Digression No. 23

It was quite a thrill to receive a note from Sue Raney and her husband Carmen Falzone following my posting of her uncollected singles recently. This was through the intercession of Bill Reed, who knows Sue and had taken Sue a CD of the singles. She responded:

"I can’t begin to express my gratitude for the compilation of the singles I made so long ago. It was such fun to listen to them again. We sure tried to get a hit record in those days (ha). 'Biology' was the only one that made it to the Billboard chart at about 50 something (I think). [Note from Buster - that's the only Capitol single I don't have, ironically.] What a special person you are to have taken the time to do all that. You made me so happy, and I thank you so very much for your love and support – the notes you wrote are also quite a keepsake for me."

Speaking of Bill (maestro of the People vs. Dr. Chilledair), he reminds me that in my recent Carole Simpson post, I really should have mentioned that Carole has a 2008 release called "Live" and Otherwise, available here.

Finally - and completely unrelated to the previous discussion - I came across a most interesting radio show on the web this weekend, and thought I would share my refurbishment of the sound. This comes from the Sunday Gramophone feature of a site called Crooks and Liars, which apparently does not refer to the musicians or proprietors but to the site's main preoccupation, politicians. Sunday Gramophone has exceptionally interesting material, unfortunately presented in exceptionally low bit-rate mp3s. Yesterday's offering was from an NBC program of July 1, 1943 by the NBC Orchestra, conducted by Joseph Stopak. This was in a late-night sustaining series called Music of the New World, devoted to all types of music from the Americas - a wartime effort designed to promote inter-American harmony.

This particular program was devoted to US composers, and included less-often heard works by Sowerby (Comes Autumn Time) and Creston (Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra, with Artur Balsam), along with pieces by Griffes and Carpenter.

I have rebalanced the sound, but the compression artifacts from the low bit-rate file are of course still audible (but not too distracting, I hope). It is presented in FLAC format to avoid additional compression effects. The program also is now tracked. The link is below.

LINK

Carole Simpson Sings Steve Allen

My friend Bill recently shared this at his blog People vs. Dr. Chilledair, but since Bill only leaves things up for a short time and I had a request for it, here is  Carole Simpson's Singin' and Swingin', from my own copy of the LP

A talented singer, Simpson made just two albums - the one for Tops Mayfair from 1960 and an earlier one for Capitol.

Here all the songs are by producer Steve Allen, a comedian, TV host, songwriter, author and pianist. Allen had something of an industry going with any number of records by him and others presenting his songs, which are fair to good in quality. This particular program contains his greatest hit, This Could Be the Start of Something Big, and what may be his second greatest hit, Spring in Maine.

Simpson certainly does well by Allen here and the record is entirely a success - certainly more so than the pressing. Tops was a budget label and its vinyl was carefully chosen to present a high hiss level. In the case of some of its product, this could be considered a benefit, but here it detracts. I have mitigated this to some degree and the results are, I think, as pleasing as Miss Simpson's appearance on the cover.

For more on Carole, see this article on Bill Reed's blog.