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Janis Martin, 1956, Age 15
Image courtesy of the WRVA Collection, Library of
Virginia
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After 6 1/2 years of graduate school and much blood, sweat and tears, my Master's thesis "Sweet nothings: women in rockabilly music: LaVern Baker and Janis Martin" has been published and is available for download (free!) online through my university. It is 99 pages of rockabilly goodness, focusing on LaVern Baker and Janis Martin, of course.
Lewin-Lane, Stephanie P., "Sweet nothings: women in rockabilly music: LaVern Baker and Janis Martin" (2012). Theses and Dissertations. Paper 11. http://dc.uwm.edu/etd/11
The most exciting part is that I was granted permission to include transcripts of several interviews with Janis Martin, and her mother Jewel, that have never been available for scholarship. This was through the generosity of documentary filmmakers Beth Harrington (Welcome to the Club) and Elizabeth Blozan (Rebel Beat: The Story of L.A. Rockabilly).
Do yourself a favor and check it out. It's an easy read, if I do say so myself!
"Tea for Two," which was actually recorded in 1955. Accompanied only by piano, Kenney's voice has a fragility on par with fellow 50s vocalist 
, with a shot of 
and 
thrown in. I agree completely that she is obscure enough to be "rediscovered" for this compilation, yet this track sets a high standard for the rest of the album as well.
immediately catches the listener with his question "Are you ready for some Boogie Woogie?!?" and jumps into a high energy audio assault of vocals, stride piano, guitar, bass, drums, conga drums and a pair of saxes. Like Kenney, McNeely has been making music for quite some time and helps to create the base on which the other tunes on the CD will be compared to, conscious or not. The contrast of this jump blues tune against the first really grabbed me and I started to look forward to the next tune.
did not let me down and became my favorite on the compilation. The mix of jazz, torch song, and big band with dance pop is to me the essence of what This Is Vintage Now should be, a marriage of old and new in a way that supports each other. The short instrumental sax and piano jazz samples are perfectly blended behind a catchy vocal line to almost create a call and answer within the verse. The addition of a horn section over a pop band harkens back to Joe Jackson's successful crossover album 
, however this tune is much more dance oriented.
, and the song "Piece" is noteworthy with compelling lyrics, however it is awkward in the context of this particular compilation. It is not the sparseness of the instrumentation, voice and piano, because the first song on the CD is the same. It is more that the song has too much of an indie feel to it compared to the other songs. This is felt mostly in the melody line in the verse which tends to linger around the same note. The bridge section is closer to a "vintage" sound in that the melody and lyrics are on equal footing much more like a Tin Pan Alley song, however the bridge is only 16 bars out of essentially a 48 bar song. While I would agree that Charnelle's song is channeling a 
sound, this is really the only song on this CD to cover this type of genre and it really sticks out.
is nice blend of lounge, exotica and bossa jazz, with a little bit of gypsy thrown in. This tunes definitely makes me think of 
album in that it is fleshing out a jazz idiom with native flavor. The juxtaposition of vibes, flute and violin in the different sections of the tune outline each flavor and provide quite a bit of texture in a fairly short song (3:22) for this genre. I personally would have liked the quicker middle section to have been longer to allow the soloists to explore more.
meets the 
. The use of a shout chorus and a guitar that fills in for the absence of a horn section is effective, giving the song a firm swing feel to it. There is no solo section in this tune which is unusual, however the song does not drag on due to the switch in underlying tempo textures in each section of the 16 bar blues.
. Creveling is another talented but overlooked jazz singer that has a fluid, sing-songy sound similar to a younger 
or even 
ala "Come On A My House." She is backed by a combo of piano, bass and drums and has a sound typical of most female jazz vocalists at that time. What is atypical is that she was 18 when she recorded the album that the track comes from, 
and 
decided to cover a 
song at a circus. The lack of percussion in this song just adds to the amorphous feeling of floating through a dream, however the echo on the guitar adds a sinister sense of excitement as you half expect a zombie clown (courtesy of the glock). I love it and fits perfectly within the theme of this CD.
. Billed as Halloween jazz/swing, the group is a combo with vocals and sax that teeters on the brink of a rockabilly shuffle sound. There is something restrained about this particular recording that I can't quite place my finger on. It's as if everyone but the sax player is holding back or is fatigued from a day of recording. I keep expecting more as the song goes on and it never quite gets there. I would have especially liked to have heard more from the vocalist who has a powerful and expressive voice, perhaps some scatting. Overall this tune fits within the objective of the compilation yet is unremarkable in defining a new vintage sound in and of itself.
" with a few verses of Digital Underground's "
" in the middle. Below is an example of how this works:
" which is a continuation of their hard-edged rockabilly and honky-tonk sound. One of the things I like most about their music, which also sets them apart from many groups of the same style, is that they have a lot of layering in their music. Much of this is because each band member is an accomplished musician in many genres which allows them to fill space in a tasteful way. They are also very good at listening to each other and responding musically to what is going on in the moment. This is very much apparent in a live show because you can see the interaction of the players through eye contact with each other, as well as the individual concentration in the rhythm section, particularly drums, that produces a constant rhythmic movement underneath the vocals that is alive and evolving until the song ends.
