45 RPMS 70: Smiley Lewis ~ Shame, Shame, Shame

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Smiley Lewis ~ Shame, Shame, Shame 

45 RPM label, side 1

photo by Styrous®

I was cruising around YouTube the other day and came across a song I hadn't heard in decades. Smiley Lewis is known for some of the great rhythm 'n blues songs ever written but for me, his recording of Shame, Shame, Shame is at the top of the list!     

 

I first heard the song in the 1956 film, Baby Doll, which was directed by Elia Kazan and produced by Kazan and Tennessee Williams. The score for the film was composed by Kenyon Hopkins who would later score Eleven Against the Ice produced for TV in 1958, The Fugitive Kind with Marlon Brando in 1960, and The Hustler with Paul Newman in 1961.                   

 

 

Smiley Lewis

 date & photographer unknown

 

The personnel on the song is brilliant! Accompanying Lewis's vocal and guitar is Dave Bartholomew doing a fantastic job on trumpet, Huey "Piano" Smith on piano; Smith would release the wonderful Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu a year later when I was in high school and it was one of my favorite songs to dance to.    

 

Then there is Lee Allen wailing away on sax and the hit of the song for me (I've always been a sucker for the sax). Shame, Shame, Shame was recorded on the 11th of August in 1956.   

 

The thing about this record is I like the "B side" better (that's happened a lot over the years). Where Shame, Shame, Shame is fast and furious, No, No, is slow, laid back, pensive and bluesy. With it's tinkely piano intro by Smith and barroom feeling it transports me to a time long gone that was exciting.      

             

Smiley Lewis ~ No, No

45 RPM label, side 2

photo by Styrous®

        

Tracklist:

Side 1:

A - Shame, Shame, Shame, written by Kenyon Hopkins, Ruby Fisher - 1:55

Side 2:

B - No, No, written by  D. Bartholomew*, Pearl King - 2:05

Companies, etc.

    Published By – Remick Music Corp.
    Published By – Reeve Music Co., Inc.

 Credits:

 

Smiley Lewis - vocal, guitar    

Dave Bartholomew - trumpet     

Lee Allen - sax        

Huey "Piano" Smith - piano

 

Notes:

From the Warner Bros. Picture Baby Doll

Barcode and Other Identifiers        

        

    Rights Society (Side A): ASCAP
    Rights Society (Side B): BMI
    Matrix / Runout (Side A (Etched)): Δ5-IM-1100 5418
    Matrix / Runout (Side B (Etched)): Δ5-IM-1033 5418

Smiley Lewis – Shame, Shame, Shame / No, No
Label: Imperial – X5418
Format: Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM
Country: US
Released: 1957
Genre: Funk / Soul
Style: Rhythm & Blues        

        

        

        

Viewfinder links:       

         

Lee Allen       
Dave Bartholomew         

Marlon Brando         

Kenyon Hopkins            

Elia Kazan            

Smiley Lewis        

Paul Newman         
     
Net links:       

         

Taming the saxophone ~ Lee Allan interview      

TIMS ~ Lee Allan         

Wbbs Media ~ Lee Allan         

     
YouTube links:      
        
No, No        

Shame, Shame, Shame         

Shame, Shame, Shame (Baby Doll soundtrack)       

Huey "Piano" Smith ~ Rockin' Pneumonia and Boogie Woogie Flu   
        
         

        

        

Styrous® ~ Thursday, June 30, 2022

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20,000 vinyl LPs 243: 9/30/55 ~ James Dean & Richard Thomas

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I remember when James Dean was killed in an auto accident while he was driving to a car race in Salinas. It happened at the junction of California State Route 46 (former 466) and California State Route 41 near Cholame, California. It was sixty-five years ago today but it is still vivid in my mind. He was 24 years old and he will always remain young and vibrant in that grey matter I call my mind (link below).   

 

 

James Dean with his Porsche Speedster 23F - 1955 

Vine Street, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California

photo: Bettmann Archive/Corbis
 

 

I had seen his first film, East of Eden, and had been fascinated with him. Rebel Without a Cause had not yet been released but when it was, along with every teenager in the nation, it cemented the symbol of him as youth in rebellion!        

 

In 1977 a film with the title of the day of Dean's death was released; it was originally titled 9/30/55, but was changed to September 30, 1955 because the studio’s marketing department found the title confusing (WTF?). The vinyl LP album of the soundtrack for the film uses the original title.          

