Robison Sings and Plays Robison

Composer-singer-pianist Willard Robison (1894-1968) has been a longtime interest of this blog, first appearing here a decade ago via his 1950s Capitol LP Deep River Music. Robison is remembered most of all for his compositions - "Old Folks," "A Cottage for Sale," "'Taint So, Honey, 'Taint So," among others. But he also was active in the recording studio as a bandleader, singer and pianist, particularly in the 1920s. Today's post brings those strains together via 29 recordings from 1926-30 that feature Robison in some combination of singer, pianist or bandleader performing his own compositions.

The Perfect-Pathé Recordings

The first record in this compilation, dating from July 1926, is characteristic of Robison, starting with its title, "Lonely Acres in the West." Loneliness and longing for home (his was in Missouri), are often themes in his songs. 

The other side of the Banner release contains one of his most famous songs, "The Devil Is Afraid of Music," which explicitly links his interest in music with revivalism - "The devil is afraid of music - sing, brother, sing!" the preacher intones.

The first two songs involve only the composer's voice and piano. Robison's singing was far afield from the usual stentorian approach of the day - he was conversational, wistful and calm. (He was advertised as the "whispering baritone.") It's said that Bing Crosby changed pop singing to a more informal manner, but the early Bing sounds almost operatic compared to Robison. With his quiet manner, Robison must have been more effective on records than in person - although he did lead a band for many years.

Indeed, the next song in this chronological survey is with his Deep River Orchestra. It is one of the numbers in the composer's eight-song Deep River Suite, of which four are in this collection. It is a catchy instrumental called "After Hours," recorded in early October. (This pressing had almost no bass as transferred; I rebalanced the sound at the cost of increasing the rumble.)

The second item in the suite, "Tampico," also with the Deep River Orchestra, comes from later in the month. The singer here is not Robison; he has been tentatively identified as Murray John. Whatever his name, his approach could not be more different from Robison's mellow reediness. Perhaps the bandleader did not think his voice could project over a band - he did record with a band later on, however.

The third item in the suite, also from October, is "Darby Hicks," another lively instrumental characteristic of the period, with good playing from the ensemble.

Information on the instrumentalists in Robison's orchestra is sketchy, although the Bix Beiderbecke discography claims that he and Frankie Trumbauer play on one session, not included here. And actually, that could be Trumbauer on the left in the band photo below. (Robison has his arms folded in front of the piano.)

Willard Robison and His Orchestra/The Deep River Orchestra

In November, Robison was back in the studio; this time without orchestra or vocalist (other than himself). He set down his first recording of another of his better-known songs, "Truthful Parson Brown." Here again we are back in a rural church, with Parson Brown exhorting his congregation, "Stop squirmin' / And pay more attention to my syncopated sermon!"

In December, Robison recorded one of his more conventional songs, "G String Melody," in that it deals with romantic love rather than rural preachers. This too involved the composer singing with his piano accompaniment.

The final recording from 1926 is also from a December session. "Music of a Mountain Stream" is characteristic both musically and lyrically. "In the golden West," Robison sings, "I have found a place where there's peace and rest. Far away from cares, all my troubles seem to vanish there." The label attributes the song to the Deep River Orchestra, but it is Robison and his piano.

In "New Hampshire Highway," Robison finds love but then has to leave, which breaks his heart - "I'll come again some day," he vows. This is another vocal and piano recording, dating from 1927; he would redo it with orchestra soon thereafter.

The final song from the American Suite contained in this collection is "Harlem Blues," from April 1927. It's an instrumental in the vein of Handy's "St. Louis Blues" - and even though it is credited to Robison on the label, Handy himself actually wrote it, in 1922. Robison was to re-record the song later for Columbia, where he attributed it to Handy.

Also from the April date comes "Blue River," one of Robison's best compositions. It's ascribed to "Willard Robison and His Orchestra" even though it was recorded at the same time as "Harlem Blues," which was attributed to the Deep River Orchestra. The vocals are by a studio group typical of the time, called the "Deep River Quintette" on the label. The contrived vocal arrangement could not be more different from the composer's own informal manner of singing. One wonders if Robison was the vocal arranger.

