The Homer & Jethro Project #16

Here we are. #16.

This puts us at approximately on quarter of the way through this exercise.

Are we having fun yet?

September 1951 - RCA 47-4290 - Too Old to Cut the Mustard/Too Young


A themed pair of songs musing about age for this go around.
Who knew comedy could be so deep?

"Too Old to Cut the Mustard" is a song written by Bill Carlisle that had a number of recordings as a duet including Ernest Tubb & Red Foley whose version came out in December 1951 and a version by the unlikely duo of Marlene Dietrich & Rosemary Clooney.

You're getting Homer and Jethro. So make do.

B side is "Too Young". You probably know this song. Nat King Cole has the most famous version.

This version is much less famous.

November 1951 - RCA 47-4397 - Cold Cold Heart No. 2/Alabama Jubilee


It's sometimes difficult to remember but there was a time when Hank Williams, sr was alive and kicking and recording music and not just some dead guy who wrote the only old school country songs that the average person knows. He was still kicking in 1951 and "Cold Cold Heart" was a brand new song on the radio. Hank looked like this when he sang it.

Homer and Jethro looked like this:

One gets the feeling that they weren't taking it quite as seriously.

B side "Alabama Jubilee" was first recorded by Red Foley with the Nashville Dixielanders.

Homer and Jethro lack the killer spoon playing of the original, but make it up with a Chet Atkins solo of immense proportions. Win some and you lose some.

The Homer & Jethro Project #15

I've got a croissant warming in the oven.

#15

July 1951 - RCA 48-0484 - She Loves to Cry/Knock Kneed Suzy

Our boys and June Carter share another side in what was proving to be quite a busy year of releases for them. In this one June is the star and the boys are there to back her up as she poses as a proto-Goth in love with her own misery.

Do they make gingham in black?

B side is credited to June Carter & her Bashful Rascals which does not seem to include Homer & Jethro but is the band with which she had previously recorded her version of  Phil Harris' hit of 1950 "The Thing".  In this number poor old "Knock Kneed Suzy" is so pitiful and homely that she decides that in order to get married she has no choice but to settle for an equally aesthetically displeasing gentleman by the name of Snaggletooth Sam because it's the 50's and that's the only way either of them is going to get laid.

And so the circle of life continues with the likelihood of even uglier children in the future.

August 1951 - RCA 47-4239 - Sound Off No. 2 (the Duckworth Chant)/I Love You a Thousand Ways No. 2

With the end WWII only a mere six years previous there had apparently passed at least enough time for some aspects of the draft to become memories that one no longer had to take quite so seriously, like boot camp and marching drills. And since most people have really terrible senses of rhythm there are chants to help keep the recruits in step such as the Duckworth Chant.

So in 1951 Vaughn Monroe and his Orchestra does the big band version and scored something akin to a hit with a proud version just bursting with patriotic pride.

Homer and Jethro take a slightly different bent and probably one much closer to their own experience and point of view as one of the schmucks out there sweating their asses off marching up and down in a field.

On the flip side it's their recording of Lefty Frizzell's "I Love You A Thousand Ways". In Homer and Jethro's recording their gal is so homely that it's actually a much sweeter song that they can find it in their hearts to stomach her in any way, let alone 1K's worth.

The Homer & Jethro Project #14

I have less and less to say here.

#14

April 1951 - RCA 48-0446 - I'm Movin On No. 2/So Long No. 2

Keeping things in the house in 1951 Homer and Jethro took time out of their busy schedule to work up a parody of fellow RCA recording artist Hank Snow's "Moving On". This is the first of two recorded parodies they did of this particular tune. The second turns it into a holiday tune for the 1955 Christmas season which will come up in post #29.

B side is a reworking of  Woody Guthrie number "So Long (It's Been Good to Know You)" which is originally a pretty grim little tune about the Dust Bowl when drought and bad farming methods laid waste to the US Heartland which if you ever had to read John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" you may already be familiar with.

Our heroes may make it a bit less depressing depending on how you feel about Homer & Jethro.

June 1951 - RCA 48-0468 - That Texas Land/King Size Baby

Another pair of original tunes.

I doubt that you could lose money appealing to the State Pride Narcissism of the state of Texas (which is the only one that rivals that of Minnesota.) Thus "That Texas Land"

The other side is a love song for our chubby chasing duo about their "King Size Baby". It's got a couple real nice swinging breaks by Jethro & Chet Atkins in between the verses that make this one of my faves for this period. Though one wonders how the beloved in the song feels about being called his "fat old baby"...

The Homer & Jethro Project #13

No more Homer and Jethro.

April Fools

#13
Ain't you lucky?

April 1951 - Fed 10004 - When It's Long Handle Time in Tennessee/Night and Day

Clearing out the vaults of the King Records recordings this quartet of older recordings from five years previous got released on the subsidiary Federal

A side is a Homer and Jethro original about the coming of winter and the necessity of proper underwear.
Let it be a warning.

B side is a nice reworking of the Cole Porter tune written in 1932 for the musical the "Gay Divorcee" which was the last Broadway show for Fred Astaire before heading to Hollywood to make the movie version.

The boys ham it up pretty good with a lively version of their own to square dance too.



Unfortunately I don't physically have a copy of the other record and there does not appear to be a label picture currently on the internets that I have found in the past five minutes so I don't have one.

June 1951 - Fed 10019 - Margie/I'm Glad I Waited For You

Yet again we're trawling some ancient recordings to grab material. Here is their take on a song "Margie" that was a hit for Eddie Cantor in 1921. I prefer the H&J version because they don't make any bogus promises about cutting out liquor. I don't trust this Cantor fellow.

B side is a Jule Stye/Sammy Cahn tune made famous by Peggy Lee in 1945. Coming at the end of WWII it was likely a sentiment that was probably pretty appealing until a few years into the resulting marriages when reality came crashing in. Such is life.

I have nothing more to add.