 

          

 

9/30/55 soundtrack album

vinyl LP front cover 

photo of album cover by Styrous®

 

 

The film chronicles the reactions of an Arkansas college town to the news. The plot in a nutshell: in Conway, Arkansas, college student Jimmy J. (Richard Thomas) has become fixated with the actor James Dean, on the evening of September 30, 1955, he watches the film East of Eden for the umteenth time. The next day at football practice, he hears that Dean, has been killed in a road accident in California around the same time that he was viewing the film. In anguish, he runs to the local radio station to learn the details and the story evolves (or devolves) with strange twists and turns into tragedy and ruin (link to complete plot below).     

The cast of the film would later appear in some pretty unusual and in some cases, weird movies. Susan Tyrrell was in Andy Warhol's Bad, Forbidden Zone and Big Top Pee-wee. Lisa Blount was in An Officer and a Gentleman, Radioactive Dreams and Prince of Darkness. Tom Hulce would appear as Mozart in the Miloš Forman film Amadeus and in the 1986 film, Echo Park, directed by Robert Dornhelm and featured a cameo role by Pillow, aka She-Beast (link below). Dennis Quaid starred in the 1984 American dark science-fiction adventure horror film, Dreamscape, which featured music by Maurice Jarre and portrayed Jerry Lee Lewis in the film Great Balls of Fire!. Dennis Christopher was in the 1981 film, Chariots of Fire, which featured a score by Vangelis. Collin Wilcox was in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1997 film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (link to cast below).     

 

 

9/30/55 soundtrack album 

vinyl LP front cover detail

photo of album cover by Styrous®

    

 

There have been doubts as to whether or not Dean actually did die on that day (links below). This has been generated by many conflicting accounts of the incident; where and when he ate before the crash; where the crash actually occurred; and a nurse on the scene testified that she could detect a pulse until he was taken in an ambulance to the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital, however, he was declared dead on arrival. There are two notable discrepancies between sources. The first oddity: while most sources say the nurse was able to find a weak pulse (indicating Dean died during transport to the hospital), other sources indicated “death appeared to have been instantaneous”.        

 

 

James Dean with his Porsche Speedster 23F - 1955 

photographer unknown
 

 

Another fact called into question is whether or not Dean was speeding, an officer present at the scene of the crime claimed the position of Dean’s body and the type of wreckage present indicated James had likely been moving about fifty-five miles per hour, not the reported eighty-five miles per hour. Recently a doctor purports Dean should have survived the crash, especially since he was said to have been alive when emergency services arrived at the scene. This doctor, however, was not part of the investigation and only lends his opinion as someone with a medical degree.     

The most prevalent conspiracy theory of James Dean’s death is a favorite among celebrity death conspiracies in general: the death was faked.

It wasn’t long after James Dean was buried when people began to wonder if, perhaps, the actor had faked his death to escape the spotlight. The theory resurged in 2019 on Reddit when a car crash in Alberta, Canada led to the death of a ninety-five-year-old man and the injury of an elderly female passenger, however, Dean would only have been eighty-seven.     

9/30/55 soundtrack album 

vinyl LP front cover detail

photo of album cover by Styrous®  

 

 

Warren Beath is the author of the seminal book on the last days of James Dean, The Death of James Dean, which was published by Grove Press in 1986.       

Beath was the first to extensively use public records--court files, police reports, even coroner's notes in recreating the actor's fatal crash on September 30, 1955 and the only Dean biographer to have actually met Donald Turnupseed, the driver who crashed into Dean's car (link below).                      

 

 

Warren Beath - The Death of James Dean

 

 

Beath was the first to extensively use public records--court files, police reports, even coroner's notes in recreating the actor's fatal crash on September 30, 1955 and the only Dean biographer to have actually met Donald Turnupseed, the driver who crashed into Dean's car (link below).                      

  

 

Donald Turnupseed 

date & photographer unknown

  

Another conflict in the episode: it was rumored that after the crash Sanford Roth took photos of Dean's shattered body. Roth had been a still photographer on Giant and was accompanying Dean in another car to the race in Salinas. He was quoted in Life magazine as saying he did but later denied it. But stunt driver Bill Hickman who was also on the trip told Beath he had taken such pictures.                 

 

          

9/30/55 soundtrack album

vinyl LP back cover 

photo by Styrous® 

In 2001, a film produced for television was made of the life of Dean. Entitled, James Dean (um, Duh!), James Franco plays the title role of Dean and does a pretty good job of it; he won the Golden Globes award for it in 2002 (link below). The score for the film was written by John Frizzell. The film can be seen on YouTube (link below) but even though it is in English, it has subtitles in Czech, if that doesn't bother you, it's well worth watching.          

