From the Back Room: Thurl Ravenscroft

This is another in a series of posts from Buster's Back Room, where I keep the many projects I have completed but never offered on this blog.

For these "From the Back Room" items, the transfers, etc., are prepared with the usual care, but my prolix commentary may be abbreviated.

Today we explore the endless reaches of Thurl Ravenscroft's basso voice. Perhaps most famous as Tony the Tiger in Kellogg's Frosted Flakes commercials ("they're GR-R-REAT!"), he also was an officially adjudicated Disney Legend for his vocal work on films, records and park audio tracks (and other things, I'm sure).

Thurl had quite a career as a backup and even lead singer, both with his group the Mellomen and as a single voice. Today's 27-track collection covers songs where he was either a solo voice, or an important contributor to the record. These items are all from the 1950s, and do not encompass his work for Disney. It also is not comprehensive. I suspect there is a fair amount of material I am missing.

Thurl lent his subterranean but perfectly focused bass to a variety of material - kiddie songs, pop, country, gospel, R&B, ads - all of which are represented in this 27-track collection.

The first selection is of the kiddie kind - "The Tubby the Tuba Song," popular among the junior set back in 1950. The label credits the Mellomen for the vocal, but with the tuba the leading character, Thurl is featured ("OOM-PAH-OOM-PAH-OOM-PAH-PAH!"). George Cates conducts.

Thurl does get a label credit for his next outing with Cates and the Mellomen. It's another children's song - "Hi-Diddle-Diddle." Old fashioned, but effective. It's interesting how when the ensemble sings, Ravenscroft scales his voice back so that it doesn't dominate. This is from 1951.

Thurl is the soloist on "Low in the Lehigh Valley" with the Norman Luboff Choir and Paul Weston. This quasi-country song seems to be by Alec Wilder.

"The Bull Walked Around 'Olay'" is a chance for Ravenscroft to adopt an accent (handy, no doubt, for his Disney assignments) which works extremely well, capped (footed?) by a low note that Thurl must have excavated from a subterranean mine. This popular item was directed by Jerry Gray.

Gray also is in charge for "Pale Moon (an Indian Love Song)," a chestnut from 1920 that had been recorded by Crosby and Sinatra, among others.

Cash Box, June 6, 1953

"In the Mood" is best known in Glenn Miller's version, which is an instrumental. Less often heard is the version with effective lyrics by Andy Razaf, which Thurl does quite well, aided by the Elliott Brothers big band.

For one of Ravenscroft's most renowned records, he received no label credit. The song is "This Ole House," in the hit version from Rosemary Clooney. Thurl sings the refrain, "Ain't gonna need this house no longer; ain't gonna need this house no more" and the coda "Ready to meet the saints!"

Two ole houses

But let me point out that the song's author, Stuart Hamblen, did the first version of the song, and it's superior. It also has a bass voice similar to the Clooney cover record, which could well be that of Ravenscroft. (I haven't been able to confirm that.)

Hamblen's version is in the first person; Rosie's is in the third. She's good (and Stan Freeman's harpsichord is all kinds of fun), but Stuart is far more involved in the song. Thurl, needless to say, is terrific in the Columbia record, as is Ravenscroft or whoever the bass may be on RCA Victor.

Next for Thurl was an assignment with Jo Stafford and another bravura singer, Frankie Laine, who sounds light-voiced next to Ravenscroft in "Back Where I Belong."

Also with Paul Weston and accompanied by the Mellomen, Thurl takes the lead on Rod Morris' country song "Bimbo," a hit for Jim Reeves. Thurl is highly effective (as are the Mellomen), but the song, while catchy, doesn't amount to much.

These last few songs are from 1954, when pop music was changing. Thurl and the Mellomen decided to swim with the R&B tide by covering several hit songs as "Big John and the Buzzards." First was a superior performance from Ravenscroft in the highly amusing Jesse Stone song "Your Cash Ain't Nothin' but Trash." This was originally by the Clovers, with the lead by Billy Mitchell.

"Oop Shoop" was an R&B hit for Shirley Gunter and the Queens, then was covered by everyone from the Crew-Cuts to Harry James - including the Buzzards.

There are at least 15 songs called "Hey, Little Girl." This one was by Richard Lewis. Big John and his fellow Buzzards couldn't resist making fun of its repetitive nature.

We're squarely (and I do mean this in both senses of the term) back in pop land with Bob Merrill's opus "Where Will the Dimple Be?" with Rosie Clooney in homey mood. This is a cheerful item with the Mellomen, Thurl and Stan Freeman. ("Where will it BEEE?" Thurl demands.)

The De Castro Sisters had just enjoyed a big hit with "Teach Me Tonight." "Boom Boom Boomerang" was the follow-up with Thurl boom-boom-booming in the background. It also did well.

Cash Box, June 18, 1955

At about the same time and also for Fabor Robison, Thurl backed up the obscure Sky Boys on "Mad, Baby, Mad," and they backed him on "Never Doubt My Love," a pleasant ballad. He was better suited to different material than this.

I don't know if the Sky Boys were actually the Mellomen, but I do know that the latter group's next appearance was as the Crackerjacks, for the Kapp label. The James Shelton song "Be Good" is a splendid outing for Thurl, the Mellomen and the talented tenor Bill Lee - himself a noted studio singer of the time. Shelton's novelty "Shiskebob" also appears. "I'll bet you never eat another fish-kebob," the group enthuses. (They are correct.)

The Mellomen/Crackerjacks: Bob Stevens,
Max Smith, Bill Lee, Thurl Ravenscroft

Also in the set, which appeared on an LP along with several tunes by the Lancers, were "Whispering Winds" (where Thurl and baritone Max Smith both have spots), and "I Wanna Go There with You." The Crackerjacks, er, Mellomen, were really good.

