What is a “Songbook standard,” again?

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The following page, published on 17 March, was substantially revised and expanded on 21-22 March (latest revision, 2 July 2017):

• What do I mean by “Songbook standard”?

See also the relevant comment exchange between Robert Silvestri and myself at the bottom of the page.

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Songbook site index

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1890-1969 selected standards and hits pages
Galleries: performing artist and songwriter
Galleries: film
Songwriters to 1954
Songwriters, 1955-1973
Complete page index
Film Musicals and Revues: selected films and songs, 1929-47
Performing Artist features
Jazz Age
Swing Eras 1 and 2
about the site + selected notes
Friends
Acknowledgments

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• 1890-1899 selected hits and standards
• 1900-1909 selected standards and hits
• 1910-1919 selected standards, hits, and special features
• 1920-1929
• 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926 (1), 1926 (2), 1927, 1928, 1929
• 1930-1939
• 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, additional 1930s hits and standards
• 1940-1949
• 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949
• 1950–1954 selected standards and hits
• 1955-1959
• 1960s: selected performers
• 1960s: selected songs

(above) header tab 5 generation browse demonstration: Page Index > Songbook site index > Songwriter > Songwriters to 1954 > Berlin, Irving > Berlin pages (11) — correction: The page Irving Berlin: selected songs of 1909 and 1910 is now included in the Berlin drop down index.

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Now that I surrender, so helplessly

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Today I published the following new page:

• Motortown Revue UK Tour, 1965 – includes over 60 images

Any errors regarding questionable dates or other details will be corrected as new information comes to light.

Come and get these memories

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Published a new page today:

• Motown’s 1962 Motortown Revue

I also published a Motown index page today. The latter doesn’t contain new pages, except for the 1962 Motortown Revue page. It’s simply a step in reorganizing my Motown pages.

In construction:

• Motortown Revue UK Tour, 1965

Don’t throw our love away

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Visit my latest page, published today:

• “Baby Love” and The Supremes in Amsterdam and London, October 1964, with photo gallery

We’re gonna teach you to fly high!

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For ZOOMers of all flavors, there’s a little surprise for you on my new page:

• Always Friends + ZOOM original 1972 theme song, including lyrics

You get a line and I’ll get pole, honey

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Today I published the following new page:

• Crawdad Song — selected recordings, 1933-1967

See also the two related Songbook pages (previously published):

• You’ve Been a Good Old Wagon But You’ve Done Broke Down
• Crawdad Song — lyric (Woody Guthrie version)

Crawdad Song (traditional) aka “The Crawdad Song,” “Crawdad Hole,” “Crawdad,” “You Get a Line and I’ll Get a Pole,” etc.

The obvious, though frequently unacknowledged, connection of “Crawdad Song” and other related American folk songs to the much earlier British folk song “Frog Went a-Courtin’” is explored in the page “You’ve Been a Good Old Wagon But You’ve Done Broke Down.”

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The new page “Crawdad Song — selected recordings, 1933-1967,” which may be expanded by additional recordings, presently includes the following recordings, under various titles:

• Lone Star Cowboys — “Crawdad Song” (arrangement by Lone Star Cowboys members Leon Chappelear, Bob Attlesey, and Joe Attlesey) — recorded on 5 August 1933; issued on Bluebird B-6052, b/w “Just Because”