9/30/55 soundtrack album

vinyl LP back cover detail

detail photo by Styrous® 

  

Each and every second of East of Eden is riveting but there are key scenes that are complete knock-outs! I've linked to three of my favorites on YouTube as well as all the clips from it (links below).    

 

9/30/55 soundtrack album

vinyl LP back cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

   

The score for the film was written by Leonard Rosenman who also wrote several Twilight Zone episodes (link below). He utilized motifs from the original East of Eden score which he wrote. East of Eden also starred Julie Harris, Raymond Massey, Burl Ives and Jo Van Fleet in her first screen role. It was directed by Elia Kazan.        

 

 

East of Eden poster
  

 

Two of the cuts on the album contain short vocals mixed into the score; Kitty Wells is one of the vocals and Webb Pierce is another. Richard Thomas speaks in a cut (link below).     

9/30/55 soundtrack album

vinyl LP back cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

Mark Lesseraux did a slow, hard-rock almost verging on progressive piece based on the James Dean crash (link below).            

9/30/55 soundtrack album

vinyl LP back cover details

detail photos by Styrous®

 

9/30/55 soundtrack album

vinyl LP labels

photos by Styrous®

      

Tracklist:
         

Side 1:

A1      Newscast, September 30, 1955     0:36
A2a     Main Title - Theme From "9-30-55" (East Of Eden)     2:19
A2b     Narration By Richard Thomas    
            On The Way To Criss Cross Meadow     (2:55)
A3a     A. Stolen Liquor And State Police    
A3b     B. In The Jailhouse Now, Vocals – Webb Pierce

A3c     Prayer By The River    
A4     Hasty Retreat From Criss Cross Meadow     2:10
A5     James Dean And Eden Revisited, Orchestrated By Leonard Rosenman     9:39

Side 2:

B1     Theme From "9-30-55" (East Of Eden), Orchestrated By Billy Byers     3:19
            The Ghoulish Syndrome     (2:24)
B2a     A. Assault On The Cemetery    
B2b     B. Making Believe, Vocals – Kitty Wells
B2c     C. Tragedy Befalls Billie Jean    
            Life Imitates Art     (9:19)
B3a     A. Jimmy J. Visits Billie Jean / Narration By Richard Thomas    
B3b     B. Billie Jean's Disenchantment    
B3c     C. Jimmy J. Smashes The Mirrors    
B4     A New Rebel In Search Of A Cause     3:13

Companies, etc.

    Phonographic Copyright (p) – MCA Records, Inc.
    Copyright (c) – Universal City Studios, Inc.
    Produced For – MCA Records
    Recorded At – Filmways/Heider Recording
    Remixed At – Filmways/Heider Recording
    Edited At – MCA Recording Studios
    Mastered At – MCA Recording Studios

Credits:

    Edited By [Editorial And Final Assembly] – Terry Brown (9)
    Engineer [2nd] – Ira Leslie, Mike Carber
    Liner Notes – James Bridges (4)
    Mastered By – Larry Boden
    Music By, Composed By, Conductor – Leonard Rosenman
    Orchestrated By – Ralph Ferraro (tracks: A1 to A4, B2 to B4)
    Producer – Sonny Burke
    Recorded By, Remix – Grover Helsley

Notes:

Recorded and remixed at Filmways/Heider Studios, Hollywood.
Editorial and final assembly at MCA Recording Studio, Universal City.
Mastered at MCA Recording Studio, Universal City. 

Leonard Rosenman ‎– Richard Thomas 9/30/55 (Music From The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Label: MCA Records ‎– MCA-2313
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US
Released: 1977
Genre: Stage & Screen
Style: Soundtrack

         

         

Viewfinder links:        

         

Lisa Blount       

James Dean        

The James Dean Story ~ Die young, live forever       

Miss Barbara Eden Bends It!          

Julie Harris         

Tom Hulce         

Burl Ives           

Elia Kazan          

Jerry Lee Lewis          

Raymond Massey          

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart        

Webb Pierce         

Pillow (She-Beast)         

Dennis Quaid          

Phil Stern ~ photographer to the stars                

A Tribute To James Dean 45 RPM         

Susan Tyrrell       

Vangelis          

Andy Warhol          

Kitty Wells         

 

Net links:        

         

9/30/55 Cast           

9/30/55 Plot           

American Legends ~ Interview with James Dean biographer Warren Beath  

Daily Mail UK ~ Photographs of James Dean's fatal 1955 car crash  

Encyclopedia of Arkansas ~ September 30, 1955   

Film Daily ~ Was James Dean murdered?       

