Revenge Of The Secret Song: Big Easy Edition!

Just fantastic. No, really! 

The Jetsons Are Here! Plus More Porgy And Bess, Rozsa's Madame Bovery, Herrmann's Hitchcock And A Pine-Fresh Secret Song!

"His boy Elroy!" If you grew up at a certain time, then you'll probably recognize just that one single snippet of song lyric. It was drilled into your head on Saturday mornings while you ingested cups and cups of toxic sugary cereal. Remember? I do. And yet you never threw up (or at least I didn't).

If you still think fondly of those Saturday mornings, then today's your lucky day. Bring the sugar-shock back with this ultra-deluxe collection of "Jetsons" tunes and music (along with a bit of "Jonny Quest" tossed in for good measure), but don't say I didn't warn you. It's giggly fun, yes, but it just might rot your teeth.

As some of you might know, I have a special fondness for "Porgy And Bess" - in all of its varied incantations. So I just couldn't resist when I happened upon this Cheerfully Summertime Exclusive! It's the 1976 "Collector's Series" edition of "Porgy" with the one, the only, Cab Calloway.

This version also features several popular opera performers of the day, like Eleanor Steber, one of the first big-time US opera stars, and Robert Merrill, who worked in operas as well as on Broadway and in movies. I wasn't familiar with any of them until I happened upon this LP, but if you love this musical, then you'll love this version (which includes an especially haunting version of "Gone, Gone, Gone" by The Robert Shaw Group). And, yes, Calloway absolutely kills on his rendition of "It Ain't Necessarily So." But you knew that already.

Have you ever seen Vincente Minnelli's "Madame Bovary?" It was advertised in 1949 with this irresistible slogan: "Whatever it is that French women have, Madame Bovary has more of it!" Yeowza! Now that's how ya' advertise a movie. Pauline Kael found it "hopelessly overscaled," but I kind of enjoyed all the keyed-up sumptuousness - as only Minnelli can supply; he wasn't derided as a "mere window dresser" for nothing - and Jennifer Jones is surprisingly effective.

So why am I bringing up this movie? To inaugurate a Super Cheerful Exclusive!, the 15-CD treasury of music by famed Old Hollywood composer Miklos Rozsa. Hooray! This generous anthology brings together all the best of Rozsa, who wrote "Madame Bovary's" rapturous score, and of course many more. "Bovary's" been newly restored for this first CD and it's an absolute must.

Did you know? Rozsa was taught piano as a child by his mother Regina. She, in turn, had studied as a child with students of (wait for it) Franz Liszt. By age eight, Rozsa was already composing and performing in public. Oh, and get this: once arrived in Hollywood, Rozsa angrily vowed never to work with Hitchcock again after penning the score for "Spellbound." Hitchcock was gravely disappointed in the score; Rozsa found Hitchcock a major pain in the touchas. Meh, it happens.

Speaking of Old Hollywood masters, what do Lillian Gish and Alfred Hitchcock have in common? Yes, you guessed it, Bernard Herrmann, who wrote the score for TV's "Alfred Hitchcock Hour," including music for an episode entitled "Body In The Barn" starring Lillian Gish, who was in her late 60's at the time.

Interestingly, this aired well before "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte," which started the so-called "Hag Horror" trend - or horror movies with aging movie queens - in the late 1960's. Some even credit it with with starting the trend to begin with (you can click on Lillian to see more).

I won't argue the finer points of "Hag Horror" - though my Cuban Luvuh knows the genre well - except to say that finding more Herrmann is always a happy event. And this delightfully moody CD is chock full of Herrmann at his best.

The Secret Song File will be watching the Oscars this weekend with a bewhiskered Euro paramour in a swank hotel suite. Maybe too swank. She absolutely loathes those awful bowl sinks - you know, the ones that certain designy folk seem to think are so "stylish" and "fashionable" - because when it's time for a quick wash (ahem), no one likes the edge of a bowl cleaving into their midsection (just sayin').

