#Russ Conway

[countesspetofi]

Today in the Department of Before They Were Star Trek Stars, Leonard Nimoy guest stars in "The Shipwreck," episode 30 of the first season of Sea Hunt (original air date August 2, 1958).

Nimoy plays one of a trio of shipwreck survivors Lloyd Bridges picks up in his life raft when he's stranded in a storm after a scuba diving accident. The four refugees struggle to stay alive for a week until they come within swimming distance of land.

Nimoy's hair is really giving Conrad Veidt in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in this one.

Other Trek connections: Dick Dial was Lloyd Bridges's stunt double on Sea Hunt, and he doubled for William Shatner several times on Star Trek. He also played a number of small, uncredited background roles on the latter series, such as Security personnel in "And the Children Shall Lead" and "The Apple" (far left in both images).

This is the last post I have in the tank. All the images and video files I have to make more are on a PC that gave up the ghost, and may or may not be able to be fixed. I'm using a borrowed laptop right now. I hope I'll be able to get back to this series soon, because I've had more fun doing it than I've had in a long time. It's been especially interesting learning how much more of a small town Hollywood was in the 1960s.

[frankenpagie]

5.26.25

[kwebtv]

From the Golden Age of Television

The Boston Tea Party - CBS - June 26, 1955

A presentation of "You Are There" Season 3 Episode 43

A re-staging Season 1 Episode 3 that aired February 15, 1953

Historical Reenactment

Running time: 30 minutes

Produced by: James Fonda

Directed by: Bernard Girard

Narrated by Walter Cronkite

News Reporters:

Dick Joy

Harlow Wilcox

Clete Roberts

Stars:

Denver Pyle as Samuel P. Savage

Michael Emmet as Francis Rotch

Russ Conway as John Hancock (Billed as Russ Coway)

Herbert Rudley as Sam Adams

Charles Watts as Samson Salter Blowers

Marshall Bradford as Willliam Molineux

Bing Russell as Landall Pitts

George Diestel as Newes

Charles Seel as Josiah Quincy II

Noel Drayton as Governor Thomas Hutchinson

[badmovieihave]

Bad movie I have Wagon Train: The Complete Season Five 1961-1962

[pianorequests]

1966 - a year of four LPs

1966 was a good year for Russ. He was on the way to recovering as best he could from a stroke he had suffered in late-1965, and by the end of the year he recovered enough that he was able to record four whole albums. This post details those four LPs.

Russ Hour Russ Hour was the first Russ LP to be released in 1966. Recorded on 26th January that year, and released in June, it featured the standard accompaniment directed by Geoff Love.

Unusually, this album was one of two full LPs to be produced from a single recording session held on that day in January. Russ's recording manager, Norman Newell, had booked twice the usual amount of studio time for Russ's first recording session after his stroke as a result of not wishing to overwork him. The first LP they set about recording was Time to Play, which would be released on EMI's budget label Music For Pleasure.

However, because the recording for that LP went so well, the artists moved onto recording a second record - and it was this which became Russ Hour, a full-price LP on EMI's Columbia label. Tracks on this one include Red Roses for a Blue Lady, Lullaby of Broadway, and Hello, Dolly!

Time to Play This was the first record Russ recorded following his 1965 stroke, and was a re-recording of several tunes he had made successful recordings of during the first few years of his solo career. All of the tracks from his 1959 EP Another Six were re-recorded, as well as The Westminster Waltz, The Birthday Cakewalk, Snow Coach, Trampolina, and Matador from Trinidad.

The accompaniment was again directed by Geoff Love (the last time he would work with Russ for an LP), and the album - as was standard for all of Russ's records of this time - made use of the Steinway Model K 'Vertegrand' upright piano which was kept in Abbey Road's Studio Two. This album was released on 16th September 1966. Despite being recorded in stereo, it was initially released in mono only - the same as the Another Six EP.

On compilation albums released after this point, the Time to Play versions of these tunes are almost always the ones included, rather than the original recordings. The most notable difference between the 1966 and original versions is the piano: in 1966, the piano Russ used was much more metallic-sounding than the original Hohner he used at the start of his career.

