Category: 1960-1964

“My Lovely Elizabeth” (c. 1962) – S.E. Rogie and His Guitar* Written by S.E. Rogers * 45: “My Lovely Elizabeth” / “Advice to Schoolgirls” * Label: Rogie

Here’s an ideal representation of the West African “palm-wine” genre, so named for its suitability for having a nice tropical drink while you listen. Sierra Leone’s S.E. Rogie (Sooliman Ernest Rogers, d. 1994), in spite of the laid back impression his music conjures, was rather industrious, launching his own label in the early sixties and working its distribution. “My Lovely Elizabeth” was his first big seller – the label image above contains the frustrating note that it was “first published in 1965,” although other sources claim that the record had been floating around as early as 1962 and that his sound had changed quite a bit by 1965.

Here’s what Gary Stewart says in his Breakout: Profiles in African Rhythm (1992, p. 48): “Rogie’s biggest record of the early days was the 1962 hit ‘My Lovely Elizabeth’ … [it] sold an estimated thirteen thousand copies in Sierra Leone (an astonishing figure for the time given that record players were, for the most part, the property of more affluent city dwellers in a country whose population was largely rural) and thousands more when EMI picked it up for international distribution … Suspicious of EMI’s sales figures and disappointed in their royalty payments, he reverted to doing his own distribution.”

Side B contains Rogie’s “Advice to Schoolgirls,” in which he recommends, along with the virtues of honesty and staying true to one’s dreams, the avoidance of prostitution.

 

“In My Little Corner of the World” (1960) – Anita Bryant * Written by Bob Hilliard and Lee Pockriss * Produced by Lew Douglas * 45: “In My Little Corner of the World” / “Anyone Would Love You” * LP: In My Little Corner of the World (1961) * Label: Carlton * Charts: Billboard (Hot 100, #10)

Anita Bryant’s top ten recording of “In My Little Corner of the World,” produced by Lew Douglas and arranged by 101 Strings stalwart Monte Kelly, transcended its humble lyrical implications. All participants aimed for the cosmos. We forget how big and commanding Bryant’s voice was and how well-matched it sounded alongside the lavish pop orchestrations of the day. (A follow-up album went for a “songs about the world” theme.) But our thoughts inevitably drift toward her late ’70s anti-gay activism, her fearful “human garbage” utterances, and then satires begin writing themselves: “In My Little Corner of My Brain,” “My Little Corner of the World is the Only Corner of Any Value,” etc.  The song title also morphs into a self-indicting syndromic label for the Oklahoma native Bryant’s human rights-challenged corner of the U.S. We struggle not to stroke the brush broadly in this way. Many cover versions of this song have sprouted elsewhere, most of them truer in lyrical sentiment, and therefore less spectacular.  Marie Osmond (who had also updated Bryant’s “Paper Roses”) recorded a cuddly country version in 1974, while Yo La Tengo sang it from a proper corner in 1997.

“The Little Old Lady from Pasadena” (1964) * Written by Don Altfeld, Jan Berry, and Roger Christian * Produced by Jan Berry * LP: The Little Old Lady from Pasadena * 45: “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena” / “My Mighty G.T.O.” * Label: Liberty * Charts: Billboard Hot 100 (#3)

Jan and Dean’s “Little Old Lady from Pasadena” rode in the slipstream of a commercial campaign featuring Kathryn Milner as a high-speed Dodge driver. Lyricist Roger Christian did penance for his role in the Beach Boys’ “Shut Down”—where he had depicted a Chevy outpacing a Dodge—by celebrating Dodge’s popular ad mascot. The mythical “old widow in Pasadena” with a set of barely-driven wheels in the garage was by then a California car lot cliché, but where are its origins? Perhaps the first mention of it appears in the 1953 theatre cartoon Magoo Slept Here, in which the near-sighted hero boasts of getting his antique TV (actually a washing machine) from an “elderly lady in Pasadena.” A different archetype in the song is Jan Berry’s bored, vibrato-free Cali-teen drawl, which you later hear in everything from early Black Flag to Green Day to Blink 182.  Wrecking Crew regular Tommy Morgan is likely playing the harmonica, giving it a backwoods flavor that also summons the familiar character of Granny in The Beverly Hillbillies. (Dean Torrance’s “Blue Fox” sweatshirt advertises a Tijuana bar with a sleazy reputation, foretelling the duo’s 1967 rewrite of “Little Old Lady from Pasadena” as “Tijuana,” which turns her into a narcocorrido metaphor.)