Similarly, The Secret Song File despises new electronica music, since the whole genre seems like it's stuck in the mid 1990's (I'm talking to you, "Air). But this multilingual, American-born, "pine-scented" chillwave artist is different. And in his spanking new second CD, he exhibits gratifying humor and playfulness, not to mention an almost suspenseful track list - you never know where he's going from one track to the next. This is unlike the bewhiskered Euro paramour, who's slightly pretentious and oh-so-predictable; he really seems to think "Amour" will sweep the Oscars this Sunday. Oh, hahahahaha! Silly boy.

To be blunt, I could only stomach the first half of "Les Miserables."

Leave your Oscar picks or anything else on your mind in the comments!

So Much Deliciousness! Perky Pat, Vivacious Vic, Moody Mastersounds, Beautiful Brox And Sensational Sheila, Plus A "Crazy" Secret Song!

I love Pat Suzuki, and not just because of her singing. It's her brimming-over-with-happiness sound, and her willingness to share it, that really wins me over. Pat didn't have it easy as a child. Because of anti-Japanese sentiment during WWII, she and her family - along with other Japanese-Americans - were rounded up by police, forced to give up their money and possessions, and confined for the duration of the war at the Granada War Center in Colorado, a grim interment camp with machine gun towers and barbed wire fencing. 

Yet somehow Pat persevered. Actually, she did more than that. She hit the road singing right after college and booked a gig singing at The Colony, a Seattle nightclub. As TIME magazine reported, "What the audience saw was a little (4 ft. 11 in.) button-nosed Nisei girl with a ponytail which hung below her shoulders. What they heard when she began to sing was a booming, brassy voice that all but rattled the ice in the highballs." From there, she broke out big-time by originating the lead role in Rogers' and Hammerstein's musical "Flower Drum Song." She's been cutting LPs and appearing on stage ever since. 

1958's "The Many Sides Of Pat Suzuki" - a Super Cheerful Exclusive! - was Pat's first LP, recorded shortly after she was discovered at the Colony by Bing Crosby, and before she was scooped up for countless TV variety shows and Broadway. It's not hard to imagine what all the excitement was about. Just her range alone is breathtaking; her first number is a brash, take-no-prisoners version of "From This Moment On," while her take on "Lazy Afternoon" is alternately intimate and vividly expressive. This won't surprise those already familiar with her. But if you're not, you're in for quite a treat. 

I'm still in a Broadway state of mind - but with a dash of jazz, I think. Is that too much to ask (don't say "yes")? It's not too much to ask if you're The Mastersounds, a 1950's jazz foursome - or "bop group," as they were known - who cut ten record in just four years before disbanding. 

One of their best was their 1957 jazz interpretation of "The King And I" - a Jazzy Cheerful Exclusive! - and I know, that sounds questionable, but in these musicians hands, their renditions are like a dreamlike tour through each of the musical's songs. Some of you may be reminded of "The Modern Jazz Quartet," especially with the group's use of electric xylophone, or vibraphone, but "The Mastersounds" use it in their own illusory fashion. I wasn't sure if I was enjoying this LP at first, but as it continued, I realized I was in a near trance-like state. And I loved it.

If "The King and I" is trance-like, then "The Verve Jazz Sides" by Wes Montgomery is its ka-bam! polar opposite. Wes played briefly with The Mastersounds in 1958, and then he was off, embarking on a remarkable career - as one of the most important and celebrated guitarists in jazz history - which was sadly cut short by his untimely death at the height of his fame in 1968 from a heart attack.

I think the best quote I've ever heard about Wes' work is that it's "unbearably exciting." You'll get more than a taste of that kind of excitement in the wonderful 2-CD "Verve Jazz Sides," a collection of cuts he made when he was with Verve from 1964 to 1966. Pat Metheny said it's "the absolute best guitar jazz album ever made." Both CDs are terrific, but for me, the second one is almost deliriously enjoyable.

With the passing of Patty Andrews this month, the last of the Andrews Sisters is finally gone - but they weren't the only popular girl group back in the day. Pre-dating the Andrews Sisters by a decade were Bobbe, Kathlyn and Lorayne, the Brox Sisters. And there they are below, wearing nothing but their scanties in a very roomy bed:

The Brox sisters had the good fortune to arrive just as the 1920's Flapper Girl era was in full bloom. They first made a name for themselves in Broadway shows of the day, like the Marx Brothers "Coconuts," and of course, in "The Ziegfield Follies," charming audiences with their sexy, but craftily gauche, stage presence and mellow vocal harmonizing.