Concerto for Memories Released some six years after the first of his 'Concerto' albums, this LP marked a significant point in Russ's career: it marked the last time he recorded a new orchestral LP. Released in November 1966 under EMI's Studio2Stereo brand and on their Columbia label, it proved made use of Brian Fahey and his Orchestra.

The title track for this LP was, as with his previous three 'Concerto' albums, written by Russ himself, under his real name of Trevor Herbert Stanford. Concerto for Memories was the only of the four he wrote not to have been released in sheet music form.

This record also marked an interesting turning point for Russ's records: until this point, all of his records had been released either in mono only, or in mono first and then stereo later. However, in this case, it was the stereo mix which was released first, with the mono mix not being released until May 1967. All of Russ's records after this point, except compilation albums using older material, would be released in stereo only.

Pop-a-Conway This last 'pop' album from Russ was released for Christmas 1966, and featured accompaniment directed by Norman Percival rather than Geoff Love. It was the last of his new studio albums to be released by EMI in the UK.

The sleeve notes for this album were written by Hank Marvin, and the tracks included are a range of pop songs from the time, including The Beatles' All My Loving. The More I See You is also included, this time in an upbeat form - it was previously included, in an orchestral style, on Concerto for Memories. Other tracks on this album include Spanish Flea, Strangers in the Night, and It's Not Unusual.

The cover art for this album is bright and colourful, with large title text across it. It's a departure from the standars photograph-and-text for Russ's albums, but a welcome one as it really 'pops' (which works with the album's name, of course!).

[allthemusic]

Week ending: 3rd January

1962, let's go! The Cold War is pretty darn cold, the first James Bond film is in the works, and Americans are about to orbit the earth. And in amid all this, a full three songs to kick the year off.

Let There Be Drums - Sandy Nelson (peaked at Number 3)

This song is credited to Sandy Nelson, who we've seen before briefly, but it's actually the work of two artists, a duel between Sandy, on drums as ever, and one Richard Podolor, a guitar player. They've got a pretty cool interplay, too, with Sandy going wild while Richard holds back, playing these menacing chords that ascend chromatically up the scale before really letting rip for a bit, then holding back again, in a cycle that just continues throughout the song, ratcheting the tension up non-stop through to that final drum roll and crash of cymbals, when it all comes to a crashing halt.

It's pretty cool, if I do say so myself, and also pretty surf-y. I go back and forth on whether these instrumental rock numbers should be described as surf rock or just instrumental rock, honestly. From what I've read, it sounds like surf rock just eventually kind of emerged out of the instrumental rock. It could have lyrics, but didn't always, and tended to use a lot of reverb, which this does, as well as Middle Eastern and Mexican-inspired tonalities, which I'm less sure about. Still, surf or not, there's an adventure vibe to this, a sense of menace and action that's undeniable. You could use this to score a chase scene, you know? It's that kind of vibe.

It's also the last we're going to see of Sandy. He had some other hits, but none made the Top 10, so we're going to be giving them a miss. I don't feel like I've necessarily missed out, honestly, because I have my suspicions that Drums are My Beat and Drummin' Up a Storm might sound a lot like this did. Heaven knows that this sounds almost identical to Teen Beat, back in 1959. Say what you like about Sandy, the man knew what he was good at. He kept recording into the 1970s, despite what sounds like quite a serious motorcycle accident, and he was still releasing some music in 2008, apparently!

Toy Balloons - Russ Conway (7)

And from one somewhat predictable instrumental to another - or so I assumed. And to be fair, the first half of this is exactly what I'd expect from a Russ Conway track called "Toy Balloons". It's a janky, ice cream van-sounding track that's deliberately very jolly, with an organ right at the start giving the whole thing a rather circus-y vibe, before Russ' signature bar-room piano comes in, even more janky and detuned than I remember it being, last time we heard from Russ. There are what sound like some accordion flourishes, too, and the whole thing just kind of bumbles along in a suitably merry, carefree fashion. Exactly what you'd expect.