Thurl and the Melloman backed Roberta Linn (a chirpy singer like Teresa Brewer) on the novelty "Fee Fi Fiddlee Aye O."

Cash Box, June 16, 1956

Ravenscroft had a solo spot for the Bally label with "Oh You Sweet One," which turns out to be "Ja, das ist ein Schnitzelbank." This is all professionally done, but really.

Thurl is in cowboy-song mode for "I Ain't Afraid," which is good of its kind.

Finally, Thurl appears on the Balboa label as ol' St. Nick for the novelty "Santa's Too Fat for the Hula Hoop." Here, his basso contrasts with the juvenile-sounding Pixies. 

Thurl extricates himself from the hoop in enough time to participate in the obverse, "Kitty Kats on Parade." 

So with these kiddie tunes, we've come full circle from "Tubby the Tuba." But there's one final item in the set - a musical ad for the new Southern California development "Diamond Bar," where Ravenscroft's talking blues approach makes for one of his best performances. His commanding voice, perfect diction and excellent sense of rhythm made him an ideal spokesman. As the saying went, "He's GR-R-REAT!"

LINK

Southern Gospel on RCA

Throughout the early LP era, the major record companies were looking to broaden their business by expanding into genres that had previously been the province of smaller companies - and by borrowing the best material from these genres to provide potential hit songs for their mainstream artists.

Today I'll present a selection of items from the 1956-57 RCA Victor catalogue to illustrate some of the exceptional southern gospel acts that the label had signed in an attempt to broaden its artist roster, and the repertoire they were recording.

Blackwood Brothers

Like many pop genres, many southern gospel songs fit into a limited number of "types," and this first number quickly demonstrates two of them. The first is the upbeat "lesson" song, in this case "The Good Book," which was taken from a Producers' Showcase original television musical called "The Lord Don't Play Favorites," starring Louis Armstrong, Dick Haymes, Buster Keaton, Robert Stack and Kay Starr. (I am not making this up - TV was very different in the 50s.) The quite remarkable performance here is by one of the greatest southern gospel groups - the Blackwood Brothers Quartet. (Read more about their history here.) RCA had signed them as early as 1952, and in 1954 - in a bid to broaden their appeal - placed them on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts TV program, a contest program that the Blackwoods won. The flip side of this record (actually the second song on this promotional EP) was an example of a straight gospel song, "Give Us This Day."

I am very fond of the Blackwood's sound - it's flamboyant and garish, like much pop music since then, but also virtuosic and utterly sincere, unlike much of that same music. I've also included a second single of theirs that combines two songs by one of the best-known writers in the genre, Mosie Lister: "Then I Met the Master" (a famous record) and "The Touch of His Hand."

The Statesmen Quartet

The Blackwood Brothers often toured with the second group I'm presenting here, the Statesmen Quartet with Hovie Lister. That's Hovie, the group's leader and pianist, in the front in the photo at right. (Hovie and Mosie Lister were not related.) Just like the Blackwoods, the Statesmen appeared on (and won) the Talent Scouts program in 1954. They are represented in the playlist by another lesson song, "Practice What You Preach," which features their outstanding bass singer, Jim "Big Chief" Wetherington (far right in the photo). The other Statesmen song is "Brand New Star," a maudlin death song, another common song type. You can read more about the Statesmen here.

When the Statesmen Quartet appeared on Talent Scouts, they performed "This Ole House," a song by Stuart Hamblen, which became a tremendous pop hit in the version by Rosemary Clooney (with a mighty assist by the great bass Thurl Ravenscroft). A former cowboy star and country singer, Hamblen had turned to gospel music after a conversion experience at a 1949 Billy Graham revival on the West Coast - at a time when he was on the country charts with a song called "I'll Go Chasin' Women." Changing his act and life around completely, Hamblen soon had recorded one of his most enduring songs, "It Is No Secret (What God Can Do)" and was on the radio with a program called The Cowboy Church of the Air.

Hamblen at a Graham rally

One of Hamblen's biggest records was not issued under his name - it was "Open Up Your Heart (and Let the Sunshine In)," a 1955 hit for the Cowboy Church Sunday School, essentially the Hamblen family. Hamblen recorded the song at a very slow tempo, then sped up the master to make his daughter, who sang lead, sound much younger. As an extra added item, the download includes the issued version as well as a pitch-corrected version, so you can hear what it should have sounded like without the manipulation. (The original isn't my transfer and the sound isn't that good.)

Open Up Your Heart was a Coral record. Hamblen then moved on to RCA, where he and his family recorded his songs "Dear Lord, Be My Shepherd" and "Beyond the Sun," under their own names. These are the Hamblen selections in today's playlist.

George Beverly Shea

Our next artist also was associated with Billy Graham, and has appeared on this blog before, on the soundtrack LP from Graham's film, Oiltown, U.S.A. He is the beloved baritone, George Beverly Shea, who is heard here in the spiritual "Take My Mother Home" and the song "There's a Time," which was co-written and conducted by Charles Grean, who was an RCA A&R man.

Grean provides the segue to our next artist, the Johnson Family Singers, who have been featured before on this blog. He not only was the manager of Betty Johnson at one time, he was married to her. He also managed Jim Lowe, who wrote the Johnsons' first song in this set, "You Take Your Road," another one of those bouncy lesson songs. (This song contains one of my all-time favorite mixed metaphors - "You take your road and I'll take mine / And we'll all get to heaven at the very same time / The ladder doesn't matter / it's the way that you climb.") The final song in our set is the Johnsons' "May God Be With You."

Like Stuart Hamblen, the Johnsons had their own radio show for quite some time. The download includes examples of both programs.

The sound on these records is fairly good. They all were sourced from RCA's unique promo EPs, like the one depicted at top.

Johnson Family Singers