The recent post of "The Obsolete Collection" on my singles blog met with favor, so I decided to do a sequel. I've moved this new post over to the main site in the hopes that more people will see it, and perhaps investigate its predecessor.
The first "Obsolete Collection" covered songs having to do with lamplighters, kerosene lamps, steam locomotives, trolleys, rumble seats, telegrams, telephone party lines, cuckoo clocks, milkmen and typewriters.
This time we explore the retail trade, broadly considered, looking for records that have to do with formats that have had their time in the sun and are now looking a bit withered. Let's start off with that mainstay of my youth, the big city department store.
The Department Store
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| Macy's Herald Square, New York, back when there were horses and streetcars on the street, and the 6th Avenue El up above |
Our "Uncle Josh" version comes from a 1902 Victor session. Tastes were different then, and his yuck-yuck-yuck routine soon becomes annoying.
I don't think the "country bumpkin" character was novel even back then, but it influenced comics up through Cliff Arquette and his "Charley Weaver" in the late 20th century.
As a bonus, I've included some "Radio Hucksters Store Spots," with a vocal group and combo limning the praises of notions, linens and so on. Each spot starts with a vocal, followed by a instrumental interlude designed so that local stores could add their specific plugs ("Yes, head on down to Blatnik's Boston Store, and find bargain after bargain ..." etc.), with a brief vocal outro.
The Five-and-Dime
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| This circa 1940 Phoenix postcard focuses on Woolworth's, but also helpfully points out its five-and-dime competitors Newberry's and Kress |
The department store's less flossy cousin was the five-and-dime - Woolworth, Kresge, W.T. Grant and so on. These vendors tried to keep the prices low, but still had a wide variety of goods. The one near me when I was young had everything from birds to records. Some sold china and peanuts, and that's where our featured record comes in. It's one of the best known tunes in the set - "I Found a Million-Dollar Baby (in a Five-and-Ten Cent Store)." I've selected the 1931 hit version by Waring's Pennsylvanians, with a sincere vocal by Clare Hanlon and a trio. It also includes the seldom-heard verse, which was new to me.
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| Billy Rose found two million-dollar babies |
But wait - there are two such "million-dollar baby" songs. An earlier one, with the same theme and title but different music and lyrics, had come out in 1926. Both seem to be the handiwork of lyricist-promoter Billy Rose, working with Fred Fisher on the earlier song, and with Harry Warren and Mort Dixon on the latter.
The 1926 song is represented by a snoozy Victor recording by tenor Henry Burr, apparently a John McCormack fancier. The peppier approach taken by Waring's band works much better.
The Pool Hall
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| Ya got trouble ... watch out for the guy with the meat hooks |
The song was introduced on Broadway by the magnetic Robert Preston, but I thought you might like to hear Willson's own version, which comes from one of those "And Then I Wrote" LPs. He's almost as good as Preston. FYI - the LP was in awful early stereo with Willson's voice seeming to come from the far right of the sound stage. He needs to be front and center, so I've moved him there.
The Nickelodeon
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| A circa 1910 nickelodeon |
The word "nickelodeon" is a portmanteau of "nickel" (the price of admission) and odeon (from the Greek word for a covered theater). But somehow, the term "nickelodeon" transmigrated to also describe a coin operated player piano, and to some degree, what we would call a jukebox (which we'll get to next).
When we think about "putting another nickel in," those of us of a certain age think of the jukebox, that coin-operated marvel where you could watch the machine grab the record, put it on a turntable and bring the tonearm down so the music would flow.
The next year brought another classic, this one from the honky-tonk giant Lefty Frizzell - "If You've Got the Money, I've Got the Time," his first record. Louche Lefty picks up a lady with some money, and tells her they'll drive out to all the hot spots and "dance, drink beer and wine." (He insists, "Bring along your Cadillac, leave my old wreck behind.") But, the denouement comes - "If you've got no more money, honey, I've got no more time."
