20,000 vinyl LPs 378: Screamin' Jay Hawkins ~ I Put a Spell on You

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Screamin' Jay Hawkins  ~ I Put a Spell on You

vinyl LP front cover 

 cover photographer unknown 

photo of album cover by Styrous®

Screamin' Jay Hawkins was an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, film producer and boxer who was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and wanted to be an opera singer (Hawkins cited Paul Robeson as his musical idol in interviews), also included were Mario Lanza, Enrico Caruso, Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Brown. When his initial ambitions failed, he began his career as a conventional blues singer and pianist.      

  

Screamin' Jay Hawkins recorded I Put a Spell on You on February 12, 1956. It was co-written with Herb Slotkin, became a classic cult song and was Hawkins' greatest commercial success, reportedly surpassing a million copies in sales, even though it failed to make the Billboard pop or R&B charts.   

 

 

Screamin' Jay Hawkins  ~ I Put a Spell on You

vinyl LP back cover 

photo by Styrous®

 

From Wikipedia:

Hawkins had originally intended to record I Put a Spell on You as "a refined love song, a blues ballad". However, the producer Arnold Maxin "brought in ribs and chicken and got everybody drunk, and we came out with this weird version ... I don't even remember making the record. Before, I was just a normal blues singer. I was just Jay Hawkins. It all sort of just fell in place. I found out I could do more destroying a song and screaming it to death."

The hit brought Hawkins together with Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed who added him to his "Rock and Roll Revue". Up to this time, Hawkins had been a blues performer; emotional, but not wild. Freed suggested a gimmick to capitalize on the "demented" sound of I Put a Spell on You: Hawkins wore a long cape, and appeared onstage by rising out of a coffin in the midst of smoke and fog. The act was a sensation, later bolstered by tusks worn in Hawkins' nose, on-stage snakes and fireworks, a cigarette-smoking skull named "Henry" and, ultimately, Hawkins transforming himself into "the black Vincent Price". This theatrical act was one of the first shock rock performances.      

dates & photographers unknown

 

I Put a Spell on You was selected as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. It was also included in Robert Christgau's "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings—published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981)—and ranked No. 313 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.               

During his career he opened for Fats Domino, Tiny Grimes and the Rolling Stones. This exposure in turn influenced rock acts such as Alice Cooper, Tom Waits, the Cramps, Screaming Lord Sutch, Black Sabbath, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Arthur Brown, Led Zeppelin, Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie, and Glenn Danzig.        

 

Screamin' Jay Hawkins  ~ I Put a Spell on You

vinyl LP, side 1

photo by Styrous®

 

 

There have been some great covers of the song: Nina Simone, John Fogerty, Annie Lennox, Bryan Ferry, Haley Reinhart, Nick Cave, Tim Curry, The Animals and, of course, Marilyn Manson and Diamanda Galas to name but a few. With the exception of Manson and Galas, most of the covers treat the song seriously; few attempt to duplicate the  over-the-top performance by Hawkins.     

 

Screamin' Jay Hawkins  ~ I Put a Spell on You

vinyl LP, side 2

photo by Styrous®

   

Tracklist:
       
Side 1:

        

A1 - Orange Colored Sky, written by Delugg*, Stein*
A2 - Hong Kong, written by Nahan*, J. Hawkins*
A3 - Temptation, written by Freed*, N. H. Brown*
A4 - I Love Paris, written by Cole Porter
A5 - I Put A Spell On You, written by Slotkin*, J. Hawkins*
A6 - Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

       
Side 2:
       
B1 - Yellow Coat, written by Nahan*, J. Hawkins*
B2 - Ol' Man River, written by Kern*, Hammerstein II*
B3 - If You Are But A Dream, written by A. Rubinstein*, J. Fulton*, Jaffe*, Bronx*
B4 - Give Me My Boots And Saddle, written by Whitcup*, T. Powell*, Samuels*
B5 - Deep Purple, written by Parish*, De Rose*
B6 - You Made Me Love You, written by Monaco*, J. McCarthy*