Next, the Deep River Orchestra appears in a remake of "New Hampshire Highway," with the vocal quintet. It's not one of the composer's best songs, but is far more effective in the solo version.

An August 1927 session brings another attribution anomaly. The song "In the Morning" is very much in the vein of other Robison creations - a preacher complains to the congregation that their contributions to the building fund have been very slow, so he exhorts them to "bring along your hammers and bring along your nails - we'll have a new home in the mornin'!" Later, virtually the same song would appear with a longer title and two co-writers (see below).

As you might have inferred from the comments on "Harlem Blues," Robison was an admirer of W.C. Handy. So much so that he wrote "Page Mr. Handy," a plea for him to write more music of the kind that Robison liked.

"My Kind of Blues" is the only solo piano piece in this collection. Although it has "blues" in its title, the work has a strong ragtime flavor. Some of Robison's earliest recordings (probably from 1925) were instrumentals - piano rolls for the Aeolian Company, including a version of the next song.

Robison's "Deep Elm" wasn't the only song of that title. There is a different and much better known blues song with a title referring to "Deep Elm" or "Deep Ellum." All of these are named in honor of a district in Dallas that takes its name from Elm St. (or "Ellum" St., pronounced with a Texas drawl). 

Robison's next number, "I'll Have the Blues Until I Get to California," is the first title recorded in 1928, probably in January. It is a remake of one of his earliest recordings, done for the Autograph label in 1924. The song is another lament for lost love, with Robison's woman taking off for California, and he making plans to follow her. "And if she turns me down," he sings, "I'll go to Chinatown. I'll smoke some hop, I'll never stop, because I've got a mess of weary blues to drown." (Mixed metaphor there, but we get the idea.)

The final recording in this group from Perfect-Pathé is "June of Long Ago," released in early 1928, about the time that Robison moved on to Victor. It was again done with the orchestra and vocal quintet. For whatever reason, Robison starts the arrangement with the opening of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, quickly launching into a tune akin to "Hands Across the Table" (which it predates). The song is a lament for lost love; the vocal quintet, or perhaps the arrangement, is more flexible this time.

The Victor Recordings

The Victor company matched Robison with its studio mainstay Nat Shilkret and his band in several 1928 sessions that produced three masters of Robison singing his own compositions. 

In this collection we have two remakes of favorite songs - "The Devil Is Afraid of Music" and "Truthful Parson Brown." Despite Robison's lack of voice, these recordings do work well, mainly because he was a far better advocate for his songs that the stilted studio vocalists of the time. Also, the orchestral arrangements add color to the music. "Truthful Parson Brown" even has a solo spot for what sounds like a contra-bassoon.

The third Victor recording is attributed to "Willard Robison, Baritone with Orchestra," although Shilkret again was in charge of the band. It is one of his best songs, if not the best, "'Taint So, Honey, 'Taint So." Let me quote some of its lyrics, which are characteristic:

Hey, people, you should come to Arkansas, 

Meet a friend of mine, old Aunt Phoebe Law, 

She's known to everyone for miles around, 

She will help you when friends forsake you and troubles bear you down! 

For those who come her way 

Are blessed when they hear her say:

'Tain't so, honey, 'tain't so, 

Spoke to the Lord and the Lord said no, 

'Tain't so, 

Honey, 'tain't so.

I learned the song from Bing's classic 1928 recording with Paul Whiteman, but even Bing is far more extroverted and dramatic than Robison. Hearing the composer's version, you can understand how he may have influenced the writing and singing of the slightly younger Hoagy Carmichael, and to a lesser extent Johnny Mercer, a great admirer of Robison.

In early 1929, Robison began recording for the Columbia family of labels, but before we get to those items, let's cover a few more Victor masters that date from late 1929.

"Don't Ever Be 'Fraid to Wade Those Troubled Waters" is another song with homespun advice. By this time, Robison had begun featuring what was then generally known as "Hawaiian guitar." Its distinctive sound could be also be heard on the Columbia recordings below. On those dates, the instrument is identified as an "octo-chorda," or eight-string guitar. Although no instrumentalist is named, the leading exponents of the octo-chorda were Roy Smeck and Sam Moore.

