The Homer & Jethro Project #12

A dozen posts in a dozen days.

Such heady times we live in.

June 1950 - RCA 48-0349 - Put That Knife Away, Nellie/Pizen Pete

Lo and behold, a fresh single with our boys having a hand in the composition of both sides. It works.

The A side is another of their Paeans to wedded bliss. Poor boy has the unfortunate misfortune of coming home a bit tipsy with his better half getting a bit out of sorts about the indiscretion and chasing him around with a carving knife.

I'd suggest counseling.

B side is a Western about a man too ornery to die. A quick google comes up with a 1913 short of the same name. Are they related? I dunno.

November 1950 - RCA 48-0404 - Oh Babe/Disc Jockey's Nightmare

In 1950 "Oh Babe" was a hit for Louis Prima & his wife Keely Smith. I kind of prefer this jumping little version to the original here. But that's me.

B side is a bit of lovely surreal word play nonsense authored by the boys themselves that they excelled at when they put their minds to it. For good measure they toss in a little nod to the biggest hit of the year the " Third Man Theme" from the Orson Welles movie which I can highly recommend for anyone not familiar with it.

The Homer & Jethro Project #11

Back again

#11 and a sixth of the way through.

And we kick it off today with another contribution by the future Mrs. Johnny Cash 

January 1950 - RCA 48-0181 - I Said My Nightshirt/Music Music Music


June Carter is back with another installment of her weird threesome romance with the boys which causes all involved some issues. It's kind of funny so long as you don't consider the implied menage a trois and focus on the humorous malapropisms of the lyric.

B Side is a Dixie fried version of a tune that was a current hit for Teresa Brewer that sounded like it should have been a much older song. It fooled me.

April 1950 - RCA 48-0308 - You Tell Her I Stutter/Does the Spearmint Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight

A Side. Finding some humor in mocking an unfortunate soul with a speech impediment.
B Side redoing another old chestnut from 1924 as recorded by Billy Jones & Ernest Hare.

The song would have another life at the other end of the decade when a version by Lonnie Donegan became a hit during the short lived UK Skiffle craze where American Blues and Roots music was watered down with a healthy dose of UK Vaudeville. But the kids dug it which the led to them picking up guitars and a later watering down of American Blues and Rock and Roll that came to be known as the British Invasion.

Dark times. Dark times indeed.

(I'd also like to add that I have multiple versions of these songs. The original 45 looks like it's been sanded. Versions on budget compilations released in the mid-60s are in fake stereo (lots of crap reverb to fill out the mono sound) and with a long intro cut off of the latter tune.
I then found a 78rpm with nice gloss, but with a chip that goes right up to the grooves on the A side and then had to find someone with a 78 player to transfer it. It's been an arduous process, but the original 78 sounds pretty damn good, actually.)

You're welcome.

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.