Personnel

• Vocals – Jalacy Hawkins
• Guitar – Mickey Baker
• Piano – Ernie Hayes
• Tenor saxophone – Sam "The Man" Taylor
• Baritone saxophone – Bud Johnson
• Bass – Al Lucas
• Drums – David "Panama" Francis
• Arrangement – Leroy Kirkland

Credits:
       
    Conductor – Leroy Kirkland, O.B. Masingill*
    Photography By – Alfred Gescheidt
       
Barcode and Other Identifiers
 

    Matrix / Runout (Stamped Side A): XEM42622-1A
    Matrix / Runout (Stamped SIde B): XEM42623-1C

 

Screamin' Jay Hawkins – At Home With Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Label: Epic – LN 3448
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Mono
Country: US
Released: Mar 1958
Genre: Blues
Style: Rhythm & Blues

        

         

Viewfinder links:        

         

Alice Cooper        

The Animals            

Enrico Caruso              

Glenn Danzig           

Fats Domino        

Screamin' Jay Hawkins          

Mario Lanza          

Led Zeppelin               

Annie Lennox         

Vincent Price                  

Rob Zombie           

Paul Robeson         

The Rolling Stones          

Tom Waits        

        

Net links:        

         

American Blues Scene ~ Wild Operatic Bluesman Screamin' Jay Hawkins        

Grunge ~ The Crazy Real-Life Story Of Screamin' Jay Hawkins      

NPR ~ Searching For The Children Of Screamin' Jay Hawkins            

        

YouTube links:        

        

I Put a Spell on You ~              

The Animals            

Black Sabbath          

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds           

Tim Curry           

Diamanda Galas

Screamin' Jay Hawkins           

Bryan Ferry        

John Fogerty     

Annie Lennox         

Marilyn Manson        

Haley Reinhart    

Nina Simone             

        

        

        

         

        

        

        

Styrous® ~ Wednesday, February 12, 2025       
       

 

 

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20,000 Vinyl LPs Archive
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U. S. postage stamps ~ Musicals

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On July 14, 1993, The U.S. Postal Service released 29-cent stamps that did not honor Bastille Day but rather four Broadway musicals and they were issued in one strip.       

     

     

     

     

     

     

Show Boat by Jerome Kern    

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

 Porgy and Bess by George Gershwin      

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

Oklahoma! by Rodgers and Hammerstein
     
     
     
     
     
      

     
My Fair Lady by Frederick Loewe      
     
     
      

     
     

     

     

     

 

Show Boat ~ US postage stamp

Show Boat, written by Jerome Kern with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, is based on the 1926 Edna Ferber novel. The musical follows the lives of the performers, stagehands and dock workers on the Cotton Blossom, a Mississippi River show boat, spanning 40 years from 1887 to 1927. Its themes include racial prejudice and tragic, enduring love. The musical featured the classic songs Make Believe, Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man and my favorite, Ol' Man River sung by the character Joe, the stevedore sung by Jules Bledsoe. Although Paul Robeson is the actor most identified with the role and the song, he was unavailable for the original production but appeared in the 1936 revival and the film (link below).  

Porgy and Bess ~ US postage stamp

Porgy and Bess, written by George Gershwin with lyrics by Ira Gershwin was adapted from the Dorothy Heyward and DuBose Heyward play Porgy, which was itself an adaptation of the DuBose Heyward 1925 novel.        

 

Gershwin worked on the opera in Charleston, South Carolina. He drew inspiration from the James Island Gullah community, which he felt had preserved some African musical traditions. This research added to the authenticity of the work. The music reflects his New York jazz roots, but also draws on southern black traditions. Gershwin modeled the pieces after each type of folk song which the composer knew about; jubilees, blues, praying songs, street cries, work songs, and spirituals.        

 

The musical tells the story of Porgy, a disabled black street beggar living in the slums of Charleston and deals with his attempts to rescue Bess from the clutches of her violent and possessive lover, Crown, and Sportin' Life, her drug dealer.      

 

Porgy and Bess has many wonderful songs but my favorite is Summertime. It is sung by the characters Clara and Bess as a lullaby; my mother would sing it to me when I was a little kid to soothe me to sleep. It mixes elements of jazz and the song styles of blacks in the southeast United States from the early twentieth century. The 1959 movie version of the musical featured Loulie Jean Norman singing the song (link below) and Ella Fitzgerald did a beautiful jazz rendering of it.     

