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 Vanderpool 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. Sylvia’s vocal gyrations – holding notes, drawing things out and twisting the meaning of words in the process – adds to the effect nicely.

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 but here’s what happened the best we can piece together.

This song was almost certainly not even cut until October because of its similarity to The Dominoes’ I’d Be Satisfied, otherwise if this DID get recorded sometime in summer and released before then, that would mean Billy Ward ripped it off for a hit which that group laid down in September. Not implausible, as we know Sylvia Vanderpool was a good writer, but unlikely all the same because of what followed.

The plan had been to put I Found Somebody To Love on the flip of her next highly promoted song A Million Tears, released about two weeks after that Dominoes cut, but they quickly reversed themselves and chose another pop-leaning song Don’t Blame My Heart, instead, maybe worried that this would overwhelm the other song and wanting to promote Vanderpool’s pop-crossover potential didn’t want to see that chance get subverted altogether.

But it made little sense to sit on this new song, especially when it was closely related to another far bigger act’s recent release which was climbing the charts, so they paired it with the rocking Drive Daddy Drive, again thinking the two likeminded songs would attract the same degenerate listeners. Despite having heavily promoted Jubilee 5100 with big ads the previous two weeks, they slipped a smaller ad for the re-worked team-up of the two rock-centric cuts in the trades for mid-November, saying how this was a new backing side thereby giving us our answer as to its specific vintage.

We’re still putting it here – for now – in August so as not to confuse everybody more than we already have.

None of this would’ve been necessary had the label’s head not been so far up its own ass that they couldn’t see very well. In the process they might just have cost themselves a hit… or if not a hit, or at least a more highly regarded near-miss instead of be left with a far too obscure song that has more confusion surrounding it than praise for what it actually contains.
 
 
SPONTANEOUS LUNACY VERDICT:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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