JUBILEE 5093; AUGUST 1952

 

This is the story of two B-sides on one record.

The details are a little hazy… then again it’s been seventy-one years to the month since this came out and everyone involved who might clear this up is dead… but luckily we don’t actually have to review both songs since only one qualifies as rock.

As for the other… well, the other is the kind of worthless garbage that record companies aspiring to move up in the world still felt was a good bet for broader success which would allow them to leave this rock ‘n’ roll noise – the only music that was making them money let it be said – far behind.

They were wrong of course, which we delight in pointing out, but sometimes these excursions are necessary just to remind one and all how stupid record labels always were.
 

I’m Just Not Satisfied
Let’s set the scene for you, shall we?

After bragging about how much sex she’s having on the top half, Drive Daddy Drive, the seventeen year old rock ‘n’ roll temptress Sylvia Vanderpool is now being forced to impersonate a frustrated old maid to make amends for her debauchery.

Wait a minute, something’s not right here…

Hmm, what can it be? Any guesses from the gallery?

Oh that’s right, this is 1952 when cover versions reigned and Jubilee Records is still idiotic enough to think that their constituency actually cares about pop music hits.

Thankfully rock fans did not show up to these nuptials, nor did they even bother to R.S.V.P. But just so there’s no confusion about what we’re talking about, the first issue (we think) of Jubilee 5093 had a version of I Went To Your Wedding, currently a smash by pop star Patti Page, as the flip side.

Sylvia sings it pretty well, better than Page in fact, who was no slouch in the vocal department. Maybe the reason is that unlike idiotic adults, your average teenager is able to intuitively understand the definition of the term “bullshit” and react accordingly when asked to perpetrate the crime of promoting said bullshit on record.

Now Sylvia can hardly turn water into wine, let alone warm piss into chilled champagne (and to think, it was written by Jessie Mae Robinson, a legitimate rock ‘n’ roll songstress, proving that even the greats sometimes suffer from the futile dream of “upward mobility” too) but Sylvia at least gives it more pathos than Miss. Page – or a legion of other cover versions at the time – can muster.

Jubilee may have realized this was the wrong way to go however and at some undetermined point reissued the single with an original composition of Vanderpool’s on it instead, I Found Somebody To Love.

Slightly funky, if somewhat derivative, it’s definitely more appropriate for Sylvia to sing, not to mention more appealing to her budding fan base and consequently had a better shot at becoming a hit.

It wasn’t a hit of course, but when Jubilee Records is involved there’s your likely suspect when it comes to commercial failure.
 

Let Sun Shine So Bright
Right away you’ll note the difference in the overall approach. The other song was dressed in lace (though at least they found an appropriate use for the organ they were so fond of), this one has the proper clothes on to hit the town in. Guitar, drums, piano, trombone and Buddy Lucas’s sax all of which is topped by Sylvia’s laconic smirking vocal that is suggestive enough in its attitude even if her lyrics not crossing the line of decency.

That’s the song’s calling card, Sylvia’s self-awareness of her sexual appeal that comes across in every coo, sigh and moan. If vocals could physically wink and smile at you she’s found a way to pull that off here, inferring an invitation to the boudoir that certainly wouldn’t hold up in court if you were bold enough to take her up on the offer, but by the sounds of it she’d welcome the visit just the same.

There’s certainly not the headline grabbing plot that defined the flip-side, where sex was at the forefront as soon as they turned the key and stepped on the gas, but I I Found Somebody To Love might actually be slightly more effective at revving your engine as it were, because it leaves the details up to your imagination rather than spelling it out for you.

Surely you know what she means, and she knows you know, but she’s holding back on providing you with the key to her room, making you work a little harder to get in.

Another reason this works so well is because of how it creatively “borrows” from past hits, something that we tend to take a dim view of most of the time but here by combining two past hits that on the surface don’t seem to be coming from the same place – The Ray-O-Vacs I’ll Always Be In Love With You with its laconic vocal and sort of a slowed-down version of Ruth Brown’s Teardrops From My Eyes – it qualifies as “inspiration” more than being just a shallow rip-off.

Besides, those melodies are pretty good and with Sylvia’s vocal gyrations – holding notes, drawing things out and twisting the meaning of words in the process – it gives this an identity all its own.

It’s catchy, slightly erotic and a perfect vehicle for a young girl, already wiser than her years and who is now coming into her own, both as a woman and as an artist. Too bad we can’t say the same for her record company who fouled up yet another release.
 

Come What May
There remains some confusion over which B-side was issued first.

Usually record companies will pull an original in order to try and take advantage of a rising hit with a timely cover version so that the other side – a potential hit in its own right – won’t get shafted altogether if they put out an entirely new single featuring the cover and a throwaway track on the back of it.

But that’s not believed to be the case here because the release of I Found Somebody To Love has both songs run-time added on the label, something they weren’t likely to pull on a second issue.

What IS known however is that there aren’t a lot of copies with this as the flip, meaning it probably came out a month or two later than the original August release and which gave Jubilee the idea that since this is a good song in its own right that maybe they should give it another chance, which is why it later became the flip side of Sylvia’s NEXT release on Jubilee 5100 before that quickly got pulled for another song.

In other words, the label’s head was so far up its own ass that they couldn’t see very well, meaning they might just have cost themselves a hit… or if not a hit, a more highly regarded near-miss instead of be left with a far too obscure song that has more questions than answers surrounding it.
 
 
SPONTANEOUS LUNACY VERDICT:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
(Visit the Artist page of Sylvia Vanderpool for the complete archive of her records reviewed to date)