 

 

Oklahoma! ~ US postage stamp

Oklahoma!, by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers, music and Oscar Hammerstein II, lyrics, was the first musical written by the duo. It is based on the Lynn Riggs 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs, set in farm country outside the town of Claremore, Indian Territory, in 1906, and tells the story of farm girl Laurey Williams and her courtship by two rival suitors, cowboy Curly McLain and the sinister and frightening farmhand Jud Fry. A secondary romance concerns cowboy Will Parker and his flirtatious fiancée, Ado Annie.              

 

The original Broadway production opened on March 31, 1943, and had 2,212 performances with an Oscar-winning film adaptation in 1955. It built on the innovations of the earlier Show Boat, epitomized the development of the "book musical", a musical play where the songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made story, with serious dramatic goals, that is able to evoke genuine emotions other than amusement.        

 

As with most musicals, there are songs that became hits; People Will Say We're in Love is one of them and it is my favorite. The song denies the fact that the lovers are in love with each other, a theme expressed much more eloquently and beautifully two years later with the song If I Loved You in Carousel in 1945. Both musicals became Hollywood films; Oklahoma! in 1955, with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones (in her film debut) and the 1956 film version of Carousel with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones (again) as the lovers. Perry Como, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby recorded the song  in 1945 (links below).       

 

My Fair Lady ~ US postage stamp

My Fair Lady, written by Frederick Loewe with Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, is a musical based on the George Bernard Shaw 1913 play Pygmalion, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. The story concerns Eliza Doolittle, a Cockney flower girl who takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins, a phonetician, so that she may pass as a lady. The original Broadway and London shows starred Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews. It was filmed with Harrison and Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle in 1964; she was brilliant!       

 

There are just too many great songs from this show for me to have a favorite. None of them are serious, most are just plain fun songs; I guess if I had to pick one, it would be Ascot Gavotte which is sung by the entire cast (link below). Both the stage version with Andrews and the film version with Hepburn has a cast of dozens (I mean dozens and dozens!) with all the men in identical dove grey suits and all the women in fantastic and various fashion creations in variations of black and white. However, the entire cast is almost motionless in the set, until Eliza enters. It has to be one of the funniest and brilliant scenes ever staged!    

      

I have always thought the only flaw with My Fair Lady is the ending. Eliza has been raised to the height of social stature but is reduced to a mere servant again with the phrase, "Where the devil are my slippers?". While researching for this article I discovered there are others who have had similar thoughts. There is an absolutely hilarious video critique about this and how to fix the end on YouTube (link below).     

     

      

     

     

     

Viewfinder links:       

         

Julie Andrews         

Perry Como       

Bing Crosby         

Ella Fitzgerald        

George Gershwin      

Oscar Hammerstein II         

Audrey Hepburn        

DuBose Heyward         

Shirley Jones         

Jerome Kern        

Gordon MacRae       

Angel Morales        

Postal stamps on the Viewfinder        
Paul Robeson        

Richard Rodgers        

George Bernard Shaw        

Christine K. Simonson        

Frank Sinatra        

     

Net links:       

        

PBS ~ jubilees                 

     
YouTube links:       

         

Ella Fitzgerald ~ Summertime                 

My Fair Lady ~ Ascot Gavotte                

Loulie Jean Norman ~ Summertime        

The problem with My Fair Lady (and how to fix it) (27;29)      
Paul Robeson ~ Ol' Man River (1936 film)       

        

        

        

        

        
        

"I'm tired of livin' but scared of dyin'" 

                       ~ Joe: Show Boat

        
        
        
        
        
Styrous® ~ Friday, July 23, 2021        
        

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Antonín Dvořák ~ New World Symphony (Goin' Home)

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December 16th, 1893, was the official world premiere of the Antonín Dvořák Symphony #9, subtitled the "New World Symphony", at Carnegie Hall in New York City.      

