Skeeter Davis “Skeeter Sings Standards”

What if I had I heard this record having never heard—or heard of—Skeeter Davis? That is the challenge. I enjoy these kinds of mental experiments—but honestly, I can’t really imagine hearing her sing for the first time. That’s what I’m thinking during the heart-melting first song, “When I Fall in Love.” I guess the question would be, would I have fallen in love with her at that moment? First listening, first song? I think so. It’s just the quality of her voice. I guess there’s a lot more to it—the songs, arrangements, just generally her style—but the solid foundation of everything here is Skeeter Davis’ voice, which is just there—nostalgic, romantic, reassuring, solid, and even kind of weird (in a way I can’t really articulate). Which often leads me to think—why is it that I don’t always listen to one of her records—at least once a day? Because life is finite.

Anyway, it’s an excellent record with beautiful arrangements, including some odd touches I haven’t noticed on her other records (that I’ve heard—still haven’t heard them all!) such as some plaintive, orchestral horns, and subtle vibes. Standards, of course, all popular songs, though some I’m unfamiliar with—but either way, they’re all made new—which is exactly what you should do when performing a standard. Of the songs I’m well familiar with, there are some unusual approaches, like with: “All of Me,” “Fly Me to the Moon,” “Secret Love,” I Wanna Be Loved by You,” “Smile,” and “Cry Me a River.” They all sound fresh here—even though I’ve heard those songs a million times.

The album cover really looks all of 1965, I guess, with the title and song list in a white band across the top, along with the RCA Victor logo. The photo of Skeeter Davis is oddly dark, but maybe it’s just the printing—who knows. It looks great dark, in a way—it’s supposed to be in her “music room,” I’m guessing—and maybe it really is. She’s wearing a crazy orange dress with a fur hem and gold and rhinestones around the neck. She’s sitting on a big old sofa, looking through sheet music, selecting songs to sing, I guess. Behind her looks like a records shelf, and there’s a speaker there that looks like one of the Advent speakers I had in the Seventies (though they didn’t exist until 1967). The liner notes are always good—these by Ken Grant of KNUZ, Houston—are particularly fine. Besides some of the more glowing words about Skeeter Davis I’ve read, he also mentions producer Chet Atkins, and arrangers Anita Kerr and Harold Ragsdale. Best of all, he describes Skeeter’s live performances, in which her open, honest personality shines through—due to her charm, ad-libbing, and love for the audience. It makes me sad that I never had the chance to see her.

It’s hard to choose, but I think my favorite song on the record is “You Tell Me Your Dream,” which is a great title, and a fascinating song, and has one of those spoken intros (and short, spoken part in the middle) that I really love. I was not familiar with this one, but I guess it goes way back—to the Twenties and Thirties. A lot of people recorded it, of course, but not quite like this one. Well, every song on this record is great—and they are quite different from each other. They get better after repeat listenings, too. It was one of my promises to myself (aka resolutions) for the new year—to write shorter reviews—to try for one paragraph—but there was just a lot I wanted to say about this one. I could go on, too… because the last time I listened to this, I had to think that maybe it’s my favorite of all the Skeeter Davis records I’ve ever heard. Which would pretty much make it my favorite record, period—so… good way to start out the year! I didn’t see that coming!

Frank Sinatra “September of My Years”

This is one melancholy Sinatra record! It’s the work of a man looking back at his life, and ahead at the days left, and realizing there are one hell of a lot more days behind him. I wonder what the typical age of a person is when that realization hits them? For some, I suppose, it’s the big FOUR O. For me, I guess that was classic midlife crisis time—in that I was acting pretty much like an escaped clown for a few years. So… I wonder how old Sinatra actually was when this record came out? This a 1965 record—and Francis Albert was born in 1915, so that’s easy math. So, this is his turnin’ the corner at 50 record, I get it. It’s a milestone for anyone—though now that I’m 63, I maintain that 50 is decidedly not old. Though, if you drink and smoke and carry on, you might be feelin’ it. A lot of popular standards, here. The songs that make up a large part of Sinatra’s repertoire are songs about seasons, it always seems like—weather, rain, seasons, and the time of day. “It Gets Lonely Early” was always one of my favorites, as is “Last Night When We Were Young.” The record starts with “September of My Years” and ends with “September Song.” The album cover is a classic—an illustration of Sinatra in the shadows, blue suit and tie, blue background—a good likeness, serious, not sad, looking off toward the horizon. The back cover has an odd description: “Frank Sinatra sings of days and loves ago.” The orchestra is Gordon Jenkins, and there are liner notes by Stan Cornyn—this might have been one of his award-winning bits, for what it’s worth. A descriptive and poetic account of the recording session, a little funny and a little weird, and of course very loving. Here’s an excerpt: “Of the bruising day. Of the rouged lips and bourbon times. Of chill winds, of forgotten ladies who ride in limousines.” This is a good record for lonely times, and cold, dark winter evenings.

