Side 1:

Listen: Cry Me A River / Julie London
Cry

Listen: I’ll Cry Tomorrow / Julie London
JulieCryTomorrow.mp3

Side 2:

Listen: Baby Baby All The Time / Julie London
Baby

Listen: Shadow Woman / Julie London
Shadow

To think that during it’s heyday, camp bachelor pad music was simply referred to as Easy Listening. Did life really sound like this in Los Angeles during the mid 50′s? Was it really a world of smokey cocktail lounges and leopard print furniture and pastel colored cars and perfect weather? I guess so.

Despite her suggestive, alluring vocal distinction and the timeless sexual drenched sonic of producer/husband Bobby Troup’s recordings, apparently this couple lived a pretty normal and uneventful lifestyle, avoiding Hollywood’s social dramas and remaining together until his death in 1999.

‘Cry Me A River’ went Top 10 on BILLBOARD’s Hot 100 in 1955, with the accompanying album, HER NAME IS JULIE, reaching #2. Of her vocal style she was quoted as saying, “It’s only a thimbleful of a voice, and I have to use it close to the microphone. But it is a kind of oversmoked voice, and it automatically sounds intimate.”

Simple formula. Add to it, simple and crystal clear production, some playful lyric sass and bang, 32 albums later, you’re a well deserved legend.

This US EP, unlike those in the UK, represented a trimmed back version of then current albums, many times using identical cover art. In some instances, including Julie London’s, an entire album might be issued over three or four 7″ EP’s, as was the case with her CALENDAR GIRL full length.

Listen: Nice Girls Don’t Stay For Breakfast / Julie London
Nice

You can listen to Julie London for the rest of your life if you want, and probably find it hard to get intimately familiar with her entire recorded output: 32 albums. She’s so good, I say give it a try.

She was signed to Liberty Records from ’55 – ’69, yet had only one single that made the BILLBOARD Top 100. Now that’s a commitment to the artist. But what a worthy choice.

Julie London, wife of DRAGNET’s Jack Webb, issued endless suggestive song titles and double entendres, some hysterical now, in the 21st century. Surely at their time of release, they turned many a lonely guy on.

Knowing her own vocal weakness, or strength in my book, she’s qouted as follows: “It’s only a thimbleful of a voice, and I have to use it close to the microphone. But it is a kind of oversmoked voice, and it automatically sounds intimate.” Now there’s a recording technique tip if I’ve ever heard one.

Wonderfully out of place in the ’67 musical landscape, ‘Nice Girls Don’t Stay For Breakfast’ was even, in it’s day, a 50′s throwback to an era when, I guess, it was not talked about that even nice girls did stay for breakfast.

Never mentioned as one of her greats, and she has many, many greats, this single is most elusive. Yes, it’s the title of one of her final albums, but as for the 7″, seldom seen.

Listen: The More I See You / Chris Montez
The More I See You / Chris Montez

It was as if the guy who recorded ‘Let’s Dance’ a few years earlier was a completely different person. That song fit easily into both the surf and farfisa bubblegum spaces perfectly. A fit that suited The Ramones just fine, they covered it from nearly day one.

Along comes ‘The More I See You’ in ’66, and the first time I remember hearing it was at Carmen’s Barber Shop, the little dive my Dad took me for haircuts. The hour or so we’d spend there was rather fascinating, with me trying to figure out some of the coded adult talk amongst them all, yet with most attention being paid to the MOR station Carmen had permanently affixed on his little sound system. I believe the station call letters were WSEN or WSYR, but can’t be sure. What I am sure of is it would make for industrial strength hipster listening if only some of those shows had been air checked. Lots of Julie London, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr. and Jackie Trent with husband Tony Hatch. Seems they were the British Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, and most of their singles, both together and separately, are worth picking up if you stumble on them.

Tony Hatch in fact wrote ‘Call Me’, not only the Chris Montez single that preceded ‘The More I See You’, but the title of the album from which it came.

Turns out when switching to his A&M label in ’65, Herb Alpert suggested this more soft rock sound, possibly looking for his own version of Astrud Gilberto, who despite the slight technicality of being a different sex and therefore looked much better, sounded quite similar.

Listen: Stars Fell On Alabama / Julian Cannonball Adderley & John Coltrane
Stars Fell On Alabama / Julian Cannonball Adderley & John Coltrane

Deciding to clean every number and letter contact in my Seeburg with alcohol and a cotton swab – by hand no less – is not at all within my character, but having let a jukebox tab slip between the speakers and turntable track basically necessitated the surgery, and ultimate sense of responsibility.

You see, I’ve had this baby, a pink, aqua and chrome Seeburg 222, one of my most cherished possessions, going on thirty years. And it still works like a charm. I dread the day this machine goes dead, as I’ve no idea where or to whom I need go for a fixing.

What I didn’t realize was F2, so caked with crud, hadn’t played in God knows how long. F2 in this case was ‘Stars Fell On Alabama’, by Cannonball Adderley & John Coltrane.

Now I remember exactly where this particular single was purchased: Two Guys Department Store, just off Route 81 in Syracuse, quite close to Thruway exit 36. They always had stacks on 10 for $1 cutout 7′s in large tubs for the sickos amongst us to paw through.

Corinne was in a very 40′s Silver Screen phase and pulled out loads of Judy Garland, Julie London, Eydie Gorme and even Keely Smith titles, boning up on our camp catalog. Well done.

I bought four copies of this one, there were so few Limelight singles that the stock sleeves were worth a dime each to me even then in ’74.

When I realized it had been ages since the single played in the box, I decided to pull a clean copy from the library – and sure enough, sticker still intact to prove the above remembrance, it sounded superb. This coming from a general non-fan of brass instruments by the way.

‘Stars Fell On Alabama’ is quite frankly the perfect va-va-va-voom record, the kind of song playing in a dive bar when a cheap perfume drenched Betty Page type in tight gold pedal pushers and fuck me heels is leaning over the jukebox making three choices for the quarter her sugar daddy had just inserted into the slot, if you will.

Listen: Misty / Groove Holmes RichardHolmesMisty.mp3

There are many, many covers of Erroll Garner’s ‘Misty’ from ’54. Some people will complain it’s schmaltzy, a bore or that it’s too adult. But be informed, the greats have done it in varying styles: Aretha Franklin, Donald Byrd, Johnny Mathis, Sarah Vaughan, The Vibrations, Donny Hathaway, Julie London, Stan Getz even Timebox.

Almost forty years later, in ’91, ‘Misty’ was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame, not surprising given one of the most common jokes about the RIAA’s recognition process is how out of touch they can be.

It’s a fact: like Bobby Hebb’s ‘Sunny’, ‘Misty’ weathers just about every genre well.

Listen: Call Me / Martin Denny MatinDennyCallMe.mp3

When I think of Julie London (see previous post), I think of Liberty Records, I think of bachelor pad music and then my trusty jukebox. The sum of those parts many times equals a Martin Denny single. Name a 50′s cocktail comp that leaves him off and you’re naming one that needs be left in the shelf.

What better than a remake of the Tony Hatch classic, ‘Call Me’. This Ramsey Lewis Trio influenced instrumental battles the Chris Montez hit version to the finish line as they both reach for that camp remake crown. It’s a tie says I.