          

The Largo from the second movement, is one of my all-time beautiful melodies with its haunting outpouring of Dvorak's own home-longing, with something of the loneliness of far-off prairie horizons, the faint memory of the red-man's bygone days, and a sense of the tragedy of the black-man as it sings in his "spirituals." Deeper still it is a moving expression of that nostalgia of the soul all human beings feel.     
   

It's often thought the theme was taken from an American folk song but it is actually the reverse; the Largo was adapted into the spiritual-like song Goin' Home by Dvořák's pupil William Arms Fisher, who wrote the lyrics in 1922.

Goin' Home was sung by Jan Clayton (Lassie's mom) in the 1948 film, Snake Pit, which was directed by Anatole Litvak. It starred Olivia de Havilland as a woman who finds herself in an insane asylum and cannot remember how she got there. For its time it was a pretty horrific tale; some of the scenes are frightening. The scene when Goin' Home is sung is one of the most poignant in the chronicles of film history. The shots of the inmates who join in the singing are heart-rending as you realize most of them will never go home (link below). I was in my twenties when I saw the film and it wrenched the long forgotten memory out of the dark recess of my mind of a visit with my father in an asylum when I was a child.     

Snake Pit movie poster

Goin' Home has been covered by many artists, some of the best are the American bass baritone concert artist, Paul Robeson, the boys chorus, Libra, Jane Froman and the most beautiful version I've ever heard is by the Norwegian soprano, Sissel Kyrkjebø (links below).      

Goin' Home lyrics
(Dvořák / Fisher)

Going home, going home
I'm jus' going home
Quiet like, some still day
I'm jus' going home

It's not far, yes close by
Through an open door
Work all done, care laid by
Going to fear no more

Mother's there 'specting me
Father's waiting, too
Lots of folk gathered there
All the friends I knew

All the friends I knew

I'm going home

Nothing lost, all's gain
No more fret nor pain
No more stumbling on the way
No more longing for the day
Going to roam no more  

     
   
Symphony No. 9 In E Minor, Op. 95 ("From The New World")
     

Tracklist:
A1	Adagio - Allegro Molto	9:04
A2	Largo	12:32
A3	Scherzo (Molto vivace)	7:56
A4	Allegro con fuoco	9:40

         

       

     

          

      

Viewfinder links:         

        

Antonín Dvořák           

Jane Froman           

Olivia de Havilland       

Paul Robeson           

      

Net links:         

        

Antonin Dvořák website ~ symphony no. 9 "from the new world"   

Gramophone ~ Dvořák's Symphony No 9 ~ quick guide to the best recordings   

       
YouTube links:         

       

Antonin Dvorak ~   

     New World Symphony # 9 - Largo (Going Home )   

     New World Symphony # 9 - (complete) (53 min., 9 sec.)     

Jan Clayton ~ Goin’ Home (Snake Pit) 
Paul Robeson ~ Going Home       

Sissel ~ Going Home      

Libra ~ Going Home         

        

           

           

       

Styrous® ~ Sunday, December 16, 2018       

       

         

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Movie articles 

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Paul Robeson articles/mentions

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Oscar Brand ~ A man of varied tastes    

Dvořák ~ New World Symphony (Goin' Home)   

Tennessee Ernie Ford ~ Sixteen Tons          

The Harlem Renaissance & Van Vechten  

Sinclair Lewis ~ It Can't Happen Here      

The Lonesome Train                  

U. S. postage stamps ~ Musicals   

Carl Van Vechten ~ Negro “Blues” Singers    

          

          

           

          

          

           

          

          

Paul Robeson - 1933 

photo by Carl Van Vechten

              

              

              

             

             

             

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20,000 Vinyl LPs 98: Earl Robinson ~ The Lonesome Train

Earl Robinson was born and died in July, so this is his month and I had to honor him with this recording of his significant work which seems to have been lost to history, The Lonesome Train. 

Earl Robinson ~ 
The Lonesome Train 

10" vinyl LP,
front album cover

photo by Styrous®

In 1942, Robinson wrote the music for a cantata (or "ballad opera") on the life and death of Abraham Lincoln entitled The Lonesome Train (text by Millard Lampell). It was recorded in 1944 by Burl Ives, and performed live in 2009 for the first time since the spring of 1974, when it was performed publicly at Mesabi Community College in Virginia, Minnesota, as the headliner for the Mesabi Creative Arts Festival. The 2009 performance was in celebration of the 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth.  

