Spike Jones Fan site: Content / content / Corn's A-Poppin'

Corn's A-Poppin'

<center>Spike Jones - Corn's A-Poppin' sleevecontents
 by Harlequin records</center>

With humble pride, Harlequin announces the most exciting and significant event in modern Slicker Herritage since Scott Corbett discovered the only extant pressing of the alternate take of Siam on Javanese Bluebird; and here, taken direct (well, almost) from the 1949 Sunday afternoontransmissions
(American Forces Network, Munich) received on a Pye 4-valveradio-set and recorded on five and ten inch acetate-on-aluminium discs supplied by Will Day Electrics of Lisle Street, Red Light District, LondonW1, you will find
preserved the finest moments of "CORN'S A-POPPIN'": SpikeJones and his greatest band in their peak performances.
 With the exception of the appetising pear-drop aroma of freshly-minted acetate, these 40-year-old ten-shilling platters are rescued in their entirety,held together with string, subjected to modern state-of-the-art electronics, ground up nice, rechanneled from ear to ear, enriched with vitamins, thoroughly mixed and poured into this everlasting indestructible Compact Disc.
 And now, after a rapid search for the spot on the dial - ah! that's the one! - we hang over to Sgt. Russ Thompson as he introduces "CORN'SA-POPPIN'"
starring Lindley Armstrong Jones and his City Slickers, at large, unstoppable, at 344m, 271m, 547m and 93.8m.
 "Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives Me" provides an up-tempo kick-offto
the shenanigans: a 'twenties jazz tune usually identified with the NewOrleans Rhythm Kings, and played here, with interpolations by Dick Morgan, in the regular format of piano-player Paul Leu's stack arrangements.
<center>
<img width="131" height="168" src="jpics/cap-2.jpg" />
 Jack Oh By Gee, By Juv</center>

 The magic of astute editing now transports our ten checkered and polka dotted poltergeists to the icy banks of the you-know-where; so that reed virtuoso and Howdy-Doody replica Jack "Golly" Gollobith
(inthe role of Wayne King, the Waltz King) can unwind his Selmer cock-eyed floogle-horn, and, fortified with a shot of Schubert's unfinished Fith, pull the rug out from under the chilly waters before Icky Morganand the Snake-Pit Symphony Orchestra blasts out an "improvement" on their
1945 RCA Victor treatment that Johann Strauss had to wait 95 cottonpickin' years to hear.
<center><img width="131" height="149" src="jpics/cap-1.jpg" />
 Templeton...
 He took Bach uptown</center>

First of four guest spots in this notable selection is Alec
Templeton, the blind British pianist-composer, world-famous for his
Bach-orientedpastisches. Let his performance, a masterpiece of impromptu versatility, speak for itself.
 Franky Little now sweeps the soundstage clear of bubble-gumwrappers,
and permits Spike Jones to proclaim the glamorous Doodle Weaver,who
comes on strong with his Oscar-nominated peroration of "Wabbits, Wabbits,Wabbits" and for an encore, white-jacketed attendants gently usher him from the microphone to make way for a rousing interlude by the Slickers, sounding like the Tennessee Tooters, and playing "By the Beautiful Sea" (aficionados, keep your ears well pinned back for the sinister influections of the middle eight).
 July the Fourth is celebrated with burnt cork and Slingerland tambourines in the Darktown Slickers' Minstrel Show: a revival ofa great American
Institution notable for its well-rehearsed spontaneity. In quick succession, from left to right, Joe Colvin sliphorns asample of "Lassus Trombone"
(once known as "Molasses Trombone" - thank you, Mr. Mirtle), vocalists Jay Meyer and Cal Brown(who nets a royalty from Lifebouy),
Freddy Morgan and his fingering,and itinerant medicine man, the Good Doctor Horatio Q. Birtbath, peddling his own elixir or laughter (a dollar a bottle, going cheap). "I haven't enjoyed myself so much since I was an egg," he confessed afterwards.
<center><img width="117" height="136" src="jpics/cap-5.jpg" />
 Manny, Moe & Jack
 Now you know</center>

