The Merriest Time

My friend and fellow blogger Ernie asked me a few days ago what I was planning to share this holiday season, and I mentioned this EP, and asked him if he had ever heard it.

Turns out he shared it last year on his blog. And I commented on it, giving him some background on the Honey Dreamers vocal group.

Well now. I guess the old memory isn't what it used to be.

This EP dates from my prime, 1958, when I was nine and ready to conquer the world, or at least the world's record stores. (Still working on that. It's unclear whether the stores or me will be the survivor.)

The Merriest Time! comes to us courtesy of the SESAC performing rights company - and they really were courtesy recordings, sent to radio stations as promotional items. Three of the items feature the skillful post-big band sounds of Richard Maltby, one with the Honey Dreamers, and the other the similar music of Skitch Henderson. The songs are unfamiliar except for Waldteufel's "Skater's Waltz," here called "Skater's Holiday."

Warner's Color TV Fashion Show

This is one of the more unusual LPs I own. It is a promotional record sent to stores in advance of a television program that was broadcast on September 22, 1956 and called Warner's Color TV Fashion Show. It was a musical presentation to promote women's undergarments made by Warner's (which was and I think still is a manufacturer of said undergarments).

The idea was that stores should play the record in advance of the TV show with the thought that people would come into the store to watch the program, which was in color - quite a novelty back then. The premise sounds unlikely to me, but then what do I know about it. Maybe it sold a lot of brassieres. TV promos seem to work for Victoria's Secret even today.

Unlike the Victoria's Secret extravaganzas, I don't think this program showed the undergarments at all, and it's not as though this record has music in praise of girdles on it. What it does have is music involving "famous figures" - the Empress Josephine, Sheherazade, and the Ziegfeld girl. The music is by Michael Brown, perhaps best known for composing a song about Lizzie Borden ("Lizzie Borden took an ax/And gave her mother 40 whacks"). At least I assume it is the same Michael Brown, who did music for industrial shows and cabaret reviews, among other purposes. The music is tuneful enough, although some of the lyrics are clunky. Josephine pining away for the absent Napoleon? ("There's nothing here you have to win/For I'll surrender; I'll give in.")

The cover says the program's plot involves "a young artist and his search for the ideal figure" in the company of his "devoted secretary." This sounds a little creepy. And did artists have secretaries in 1956?

The singers are Jack Haskell, who was on TV a lot and made records, and Margot Cole, who is new to me. Skitch Henderson directs the small ensemble. The TV program itself apparently used different singers - the cover mentions Broadway stars William Tabbert as the young artist and Doretta Morrow as the devoted secretary. Jinx Falkenburg entered into the proceedings, as well.

One final note - this is the only single-sided 10-inch record I've ever seen. It's very short as a result.