And then, lyrics. Russ, you see, has enlisted a children's choir, but a strangely mannered children's choir, with very rounded "oo" sounds. I can't tell if it's just an affectation, or whether they're possibly non-native English speakers? It's an off effect, either way, and that's before you get into just how weird the lyrics are. We start strong already, for example, with lyrics about a man who sells balloons / Pretty coloured toy balloons / He'll be coming round your way / So watch for him today. I know this shouldn't be creepy, but it just is. Something about the ambiguity of him just being this anonymous wandering balloon man, no name, no associates, just feels weird. "He'll be coming round your way", in this context, almost feels like a threat. And the back half of the song is half a description of the balloons, but also half balloons, balloons, balloons / La la la la la / Balloons, balloons, balloons, repeated ad neuseaum. The end result sounds truly demented, especially with the instrumental choices Russ has made.

The weirest thing, though, is that I don't hate it? It's properly weird, sure, but I think at some point it circled round again and I started liking it. There's something very quaint and quirky about it. You could imagine it being used in a Wes Anderson film, with the children's strange diction and the song's vintage whimsy, more generally, would probably work in its favour. I've also noticed, at some point, a vague resemblance to the Mii plaza music from the Wii. It's like the bizarro 1961 instrumental balloon version, the resemblance isn't 100%. But it's there, and between all these things, I'm suddenly kind of enjoying the track. Truly, one you have to listen to, at least once. If only so you can appreciate just how odd it is.

Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen - Neil Sedaka (3)

Okay. So, I've mentioned this song before, in the context of other, similar songs about girls' "sweet sixteens". Johnny Burnette had "You're Sixteen", almost a year ago, for example, and even back then, I had some reservations about it. It's not that it's necessarily creepy in its intent, and I know that it doesn't mean that artists like Johnny and Neil were actually out there preying on young 16-year old girls. It's just a songwriting cliché that plays into the trend for songs to be ever more "teenaged" and youthful-sounding. Still, there's definitely something a bit uncomfortable about it, especially knowing that Neil was in his mid-20s at this point.

He doesn't help himself here, either, with lyrics that take the vague unwholesomeness implicit in Johnny's song, and adds a whole extra layer of ick. I mean, look at the very opening line, all about how tonight's the night I've waited for / Because you're not a baby anymore. And Neil compounds the issue with a bunch of lines about them growing up together, including the rather awkward one about how when you were only six / I was your big brother. Which of course gives way to some decidedly un-siblingly creeping on this girl and how beautiful she is now she's given up on her childish tomboy-ness. All of which leads to the clanger of a line about how since you've grown up / Your future's sewn up / From now on you're gonna be mine. Which comes off as both gross and weirdly entitled, and leads to more uncomfortable lines about how much this girl's grown up and how beautiful she is now, just a teenage dream. Yeurgh!

Dubious lyrics aside, this is also a song that's pulling references and nods to other things out of its ass. It's notably similar, structurally, to Take Good Care of My Baby, for example, and also apparently pulls pretty heavily from a Chiffons song that hadn't come out yet. Both by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, friends of Neil's at the Brill Building. Add some lyrical similarities to things like You're Sixteen and even Tomboy by Perry Como, back in 1959, plus some actual references, including to My Funny Valentine, a Broadway standard, and you're got a song that feels very much like it's plugged into the zeitgeist, for better or for worse. I'm not sure this endears the song to me much, but it's interesting to note, at least.

I surprised myself a bit, here. I went into this week fully expecting to not mind Sandy's contribution, to tolerate Russ' latest offering and then to have some fun with Neil at the end. But actually, I think it's the other way round. Sandy was indeed fine, but then it's Russ that I found myself enjoying more. Neil's ogling of his sixteen year old "little sister" was just too creepy, I'm afraid. And like I said, there's a charm to what Russ served us up, this week. It's a weird, slightly deranged charm, but I genuinely had a lot of fun with it. So there you go. 1962, off to an eccentric start already.

