In the City

The Central Pennsport Listeners Enclave-vol. 3

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I've had shit technology for a long time. But now it's getting to be too much. Between the cd burner not taking certain brands of cd-r's, the pc not taking discs burned on the Mac, and the laser lens on the pc not wanting to read shit, I feel I'd be better off lathe cutting these goddamn things and handing them out like Chick tracts.


1. Dick Farney-Marina (El 2005, reissued from a 1947 record. Original label unknown)

2. The Jam-In the City (Polydor 1977) One of the things that makes this such a special song is that it could mean so many things. It could be an urban romance; a social and political call to arms; a self-confession of uncertainty and need. I’ve always liked to think of it as a generational statement of purpose, from child to parent: here is where I live. Look around and you'll find out what you never knew about me.

Probably fearing something would get lost in translation (or as likely, in playing volume) I’ve never played it for my own parents, who are dyed in the wool country people. They might play me a Brooks & Dunn ballad and expect the same epiphany in return. Which, come to think of it, doesn’t sound half bad.

3. Saleh Ibrahim-Taqsim (Honest Jon's 2008) Smoky fiddle of old Iraq. Please check out Rahim Alhaj for the current state of the taqsim. Alive and quite well, as it turns out. For more on the compilation from which this track was taken please scroll down to the last post.

4. David Box-If You Can't Say Something Nice (Candix 1962) My primary association with David Box is to his hometown lion, Buddy Holly. The Lubbock, TX protege also befriended Roy Orbison, who, throughout his career, would prove as influential. Here Box traded the herky jerky Holly rock for Orbison's swaying seduction; it's also an Orbison tune.

Oddly enough the chameleon career of Box, which vacillated with terrific formative nuance between the pop stars he loved best, ended short. In a plane crash. I know, no shit. But it's worth mentioning because, beyond the enigmatic coincidence, it illustrates the fateful nature of David Box's quick development as an artist. Even one more year playing in his heroes shadows and we'd doubtless remember him alongside them.

Box left behind an impressive slew of singles, all of which are compiled by the studious Trikont reissue label, as The David Box Story. Well worth investigating!


5. Rikki Aaron-Say What's On Your Mind (R.A.C. 1978) A Philadelphia curiosity. Parts Hall & Oates, Squeeze, and Kool & the Gang. One of those feel good songs that friends must've heard and just knew it was gonna be huge. Then it wasn't. Incidentally, there's no one named Rikki Aaron mentioned in the credits. No Rikki. No Aaron. I concocted two ridiculous origin stories, one involving the Steely Dan song, the other Hank Aaron. Neither bear repeating.

6. Hugo Wolf/Elisabeth Schumann-In dem Schatten meiner Locken (Angel 1947?) Speaking of Philadelphia artists, this lieder record was made by the soprano, and Philadelphia resident/ Curtis Institute member, Elisabeth Schumann. Like with Blossom Dearie there's something so foxy about tight musical diction. This blows librarian foxiness out of the water...

7. Georgie Fame-Get on the Right Track, Baby (EMI Regal 1964)

8. Blanca Rosa Gil-Cristal (Discuba 1956?) Rich, bombastic bolero singer from Cuba. I'm only guessing on that date based on some scribblings in the dead wax.

9. Conway Twitty-It's Only Make Believe (MGM 1962?) Every mix tape exists for the benefit of one song. You can't just give a person just one song, so you make a mix. Besides if the recipient would have to be a dipshit not to take that one song and do the math. If my night were that Moen ad in which the gasbag yuppie couple take a spigot to an architect and ask him to design them a house around it, this song would be my spigot. It has all the hiccupy, throaty young Elvis jazz, with the triumphal showman long loud notes of comeback Elvis. Cut for MGM in 1958 it was probably one Twitty's first for the label, maybe for any label. Just a fierce, perfect song.

The Eternally Stylish Dick Farney

Gotta say, this time I prefer the cd to the 78. It's just older.

The sterling El label put a lot of Dick Farney's records out on a single cd last year, aptly titled The Eternally Stylish Dick Farney. Which is fantastic, because I'd never heard of him.

My ear's been bending these days in the direction of Dick Haymes, Dean Martin, and all the AM radio honeydrippers relegated to antiques malls and sleepy bookstores at the shore, bountiful stuff in flea markets and the cheapo piles at the busiest of used record outlets. Farney, a Brazilian singer popular in the 1940's, fresh from aspirations of a recital piano career, had a startling, quiet voice that, in keeping with a Hollywood formula of the day, drew women like zombies to his heart--often below a saturatedly white moon. He was the antecedent of Joao Gilberto, the man who joined the hands of Luis Bonfa and Antonio Carlos Jobim, so they say.

And they say its a trick certain evil men know, a way to speak low so as to lure curious prey closer. George Sanders and a few others less remarkable did it with success while maintaining the darkness.

Dick Farney fit right in with the pop vocalist crowd; his willfully seductive delivery counted on many a teenage boy's and girl's exotic notions of a Latin Pied Piper. Or a least his manager counted on them.

This 78 copy of "Marina", my unparalleled favorite of Farney's songbook, arrived at the office on Friday--a scant three weeks overdue. It was exquisitely packaged--I'm compelled to say--and the Baptist leaflet with the pic of the Twin Towers ablaze on the cover, included in the parcel, clarified maybe why the quality of the object wasn't better, or more accurately described, on eBay.

In a reverie I imagine a slightly tanner, aloof Barry Corbin, rising from an online Texas Hold 'Em chatroom (the cards have topless girls!), glancing down at his Dick Farney 78/beercoaster and concluding, "Everything my mama graced was perfect".

"$15."

Wouldn't you know that I was the jackass with blinders on who rose with paddle in hand to proclaim, "Sold!"

Jesus, it's a pretty song.

And the deluge of stylus-ravaged noise tells me someone's mama had a great many satisfying daydreams in the meandering winds that separate Brazil from her bedroom. If I close my eyes I can see the chair.

The recording (for the Majestic label, probably early 50's) is from a later session than the one I took to on the El label cd (40's?) Or maybe it was just the American market recording. Whatever the circumstances, the drowsy piano was switched out for a Nelson Riddle style orchestral arrangement, which is fitting since Farney borrowed his share of sugarcubes from Sinatra. A real flesh human, this Dick Farney. And that guyish flawed quality made the swelling, votive-dappled nocturamas upon which he relied that much more compelling.

Still, the "Marina" I had very much come to love--like maybe all music of late I've come to love, derived of Shaker basics, rendered in piano, voice and nothing else. I picture even the rain being ushered from the studio with a condescending word. Too much pomp and circumstance, the engineer would've said. What a joker, the rain. Which gives me good pause. I'll save this one for a storm.