The ABC's of MOR

The Music

Day After Day (It's Slippin' Away)There's always talk about an earthquake causing Southern California falling into the ocean, but in 1968 there was a song that sang about it.

The song was written by three people: Stuart Margolin, Jerry Riopelle and Tommy Reynolds. Stuart Margolin is an actor (Angel on "the Rockford Files"), Reynolds was in the music group Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds, and Jerry Riopelle is a rock artist and songwriter.

The song appeared in late 1968 but became popular in 1969. The only problem was that in order for southern California to disappear completely there would have to be an earthquake with vertical movement. The earthquakes in that area are generally horizontal movements.

The Height of the Spy SeasonThis is the opening sequence from the film, "The Last of the Secret Agents?" One spy after another is passing some kind of secret written on a piece of paper. Upon receiving the piece of paper the spy shoots the other spy. The only living creature to survive this opening sequence is a monkey, the kind you'd find collecting money with his organ grinder master.

The music written and conducted by Pete King is terrific and is included here for that reason. The film, starring Marty Allen and Steve Rossi, also has a nice song sung by Steve Rossi that was written by the great Neal Hefti. That is also included in our playlist, along with the title tune sung by Nancy Sinatra, which was not on the soundtrack album.

I have nothing more to say about this film.

I. M. 4 U. It looks like a code of some kind, but it is actually a very pretty song written by Jose Melis. Jose Melis was the musical director of the Tonight Show when Jack Paar was the host. This song was used as the theme.

The version of the theme by Mr. Melis was never in my library and I didn't want to spend $40 or $50 for one song, so I got a vocal version by Al Simmons who records for kids. Since the songs consists of letters and numbers (no words) Mr. Simmons intros the song as if he were reading an eye chart.

You can see the lyrics here. Sing along if you want.

I.M.4.U (1955)

Marino/ Melis/ Paar/ Haskell

I-M-4-U S-I-M S-I-M

G-I-1-2-B-4-U-4-F-R

U-R-X-T-C S-U-R S-U-R

I-N-10-2-B-4-U-4-F-R

I-M-I-N-U U-R-I-N-2

S-E-Z-2-C B-B

U-N-I-C-I-2-I-O

U-N-I-L-B-S-1-4-F-R-N-F-R-N-F-R

Jose Ole Before it was a name on food products the name, "Jose Ole," was a tune written by Earle Hagen as the theme for "The Bill Dana Show." Bill used his Jose Jimenez character playing a bellhop in a hotel.

LapplandBy the Baltimore and Ohio Marching Band. This is basically the best song on the album, and a nice change of pace for the music service.

Mama, A Rainbow Back in the early seventies, that's 1970s kids, there was a Broadway play titled, "Minnie's Boys." It was the story of the Marx Brothers BEFORE they became famous. Shelly Winters played Minnie, and the four brothers played by talented actors whose names escape me right now.

Anyway, this song is sung by the Harpo character in trying to come up with a nice present for his mother. Since the boys were not famous they didn't have a lot of money to spend, thus the song.

As long as this song has been out I am surprised that it hasn't been used, and to my knowledge it hasn't, in some connection with Mother's Day or presents to give one's mother.

Music to Think By The version by 2+2 was used back in the sixties by the Coffee Association to illustrate coffee being the "Think Drink." A few years ago Apple Computers used it to advertise one of their computers.

Oriental Blues (the Ernie Kovacs theme) Okay, for those of you that don't know, this song was originally a George Gershwin and Will Donaldson song, "Rialto Ripples."

I've included a version of "Rialto Ripples" in the library for your enjoyment and comparison.

So What's New? I have this tune twice in the library, once as an instrumental by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, and as a vocal by Peggy Lee. Interestingly enough, Peggy Lee also wrote the lyrics for the song.

There's an interesting story for this song. I found this story on a Blog written by the late Lloyd Thaxton. He became widely known as the host of a teenage dance music program in the sixties based in Los Angeles CA. He played a lot of music on the show, had famous musical guests, and pantomimed some of the songs in various ways.

He also used self-deprecating humor to open and close each show. Such as, "Thanks for watching the Lloyd Thaxton Show today. I'm Lloyd Thaxton." And the kids on the show always yelled, "So What!"

One day, Lloyd is in his office and someone plops a record on his desk. "Here's your new theme song." The song was "So What's New?" Lloyd didn't know he was getting a new theme song, but there it was.

However, it is my opinion that "So What's New?" wasn't the original title. With "So What" being a popular catch phrase and this being a new song, the song should've been titled, "So What! s'new?" Just my theory guys.

Wasn't the Summer Short? This song is written by a talented lady who got her own radio program by accident. She was an assistant who had to take the microphone on a day when the regular female host was sick. Thus began the career of Ruth Lyons at WKRC in Cincinnati.

To answer your next question, she did switch to WLW radio in Cincinnati when WKRC refused to match a $10 a month raise offered by WLW. She took her style of talk to WLW radio and later, simulcast the show on the new WLWT (television) in Cincinnati. When Crosley Broadcasting put stations on the air in Dayton (WLWD) and Columbus, Ohio, (WLWC) her show was seen there. The same thing happened when WLWI in Indianapolis, Indiana, went on the air.

Yes, Crosley had a novel way to name their TV stations as well as their short lived shortwave radio service (WLWO).

She always had big name guests on her show and she was very persuasive which is probably how Johhny Mathis and Peter Nero came to record the song. Most of her compositions are Christmas songs, but this one's good all year long.