“The Oo-Oo Bossa Nova” (1964) – Milt Jackson * Written by Manny Albam* Produced by Bob Thiele * Label: Impulse

“Ooh ooh” and “do you mind?” were catchphrases for Joe E. Ross on Car 54, Where Are You? (1961-1963), a Nat Hiken sitcom with a “character actors on parade” quality. Each player specialized in facial distinctions that made it hard for viewers to turn away. Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis of The Munsters were there, for example, each of whom actually look more interesting without their makeup. Joe E. Ross, who played the dimwitted but loveable officer Gunther Toody, might also have transitioned nicely to The Munsters, but he was apparently a severe headache to work with. Two records helped to capture Ross’s pop culture moment. The first is the 1963 single “Ooh Ooh,” featuring him delivering those catchphrases with a stock rock track and nyah-nyah girl chorus, something that would have fit in well for a hypothetical episode calling for Toody to launch an ill-advised recording career. The second, though, is an album track by the suave jazz vibraphonist Milt Jackson (written by Manny Albam) called “The Oo-Oo Bossa Nova,” which appeared on Jackson’s 1964 Jazz ‘N’ Samba album a year after the show had run its course. (Producer Bob Thiele, while at Impulse, always kept an eye open for the commercial tie-in). The jazz journalist Leonard Feather, in his liner notes, points to the song’s kinship with “Who’s Got the Pain (When They Do the Mambo)” from Broadway’s Damn Yankees. The gatefold features an image of Joe E. Ross in studio for what would perhaps be his final high-profile Car 54 utterances.

“Don’t Smoke in Bed” (1962) – Jack Teagarden * Written by Willard Robison * Produced by Creed Taylor * Arranged by Bob Brookmeyer * LP: Think Well of Me * Label: Verve

Willard Robison was among the noir-est of classic songwriters but with an American Gothic twist, thanks to his rural imagery. Jack Teagarden, the singular trombonist and vocalist from very rural Vernon, Texas, released a collection of Robison songs called Think Well of Me late in his career, and it comes off as something that had to happen. Bringing his own country-to-city boy background to the material, his weary voice sounds like what Robison may have had in mind during the writing process for each song. (The opener, strangely, is “Where Are You,” the only one in the twelve-cut lineup not written by Robison.) “Don’t Smoke in Bed” is a song that had been done previously by Peggy Lee in the late forties (with strings and an echoing/fading goodbye phrase near the end) and Nina Simone in the late fifties (with lonely piano and voice). They’re effective versions, but Teagarden’s is the odd standout in voicing the perspective (male) of the one who has been left, rather than the perspective (female) of the one leaving. Bob Brookmeyer’s string arrangements fill the air with foreboding harps and, whenever the title phrase gets uttered, violins rise upward like flames. You feel resigned when listening that not only will there be smoking in bed, but a match will also be struck and dropped on the sheets outright. (Bob Dylan almost certainly found inspiration in this entire album when he got working on his moody Americana-tinged standards collection Shadows in the Night.)

“Baja” (1963) – The Astronauts * Written by Lee Hazlewood * 45: “Baja” / “Kuk” * LP: Surfin’ with the Astronauts * Label: RCA Victor * Charts: Billboard Hot 100 #94

“Baja” was the only charting single for the Astronauts, who conjured up surf music from Boulder, Colorado. The track’s exquisite moodiness suggested that the farther away you were from an actual scene, the better your chances might be to imbue it with mythical qualities. Lee Hazlewood, who produced, wrote for, and helped craft the legendary guitar sound of Duane Eddy, had written “Baja” for a shelved album with the L.A. studio aces he referred to as his “Woodchucks.” Guitarist Al Casey then released an OK version of “Baja” in ’63, produced by Hazlewood, which angled for a “Lonely Bull” feel minus the prominent “olé” shouts that pepper one of the original Woodchuck demos. For the Astronauts’ reading, it’s clear they also used the Hazlewood demos as a source (as opposed to the Casey record), borrowing the approach of giving the upper register guitar line a lower register answer. Where surf music from the era, including Hazlewood’s, can sound overly tick-tocky, the Astronauts’ version is light on its feet, as though dashing through the kind of twilight ocean spray their Surfin’ with the Astronauts album cover promises. The album features two additional tracks (“Movin'” and “Batman”) they’d taken from the Hazlewood tapes which, incidentally, were finally dusted off and issued in 2018 as Cruisin’ for Surf Bunnies and billed to “Lee Hazlewood’s Woodchucks.” (Side B of the Astronauts’ “Baja” single features the only song on the album actually written by the band.)

“Var det du?” (1964) – Anna-Lena * Trad. arr. Bruno Glenmark * Lyrics by Cornelis Vreeswijk * Produced by Anders Burman * Sweden EP: Åh, Vilken Fröjd Och Lycka * Label: Metronome

The late Swedish schlager singer Anna-Lena Löfgren had an especially fruitful decade in the 1960s both at home and in West Germany (although she did manage, off and on, to chart in Sweden all the way up to 1995). Due to a lifelong struggle with polio, Löfgren often made her television appearances sitting down, a visual image that matched the clear but gentle assurance in her voice, a refreshing sound from the standpoint of our present climate of vocal affectation. Among her most sublime recordings was “Var det du” (was it you), which appeared on the B-side of her 1964 version of “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” Although the melody for “Var det du” comes from a folk waltz called “Var det du eller var det jag” (was it you or was it me) from the southern province of Småland, her recording of it used an updated arrangement by Bruno Glenmark with alternate lyrics by Cornelis Vreeswijk (the Dutchman soon to launch a prolific career as a Swedish troubadour). Worthwhile hit versions of the song soon appeared in Finland (Anki Lindqvist) and Norway (Kirsti Sparboe), but Anna-Lena’s remains the quintessential, full-color version. Perhaps John Sebastian came across this arrangement before crafting his “Coconut Grove.”