Dave Federman asked me if I would try to resuscitate a song that I could have included in the original "Obsolete Collection" - "The Lamplighter's Serenade."
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| How do you improve a player piano? Add a drum, a cymbal and an accordion! |
I haven't discovered any songs celebrating the original meaning of the word, but there is a well-known number that deals with the coin-op piano - "Music, Music, Music," aka "Put Another Nickel In" and "The Nickelodeon." Quite an elaborate set of titles to describe a simple melody with a bridge swiped from Franz Liszt.
The big hit of this song was by Teresa Brewer, a record I have detested since I was a small child. So I've included the original version, by one Etienne Paree with Eddie "Piano" Miller, whose playing is so metronomic it sounds appropriately mechanical. Actually this version is as bad as Brewer's, and Etienne is a little creepy.
The nickelodeon as theater was supplanted by movie palaces as the audience for films grew. I've recognized the days of silent films by including a snatch of stereotypical "chase music" ("The Chase") as played on a theater organ such as you might heave heard in one of the more elaborate showplaces..
As for coin-operated player pianos, you may be able to find one in your local museum.
The Juke Box
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| Wurlitzer would have had you believe that even a rural hideaway could afford its fancy model 1015 |
Jukeboxes are not extinct, but there was a time when they were ubiquitous. So to celebrate them, let's begin with perhaps the most famous such record - the Glenn Miller version of "Jukebox Saturday Night," from 1942. The vocalists are Marion Hutton, Tex Beneke and the Modernaires. The original includes an impression of Harry James' "Ciribiribin" and Ralph Brewster's droll send-up of the Ink Spots' "If I Didn't Care."
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| Two of the Modernaires' three recordings of "Juke Box Saturday Night" |
The Mods knew they were onto a good thing, so they made a Soundie version in 1944, remade the single record for Columbia in 1946 and put together a "New Jukebox Saturday Night" for Coral in 1953. I've included the latter in the package - it features their takes on Don Cornell, Les Paul and Mary Ford, the Four Aces and Johnnie Ray.
Juke boxes were still the thing later in the 1950s, when Perry Como treated us to Joe and Noel Sherman's "Juke Box Baby." Mr. C continued the Modernaires' habit of name checking other songs, including any number of current hits in passing.
This ditty, which shows off Perry's keen sense of rhythm, was on the flip side of another famous Como epic, "Hot Diggity." You will realize this is an old record when Perry complains to Juke Box Baby, "You don't dig Latin like ya dig that crazy sound." Latin? Talk about obsolete! Mine was probably the last generation that had to relieve Caesar's Gallic Wars.
The Road House
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| A "swanky" road house |
Now, where did one find these juke boxes? Well, they were common, but certainly one place would be at the old road houses, a bar or club out on a country road. These sometimes were venues where you could find gambling and other once or still-illegal pastimes.
Road houses have inspired several excellent songs. We'll start off with the wonderful "Road House Boogie," a 1949 R&B opus by Big Jay McNeely, with an uncredited vocal by (I believe) Ted Shirley. (Big Jay is the honkin' tenor sax player.) As always with these adventures, the singer ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. ("Saturday Night Fish Fry" is perhaps the most famous example.)
The title is an example of country artists turning an off-color catchphrase into a song. Another was Hank Penny's "Wham! Bam! Thank You, Ma'am!"
Finally, the more innocent "Down the Road Apiece," which Don Raye wrote in 1940 for him and Ray McKinley to sing with the Will Bradley Trio. Just a short while ago, we heard McKinley's remake with his big band, but today let's jump ahead a few decades to the insanely rocking version from the young Rolling Stones. In this reading, Mick Jagger rewrites the lyrics so that instead of calling on "Eight-Beat Mack" (i.e., McKinley), he calls out "Charlie McCoy, you all remember that rubber legged boy." Not sure how he came up with McCoy (or rubber-legged), but he's surely referring to the Stones' own drummer, Charlie Watts.