Favourite song of the bunch: Toy Balloons

[moviesandmania]

THE SCREAMING SKULL Reviews and free online

‘The tortured ghost who claimed vengeance in the bride’s bedroom’ The Screaming Skull is a 1958 horror film about a newlywed woman who believes she is being haunted by the ghost of her new husband’s previous wife. The movie was written and produced by John Kneubuhl (Two on a Guillotine), inspired by the short story of the same name by Francis Marion Crawford. The movie was directed by Alex…

[sugarmusicnews]

Daar Doer In Die Bosveld – Nico Carstens

My Hartlief – Nico Carstens There are a number of version of this song out there, most have vocals attached to them, however, I have gone back to the original instrumental piece by Nico Carstens. I say the original but am open to correction on that. It appears on Carstens’ album ‘My Hartedief’ but I have not been able to find a year for that, so there may well have been others that went before.…

[troyssix]

i called my sister a cake-eater and of course she didn't get the ref

so now we're binging tmd because i want to raise my siblings RIGHT

[endlessgoldensky]

If you're a Mighty Ducks blog could you show yourself, I want to follow some new blogs!

[an-asexual-crow]

I watched Mighty Ducks for the first time during Easter break. Y'ALL. WHEN I TELL YOU, THIS IS THE FASTEST HYPERFIXATION I'VE EVER HAD I'M NOT KIDDING.

I hate HATE sports movies. Sports is like my number 1 opp (except baseball), so when my cousin was making me watch mighty ducks, I was "pffft. I'm not going to like this."

I FINISHED 2 MOVIES IN ONE SITTING WITHOUT LOOKING AT MY PHONE OR FIDDLING WITH SHIT! MY ADHD ASS WAS ABLE TO SIT DOWN AND GET INVESTED.

I SHIT YOU NOT MIGHTY DUCKS IS NOW MY PHONE BACKGROUND! I AM CONTEMPLATING BUYING A MIGHTY DUCKS JERSEY.

It's not even been a WEEK since I watched the first movie and I am going feral for these movies and characters. I DONT EVEN LIKE HOCKEY OR ICE SKATING! IM SCARED OF ICE SKATING! BUT THESE DAMN MOVIES MAKES ME WANT TO LEARN.

This is not okay 😭

[ciaossu-imagines]

Again, loving up some underloved fandoms here on Ciaossu-Imagines, so throwing out some headcanons I have about The Mighty Ducks characters! I hope anyone familiar with these movies will enjoy them!

Starting with Averman, he’s definitely Jewish. I think he and Goldberg are really good friends because both of them are Jewish. They attended Hebrew school together, their parents are good friends, and honestly they really rely on each other around the holiday season. Neither boy is ashamed of being Jewish or anything, but especially around the time period those movies are set, Hannukah was not as popular or as talked about as Christmas was. And when all your friends are talking about Christmas and their plans and the gifts they’ll get and all the celebrations you hear about are Christianity based, it’s hard not to feel a little left out so both boys’ kind of really like having another friend they can talk to about their Hannukah plans who will get it. Bonus headcanon but I think Averman has a bigger love of hockey and was the one to get Goldberg into the sport.

Hot take on Adam – I don’t think he’s this abused kid trying desperately to please Daddy. I think that while his father might have high expectations for Adam, his father isn’t really abusive. I think a lot of the pressure that Adam feels – and boy, does he feel a lot – is pressure that Adam puts on himself. I do see Adam as having some issues with perfectionism, with being way too hard on himself, and he struggles with anxiety and a need to be perfect but it’s because Adam himself knows that he’s got a lot of talent and he doesn’t want to waste that talent.

Charlie’s actually got a few hidden skills but the one that ends up surprising most people is that, at one point in his life, Charlie got really into magic and he’s pretty good with a couple of tricks, mostly sleight of hand stuff.