It wasn't long before Hollywood called. They appeared in "The Hollywood Revue of 1929" performing "Singin' In The Rain," amongst many other movies, though my favorite has them slyly satirizing Marlene Dietrich in 1932's "Hollywood on Parade" by crooning her signature tune "Falling In Love Again."

"The Brox Sisters, 1922-1932" - a Cheerful Girl Group Exclusive! - is a lovely sampler of their more popular tunes. And, yes, there were many Brox detractors; some critics thought the sisters simply weren't as skilled as The Boswells, for example. And yet I find their lack of polish their most endearing trait. Think of them as three affable gals from your neighborhood who just happened to wander onto a Broadway stage. You can identify with their occasionally klutzy three-part trills, and celebrate when they really nail those high notes. They're "Every Girl" (and they made good), a major component, I think, of their success.

Who is that stunner with the thousand-watt smile on the cover of "Jet?" Why, it's Sheila, of course!

Sheila! Sheila! Sheila! There was only one. Sheila became a star in so-called "race" films of the 1940s,  or low-budget indie films with all-black casts like "Sepia Cinderella." And Sheila really stood out. She could sing, she could act, and she was just as sultry as Dorothy Dandridge (if not more). Who knows what her screen future might have been like if she'd been able to break through into Hollywood (Dandridge was an anomaly)?

Yet her most lasting legacy are her records, and make no mistake, Sheila had serious pipes. You can hear her in all her glory in 1958's "This Is Sheila," which prompted Miles Davis to wonder why she wasn't yet considered a "legend" on the order of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. It's a good question, and we'll probably never have a satisfying answer, though I'm guessing it may have had something to do with the broadly-appealing "showstopping" material she chose to perform. She wasn't a "jazz baby," per se, or at least not exclusively, and if she had been, that might have burnished her reputation with taste makers of the day. Mostly, she seemed driven to deliver big razzle-dazzle pows, and on that score, at least, she truly succeeded.

Just two decades later, aspiring movie starlets had to do more than just sing, dance and act in order to capture the publics attention. They had to pose for "Playboy:"

Okay, so they didn't "have to," but it sure didn't hurt in Joan Stayley's case. Yes, she was a noted violinist and a skilled singer - in other words, she had talent - but Hollywood only took serious notice once her "Playboy" spread hit the stands. I know. Shocking.

She didn't have a long career, but still, how many can say they've starred opposite Don Knotts in "The Ghost And Mr. Chicken," a loopy slapstick-mystery with an even loopier score by Vic Mizzy? Vic had a wide-ranging career penning hit songs for the Andrew Sisters, then wrote the theme songs for "Green Acres," "The Addams Family," and soundtracks for many more TV shows and movies. "The Ghost And Mr. Chicken" - a Wink-Wink Cheerful Exclusive! - is Vic at his bouncy best. I'll admit it, listening to it makes me grin like a fool; it's like an instant serotonin boost!

The Secret Song File is always willing to give a friend a lift in her chauffeur-driven town car. I mean, what are friends for? But, yo, don't even think of stealing her man...or she'll go crazy. Because let's be blunt, she's crazy for her man's "p" (the "p," of course, is the first letter for that word) (rhymes with "Venus!") (or the zoo is full of arthropod "genus!") (or OMFG, you should have "seen us!").

Juvenilia aside, the "p" is also a big-time hint, because this UK group's name originally featured the entire word. Unfortunately, they had to snip it down to "p" once they went mass-market. Yes, their "p" was circumcised - sigh, bummer, sad emoticon - but they're still one of the more fun electronica groups around, and their brand-new remix CD is a lot of fun. So go on, dance-dance-dance (but keep your "p" covered) (because, honestly, no one wants to see your biddness) (in fact, they just might...) (oh, I can't, it's just too painful to think about).

Personally, I'd rather a town car then a limo, but that's me.

Let 'er rip in the comments if you like!