• Jim Lewis Lonestar Cowboys — probably from Vocalion 03754, c/w “Who Broke the Lock on the Henhouse Door,” both sides recorded on 24 September 1937
• Leroy Martin and unidentified performers (vocals) — recorded, as “Crawdad,” at Cummins State Farm, Camp #1, near Varner, Arkansas, on 21 May 1939 — field recording collected by John A. Lomax and Ruby T. Lomax
• Mrs. Vernon Allen — field recording; recorded at a Farm Security Administration camp for migratory workers in Shafter, California on 15 or 16 August 1940 (two videos: parts 1 and 2)
• Woodie Guthrie — from Muleskinner Blues: The Asch Recordings Vol. 2 (1), (2), recorded in New York, NY, between 1944 and 1947
• Al Clauser and his Oklahoma Outlaws — 1947(?) — I’ve been unable to verify the date, 1947, given by the video provider, but the recording was evidently included in a 2004 compilation of recordings by the band titled Hot Western Swing 1937-48 featuring Patti Page, Krazy Kat 32
• Lulu Belle & Scotty — recorded as “The Crawdad Song,” c.1950
• Evelyn Knight and Red Foley — recorded on 28 November 1950; issued in 1951 on the 78 rpm single Decca 27599, and on the 45 rpm single Decca 9-27599, c/w “Idle Rumors” in each case
• Smokey Hogg — recorded, as “Crawdad,” on 9 January 1952 in Los Angeles, CA; issued on the 78 rpm single Fidelity F 3006**, and on the 45 rpm single Fidelity 3006, c/w “Born on the 13th” in each case / personnel, adapted from http://www.wirz.de/music/hoggfrm.htm: Smokey Hogg – vocal, guitar; Lou “Freddie” Simon – tenor saxophone; Willard McDaniel – piano; Bill Davis – bass; Al “Cake” Wichard – drums
• Big Bill Broonzy — Despite the titles given by the video providers, each of the dated recordings below by Big Bill Broonzy was titled “Crawdad Hole” upon original release.
  
  • 1. Recorded live in Amsterdam, 1953 — released on the 2006 album Amsterdam Live Concerts 1953 (AllMusic album review)
  • 2. Recorded live at the Club Montmartre, Copenhagen, Denmark, 4-6 May 1956 — originally included on the LP An Evening With Big Bill Broonzy, (Denmark) Storyville SLP-114, released c.1962; released in the UK in 1965 on Storyville SLP 114
  • 3. From the 5 LP box set The Bill Broonzy Story, Verve MGV 3000-5, originally released in 1959(?); all tracks recorded in Chicago, IL, 12 & 13 July 1957

• Big Bill Broonzy (continued)
  • 4. Undated recording
• Sam Hinton — recorded as “The Crawdad Song” — originally issued on the 1957 album Whoever Shall Have Some Good Peanuts (And Other Folk Songs For Children), Scholastic Records ‎SC 7530, Folkways Records ‎SC 7530
• The Goldenaires Choir — from the 1959 album Songs of the Southern Mountains, VOX VX 26.120
• Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry — recorded at Van Gelder Recording Studio, Englewood, N.J. in 1961; originally released,  as “Crawdad Hole,” on the 1978 album You Hear Me Talkin’, Muse Records MR 5131
• Flatt & Scruggs with the Foggy Mountain Boys perform “The Crawdad Song” for a 1962 episode of the Grand Ole Opry TV series

• Doc Watson, Clint Howard, and Fred Price — recorded at Ash Grove, Los Angeles, CA in April 1962*; originally released, as “Crawdad Song,” on the 1963 album Old Time Music At Clarence Ashley’s, Part 2, Folkways FA 2359; later included in the compilation album The Original Folkways Recordings Of Doc Watson And Clarence Ashley, 1960 through 1962, Smithsonian Folkways ‎CD SF 40029/30, released in 1994

musicians:

• Clint Howard – lead vocal, guitar
• Doc Watson — tenor vocal, guitar
• Fred Price — fiddle

• Doc Watson, Clint Howard, and Fred Price — recorded in 1967 for the Seattle Folklore Society; released, as “Crawdad,” on the album Old Timey Concert, Vanguard ‎VSD • 107/08

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Also published today:

• The new index page traditional songs — This is not a list of all traditional songs included in Songbook (this site). Rather, it is a brief index of each feature page on the site devoted entirely to a single traditional song. Any such pages unintentionally omitted from the index will be added ASAP. The index page presently includes the following list:

• Crawdad Song — selected recordings, 1933-1967
  • Crawdad Song — lyric (Woody Guthrie version transcribed)
• You’ve Been a Good Old Wagon But You’ve Done Broke Down
• St. James Infirmary
• Malagueña salerosa (La Malagueña)

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* Recording date, location, and musician information adapted from http://www.oocities.org/folkfred/ashley.html (cache)

** S. Hogg is incorrectly credited as the writer of “Crawdad” on the label of the A-side of Fidelity F 3006.

summer break

Hi,

Greetings to all my visitors, new and old. The purpose of this message is to announce that I have decided to take a break from creating and posting new work on the site until at least mid-September. Will post an update should my plans change in the interim. During the break, I might allow the maintenance to slip a bit more than usual, so that visitors may find a few more deleted videos than normal on the site. Will try to keep it looking presentable. Also, I will continue to respond promptly to comments.

