The Homer & Jethro Project #10

Another day. Stuffed peppers in the oven & work tonight.

Here's #10

December 1949 - 48-0144 - The Hillbilly Wedding of Lilli Marlene / The Hucklebuck


It looks like dates are all a bit fuzzy. But there's a Billboard that lists this as being released then, so we're going to go with it even it puts this shit slightly out of chronological order.

You should know the drill. A Side is another collaboration with June Carter with them doing a countrified take down of the the WWII hit beloved by Axis & Allies alike "Lili Marlene". It was the song you couldn't escape just like [insert title of current contemporary overplayed catchy nuisance song here] but more maudlin. The most famous version was by Marlene Dietrich, everybody's favorite 40's foreign butch vamp.

B Side is their take on a 1949 hit by Paul Williams and his Hucklebuckers, so for a change they're taking on much recent material. It's a toe tapping corker of a tune that will have you shaking a chicken in the middle of the room before you are even aware that you're doing that thing I just said.

January 1950 - 48-0170 - I've Got Tears in my Ears (From Lyin' On My Back In My Bed While I Cry Over You) /She Made Toothpicks of the Timbers of my Heart

This one was elusive and it took a long time and a lot of searching to track this particular 7 inches of green vinyl down and give it a forever home. It's happy now.

For a change both sides are originals as far as I can tell and really long titles. Entirely worth it. These songs were so good that they rerecorded them in the mid-60s. The gist of either side should easily be divined from the excessively lengthy titles alone.

I kind of prefer these versions myself, but you can make your own decision later.

The Homer & Jethro Project #9

I'm not so fresh on my math, so I'm still trying to figure out how to make the current number of posts fit into the number of days for Spring of 2018.
There's got to be a fairly simple way of figuring it out, but I'm currently to under-caffeinated and hungry to get a good answer right now.

Anyway, here's Post #9

Here's a nice promo photo of Homer and Jethro from, I'm guessing, around 1950 based on the singles advertised on the back. The last few gasping breaths of vaudeville.

But it wasn't all funny business.

June 1949 - RCA 21-0087 - Homer Haynes - Waltz With Me/Roll Along Kentucky  Moon



There appeared in 1949 a completely straight up country crooner by Homer Haynes.

It's a nice pair of tunes really. Well played and with some nice Chet Atkins guitar work & a Jethro mandolin solo, but it's hard not to listen to it and wait for the jokes that don't come to arrive. And Homer even had a hand in the writing of it.

It was a pretty noble experiment that didn't really pan out.

And while I was hunting for some info on that one I came across a recording of Red Sovine singing "I Wanted You For a Lifetime" that was another weepy ballad penned by Homer. The more I look the more there is to find apparently.

Another 78 rpm from the collection.


Another hard to find oddity from around this time is this one:

March 1950 - RCA 599-9049 - Spike Jones & his City Slickers - Come Josephine in My Flying Machine/Fiddle Faddle (w/Homer & Jethro)

This is a weird one. It appears that this collaboration with novelty band leader Spike Jones was recorded March 10, 1950 I couldn't seem to find anything close to a contemporary release for it despite appearing on a number of Spike Jones compilations over the years. (It was also at this session that they recorded "Pal-Yat-Chee" with Spike that would see release a few years later and slated for Post #23.)

The first (H & J-less) song is yet another updated pre-WWI chestnut "Come Josephine in My Flying Machine" that had a cylinder recording by Billy Murray (here with Ada Jones) recorded in 1911 and less than a decade after the Wright Brothers first historic flight at Kitty Hawk

The B side where Homer & Jethro make their appearance is a take on Light Classical composer Leroy Anderson. The tune is "Fiddle Faddle" which received its inaugural recording at the hands of Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops in 1947.

I did finally manage to track down its existence to a small box set of 10 seven inches released in 1955 amongst a host of easy listening favorites for dining and dancing. For the purposes of this exercise I only digitized the two Spike Jones tracks but hold in reserve the option of doing the entire box at some point and posting it on an upcoming Compilation 13th of the Month post.

