Guy Mitchell

[Canard]

I was given two large boxes of 78 RPM records the other day. I have been slowly working through them.

I found a 50s recording of Guy Mitchell doing the Melvin Endsley song, Singing the Blues. Marty Robbins had recorded the tune slightly earlier. Tommy Steele recorded it slightly later. All three versions were released almost simultaneously in 1956. All three charted, but Mitchell's version blew the other two out of the water for sales.

I remember this song from my very youthful youth. It was standard jukebox fare in the cafes and coffee shops my family would stop at on road trips, and it was in heavy rotation on radio, crossing over between Country and Pop/Rock.

It is interesting listening to it and its B side now. It is almost Rockabilly/Rock and Roll, just missing a that extra bit of Tom Cat edge/attitude.

And the band! WT#! It's Ray Coniff, perpetrator of some of the most saccharine, schmaltzy stuff in my parents' record collection.

Mitchell had a great voice and could have been a successful Rock and Roller, but he and/or his management choose the MOR path.





Here he is musically nuetered on the Ed Sullivan Show, any dangerous Tom-Cat strut reduced to a mere caricature:

 

[Canard]

Marty Robbins




Tommy Steele

 

[Westerly Wood]

whistling really is a lost art.

 

[Canard]

whistling really is a lost art.

Indeed. Pucker up and save a dying art form.

 

[walrus]

Agreed 100%. Very few of my kids friends knew how to whistle.

There's probably a "whistling" app for your phone!

walrus

 

[Fender1980]

I was given two large boxes of 78 RPM records the other day. I have been slowly working through them.

I found a 50s recording of Guy Mitchell doing the Melvin Endsley song, Singing the Blues. Marty Robbins had recorded the tune slightly earlier. Tommy Steele recorded it slightly later. All three versions were released almost simultaneously in 1956. All three charted, but Mitchell's version blew the other two out of the water for sales.

I remember this song from my very youthful youth. It was standard jukebox fare in the cafes and coffee shops my family would stop at on road trips, and it was in heavy rotation on radio, crossing over between Country and Pop/Rock.

It is interesting listening to it and its B side now. It is almost Rockabilly/Rock and Roll, just missing a that extra bit of Tom Cat edge/attitude.

And the band! WT#! It's Ray Coniff, perpetrator of some of the most saccharine, schmaltzy stuff in my parents' record collection.

Mitchell had a great voice and could have been a successful Rock and Roller, but he and/or his management choose the MOR path.





Here he is musically nuetered on the Ed Sullivan Show, any dangerous Tom-Cat strut reduced to a mere caricature:

My mother grew up with a 78 rpm Wurlitzer Peacock 850 from 1941 in their basement in the 1950s. It was repaired in the 80s, so I got to hear a bunch of 50s hits growing up because they continued to buy 78s until their very demise.

So Guy Mitchell's Singing the Blues I know very well. It was a little worn and scratchy but sounded pretty good thru the rebuilt jukebox tube amp and 15" speaker!

I don't remember the flip side at all! After all it was a "manual flip" because that mechanism wasn't invented (or engineered properly) for the Wurlitzer.