Earl Robinson ~ The Lonesome Train 

10" vinyl LP, front album cover detail

photo by Styrous®

Earl Hawley Robinson was born on July 2, 1910, and died on July 20, 1991. He was a folk music singer-songwriter and composer from Seattle, Washington. Robinson is remembered for the songs Joe Hill, Black and White, and the cantata Ballad for Americans, which expressed his left-leaning political views. He was a member of the Communist Party in the 1930s and was the musical director at the Communist-run Camp Unity in upstate New York; perhaps his Communist affiliations are reasons Train disappeared.     

In 1934 he moved to New York City where he studied with Hanns Eisler and Aaron Copland. He was also involved with the depression-era WPA Federal Theater Project, and was actively involved in the anti-fascist movement. In addition, he wrote many popular songs and music for Hollywood films.   

Earl Robinson ~ The Lonesome Train 

10" vinyl LP, front album cover detail

photo by Styrous®

Robinson's musical influences included Paul Robeson, Lead Belly, and American folk music. He composed Ballad for Americans (lyrics by John La Touche) which became a signature song for Robeson. It was also recorded by Bing Crosby. He wrote the music for and sang in the short documentary film Muscle Beach (1948), directed by Joseph Strick and Irving Lerner.    

Other songs written by Robinson include The House I Live In (a 1945 hit recorded by Frank Sinatra), Joe Hill (a setting of a poem by Alfred Hayes, which was later recorded by Joan Baez and used in the film of the same name), the ongoing ballad that accompanied the film A Walk in the Sun that was sung by Kenneth Spencer. Robinson co-wrote the folk musical Sandhog with blacklisted screenwriter Waldo Salt. It is based on "St. Columbia and the River," a story by Theodore Dreiser about the tunnel workers, known as "sandhogs," who built the first tunnel under the Hudson River. The musical debuted at the Phoenix Theater in New York City on November 23, 1954. Robinson also wrote Black and White with David I. Arkin, the father of actor Alan Arkin, which is a celebration of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, that has been recorded by Pete Seeger, Three Dog Night, the Jamaican reggae bands The Maytones and UK band Greyhound and Sammy Davis Jr.     

His late works included a concerto for banjo, as well as a piano concerto entitled The New Human. His cantata based on the preamble to the constitution of the United Nations was premiered in New York with the Elisabeth Irwin High School Chorus and the Greenwich Village Orchestra in 1962 or 1963.   

Robinson had a sense of humor, however, as demonstrated in songs and photos. In 1963 Folkways Records released the album, Earl Robinson Sings. A collection of folk music that highlights Robinson’s quirky personality with songs such as the science-fiction love tune, My True Love, Red Toupee and 42 Kids which is actually the music of 16 Tons written by Merle Travis and  made famous by Tennessee Ernie Ford (YouTube links below).        

Earl Robinson

photo by Werner Pawlok

Earl Robinson was killed in a car accident in his hometown of Seattle, Washington in 1991; he was 81 years old.  

Earl Robinson ~ The Lonesome Train 

10" vinyl LP, front album cover detail

photo by Styrous®

Millard Lampell wrote the lyrics for The Lonesome Train. He was born on January 23, 1919, and was an American movie and television screenwriter who first became publicly known as a member of the Almanac Singers, an American New York City-based folk music group, active between 1940 and 1943, founded by Lampell, Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie.

Lampell wrote songs with both Seeger and Guthrie, and adapted traditional songs into labor anthems and pro-union messages. During the period of the Hitler-Stalin pact from 1939 to 1941, the group also sang songs attacking Franklin D. Roosevelt as a warmonger and opposing Britain's war against Nazi Germany.      

He went on to a career as a scriptwriter for movies and, later, television. In the 1950s, he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee and was blacklisted. He wrote the screenplay for the marriage guidance film This Charming Couple (1950) using the pseudonym H. Partnow (link below). Some other of his screenplays were Blind Date (1959) and The Idol (1962) which starred Jennifer Jones and Michael Parks.

