Pilsbury Greaseboy Jackie Gleason, much lampooned by Mad Magazine for his Renaissance Man pretensions and today widely forgotten, cut this 10" in 1953, writing and arranging the suite that takes up side one. So - if my calculations are correct - this is the first pop concept album, just sneaking ahead of Frank Sinatra's from the following year.
It's whiter than White Christmas, but there's something naggingly Not Shit about it. It's not camp, it's not cheese. There's some real skill here - composition, arrangement, and performance, and at the root of it, artistic intent. Sure, go ahead, yok it up, you juvenile delinquent you. Or - you know - fire up a couple of Daiquiris and let it do its stuff. Even if your own stuff is past its strut-by date.
"Pilsbury Greaseboy Ralph Gleason,"
ReplyDeleteer..Jackie.
I couldn't read that big book about a baseball, but he's in it.
And he's Minnesota Fats, isn't he?
Winter Wonderland ?
ReplyDeleteRalph? As in San Francisco Ralph, or Jackie as in Miami Beach Jackie?
ReplyDeleteis this love or confusion? John Herbert Gleason........my 1st record at age 5 was "Thats my love song to you"...When Ralph and Norton write a song in The Honeymooners episode "The Songwriters" (Dec. 11, 1954) this was the song they came up with.
ReplyDeleteRalph, is that you Ralph?!?
ReplyDeleteGleason had some songwriting chops. One of his albums had the cover drawn by his friend and drinking buddy, Dali. https://thedali.org/exhibit/dali-record-mania-online-exhibit/
Very cool ink! Thank you, pmac.
Deletegoing for the literary artistry...
DeleteI meant 'coo link'
It doesn't matter where it came from or who brought it for show and tell...as long as it's real bra and panties remover! To the mooon, Alice!
ReplyDeleteNice to know that my posts do get read sometimes. I was wondering.
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/eQmpbDcUR2f
'K, done me readin' now...
DeleteWhine Pairings Dept.:
This would go good with one of those Gordon Jenkins jobs. He did a lot of in the way of the "Concept" type thing in the sorta-same / "white, but still all right" ballpark in the '50s. "Manhattan Tower," etc. I just finished reading his bio, written by his sportswriter son... Renaissance, man oh man.
And, ahead of A Mr. Ca$h of Country, he did the first iteration of "Folsom Prison Blues," which was "subconsciously" stolen (ala "My Sweet Lord" by way of "He's So Fine").
And away we go!!!
One of these days. Bang. Zoom. To the moon.
Sho'nuff. But maybe the rest of the gang hasn't heard it:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3M3Igjnbhs
my parents favorite album was Manhattan Towers...when they put it on it was best to lock down out of the area or leave the building
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ReplyDeleteI do get red sometimes...
ReplyDeleteIn the face.
After compulsory, perfunctory, compulsive and ill-advised perusing of the COMMENTS for the joke du jour. And then trying feebly to up it with a snappy cracklin' comeback pitch. Which usually ends up being a foul ball. Out of left field.
All while deftly avoiding reading all what all we all be "Commenting" on in the who's-on-first place.
-B.(atter up!)
I own a copy of this. The back cover tells us that "the young lady on the cover is JANE EASTON", so that's nice.
ReplyDeleteTruth be told, I've owned several of these Jackie Gleason
ReplyDeletealbums over the years, sooner or later to (as we used to say)
unload them back into the void of almost-collectables whence
they came. I'm not proficient in self-psychoanalysis; but, if
I were, I might very well conclude that the cognitive dissonance
must have been too much for me. One item I've kept, though, is
a two-cd compilation -- here presented for the benefit of up to
four or five guys who may or may not be given to excess:
The Romantic Moods of Jackie Gleason
https://workupload.com/file/AT6vn7sbFeR
Thank you, for the embellishment...
Delete(in case the 10" isn't enough)
KC
That's what she said. (Fetches his Big Ten-Inch... Record of the band that plays the blues...)
DeleteBack to you, endowment fund & games.
Oh, and... thanks, C.D., for the.... Rom Moo album.
DeleteI guess there's one Jackie boy ElPee to own, it'd be the "collectibility factor" hobbyist geek-coveted one that has the Sal Dali cover art. ("Lonesome Echo.")
Me, I much rather go for this oh-so hi-brow '54 model:
https://www.discogs.com/Jackie-Gleason-And-Awaaay-We-Go/master/1097263
How about some Frank Fontaine records? Or is that too close to Jim Nabors territory? It's a beautiful day in the Naborhood. In a golden cage.
ReplyDeleteThere was a lot of talent in the Easy/Cheesy Listening bins and these days I enjoy listening to well arranged orchestral music as much as anything else -- especially the zany "Space Age Pop" of the early 60s band leaders and also the punched up "now sounds" of your favorite AM radio hits from the 60s and 70s as long as they don't get too schmaltzy like background elevator music. And I'll add the well crafted lush orchestral music like Gleason was turning out occasionally as well. Thanks!
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