Frank Sinatra “A Man and His Music”

My random record review picking system happened to pick a Frank Sinatra record directly after a Nancy Sinatra record, so I considered vetoing it, but seeing how it’s too hot to write record reviews with a migraine anyway, I figured I’d give it a shot—and write only as much as I can while listening to this (double) record. This is a 1965 retrospective, so it has the feel of a biography—the cover is a collage of drawings of Frank over the years, and there are some not very satisfying photos inside (it opens up). The best thing—there is extensive liner notes by Stan Cornyn, the record exec who’s known for writing great liner notes—so here we have one of the most concise—but still thorough, and not lacking in flair—Sinatra bios out there. I like the part where he’s talking about how, throughout his career, Sinatra liked to go against the grain: “To do everything wrong, and hence much righter than the rule book allows.”

If you’re a Sinatra fan, you know it’s impossible to even scratch the surface of a retrospective in a two-record set, but here it is. Maybe the best audience for this is NON-fans, I don’t know. My parents had a lot of his records, so I heard them growing up and thought I had a pretty good overview—but his career is vast. When I lived in New York in 1985, over Thanksgiving weekend, Wednesday night through Sunday, an AM radio station played a Sinatra marathon, “from A to Z”—just a staggering amount of songs. They tended to play the earlier recordings of the songs in question, so what I then realized was that he recorded a lot of songs multiple times, with different bands, arrangements, and styles. So a maniacal Sinatra fan can go quite deep. His earliest stuff sometimes doesn’t even sound like the same singer as his later stuff—yet it does, too. You never confuse him with anyone else—he’s got the most distinctive and unique approach to popular vocal music of anyone who’s ever approached a microphone. I’m not sure if that’s totally true, but even if he’s not your favorite, you have to admit, if he came to your dinner party, you wouldn’t get him mixed up with Bob from over to State Farm. (Nothin’ against Bob!)

I’m not going to list the 30 or so songs on this record—which is a paltry number relative to even what he recorded during the acne years. One would like to think these were picked by the man himself as being most important to him over the years, but that certainly doesn’t mean they’re the best. And some of them—like the interminable “Soliloquy” and “The House I Live In”—I could very well do without. What’s funny, though, and somewhat unique, and definitely worthwhile, here, is that Frank recorded little intros and outros to many, actually most, of the songs. You can listen to the whole thing like a audio documentary or radio show. It’s all a bit corny, but he does it with his breezy but sincere hipster style, so it’s a lot of fun. By the way, I did a smart thing during that Thanksgiving A to Z marathon, and got out my cassette recorder and taped everything I could, on every blank tape space I could find. Some of the songs were obviously played from station’s scratchy old 7 and 10 inch discs, maybe even 78’s, I don’t know. Anyway, it all had a particular feeling—just the oldness, and the broadcast quality—that I’ve never heard duplicated. I sometimes still listen to those tapes.

Skeeter Davis & Bobby Bare “Tunes for Two”

There are a few Skeeter Davis duet records—the ones I’ve heard are right up there with her solo records—and this one is, too. Bobby Bare is a big name in country music—but I know nothing about him—so I’ll look him up. The big computer says Bobby Bare is his real name, he’s 86, has a birthday coming up, and is from Ironton, Ohio, which is on the river. I’m from Ohio, and I consider everything south of Lake Erie “The South” and anything along the Ohio River “The Deep South.” This record, from 1965, is one of his early ones—and he did a second duet record with Skeeter Davis in 1970 called “Your Husband My Wife”—which is a great title, and a bit of a brain twister. I like that title so much, I looked up his discography, and he’s kind of king of great album titles. I’ll list some here: This is Bare Country, I Need Some Good News Bad, What Am I Gonna Do?, Singin’ in the Kitchen (which I think I have!), The Winner and Other Losers, Drunk & Crazy, As Is, Drinkin’ from the Bottle, Darker Than Light, and my favorite: (Margie’s At) The Lincoln Park Inn (And Other Controversial Country Songs).

This cover is really cute—Skeeter and Bobby leaning on each other—they almost look like brother and sister—they have the same blue eyes. They’re both kind of wedged against some mysterious something—it’s either part of a car or a jukebox—I’m going with the latter—but it’s an odd pose. Bobby Bare reminds me of someone I know. Skeeter Davis—who looks different in every photo you see her in—in this particular look, also reminds me of someone I know. On back, they each write some liner notes—about each other. It’s ever cuter than the cover, if that’s possible.

