RECORDED IN HOLLYWOOD 238; DECEMBER 1952

 

What’s this?

Little Caesar, who more often than not is taking the role of a condemned man on record… if not a ghost singing from beyond the grave… delivering a mea culpa for the offenses committed with his poor girlfriend?

Are we sure this isn’t a carefully crafted statement crafted by his lawyers to avoid going to the gallows? Maybe a deathbed confession being made to a priest?

No, you say? You mean it’s actually something he came up with on his own with no ulterior motive?

Will wonders never cease!
 

I Sure Would Like To Apologize
Just to recap for those who haven’t been following this romantic soap opera with baited breath.

Over the course of the past few months Little Caesar has drowned himself in the summer, shot his girl and himself in the fall, leapt out a window to escape an angry husband since he was sleeping with her wife not long after he was apparently reincarnated, and to kick off the winter season he dumped the same woman for not providing him with sufficient funds to live large…

If he were a cat he’d have used up half of his lives already.

But now he’s back, ready to make amends with Do Right Blues, a record that not only presents him with a different worldview, but also a different musical one as well.

Like its title suggests, this has more of a bluesy structure than we’re used to seeing from Caesar, though with Que Martyn’s saxophone as the primary responsory instrument it’s never at risk for jumping to another genre altogether.

It’s a fairly well constructed song even if the details he offers are pretty skimpy… in fact all but non-existent. Basically he’s kicked her out of the house for unstated transgressions and now is asking her to come back. Maybe that just means he ran out of canned beans to eat for dinner and his dirty clothes are piling up.

That’d actually be a funny twist if after acting so contrite, his voice dripping with regret and shame, sincere as all get-out, he suddenly sprang the punchline on her and said “Don’t forget to wash the floors” or told her he was going on a date with another woman and that he expected the shopping to be done by the time he got back.

Somehow I think the response to that would be worth another song of its own!
 

Please Come Back Home
If nothing else Little Caesar provides another example of an artist who defies expectations as long as you don’t tune him out, thinking he and his macabre style is not for you.

Yes, like most artist who hit early on with a gimmick they went back to that gimmick too often, though we can probably at least shift some of the blame to his label Recorded In Hollywood for pushing him to do so. Yet even when he did, he managed to come up with good stories that weren’t simply unimaginative rip-offs of the original.

Now that he’s expanding beyond that approach on more traditional songs such as Do Right Blues he’s proving that he’s got a decent enough voice, solid songwriting skills and a more varied delivery to keep us interested long after the novelty factor of those breakthrough songs has worn off.

Wait, did I say “long after”? I’m sorry… I meant “a few days after”, as this single came out just before the end of the year following four other singles in the last six months.

Come to think of it, maybe that’s what he’s apologizing to the girl about… never being home because he’s stuck in the studio all the time cutting one song after another.

Luckily for her, most them were worth hearing and even if this one wasn’t among his best, it still was good enough to expect that she might show up on his doorstep by morning, ready to come inside to listen to some more.
 
 
SPONTANEOUS LUNACY VERDICT:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
(Visit the Artist page of Little Caesar for the complete archive of his records reviewed to date)