Tammy did enjoy playing hockey, I won’t pretend that she didn’t. But I think when it came down to it, she enjoyed figure skating a lot more. There was more pageantry in that sport, more creativity and more glamour in her mind and I think she left the Ducks before the second movie because she really did want to focus on figure skating and competing in that area. She did win several medals, but I think she largely left the sport around the time she started college.

Julie reads…for fun. While she loves being active and has various hobbies and interests, she’s been a life-long bookworm. She learned to read early, and gobbles books up. She normally gets through at least a book a week and does read a wide variety of things, though she has guilty pleasure reading that she’d be embarrassed if anyone found out about, such as romance novels and the Hardy Boys books.

Guy hates carrying change around with him. There’s just something about the weight of it and the clinking sound it makes in his pocket as he walks that drives him insane. He prefers to carry bills for cash and usually lets the salespeople keep his change wherever he goes.

Surprising thing about Goldberg…the boy is not only gifted with a green thumb, but he genuinely likes taking care of his plants. He only got them because his parents wouldn’t let him get a pet…they didn’t think he was responsible enough for a pet so they bought him a rather high-maintenance houseplant to take care of first so that he could prove that he could be responsible for another living thing. Turns out that he enjoyed caring for the plant so much, even giving it a name, that he ended up wanting more plants instead of an actual pet.

Jesse has a tendency to argue just for the sake of arguing. He legitimately enjoys arguments and I have this headcanon that he found the debate club during high school and it’s the most at home he’s felt since playing with the Ducks. Like, those are his people, that’s where he belongs. He gets really involved with debate throughout his high school career and I think he wants to go to law school after graduating.

Terry Hall…still hasn’t gotten the grasp of gum honestly. Not saying the kid is stupid, because he certainly isn’t. It’s just that he cannot, for the life of him, remember that gum is for consistent chewing, not eating, especially if the gum in question is a really fruity, sweet flavour.

I really do think that Karp is someone who is really easy to take advantage of. He gets bullied a lot as a kid and he’s someone who just naturally is the kind of person who really wants to make others happy and to have others like him. He’s a very generous friend but the fact that he’s willing to do almost anything to have his ‘friends’ like him means that he gets put into some pretty brutal situations and gets used throughout his childhood and teen years.

I think Peter’s an army brat, or something along those lines. Something tells me that this kid is someone who moves around a lot throughout his life because of his parent’s careers. He’s used to never staying anywhere really long enough to form completely solid relationships. He’s used to always being the new kid and needing to impress and be tough enough to both make friends and avoid bullies. I also think that while he really would like to settle down in one spot long enough to make serious friendships, the idea of doing so kind of scares him.

Luis taught himself how to juggle when he was a kid. He’s also really skilled at hackeysack.

Connie has the habit of pacing around when she’s deep in thought. There’s just something about moving that helps her think better and if she really has something on her mind, she tends to go running or jogging. The tougher the problem is, the faster and further she tends to go as she loses track of where she is or how far she’s gone.

Dean can burp the alphabet. Forwards and backwards. He’s really quite proud of this.

Fulton’s worst habit? He’s really bad at sitting and staying still for long periods of time and he starts fidgeting when he has to do so. He’ll stretch, move around in his seat a bit, crack his knuckles, but the worst is his leg because he’s definitely one of those guys who bounces his leg when he’s bored or restless, almost aggressively so.

Dwayne really likes to sing. He’s not horrible at it by any means, though a little tone-deaf. He’s a huge fan, because of how he was raised, of any older country, with Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, and Conway Twitty being favourites of his.

Russ has the tendency to get cold really easily. It can come out of nowhere too, with no real reason for him to have a chill or to be cold. He just is. He tends to always carry an extra layer with him as a just in case.

Ken has weird eating habits. He has to eat all of one thing before he can allow himself to eat the next thing on his plate. For example, if he has fries and a burger, he’ll have to eat all the burger before he’ll start eating the fries. He can’t bring himself to mix and match his food and not even he knows why.