Robison returned to equating song with salvation in "There's Religion in Rhythm," the final Victor side. "Rhythm brings joy, and joy will break ol' Satan's hold," he assures us.

The Columbia/Velvet Tone Recordings

Robison moved on to the Columbia-Harmony-Velvet Tone-Diva set of labels in 1929. The next three songs are taken from Velvet Tone pressings.

While all the previous songs were written by Robison alone, he also collaborated with others. The first song in this group is "We'll Have a New Home in the Mornin'," essentially the same song as "In the Morning," also discussed above. Here, the song is attributed to Gene Buck and J. Russel Robinson along with Robison. The label says the song comes from the 1927-28 Broadway show Take the Air, which may have something to do with the co-credited writers. Russel Robinson, a former member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, wrote such Jazz Age hits as "Margie" and "Singing the Blues."

"Ploddin' Along" is a collaboration among composers Robison and Peter De Rose, and lyricist Jo Trent. Although both this song and "We'll Have a New Home" had words by others, they both seem like they could have come from Robison's pen.

"Wake Up! Chillun! Wake Up!" is a fine song co-written with Trent. In it, Robison exhorts his chillun, "Each golden hour, treat it like a treasure rare." Here he was backed by the Ipana Troubadors, a band that appeared on radio shows sponsored by a then-popular toothpaste. The Troubadors were led by Sam Lanin.

In "(Still Runnin' Round) In the Wilderness," Robison is back in didactic mode: "If you think that folks should help you, when you don't help yourself, then the book you should be readin' is laying on the shelf. You're still runnin' round in the wilderness."

Robison longs for the country life in "(Way Out There in) Tall Timber," where he vows to ride the rails until he recaptures the good ol' days in tall timber. With their octo-chorda accompaniment, this song and the previous number have a strong country vibe.

One of Robison's most famous songs, "A Cottage for Sale," completes this set. Here the lyrics are by Larry Conley, a one-time trombonist with Gene Rodemich's Orchestra, but they convey Robison's themes of loss and regret:

The key's in the mailbox, the same as before 

But no one is waiting for me any more. 

The end of our story is told on the door - 

A cottage for sale.

This 1930 record is attributed on the Velvet Tone label to "Willard Robison Accomp. by His Little Symphony." Robison would make no more records in the Depression-plagued industry until a 1937 session for Master. Later, he would produce 10-inch LPs for Capitol and Coral (links below).

More Robison

The best place to hear Robison's songs as interpreted by other artists is via a five-part compilation by the indefatigable David Federman. The download link is here.

I posted Robison's own Capitol LP on this blog in 2013. You can read about it (and download) here. It includes his recording of another famous song of his, "Old Folks" (written in 1938 with Dedette Lee Hill) in an exceptional performance. Also on the LP are Johnny Mercer, Paul Weston and an enchanting vocal on "Deep Summer Music" by an uncredited Loulie Jean Norman.

The Coral LP has Robison singing eight of his compositions, including another famous number, "Guess I'll Go Back Home (This Summer)," written with Ray Mayer. Here is a direct link to the Coral LP (not my transfer).

Finally, on YouTube you can see Robison with the Hall Johnson Choir in a 1930 short called "A Syncopated Sermon." It begins with a performance of "The Devil Is Afraid of Music" with Robison at the piano and the choir appearing in miniature on his piano lid being menaced by (and eventually vanquishing) the Devil. The film then leaves Robison behind and segues to a country church, where Johnson leads the choir in spirituals.

Alec Wilder wrote of Robison, "He had a special flair for gentleness and childhood, the lost and the religious," and that he demonstrated "there was more to write lyrics about than city life, that the world of memory, of remembered sayings and scenes, was as evocative as the whispered words of lovers."

Technical Note

I've adopted a new way (for me) of producing a so-called "ambient stereo" effect, which I've used in this collection. This is not the same as the old "electronic stereo" records of the 1960s and 70s, nor the ambient stereo I've used on a few previous occasions. This technique adds a modest amount of air around the mono signal, which helps to bring the performances to life.

The transfers were remastered from Internet Archive originals with many additions from my collection.