Notable television plays included The Adams Chronicles and the mini-series Rich Man, Poor Man (both 1976). In 1966, he was awarded an Emmy for his teleplay for the Hallmark Hall of Fame drama Eagle in a Cage. He also wrote novels, and the play The Wall, based on the novel by John Hersey, which was produced on Broadway. It was adapted for the 1983 film of the same name, directed by Robert Markowitz and starring Tom Conti, Rachel Roberts, Eli Wallach, James Cromwell, and Rosanna Arquette.     

Lampell died of lung cancer on October 3, 1997. He was 78 years old.        

Earl Robinson ~ The Lonesome Train 

10" vinyl LP, front album cover detail

photo by Styrous®

Lon Clark, Sr., the opening narrator for Lonesome Train, was a New York City actor of stage and radio. He was born in Frost, Minnesota in 1912.     

He had the title role in Nick Carter, Master Detective on the Mutual Broadcasting System from 1943 to 1955 (link below).

Charlotte Manson as Patsy Bowen and 

Lon Clark as Nick Carter, 1946

 Mutual Broadcasting System 

In 1986, through the small San Francisco publishing company, North Beach Press, his son, Lon Clark, Jr. (link below), produced a book of Jazz photographs by French photographer, Michelle Vignes (link below).    

Earl Robinson ~ The Lonesome Train 

10" vinyl LP, back album cover

photo by Styrous®

Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an American singer and actor of stage, screen, radio and television.    

He began as an itinerant singer and banjoist, and launched his own radio show, The Wayfaring Stranger, which popularized traditional folk songs. In 1942, he appeared in This Is the Army by Irving Berlin and then became a major star of CBS radio.     

In the 1960s, he successfully crossed over into country music, recording hits such as A Little Bitty Tear and Funny Way of Laughing. He was a film actor through the late 1940s and 1950s; his best-known roles included parts in So Dear to My Heart and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, as well as Rufus Hannassey in The Big Country, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

In the summer of 1994, he was diagnosed with oral cancer. After several unsuccessful operations, he decided against further surgery. He fell into a coma and died from the disease on April 14, 1995, at the age of 85, at his home in Anacortes, Washington. He was buried in Mound Cemetery in Hunt City Township, Jasper County, Illinois.

Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives' voice ... had the sheen and finesse of opera without its latter-day Puccinian vulgarities and without the pretensions of operatic ritual. It was genteel in expressive impact without being genteel in social conformity. And it moved people."       

Earl Robinson ~ The Lonesome Train

10" vinyl LP, back album cover details

photo by Styrous®

Norman Corwin who produced the album is widely regarded as a guru of radio producers, a poet-laureate of radio. He was an American writer, screenwriter, producer, essayist and teacher of journalism and writing. His earliest and biggest successes were in the writing and directing of radio drama during the 1930s and 1940s. He was a major figure during the Golden Age of Radio. He was a writer and producer of many radio programs in many genres: history, biography, fantasy, fiction, poetry and drama. In 1936 he helped create WQXR-FM in New York City (later, voice of the New York Times).     

Corwin was among the first producers to regularly use entertainment, even light entertainment, to tackle serious social issues. In this area he was a peer of Orson Welles and William N. Robson, and an inspiration to other later radio/TV writers such as Rod Serling, Gene Roddenberry, Norman Lear, J. Michael Straczynski and Yuri Rasovsky.        

He won many awards, two Peabody Medals, an Emmy, a Golden Globe, a duPont-Columbia Award; he was nominated for an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay for Lust for Life (1956). Corwin was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 1993.          

Corwin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on May 3, 1910. He was 101 years old when he died on October 18, 2011. His father, Sam Corwin, attended holiday services until his death at 110. Amazing!   

   

Earl Robinson ~ The Lonesome Train

10" vinyl LP, back album cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

Raymond Edward Johnson (Abraham Lincoln) was an American radio and stage actor best remembered for his work on Inner Sanctum Mysteries. While in Chicago, Johnson began working with writer/director Arch Oboler, with roles on his Lights Out series.  