[badmovieihave]

Bad movie I have Tv Classics It Has 14 TV episodes 7 Dragnet 1951 -1959 , 1 Burke's Law 1963-1966, 2 Peter Gunn 1958-1961, 2 Richard Diamond 1957-1960, 1 Mr.Wong, Detective 1938, and 1 Bulldog Drummond 1929

[pianorequests]

My Concerto for You - 1960

Russ recorded his first orchestral album, My Concerto for You, in late 1959 and early 1960. It was a distinct departure from the upbeat 'honky-tonk' sound which had made him famous, and although he had recorded an orchestral single before (The World Outside, in 1958), this was something completely new.

Accompanied by Michael Collins and his Concert Orchestra, and the Williams Singers, Russ recorded twelve orchestral tracks, including the title track, which was a self-penned composition which he wrote under his real name of Trevor H. Stanford.

The initial release date was planned to be late 1959, but due to a degree of distortion on some of the initial recordings, a second recording session was planned for early January 1960 and so the album was released that year.

It goes to show just how popular Russ was at this time that such a different album to all the others he'd made managed to reach number five on the UK Album Charts, and remained on the charts for eighteen weeks - longer than any of his other LPs. Norman Newell was initially apprehensive about recording an orchestral LP with Russ, but it had proved to be a big success.

It led to a further five orchestral albums from Russ: At the Theatre, At the Cinema, and three others in the 'Concerto' series - Concerto for Dreamers, Concerto for Lovers, and Concerto for Memories. All of these 'Concerto' albums had their title tracks composed by Russ, and he would later say that Concerto for Memories was his favourite composition of all those he had made during his career.

An interesting note about the piece entitled My Concerto for You is that it was given the subtitle Theme from the Bristol Concerto for its sheet music release: in his Desert Island Discs radio appearance, Russ said it was his intention to take My Concerto for You and work it into a full-scale concerto. Unfortunately, this never happened, but his sheer talent as a composer can be seen in the concertos he did produce.

[sluggmuffin]

Luis in a full suit while the others have caps on (I just keep finding them hope you’re enjoying it)

oh I'm enjoying these very much

connie is literally so drop dead gorgeous I cannot

fucking love luis and Charlie

is that guy??? cuz it looks like him but at the same time way older

[allthemusic]

Week ending: 24th December

Well, one of these tunes is certainly not like the others, and precisely none of them thrill me - though they're about the most predictable thing that could happen around Christmas 1959.

Rawhide - Frankie Laine (peaked at Number 6)

Just when we thought his presence was gone from the charts for good, Frankie's back to defend his title of "most entries in this blog". To nobody's great surprise, at least if they've been following any of the rest of Frankie's career, it's a Western theme he comes back with - in fact, of of the Western themes of all time. You think Western themes, this is probably gonna be in your top 5, alongside tunes such as the theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, or the theme from High Noon.

Unlike those themes, though, this is from a TV show, not a film. The show was called Rawhide, and ran from 1959 to 1965 on CBS. It was, unsurprisingly, a Western serial drama focussed on a group of cattle drovers in the 1880s, working on a cattle drive. The plots were surprisingly realistic and naturalistic, and dealt with all manner of gritty, sometimes controversial themes, including anthrax, wolves, banditry, morphine addiction and racism.

The music fits this perfectly, with the whole thing starting with what sounds like a chant, a men's chorus singing the now iconic intro of rollin' rollin' rollin' rawhide! It creates a chugging, driving effect, evoking the monotony of riding for hours, of head aafter head of cattle filing past. And the pace and tone this sets holds strong throughout the whole song, which never slows down, just keeps chugging along, with a steady doo-doo-doo continuing in the background as Frankie takes the lead.

Frankie, for his part, is also giving his all, singing about how you've got to keep rollin' rollin' rollin, though the streams are swollen' and how he must continue through rain, wind and weather / hell-bent for leather / wishin' my girl was by my side. It's an image of a life that's hard and lonely, if not without a certain romanticism and rough masculinity - all of which is underscored by the middle part, with the almost frenzied delivery of lines where Frankie almost screams at his colleagues to move 'em on, head 'em up, head 'em up, move 'em on / Cut 'em out, ride 'em in, rawhide! It sounds physical, like you can hear the exertion that the job demends, the sheer physical toughness of it all, and then we add in a key change upwards and a bunch of hearty hyah noises, presumably as Frankie uses his rawhide whip on the cattle he's droving. It genuinely sounds a bit unhinged by the end - Frankie's holding absolutely nothing back, here!

