Thursday, September 23, 2010

Phil 'Er Up!

I haven't offered up nearly enough of Phil Celia's records here. I think they are, in their own way, just as unique and interesting in sound and performance as Rod Rogers Film City records or Norm Burns Sterling label releases. Here's an ideal example, a song-poem containing the clunky title of "Let Me Baby, Sit With You, Baby Mine". A nice swing combo provides the fast moving backing, while Phil offers up a winning vocal. A nice piano solo follows, then, this being a song poem, there's a nice little error, in which the band and the singer clearly had different ideas about how many times Phil was going to sing the final phrase, with the band heading for the end of the song before he gets there. No second takes in the song-poem world.

Download: Phil Celia - Let Me Baby, Sit With You, Baby Mine
Play: 

I had great hopes for the flip side, given the title "Riding with the Bar 2 Queen". There is some real weirdness here - the lyrics are fairly odd, and have put to a tune in which they simply do not scan. But the actual song and performance turns out a little bit to drony and morose sounding for my tastes. Your mileage, of course, may vary: 


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