comstock, whose arrangements expertly weave in and around the singers. I found a couple Hi-Lo's and a handful of other vocal jazz records in the MadCity dollar bin recently; I'm starting to appreciate this style enough that a few of these might stick around. (Starlite ST 7007, 1955)
A record I recovered from a pile of free LPs in the entryway of a local store goes back even farther in jazz history, to the Dixieland era. The album title and the name of the "band" in this case seem to be the same: NBC's Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. That appellation is not one that would normally pique my interest, but in this case the featured vocalists are Lena Horne and Dinah Shore, and the participation of Sidney Bechet is also noted on the front cover, so, here we are. Anyone going into this album with no prior knowledge (as I did) would think from reading the liner notes that these are 1930s radio recordings, which seemed awful early to me for Shore and Horne to be involved.
Well, I was right, just barely. Wikipedia provides some answers: The radio show premiered in 1940, and the unlikely name is part of the show's conception as a mild satire of highbrow classical broadcasts. A pair of regular ensembles were featured, one combo led by former Original Dixieland Jazz Band member Henry Levine and the other a woodwind-based group led by Paul Laval (which explains why, despite the Dixieland trappings of the cover, not all the material sounds like Dixieland). Shore was the initial featured singer, a spot that was later claimed by Horne, among others. Wikipedia also notes that RCA issued records by the various ensembles at the time the show was on the air, so what is on this record may not be drawn from the actual radio shows. In any event, the songs on this compilation are now considered standards. The side devoted to Shore's vocals includes "Mood Indigo" and "Star Dust;" Horne's side is all W.C. Handy songs. Yet more evidence that you gotta keep an eye on those vintage budget line records...and also proof that figuring out what you are looking at can be confusing, since this turns out to be a repackage of an earlier budget series release that has a few different cover designs. (RCA Camden CAL-802, 1964)
Meanwhile, in another hustling corner of the record industry, we find the various industries of Shelby S. Singleton Jr. His journey from promotion man to record producer to uncontainable Nashville mogul is entertainingly delineated in a Cocaine and Rhinestones podcast episode (only the first of three in-depth examinations of the sensational success of the song "Harper Valley P.T.A."). Long before learning his backstory on that podcast, I've picked up anything I see with his name on the label, and records on any of the various labels he launched as part of the SSS/Sun empire. (Singleton purchased the Sun catalog from Sam Phillips in the latter half of the 1960s.) So The Continuing Story by Dee Mullins was a no-brainer, and as I expected from the song titles — "Guilt Box," "Beers," "Parking for Cheaters," "I Am the Grass" — it's a very entertaining country LP. The title track is in fact "The Continuing Story of Harper Valley P.T.A.," a lesser Tom T. Hall follow-up that did not replicate the success of the original.
From a bit of discographical research, this appears to essentially be a singles comp, featuring tracks from 1967-1969 released on both SSS International and Plantation. After the "Harper Valley P.T.A." explosion, many Singleton recordings (as well as the rest of the industry) attempted to copy the dobro sound of that record, and that includes some of these cuts, of course. And since this is from the early days of the Singleton empire, it's not all just material he held the publishing rights to, which was often the case on later records. There's an intriguing early Donnie Fritts song ("War Baby"), and the highlight might be the incredibly dark "Run Willie Run," a jaunty number about a man being unjustly (or not?) killed by vigilantes after his fiancee turns up dead. Yikes. For fans of offbeat country music, The Continuing Story is going to be essential. Mullins recorded a pre-SSS single and some more in later years, but this appears to be his only LP. (Plantation PLP 4, 1969)