While in New York, Johnson landed his most famous role when Himan Brown hired him for Inner Sanctum. From the first broadcast in 1941, Johnson was heard as the series host/narrator, introducing himself as "Your host, Raymond." The "Raymond" character became known for his chilling introductions and morbid puns, and his typical closing, an elongated and ironic "Pleasant dreaaaams, hmmmmmmm?" Johnson departed the series in 1945. Johnson later hosted the radio version of the science fiction series Tales of Tomorrow. I loved this series! It used the Sergei Prokofiev very short intro to Dance of the Knights from Romeo and Juliet for it's opening. It was perfect as the theme is one of the most chilling works of music EVER written (link below).      

Johnson was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on July 24, 1911. Johnson started out as a bank teller, and later studied acting at the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago. He was stricken with multiple sclerosis from his forties onward which limited his activities in later years when Johnson was a presence at old time radio conventions, performing in recreations and reprising "Raymond", often from a portable bed or wheelchair. He died on August 15, 2001, not long after his 90th birthday.    

Earl Robinson ~ The Lonesome Train 

10" vinyl LP, back album cover detail

photo by Styrous®

Review by David K. Dunaway:

The Lonesome Train is an amazing large-scale audio cast album consisting of a drama/legend in folk music form dealing with Abraham Lincoln. It is a creation that could only have been brought off properly and successfully in the LP era, and one that makes a curious period piece today, especially as narrator Robinson was a blacklistee in subsequent years.     

The cantata for radio probably originated in a dilapidated brownstone on lower Sixth Avenue in Manhattan: The Almanac House, a radical commune for music organizers in Greenwich Village, including Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie.

The musical mix of orchestra and chorus (and banjo picker) did not overwhelm readings, interview actuality, and dramatizations; in this, Robinson and Corwin were original and innovative. The story is strong and dramatically simple; A man, a train, and his spirit moving across the land. The work engages the audience by its multiple voices, dialoguing with the narrator and one another, and its themes and music. Instead of being a linear, complex account of Lincoln’s funeral train, this program uses the historical record as a springboard for a fantastic voyage.      

Earl Robinson ~ The Lonesome Train 

10" vinyl LP, back album cover

photo by Styrous®

Earl Robinson ~ The Lonesome Train 

10" vinyl LP, side 1

photo by Styrous®

Earl Robinson ~ The Lonesome Train 

10" vinyl LP, side 2

photo by Styrous®

Tracklist:

Side 1:

A - The Lonesome Train - Part 1    

Side 2:

B - The Lonesome Train - Concluded    

Companies, etc.

    Manufactured By – Decca Records, Inc.

Credits:

    Chorus – Jeff Alexander Chorus*
    Directed By – Norman Corwin
    Music By – Earl Robinson
    Narrator – Earl Robinson
    Narrator [Opening] – Lon Clark (2)
    Orchestra – Lyn Murray And His Orchestra*
    Vocals [Ballad Singer] – Burl Ives
    Voice Actor [Abraham Lincoln] – Raymond Edward Johnson
    Voice Actor [Preacher] – Richard Huey
    Words By – Millard Lampell

Earl Robinson, Millard Lampell ‎– The Lonesome Train (A Musical Legend)
Label: Decca ‎– DL 5054
Format: Vinyl, LP, 10"
Country: US
Released: 1949
Genre: Pop, Folk, World, & Country, Stage & Screen
Style: Vocal, Folk

Viewfinder links:      

             

Lon Clark, Sr. aka Nick Carter          
The art of Lon Clark, Jr.      
Michelle Vignes      
      

Net links:      

             

Painting the Culture Red ~ Robinson and other musical radicals  

New York Times Earl Robinson obit
People's World ~ Earl Robinson born   
Lon Clark ~ New York Times obit        
Radio Doc ~ Norman Corwin's The Lonesome Train (Decca Recording) 1944           
          

YouTube links:      

             
The Lonesome Train          

Earl Robinson ~        My True Love       
      Red Toupee                

      Joe Hill           
Millard Lampell ~ This Charming Couple (1950)
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev ~ Dance Of The Knights      

               

       
     
     

Styrous® ~ Wednesday, July 19, 2017         

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