Swingin' Barry, Georgia's Nibs, A Big Howdee From Minnie, A Classic Crime Scene, Plus An Oh-So-Very-Blue Secret Song!

Today post is full of laughs and romance and danger! But first, a little intrigue by way of John Barry's kicky 1965 score for "The Knack And How To Get It," a groovalicious soundtrack with funky organ, xylophone, a fabulously overactive percussion section and a horn section that'll  - pow! - blow you into kingdom come.

The movie, which is actually pretty good, is all about "Swingin' London" in the 1960's - mods! hippies! rockers! - and stars Rita Tushingham, the movie's "Jo" from "Taste Of Honey," so you know it's going to be so far out. And Barry's music jacks it all up. Did I say far out? I think I did. Trust me. You'll love it.

Speaking of groovy and all kinds of fine, say hello to Miss Georgia Gibbs:

In the Exclusively Cheerful Nibs! posting, Miss Gibbs herself - who started her career by performing jazz and R&B covers, then moved on to pop - starts off this 1966 collection with a wonderfully snazzy version of "Something's Got To Give." But my favorite is her take on "Do It Again." Not many singers can sound so scrubby clean, yet so down low and dirty, at the same time, but somehow Miss Gibbs pulls it off.

In the mood for a giggle? Me, too. So 'cmon, now, pull up a bucket of chicken and a box of wine, cuz Minnie's got a few story's to tell ya'.

I'd never really followed the career of Minnie when I was mini myself, but when I happened upon the 1963 comedy LP "Howdee! Cousin Minnie Pearl, The Gal From Grinder's Switch At The Party" something told me to grab it.

In this Cheerfully Downhome Exclusive!, Minnie chats about her booze-swillin' Uncle Naybob, sings a few songs, like "How To Catch A Man" ("Hog tie 'im!") and chitchats about her own looks. "A feller told me I looked like a fresh breath of spring," she says, then meekly corrects herself. "Well, actually, he didn't use those words, he said I looked like the end of a hard winter." Plus, she talks all about her "good friend Elvis." How can you go wrong?

I've always held a special place in my heart for film noir (and John Garfield, the ultimate dumb-luck hunk).

And yet it's not just the skewed camera angles, concealing shadows or nefarious storylines that have pulled me in. The danger-girl jazz-infused music adds to the fun, too, and most of it makes for great listening (even out of context).

"Crime Scene USA" is hard to beat in this regard with its collection of tunes from classics like "Double Indemnity" and "Mildred Pierce," to name just two, by a Who's Who of composers such as Alfred Newman, Miklos Rozsa, Max Steiner, Franz Waxman, Elmer Bernstein and even Marvin Hamlisch. It's perfect for a rainy Sunday afternoon, but really, any day is a bad-girl good day for music like this.

Some time ago, The Secret Song File was crowned Miss Sausage Queen USA, and, yes, I know what you're thinking, and yes, you'd be right. How else do you think Beauty Queens win their crowns? They're not getting down on their knees for the Lord (rim-shot!) (oh, no I di'nt!).

What in hell's bells does that have to do with today's musical offering (or anything, really)? Beats me. So anyhoo, let's give today's hints in pictures! This popular jazz songstress with a poppin' new CD has THIS as a first name, plus a last name which sounds like the moniker of THIS chateau. OMG, was that supereasy or what?

Right, so when we start talking sausages and supereasy, it's time to hit the trail. 

Tell me if you've ever been crowned (and for what) in the comments. I swear I won't judge (too much)!

Heaven's Trio, Complete At Last

The original Girl Group. Accept no substitute. With the passing of the last Andrews Sister, Patty, just this past Wednesday, they belong to the ages.

It's impossible to overstate their influence on American music. Though they started in burlesque, and were originally famed for "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (Of Company C)," their influence continues today, stretching from girl groups like The Supremes to Destiny's Child to The Puppini Sisters, and in fact, to entire genres of popular music, most notably R&B, jazz and folk.

In the collection below, marvel anew at their super-slick harmonizing and jazzy vocal interplay. They're just delicious.

Scrub Me Mama, With a Boogie Beat!