The Motion Pictures ~ Period film: September 30, 1955 (1977) (review)     

SVC History ~ James Dean: Did He or Didn't He?       

USA Today ~ Unreleased photos of James Dean crash to be auctioned  

 

YouTube links:        

         

September 30, 1955 ~ music links (1977)                      

       Main Title       

       Life Imitates Art w/Richard Thomas     

       Newscast      

       On The Way To Criss Cross Meadow w/Webb Pierce    

       The Ghoulish Syndrome w/Kitty Wells                     

       A New Rebel In Search Of A Cause w/Richard Thomas          

Mark Lesseraux ~ September 30th, 1955        

       

September 30, 1955 ~ video links (1977)                       

September 30, 1955 Movie Trailer (1977)         

James Dean Tribute       

James Dean (complete film w/Czech subtitles) (2001)       

East of Eden ~    

            East of Eden Movie CLIPs              

            "Get Him Out of Here"             

            "Jealous All My Life"             

            "You Stay With Me"            

James Franco Wins Best Actor TV Movie        

        

        

         

  
     

 

“The only greatness for man is immortality.”  

                        ~ James Dean

        

         

         

         

Styrous® ~ Wednesday, September 30, 2020       
       

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Elia Kazan articles/mentions

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9/30/55 ~ James Dean & Richard Thomas 

Smiley Lewis ~ Shame, Shame, Shame         
Martha Schlamme ‎~ The World Of Kurt Weill   
A Tribute To James Dean 45 RPM    
Orson Welles ~ Director Extraordinaire   

     

     

     

      

      

      

     

Elia Kazan 

date & photographer unknown 

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Movie Articles 

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20,000 vinyl LPs 212: Martha Schlamme ‎~ The World Of Kurt Weill In Song

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On March 2, 1900, Kurt Weill was born.            

photos by Styrous®

His wife, Lotte Lenya is usually the "spokesperson" for his music; she had decades of experience working with Weill and her interpretations are considered the last word.       

Austrian-born American singer and actress, Martha Schlamme spent her career singing the works of Weill as well as cabaret music of other composers of his period.            

Martha Schlamme ‎~ The World Of Kurt Weill In Song
vinyl LP front cover
cover photo by Lee Friedlander
photo of album cover by Styrous®

From the 1960's through 1984, Miss Schlamme performed frequently with Alvin Epstein in A Kurt Weill Cabaret. She was also known for her repertory of folk songs in 12 languages.

      

She was born Martha Haftel in Vienna. She studied classical singing in Austria and France. After her Jewish family fled to Britain in 1938, she began performing in an internment camp on the Isle of Man. Engel Lund, an Icelandic singer, introduced her to the international repertory, and after World War II she began performing folk songs and Yiddish songs in London.          

She married Hans Schlamme in the mid-1940's - a marriage that ended in divorce - and immigrated to the United States in 1948. She quickly established a national reputation with a program called Songs of Many Lands.                 

       

Martha Schlamme ‎~ The World Of Kurt Weill In Song

vinyl LP back cover

photo by Styrous®

In 1963, Miss Schlamme and the singer Will Holt started a long Off-Broadway run in The World of Kurt Weill. It was the first of many Weill performances. They included the role of Jenny in Weill and Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) by Bertolt Brecht at the City Center and the first North American performances of the Brecht-Weill Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at the Stratford, Ontario, Festival in 1965; A Kurt Weill Cabaret with Mr. Epstein, which opened in Chicago in 1966 and was revived intermittently through 1984, and Whores, Wars and Tin Pan Alley with Mr. Epstein in 1969.      

Miss Schlamme also acted in non-Weill plays and musicals. She made her Broadway debut in 1968 as Golde in Fiddler on the Roof, and also appeared on Broadway in the Robert Anderson play Solitaire, Double Solitaire. She performed in the 1968 Off-Broadway production Month of Sundays, and the Long Wharf Theater 1970 production of Country People, by Maxim Gorky, and its 1971 production of Gorky's Yegor Bulichov. She also created a number of one-woman shows, including A Woman Without a Man Is... and The Jewish Woman.                    

