THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES

When the eight Founding Fathers set up for their first recording onVictor’s Bluebird label, only a slight hint was given of the surreal heightsto which the mind of Lindley Armstrong Jones would attain. In the openinggrooves of Red Wing, the cowbell cadenza that had been part of theoriginal penciling was scrapped and stitched onto another, later selection,while the War-Dance of the Hot-Foot Indians was heard throughout Slickerterritory, cutely established a Monogram-Western movie atmosphere. A twodollar Klaxon ("With the authentic jitney sound") provided by Lockie’s,a wood ratchet, bulb-horn and other gizmos were manipulated in stop-timebreaks. This innocuous Dixieland cake-walk was not released in Britainuntil Summer 1947: thrust onto unsuspecting record-buying fans, who sustainedmore than somewhat of a high-wire fall after a diet of extravagances likethe madly-arranged Liebestraum and Danube. Fortunately thecurse was renewed with the massive sales soon after of the half-crazedLove in Bloom.

A mining town woodcut:
on of the inspiration for the flip side.

BATTLE OF THE BELCH

Behind Those Swinging Doors is demure in a subtile way. Theold Slicker legend has it that trombonick Jimmy Thomasson was hired toperform a single E-flat eructation on Take One of this gold-rush cautionaryballad: in the event RCA Victor propriety demanded assorted hiccups onTake Two. We present here both hallowed items. (Aficionados wellknow that these burps and hics do not compare with the gross omprovisationsin the first unpaid "Boneyard" demos cut several months before at a studioadjacent to the Hollywood Cemetery.)

(February, 1945 - "His Master's Voice" Record Supplement)

Spike Jones and his City Slckers entertained an
audience of 3,000 members of the Forces at the
Queensbury Club. Here he is with an 'instrument'
designed by himself.

By now, the Band’s standard procedure of introducing each waxing withan apt and well-known snatch of folk-song which Spike Jones ran off onhis tuned cowbells, was now firmly established. Cindy Walker’s composition,Barstool Cowboy from Old Barstow gets of with a rousing ensemble,"where the deer and the antilope play." (cf. HQ CD02). "Shoot the likkerto me, John-Boy," intros The Covered Wagon Rolled Right Along (itwas the backing of the HMV Red Wing referred to above and was assuch an equal disappointment) but it has an exuberant charm with greatBubber-Miley trumpet from Bruce Hudson on his only Slicker session. Therideout comes over hot and strong, as nice as Mother makes it.

The rarest of the Bluebirds:
once available at 35c, it is now
regarded as ready legal tender.

The Wild, Wild Wimmin is a magnum opus of the Original "High-HatTragedian of Song," Ted Lewis, King of Corn in his own time. (Willie Spicerreceives no label credit for his Collidophone break: neither he nor ithad been yet invented.) Don Anderson replaces  Hudson on trumpet andLou Bring bows in briefly after piano-man Stan Wrightsman bows out. DelPorter confided later that he thought Stan "didn’t seem to like playingour king of music very much."

Spike spins his drums prominently (dig that twenty-inch crash cymbal)in Foster Carling’s Song of the Souse, The Clink, Clink Polka, asit is sometimes labelled. Mel Blanc, an Oregon pal of Del’s, takes timeoff from a Looney Tune to prvide the magisterial portrait of a Lush Extraordinaryas he hiccups his unsteady way through a price-list of jitters, ginters,ork-orks, katzenjammers and screaming meemies, all courtesy of "Don Birnam"and guy Lombardo.

The band in a formal shot while filming their secondmovie "Meet the People."
Note Carl Hoefle's hurdy-gurdy.

WHEN MINNIE WAS NINE YEARS OLD SHE GOTS AN OPTION ON A DEEP CHICKEN
Wolfgang Bumkhaus, 1925

Listen up to the item that Spike Jones collectors have been waitinghalf-a-century for: the rare and precious (cracked) eleven-inch test pressingof Beautiful Eggs. The jewel of Scott Corbett’s fine collection,this monophonic miracle plays as good as new and alone is worth the priceof the CD. It also gives the llie to the Vaultkeep’s motto: "When RCA Victorloses a master, it’s stays lost." Pack Up Your Troubles is a twinof the Standard Transcription track but  good for the gang  tosing along to, and included here at the behest of rabid completists. Atheme from Aida (10% paid to the ghost of Verdi), segues into Siam,a relic of the P’tang P’toon P’tang Dynasty, composed by Del Porter forhis Feather Merchants Band, King Jackson contributes a drowsy monologuereminiscent of Beethoven’s "Tired" Symphony. Buy Harlequin’s CD01 and hearhow the treatment got wilder in the ensuing years and especially on thatV-disc.

MUSIC BY DE VOL

A jeux d'esprit by youthful Frank de Vol and Jerry Bowne providesmeat for the raucous and over-recorded Little Bo-Peep, giving arowdy indication if how far the boys were prepared to go at that time:Frank Stern achieves the seemingly impossible feat of executing a tromboneFonk on a sousaphone. Willie Spicer, barely hatched but fully-grown andlooking years younger, solos sensationally on that most difficult of allinstruments, the Collidophone, and Spike's conclusive swipe at his Slingerlandtambourine tips the Richter Scale at 8.6.

Swinging half-choruses on both takes from King Jackson's low-flyingtrombone lift Josephine out of a crunchy rut as the Band switches fromStone-Age Waltz to Eight-in-a-Bar and from Boogie to Barrelhouse.