This is a great record—it’s produced by Chet Atkins. All twelve songs are very good. Here are some of the highlights. “A Dear John Letter” has Skeeter singing, and then Bobby Bare doing the spoken part—about getting such a letter while overseas—it’s quite effective. “Too Used to Being with You” is one of the crazier song titles on the album, and it’s also a good song. “In the Misty Moonlight,” written by Cindy Walker, is one of my favorites on this record. “We’ll Sing in the Sunshine,” another good one—a Gale Garnett song—a little bit bubblegum, a bit bouncy—and nice the way they mix vocal parts. “I Love You,” by Billy Barton, is another one with Bobby doing a spoken part—it’s pretty great. I can imagine a lot of people—maybe who are not fans of country music, or maybe just younger—might think this kind thing is hopelessly corny. It is a bit corny, but it’s too bad if you can’t appreciate it. “Out of Our Minds” is my favorite on the record—it’s a song by Melba Montgomery—I’ve heard it somewhere else—I think on that great John Prine album of duets—I don’t remember who sings it with him (I can look it up—Melba Montgomery, duh). Actually, my very favorite here, is their version of “Let It Be Me”—just because that’s one of my favorite songs, period—I suppose you can do a bad version of that song, but you’d have to work at it—this is a very good one—with them each doing a spoken part—it’s kind of the epic number of the record. I, of course, remember “Together Again” from my childhood—I suppose the Buck Owens version. It ends with “Invisible Tears,” which is catchy and upbeat crossed with some really weird and bleak lyrics. That’s country music!

Terry Gibbs “It’s Time We Met”

Knowing nothing about Terry Gibbs, I picked up this record because the cover is so excellent—it’s a painting by Jack Lonshein of an intense looking guy (presumedly Gibbs) emerging from an abstract field of blue and green paint splotches, his ghostly hands balancing a couple of mallets—and the vibraphone depicted expressionistically by a few bright yellow rectangles. The image of his face, however, looks almost photographic—and weirdly resembles the actor, Mike Connors, who played Mannix on TV around this time. (Mike Connors and Terry Gibbs were born only about a year apart, in Brooklyn, with different names than Connors and Gibbs.) Anyway, it’s the best cover I’ve seen in a while. The internet tells me Terry Gibbs is still around, at 96, and has released dozens of records from 1951 up to 2017—kind of amazing—but mostly throughout the Fifties and Sixties. This one is from 1965—mostly uptempo, but with a few slower, bluesy, jazz instrumentals. Terry Gibbs is on vibraphone, with a band that includes saxophone, organ, guitar, bass, drums. None of the songs are familiar to me, but they have great names, like: “We Three,” “Bathtub Eyes,” “7 F,” “Big Lips,” and “The Tweaker.” The liner notes indicate that the songs are all by Gibbs. I especially love the organ—practically dismantled by Nat Pierce—and the vibes, of course. Sometimes I wonder why I don’t just listen exclusively to vibraphone-centric jazz records—I suppose one needs variety to fully appreciate what one loves most. My only criticism of the record is that on some songs, or some parts of some songs, it’s way too sax-heavy for me. The tenor sax, piloted by Sal Nistico, just really dominates—that guy sounds like he could honk several sets a night, until well past closing time, and still be able to talk his way out of a parking ticket. But if you’re a fan of a “blowing session”—as it says in the liner notes—this is your record. I mean, I like this record just fine—it’ll probably even cut though the construction cacophony and leaf blower apocalypse outside. If it was about 50 times longer, I might be able to clean my apartment to it. Plus: seriously—album cover hall of fame.

Thelonious Monk “Misterioso (recorded on tour)”

This is a live record from 1965, eight tracks, according to the album cover info, Charlie Rouse on all songs—he is one of my favorite saxophone players ever—partly because I’ve mostly heard him playing with Thelonious Monk, and they really compliment each other. Larry Gales and Ben Riley, bass and drums on half the songs, and Butch Warren and Frank Dunlap, bass and drums, other half. Recorded East Coast, West Coast, and one song in Tokyo. Liner notes, by Harry Colomby—a nice story about giving Monk a ride home and becoming his manager—kind of touching, actually. I hope it worked out! As I’ve said before, when I first heard a version of the song “Misterioso”—I believe it was a quartet, with vibes—that changed my life—or at least the part of my life that was about listening to music. Other versions of that song are great as well, and the one here is somewhat different than I’ve heard before. They really go somewhere out there on this one—let me try to describe it. I can’t describe it, I’m too dumb. I’ll try. After the intro, the song’s established, and then there’s no piano for like half the song, just really nice trio, with bluesy saxophone, that really lures you into comfort. Then the piano comes back in and you try to follow it, of course, can’t, and it takes you on some kind of weird journey.