 First waxed in '46 for RCA Victor, "I Dream of Brownie with the Light Blue Jeans" still makes up in spit for what it lacks on polish. This is the Full-harmonic version with a reinforced finale that was just a hair too
long to fit on a ten-inch 78-disc. The only American ever to be knighted for his services to music, Sir Frederick Gas, temporarily hangs up his camel-hair brushes to reveal a further facet to his multi-talented persona as he gives a new dimension to the original Sol Meyerlaugh-lyric. (Don't you just love this guy?). A show-stopper and another high-octane Gas classic, show casing the Szigeti of the Sadivarius at his sorrowful best. Five Stars. 
<center>
<img width="136" height="322" src="jpics/cap-3.jpg" />
 Gas
 (H)Air on G-string</center>

 You are now requested to spare a polite shudder as Hallowe'enis celebrated in an atmosphere of Grand Guignol, intensified by a rip-saw-teardownexecution of Sam Coslow's wistful ballad "My Old Flame": and now Sir Frederick emerges into the green spotlight carrying (gulp!) a human head; and now he becomes The Beast with Five Fingers (from the motion picture of the same name)! And now - it's all for the benefitand delight of honoured parton Chester Gould, creator of Dick Tracy, both seated in Row B. Your goose-bumps have scarcely diminished when adouble whammy is supplied by the guest appearance
of the plasma-splattered Original - still reeking from the Warner Bros film set - and thegreat Peter Lorre enacts an Inner Sanctum
spoof aided andabetted by the Maestro and Dorothy Shay. "Ghoulish," agree Deuces Dean and Simon.
<center><img width="119" height="188" src="jpics/cap-4.jpg" />
 Lorre
 by Winnington '47</center>

 For all the zealots who agree that Slicker Jazz can't occur often enough "The Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabama" to prepare you for a six-month overdue St. Valentine's Day Massacre: a satanic burlesque ofFritz Rotter's "Ich k?sse Ihre Hand, Madame" that overshadows the commercial release in vigour, but with that cringe-making punchline tactfully replaced (who accused Jones, S., of lapses of taste?).
 "Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone" swings con amoreand that's sufficient recommendation.
<center><img width="107" height="182" src="jpics/cap-6.jpg" />
 Craig
 Sales Rocketed</center>

 The man who brought the Steinway to his knees, modest Francis Craig, allows Spike to do most of the talking for him, as befitsa man who
haunted the airwaves via his two Hit-Parade Decca releases: "Near You" and the one we've got here. Bob Lamm is the vocalist.
 As the show segues into December, a cosy fireside medley spotlights guests The
Three Suns - the accordion-oriented trio with more smiles than five Lawrence Welks, and the former Paul Pendarves warbler that became a Hill-Billy star, Dorothy Shay.
<center><img width="119" height="140" src="jpics/cap-7.jpg" />
 Marty Nevis
 A Sun</center>

 The year 1948 is wrapped up by the Slickers in a lively live-performance of
"Happy New Year" and Dorothy slips in a plug for Lucky Strike. Sgt. Russ Thompson signs off the broadcast as he splices in the Standard Transcription
Other Orchestra version of "When Yuba Plays the Rhumba onthe Tuba" - that's Clyde Hurley taking the trumpet solo. Fade to black.
<center><img width="129" height="317" src="jpics/cap-8.jpg" />
 Freddie Morgan</center>

 Issuing this stuff on a Compact Disc in this format is bound to ensure that the Mirtle switchboard will be jammed for many months to come. ("Who played What? - And When? - And Where?") You like? Then get your CD player switched on for Harlequin's forthcoming sequel "THE RETURN OF THE SON OF THE GHOST OF CORN'S A-POPPIN'" skedded for early 1996.
Note from the page-owner: I never found that 1996 album...You?
<center>
<hr width="100%" />
 Disclaimer
 As far as I know I don't harm anyone with this publication
in any way. If so, please e-mail me and state why I should remove this page.
 It's here for reference and informational purposes only.</center>