According to Del Porter, the composer, there was once upon a time aTexan by the name of O'Donnell running for Governor whose catch-phrase,"Pass the Biscuits," became the inspiration for the song, sung here byDel Porter the vocalist, and later made into a Walter Lantz Swing SymphonyCartoon. Del Porter the clarinettist takes a brief break. Perry Botkinshines on banjo and teeth.

That old Canuck Jack Mrtle scooped everybody by locatingthis action shot
of the Band rehearsing in a very solemn and workmanlikemanner:
(Earnest) Ingle on clarinet, Morgan at banjo, a companionpiece to the
above picture, shot at CBS.

With time thinning out before Petrillo's deadline, our eight desperadoescut the final six/seven Bluebirds, commencing with the serenade to a MuscoviteMaiden: a Molotov Cocktail played at seventy-eight revolutions per minutein wooden roubles from intro to coda. The Song of the Vodka Boatmen stimulatesthe smoothest and slipperiest Fonk ever committed to wax, and while DelPorter hollers "Send it home" midway, the takes climaxes with the moistand unforgettable genius of Frank Leithner in two featured Sneezes unequalledsince the reign of the Pharoahs. Hotcha proved to be the most requestednumber throughout the Slickers' European tour in 1944.

Del Porter wrote the arrangement on the keyboard of his girlfriend'spiano, but never received full credit for a chart that turned the Disneytune into a jillion-and-a-half seller and 100,000 sheet music sales byMay 1943. Porter revealed that the good people of RCA Victor "kicked likethe devil" over the Bronx Cheer, but eventually relented: Del also spokewarmly of Grayson's "masterful" vocalising. According to the Heinz B. WongSlickerkunstarchiv, the Reich-Chancellor was heard to remark that thoughhe had enjoyed the toe-tapping selection he would have preferred itwithout the razzberry. (Remember you read it here first.)

Boss-man at the Console, having just switched from
"King Cotton Brass" to "Santa Fe Silver Moon"
- the Steinway of washboards.

That well-known drummer's prop, the Anvillaphone, made up from twoshort lengths of brass piping mounted on a wooden block and struck witha mallet, combines with auto-horn and bell-plate in a comical chase chorusthat further enlives "Oh, By Jingo!" Red Roundtree and Country Washburn,who have just replaced Botkin and Stern, are also featured in brief spots.

The Standard Transcription of the Sheik of Araby on HarlewuinHQ CD 01 can be distinguished from our track here by playing both CompactDiscs simultaniously (variant 2.5 seconds) but the real clincher is thaton this track Carl Grayson is singing the Valentino chorus through hismosquito-net.

With world fame a mere gunshot away, the Slickers conclude their lastBluebird session with I Wanna Go Back to West Virginia: this relaxedand poignant flip-side to Der Face catches perfectly the 1942 moodwith its railway bell, portable locomotive and "here's to Old Man Klaxon,may his name forever stand."

The song-sheet that almost sold more
than the record world-wide.

Even if you don't have myopic ear-drums, brace yourself for the hiccupon this belch-less take of Swinging Doors. Will H. Hays and hisoffice won their battle. When the gang filmed Chloe for Paramount,Red Ingle (as Simon Legree) was forced to substitute "You Old Witch"for "YOU BAT." Fifty years later it's still hard to believe. HiNeighbour, vocalised by popular singer and composer of the day, JackOwens, kicks off with Perry Botkin's facile fingers executing a plectrumrole worthy of Mike Pingatore, and delves into the classics for a briefexerpt from Frederick Delius' On Hearing the First Coo-Coo in Spring.

The gorgeous Cindy Walker: "Greatest living writerof Country Music."
She provided the Band with its enduring moniker.

As virtual unknowns, the Band accompanies beautiful songstress andCountry and Western composer Cindy Walker in two more of her compositions,playing righteous Dixieland all the way. That Big Palooka, Bob Burns,is serenaded by Cindy as King Jackson solos. The homespun, black-hills,grass-root, cracker-barrel philosopher-humourist was known as a virtuosoof the giant kazoo that provided the nickname of one of the U.S. Artillery'smost formidable weapons.

Spike Jones serenades the Nilsson Twins on
the eve of their tour of USAF bases.

You Can't Say "No" to a Soldier. "Those poor Nilsson girls,"said Del Porter, "they wanted so bad to be the singers." In contrast ofthe song-title, they also had to be chaperoned around theArmy Bases. Thecharm of their teen-age close-harmony touches the heart. Applaud trombonistJohn Stanley, swinging beyond the call of duty: his lip-trill is a thingof beauty and a joy forever.

The Big Palooka himself (left) and Spike put thefinger on
Red Roundtree. Backstage at the Lifebuoy Show.

Hawaiian War Chant, this original Wacky Wakakians fossil froma 1945 Victor session rounds off the programme. (Evedently shelved on theassumption that more precision and careful honing would result in a GoldDisc. It did.) However, as a piece of evolutionary evidence of the Descentof Man Friday it's got a lot to recommend it: Drummer Giggie Royse spielsin fluent Gibberish and Carl Grayson mimics Fish-Mimic Richard Haydn toperfection in this gentle joshing of Another Boring Fitzpatrick Short.Their mission completed, the Moonstruck Malahinis leave the studio handover hand.

And so we say farewell...

                                            VO-DOH-DOH-DE-OH-DOH