Besides that song, other Thelonious Monk compositions on this record: “Well, You Needn’t,” “Light Blue,” “Bemsha Swing,” and “Evidence.” Also included are versions of “I’m Gettin’ Sentimental Over You,” “All the Things You Are,” and “Honeysuckle Rose”—which the band, of course, make sound like Thelonious Monk songs. That it’s a live record matters little—there’s a bit of applause here and there, but the recording is clear and excellent—they could be playing in my apartment if there was enough room. It’s hard to write about something that’s your favorite thing—the bigger the hyperbole gets, the less convincing it sounds. I’ll tell anyone not sick of listening, again, that not only is Monk my favorite musician, he’s my favorite artist, period—and really, no one is even close. I’m guessing not everyone is as fond of him, as his style can sound unusual and eccentric—but in this case, unlike certain films, writing, and visual arts that I’ll admit are “not for everybody,” I really believe that anyone can come around to this music by listening to it and really concentrating on it. What you hear in the music is a direct impression of the workings of Monk’s brain—I don’t know if you get that so profoundly from any other artist. I guess it can be a little scary. We are lucky to live in a time after films were made of him playing live, and still exist, and you can actually watch quite a bit for free, on the internet—and that is also a good way to try to understand him, figure out what he’s doing, or just see and hear something incredibly beautiful.

Skeeter Davis “The Best of Skeeter Davis”

There is a “Best of Skeeter Davis” record from 1983, and 1980, and 1973, and 1978, and 1965. There may be more, but I got tired of looking in the internet. For the most part, they are the same songs—I mean, the first one kept getting reissued—though I noticed some variations. Anyway, this one that I’m listening to right now is a fine vinyl copy from 1965, RCA Victor, mono, 12 songs, it sounds great. On the front cover there’s nice picture of Skeeter, kind of Olan Mills style, that’s in a squarish rectangle with rounded corners that resembles the screen of 1960s television. It says “The Best of Skeeter Davis” and lists the songs. The letters in her name is each a different color. People could get color TV in the early 60s, but 1965 is considered the year the damn burst. It was often advertised by making each letter a different color, such as with the “Color TV” signs at motels. There are brief, very introductory, uncredited liner notes on back, referring to her as a “vivacious blonde Kentuckian.” She was both young and old at this time (around 34) and was, of course, already a star, with half a dozen LPs, lots of singles, and some hit songs. A “best of” record already made sense.

Every song on this record is good, and I could write an article about each one, but I’m not going to even mention them, I mean, individually, at this point, since they’re all on other records that I’ve written about, or am going to write about. No… maybe should… I’m listening to this again. It’s such a great record… every song is good. It’s like the classic county record of all time. Twelve songs by 12 different people or songwriting teams (including one by Skeeter Davis and Carolyn Penick), but somehow, it’s like every song is a Skeeter Davis song, once she’s singing it. She’s like Sinatra in that way. I wonder if those two ever met. This record would be a great birthday or Christmas present for someone—someone who maybe isn’t already a big Skeeter Davis fan, and you want to introduce her to. If I ever see other copies of this for a reasonable price (or the reissued versions), I’m going to buy them and then give them away as presents. Instead of the guy who gives you books you don’t want to read, I’ll be the guy who gives Skeeter Davis records to people who don’t like country music and don’t have record players!

Bob Dylan “Bringing It All Back Home”

I would have been too young to appreciate this record when it came out, I suppose, though I kind of wish my parents were Dylan fans and I would have heard all this. Or maybe not. This has to be a lot of people’s favorite Dylan record, it’s got some of his best songs and maybe a better overall early rock’n’roll sound than any of them. I’ve always just kind of ignored it, I don’t know why. Just read the liner notes on back, written by Bob with minimal caps and punctuation—surreal and cryptic but pretty good. The cover photo is BD and a woman in a red dress holding a cigarette, sitting with a bunch of records and magazines in front of a fireplace. BD is holding a grey kitten. They’re all staring right at the photographer with remarkably similar expressions. I wonder whatever happened to that cat. Or that woman. Or that fireplace.

I wouldn’t want to have to say what my favorite Dylan songs are (or maybe I would like to, and I should make one of those favorite 100 songs lists—but I’ll have to listen to them all, some rainy day)—but “Maggie’s Farm” has to be one of my favorites. Is this the record that marked Dylan’s shift to electric rock’n’roll and rejection of the folk scene? It does have “Mr. Tambourine Man” on it, but then ends with “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” Who is playing on this record, anyway? There is no listing of musicians.

There is, folded up inside, a huge poster of that classic BD drawing (is it by Milton Glaser?—that’s the name in the upper corner)—it’s his head in profile, with big multicolored hair. The colors are lovely pastel shades. Did this come with this record, or just happen to get stuck in here? It’s never been hung up—there are no holes or tape-damaged corners. I bet I could sell this for some serious bread on eBay, and the people who own this cabin would never notice. (I’d just have to remember to edit this before publishing it.) Does some cafe around here have wifi where I could run my sale? Could I make enough for gas money back to civilization? So many questions, today, and so few satisfactory answers.