The Drive-In
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| Orange you glad you went to the Orange Drive-in? |
If you were going to drive out to the sticks, you might want to take in a movie in the questionable comfort of your car. Drive-ins are still around, but they are not as popular as they once were. Back in 1964, they were still the place for a couple to canoodle in the dark. The Beach Boys immortalized the drive-in experience on their "Drive-In," which was a cut on their All Summer Long LP.
The term "drive-in" also encompassed the type of restaurant where you ordered from your car and the uniformed attendant brought you your food. These spots are still around, but again, not nearly as plentiful as they once were. Where I lived many years ago, there was a drive-in restaurant right down the street from a drive-in theater, so that was convenient on a Saturday night.
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| Joe - er, Dolores' - Drive-In |
In 1947, veteran singer-songwriter Seger Ellis praised "Joe's Drive-In" as the place to head after seeing a show, "so I can feed this face of mine." A fun record from the author of "Little Jack Frost, Get Lost" (written with Al Stillman) and "You're All I Want for Christmas" (with Glenn Moore).
The estimable Nelson Riddle also put out a record called "Drive In." I don't know whether the title refers to the film or food variety (presumably not drive-in banks or churches), so I've parked it in between the Beach Boys and Seger Ellis.
The Gas Station
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| Service with a smile, but try not to drip from your nozzle |
Now, if you were going on a road trip, presumably you would have needed gasoline, so let's memorialize these palaces of petroleum before they are replaced by charging stations.
Gas stations are still common on the roadways, but they are much different enterprises from when I would gas 'em up, change the oil, sell you tires, replace your muffler, do a tune up or brake job, etc. That was nearly 60 years ago when gas stations were self-styled "service stations." Today they are a combination of convenience store, fast food vendor, THC emporium and car wash. And no one but you pumps the gas (in most places).
To recognize the old days, we have a lively piece called "Gas Station Mambo" by the fabulous Pérez Prado and his band, from 1953. In this station, the proprietor greets you by shouting "uh!" and "dilo!" The band sings about something or other, but I don't habla español. (I studied Latin, remember.)
And to get you in the mood to hang around the old grease rack, as I once did, we have a "Filling Station Effects" transcription featuring a very loud grease gun followed by the racket of an old-school gas pump, complete with periodic dings. The gas pump sounds like it could have used some lubrication itself. I would not recommend that you have this one on repeat play.
The Motel
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| Circa 1940s postcard |
We finish our survey with the motel, also still around, but much different from what it once was. A case in point is the Lazy Acres Motel above, once a modest motel, today primarily an RV park. And it's a survivor. Most of these rural retreats are long gone.
Lazy Acres did some radio advertising back circa 1950 on the Los Angeles radio program of Western Swing's Spade Cooley. We have a promotional record appropriately titled "Lazy Acres Motel." The song is performed by the Prairie Schooner Boys, who suggest you "take Route 99 and look for the sign - Lazy Acres Motel." Note that author of the song is one "Stan Feberg," probably the future musical satirist Stan Freberg.
I've heard worse promos - the department stores spots above, for example.
Bonus Track - "The Lamplighter's Serenade"
In my collection, I had chosen the slightly later "Old Lamplighter," but the Serenade is a fine record, too, written by Hoagy Carmichael and Paul Francis Webster.
I was familiar with the Miller and Sinatra versions, but Dave has uncovered a first-rate example by Woody Herman in an uncharacteristically mellow mood.
I found two copies of the 1942 78 on Internet Archive, but neither was in particularly good shape, offering an explosion of noise punctuated by peak distortion. I've taken the best parts of each disc, moderated the noise and mostly ameliorated the distortion so that the record now sounds acceptable.
The selections in this post came from IA and my collection. The sound is generally very good, even for Uncle Josh and his 1902 visit to the big city.
LINK to The Obsolete Collection (Retail Division)