Martha Schlamme ‎~ The World Of Kurt Weill In Song

vinyl LP gatefold cover & interior

photo by Styrous®

Martha Schlamme died on Sunday, October 6, 1985, in Jamestown, N.Y., two months after suffering a stroke on stage. She was 60 years old and lived in Manhattan.         

Kurt Julian Weill was born on March 2, 1900, in the Jewish quarter in Dessau in Saxony, where his father was a cantor. In February 1924 the conductor Fritz Busch introduced him to the dramatist Georg Kaiser, with whom Weill would have a long-lasting creative partnership resulting in several one-act operas. At Kaiser's house in Grünheide, Weill first met singer/actress Lotte Lenya in the summer of 1924. The couple were married twice: in 1926 and again in 1937 (following their divorce in 1933). She took great care to support Weill's work, and after his death she took it upon herself to increase awareness of his music, forming the Kurt Weill Foundation.       

Weill fled Nazi Germany in March 1933. A prominent and popular Jewish composer, Weill was officially denounced for his populist views and sympathies, and became a target of the Nazi authorities, who criticized and interfered with performances of his later stage works, such as Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, 1930), Die Bürgschaft (1932), and Der Silbersee (1933). With no option but to leave Germany, he went first to Paris, where he worked once more with Brecht (after a project with Jean Cocteau failed) on the ballet The Seven Deadly Sins.                  

On April 13, 1933 his musical The Threepenny Opera was given its premiere on Broadway, but closed after 13 performances to mixed reviews.         

         

Weill and Lenya moved to New York City on September 10, 1935; they rented an old house with Paul Green during the summer of 1936 near Pine Brook Country Club in Nichols, Connecticut, the summer home of the Group Theatre, while finishing Johnny Johnson. Some of the other artists who summered there in 1936 were; Elia Kazan, Harry Morgan, John Garfield, Lee J. Cobb, Will Geer, Clifford Odets, Howard Da Silva and Irwin Shaw.         

Rather than continue to write in the same style that had characterized his European compositions, Weill made a study of American popular and stage music.           

Weill suffered a heart attack shortly after his 50th birthday and died on April 3, 1950, in New York City. He was buried in Mount Repose Cemetery in Haverstraw, New York. The text and music on his gravestone come from the song A Bird of Passage from his play, Lost in the Stars.                   

Martha Schlamme ‎~ The World Of Kurt Weill In Song

vinyl LP labels 

photos by Styrous®

Tracklist:

Side 1:

A1 - Bilbao Song   
A2 - J'Attends Un Navire   
A3 - Lonely House   
A4 - Susan's Dream   
A5 - Mack The Knife   
A6 - Thousands Of Miles   

Side 2:

B1 - Surabaya Johnny   
B2 - My Ship   
B3 - Barbara's Song   
B4 - Le Roi D'Aquitaine   
B5 - Lost In The Stars   
B6 - Alabama Song

Credits:

    Arranged By – Abraham Stokman, Will Holt, Samuel Matlovsky
    Composed By – Kurt Weill
    Directed By – Abraham Stokman, Will Holt
    Photography By [Cover] – Lee Friedlander
    Producer [Album produced by] – Danny Davis (4)
    Producer [Produced By] – Tanya Chasman, E. Albert Gilbert*
    Recorded By [Recording Engineer] – Phil Ramone
    Recording Supervisor [Director of Engineering] – Val Valentin
    Screenwriter – Will Holt
    Sleeve Notes [Album Notes] – Will Holt
    Voice Actor – Martha Schlamme, Will Holt

Notes:

An MGM Original Cast Recording
Album Notes in English by Will Holt
Barcode and Other Identifiers

    Matrix / Runout (Runout side A): E-4180 SIDE-I 63-MG-634 F.G.
    Matrix / Runout (Runout side B): E-4180 SIDE-2 63-MG-635 F.G.

Martha Schlamme ‎– The World Of Kurt Weill In Song
Label: MGM Records ‎– SE4052P
Format: Vinyl, LP, Stereo
Country: US
Released: 
Genre: Pop, Folk, World, & Country
Style: Cabaret
       
    
     

Viewfinder links:      
  
Lotte Lenya      
Kurt Weill     
Kurt Weill song lyrics            
      
Net link:      
  
NY Times ~ Martha Schlamme, Singer, 60 obit     
      
YouTube links:      
  
Bilbao Song  
Lost In The Stars        
Mack The Knife      
Surabaya Johnny
Tango Ballade              
 
       
        
        
       
        
     

Styrous® ~ Monday, March 2, 2020       
       

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