I kind of expected to dislike this as a piece of cheesy, campy silliness. And yes, there's definitely something a bit camp about it. But I think the energy that Frankie throws at it has actually endeared this song to me a lot more than I expected - there's a sort of fun to it, an adventurous romance that you can't help but be sucked into. And I'm clearly not the only one to think this - the song's been used and/or parodied in film after film, as a signifier of rugged cowboy antics.

More and More Party Pops - Russ Conway (5)

I don't think Russ' case is helped either by the absolutely terrible recording quality of the only version I can find of this track, or by the fact that I've just listened to a completely different Russ track that I actully didn't mind. In comparison to the tentatively pretty enjoyable Snow Coach, this is just not as memorable - and all that despite the fact that it nominally did better than Snow Coach?

I think some of that might be down to the established "Party Pops" branding. People who bought the previous edition last year and enjoyed it are more likely to buy this one, after all, and I can kind of see the appeal of the medley format for a Christmas party - it's doing a similar thing to those end of year mashups of all the year's hits that you get around New Year nowadays. Or at least I assume it does - the song certainly changes enough to make me think it's a medley, though I don't recognise literally any of the tracks that seem to have made it in, barring the classic "shave and a haircut" riff at the end, which does give a certain Cockney charm.

Okay, a bit of research suggests that it is indeed a medley, beginning with The Sheik of Araby, a 1921 Tin Pan Alley hit and jazz stadard, a more mysterious tune called Who Were You With Last Night, and a music hall tune referencing the rag and bone trade, called Any Old Iron. I know precisely none of these, though the same source suggests a Part 2 exists including, along with two other mystery tunes, a version of Tiptoe Through the Tulips. Which, while it's a fun little number, isn't enough to make me want to track down Part 2, it it really exists - two and a half minutes of this is more than enough of Russ for me, I think.

Piano Party - Winifred Atwell (10)

In further proof that the British record-buying public have questionable taste, this track, despite being clearly of better quality than More and More Piano Pops, did not do as well. Why, I don't know - it's zippier, chirpier and better recorded than Russ' stuff, and even includes at least one song that I recognised straight off, a jaunty version of Baby Face, which was a Little Richard hit all the way back at the start of the year.

I actually get familiar vibes from a few more of the songs here, too, possibly because one tune that's included is Comin' Thro' The Rye, which gave us the rock and roll-ified version Rockin' Through the Rye a while back, and which also sounds a whole lot like Auld Lang Syne - a similarity that surely helped this along, in a season Christmas and New Year's parties. There's also touches of Frosty the Snowman, later on, which is almost certainly a coincidence - though the song has existed since 1950, which is a good decade or two earlier than I'd assumed that song came out.

Aside from this, there's not much I recognise, but I still appreciate the verve that Winifred brings to it all - she swaps between songs quicker and plays in a slightly wilder, less controlled way than Russ does, and it's great. I particularly like the left hand bassline that comes in at about the minute mark, all low and menacing and slightly jazzy - it's not a huge part of the song, but it's a real virtuoso performance. As Winifred's yearly hits go, this is one of my favourites, honestly - she's giving it so much, and honestly her playing is kind of impressive, in its own right.

As I said, one song here stands out, both in terms of genre and also in my reaction to it - though I was also pleasantly surprised by how much I appreciated Winifred's annual outing, this time round, too. Still, it was Rawhide that really won me over, with it's silly hyah whip sounds and the sheer gusto that Frankie throws at it. Between him and Winifred, I think we're set for sheer enthusiasm for - oh, shall we say a year? That sounds about right to me.

Favourite song of the bunch: Rawhide