Hope you all enjoy the summer. Best wishes.

Regards, doc

Won’t Someone Please Belong to Me

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(above) Bobby Troup and Julie London — source: JulieLondon.org

Won’t Someone Please Belong to Me (Bobby Troup) — date published unknown

I’m aware of only the few recordings of the song included below, by Teri Thornton, Julie London, Bobby Troup, and Marilyn Maye. I’ve often wondered why the song did not become well-known and often covered. Perhaps the triple rhymes and off-rhymes —  “Yesterday” / “here’s today,” “cold again” / “fold again,” “be content” / “be so bent,” “serener place” / “greener place,” etc. — were thought to be outdated or artificial. Such constructions may have been considered passé long before Troup published this song. Among American popular song lyricists of the 20th century, triple rhymes are most closely associated with Lorenz Hart.

On the day before creating and publishing this post, I noticed that someone had entered the site via a keyword search looking for the lyric to “Won’t Someone Please Belong to Me.” I didn’t have it. In fact, I’d been periodically looking for the lyric for the previous four or five years. So, after another round of searches came up empty I decided to transcribe it. The following transcription is drawn from the taped live performance by Bobby Troup and (presumably) his band for the 1965 Julie London TV variety special, Julie: Something Special.

Won’t Someone Please Belong to Me — words and music by Bobby Troup

Yesterday, things looked bright
I never knew a kiss so right
But here’s today — I’m out in the cold again
Just like a sheep that’s lost from his fold again
Won’t someone please belong to me

Find my love, mind my love
Try not to be unkind, my love
Just be content — there is no serener place
Don’t be so bent in finding a greener place
Won’t someone please belong to me

A fool am I
You’d think someday I’d learn
For fools like I
The tables never turn
But I’m not wise
I’m always taken by surprise, surprise

Days are long
Nights are long
Time seems so slow when things go wrong
Won’t someone new come here and be mad to be
Near someone who is true and so glad to be
Won’t someone please, please, please belong to me
Please belong to me
Please belong to me

transcribed by Jim “doc” Radcliff on 10 March 2015 *

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Teri Thornton — B-side of the 45 rpm single “To Remember You By,” Columbia 4-43209, issued on 25 January 1965

Note: Despite each of the following two videos purporting to contain a copy of the B-side of Columbia 4-43209, though the second contains an image which suggests that it might be from a promotional copy of the single, they aren’t even close to being the same length, one being several seconds shorter than the 2:25 stated on the label and the other several seconds longer. The recording in video 1 is about 2:20 in length, while that in video 2 is about 2:32, though they do sound like the same recording. I surmise that at some point perhaps either the shorter one was slightly sped up, the longer one slowed down, or both.

video 1

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video 2

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Bobby Troup with unidentified small combo — live, from the Julie London TV variety special Julie: Something Special, air date: 17 November 1965

JulieLondon.org says,

On November 17th, 1965 WGN-TV in Chicago aired an hour-long special titled Julie: Something Special. Julie sings many of her popular numbers and is joined by, now husband, Bobby Troup and the quartet, The Hi-Lo’s. All of their performances are included. This show was re-aired on NBC-TV on February 13th, 1967.

It must have been the rebroadcast on NBC which I saw as a child of nine, for I recalled this performance decades later when I came across the video several years ago.

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Julie London — from the 1965 LP Feeling Good: with the Gerald Wilson Big Band, LRP-3416 (Mono), LST-7416 Stereo

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Marilyn Maye — from the live album The Second of Maye, (US) RCA Victor LSP-3546, released in 1966 [Thanks to visitor Helen, whose helpful comment made me aware of this recording.]