You have been warned.

The Homer & Jethro Project #8

Eight.

Here's where the fun truly begins.

June 1949 - RCA 48-0075 (with June Carter) - Baby, It's Cold Outside/Country Girl




So now they're on RCA Victor. They're recording in RCA Victor studios, they've got RCA's ace session guys to back them and best of all they've got Jethro's brother in law, Chet Atkins producing and playing on pretty much every record they make from this point on.

In 1946 Jethro Burns and Chet Atkins married twin sisters. Then

According to wikipedia:

(Chet)

"... made his first RCA Victor recordings in Chicago in 1947. They did not sell, but he did some studio work for RCA that year but had relocated to Knoxville again, where he worked with Homer and Jethro on WNOX's new Saturday night radio show

In 1949, he left WNOX to join June Carter with Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters on KWTO. This incarnation of the old Carter Family featured Maybelle Carter and daughters June, Helen, and Anita..."

And thus the stage was set for this record in 1949, Homer and Jethro and June Carter doing their country rendition of  the Frank Loesser tune "Baby, It's Cold Outside" of which there are umpteen versions, but the song originates in a 1949 movie "Neptune's Daughter".

This song was the first of several singles that Homer & Jethro shared with the yet to be Mrs. Johnny Cash and would eventually have them show up on Johnny Cash's 1969-71 prime time variety show.
They even have a under-rehearsed geriatric go at this in 1970.

The B side is "Country Girl" and an early appearance of a song by the fabulous team of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant and has our gal June in the feature spot taking the lead.

October 1949 - RCA 48-0113 - Tennessee Border No. 2/ I'm Getting Older Every Day




First you start with a pretty straight song like Red Foley's version of "Tennessee Border", rewrite all the lyrics, tack a "No. 2" at the end and sit back and enjoy such gems as

"..Her hair was long, she had a Tony
Her neck looked like a roll of bologna..."

The B side is another gem of the inevitable slide into old age and yet another Homer and Jethro original composition.

"...Well the girls just look at me and grin
Say look what a shape the old man's in
(I'm a-getting older every day)
Don't laugh at me 'cause it ain't fair
You're the one that put me there
(I'm a-getting older every day).."

The Homer & Jethro Project #7

Day Seven.
It seems more official if you write out the number.

January 1949 - King 749 - I Feel That Old Age Creeping On/ Goodbye Old Booze



Here it is again, another Homer and Jethro original on the A side. When I was younger than now, I thought it was a funny song. Now as my middle age marches inexorably towards the decrepitude and the grave it seems more real than humorous. (sigh)

The flip is yet another old chestnut updated and given that special Homer and Jethro touch. A nice early version was committed to shellac by the great Charlie Poole & the North Carolina Ramblers back in the year 1926. Homer and Jethro seem somewhat less enthused to become teetotalers. I tend to agree with them.

"I'll quit my drinkin' when I have found
Another way, to get it down"

Hard to argue with that.

April 1949 - King 773 - The Girl on the Police Gazette/Poor Little Liza, Poor Girl



The A side is actually an Irving Berlin tune which apparently didn't quite enter the canon like some of his other efforts, but was a record of some status for Dick Powell in 1937. 

B side. Old folk song. There's a pattern. This one may date back to an old sea shanty, but who listens to that shit, lets rock out to the Tenneva Ramblers kicking out the jams in 1927 with "Miss Liza, Poor Girl"

September 1949 - King 809 - Always/Poor Little Liza, Poor Girl



So at some point here in 1949 Homer and Jethro jumped ship from King Records and got signed to RCA Victor. With still a few strays in the can King threw  to the winds yet another Homer and Jethro stab at an Irving Berlin tune and backed it with the previously released "Poor Little Liza, Poor Girl".
The song "Always" dates back to the year 1925 and is reported to have been written by Berlin as a wedding present for his wife. In 1926 Henry Burr committed this version to wax which sounds rather quaint compared to the simple country sincerity of Homer and Jethro.