From marilynmaye.com:

This album marked the second collaboration of Marilyn and Joe Rene. It was recorded live at The Living Room, a then-famous New York nightclub, and released in 1966. Joining Marilyn was The Sammy Tucker Quintet featuring Sammy Tucker, her husband at the time, on the piano. The album notes were penned by Skitch Henderson, then-musical director for The Tonight Show.

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* “Days” and “Nights” are reversed in the first two lines of the final section in the versions by Teri Thornton, Julie London, and Marilyn Maye. The line “Won’t someone new come here and be mad to be” is slightly different in the Thornton and London versions, the first word being “Please” instead of “Won’t,” and “glad” replacing “mad.” However, the second line of the section is identical to the Troup version in the London recording (she sings “glad” in both lines, twice), yet very different in the Thornton recording, which goes “Near someone true, as true as you’ll ever be.” The lyric sung by Marilyn Maye in her live version also displays other minor differences from each of the others. She replaces the word “sheep” with “lamb,” and modifies the expression “Don’t be so bent in,” to the more prevalent “Don’t be so bent on.”

For other lyric transcriptions by yours truly see the page Unsung lyrics, transcribed by doc.

Pour toi / Feelings / Sentimientos / Dis-lui

Selected links

Song:

• Pour toi – French Wikipedia
• Pour toi – Second Hand Songs
• Feelings – Wikipedia
• Feelings – Second Hand Songs

Singles:

• Feelings – Morris Albert (Discogs)
• Sentimientos – Morris Albert (Discogs)

Morris Albert’s 1973 recording of “Feelings” was a big hit in 1974. The song was adapted, according to a 1987 jury verdict in Federal District Court in Manhattan, by Albert from the song “Pour toi,” composed in 1956 by Louis Gasté, with lyrics by Albert Simonin and his wife Marie-Hélène Bourquin, though it took a lengthy and eventually successful 1980s copyright infringement suit to legally name Gasté as co-songwriter. Albert also released an alternate version with a Spanish-language lyric, in 1974, which was evidently written by himself, as he’s the sole songwriter credited on the label (see below). In 1975, Israeli-born French pop star Mike Brant recorded a version of “Feelings” titled “Dis-lui” (“Tell him”), with the French lyric written by Michel Jourdan.

Pour toi (m. Louis Gasté, w. Albert Simonin, Marie-Hélène Bourquin)
“Pour toi” was recorded by the singer and actress Line Renaud, wife of Gasté, in 1956, and performed by Dario Moreno in the 1957 film Le Feu aux poudres. The arrangements of the song used by Moreno in the film and in a separate studio recording with an orchestra sound very little like Morris Albert’s 1973 recording of “Feelings,” though portions of the melody are similar. The 1956 recording by Line Renaud, in part, exhibits slightly greater resemblance to Albert’s “Feelings,” melodically and in tone, but it seems like a rather large leap to find that the melody of “Feelings” was copied or stolen from the French song.

The claim made by the plaintiff Gasté that Albert “gained access” to the virtually unknown song “Pour toi” through his publisher Fermata, which “had had some dealings with Gasté’s publishing company, Les Editions Louis Gasté, in the 1950s” was unaccompanied by evidence that such access was ever obtained.

Line Renaud — title song from the 1956 EP Pathé ‎(France) 45 EG 232

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Dario Moreno — in the 1956 film Le Feu aux poudres; the performance begins at about :49

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Dario Moreno — from the 1957 EP Imploration, Philips 432.182 NE

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Feelings (m. Louis Gasté, Morris Albert, w. Morris Albert)

Morris Albert

Feelings — issued in 1974 on the single RCA Victor PB-10279, b/w “This World Today is a Mess” — US chart success: #6, Hot 100; #2, Adult Contemporary; also later released on the 1975 LP Feelings, RCA Victor ‎APL1-1018

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Sentimientos (aka “Dime”) — issued in 1974 on Beverly ‎(Brazil) 45-13.508; songwriting credited solely to Morris Albert on the label — A recording under the same title released by Mexican singer José José in 1974 has a different lyric.