"A Cottage For Sale".....

[electra225]

I'm not a Frankie Laine fan by any means, but I love this song he recorded in 1958 or so. I have it on a 45. My dad like it as well, and I can remember him out on his Oliver tractor, plowing, singing this song louder than the straight exhaust pipe on his tractor.

"Our little dream castle, with every dream gone
Is lonely and silent, the shades are all drawn.
My heart is heavy as I gaze upon a cottage for sale.

The lawn we were proud of is waving in hay.
Our beautiful garden has withered away.
Where you planted posies the weeds seem to say
"a cottage for sale"....

From every single window, I see your face.
But when I reach a window, there's empty space.
The key's in the mailbox, the same as before.
Now no one is waiting for me, any more.
The end of our story is told on the door...
A cottage for sale"........

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r ... &FORM=VIRE

[TC Chris]

A song from 1929, and almost every famous singer has done it since, with the last being Willie Nelson in 2021. Read the list here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Cottage_for_Sale

There was a time when songs were covered by lots of artists. I wonder how many people will be singing Taylor Swift songs in 5 years... 10 years... 92 years. I've got a guess.

Chris Campbell

[William]

I bet I have the same guess, Chris.

Bill

[electra225]

I don't believe I know a single song associated with Taylor Swift. You can buy a new Taylor Swift album at Walmart for $40. I'll pass......

I had no idea "A Cottage For Sale" had been recorded by so many artists.

I need to look on my Frankie Laine record and see what orchestra he recorded this song with. I'm guessing Frank DeVol, but I don't know that. I tried finding out who played the clarinet lead on the record, but came up empty.....

[TC Chris]

I don't believe I know a single song associated with Taylor Swift. You can buy a new Taylor Swift album at Walmart for $40. I'll pass......

Me neither. I don't think I've ever heard one except maybe in news reports about tours, and that sounded like so much screeching to me. From what I have read, her songs are mostly autobiographical--her latest breakup, disappointments in love, etc. Who gives a flying F, anyway? Apparently her followers do, but to them, I'd suggest, get a life.

The enduring songs address similar topics, but more universally: not the singer's latest breakup or disappointment, but breakups and disappointments in general. The reason so many major artists performed "Cottage for Sale" is likely in major part because it said something they thought was more universal. Perhaps some of them thought of their own losses & disappointments while singing it, but they understood that the audiences would hear it in the context of their own experiences.

Please don't accuse me of old-fartism. "Cottage for Sale" falls squarely in the category of "parents' music" and if it had come on the radio when I was a teen, I would have hit the tuning knob pronto. Now my taste has improved to include many types of music that I would not have tolerated as a kid.

But not Taylor Swift.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

My mother won an album of ten Columbia 45-rpm records in 1958 or 1959. I still have them. Tony Bennett, Jo Stafford, Johnny Cash, Johnny Mathis, Sammy Kaye, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Doris Day were among the artists. The record I cited was among those. Mom went to Indy and appeared on Jim Shelton's "Pick a Pocket" program on WIBC radio, broadcast from the vestibule of the Circle Theater. This may sound rinky-dink today, but, back then, it was a big deal. Mom made the newspaper for her expedition. The Duchess Record Shop sponsored the show, so they provided some of the prizes. The vestibule of the Circle Theater must have been about 5000 square feet. The place was huge. Jim Shelton had a floor-length coat with pockets on it. You would choose which pocket you wanted to play for, then Jim would ask you a question or make you do a stunt to win what was in the pocket. The show was on right after Fred Heckaman and Harry Andrews' farm and news show that came on at noon. To be a contestant, you had to send in a form, then Jim would draw your name. You had to be listening to the radio so you would know if you had been chosen. Like I said, rinky dink today, but it was THE show to be on if you lived in Indiana in the 1950's.

The Duchess Record Shop, 809 North Delaware Street in Indy had everything you could imagine related to records or recorded music. Records, tape, needles, they sold record players of all types. They were higher than some of the department stores, but if it ever existed, they had one of them.....

I'd like to go to Indy some of these days and see what is at that address today. Delaware Street was one block east of Meridian Street, the main drag in Indy. If my fading memory serves, that is. I spent all the time I could in that record shop.

[William]

Greg, according to Mr. Google this is the current business at your old record shop:

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.7780374 ... FQAw%3D%3D

And speaking of the Circle Theater, here is a short video that you might enjoy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo36ods ... rt_radio=1

Bill

[Conelrad]

Taylor who?

[electra225]

I remembered more buildings than there is in that picture, Bill. The front of the building is all different. It's been over 60 years since I was there last time. I remember the building as being long, so that is still the same. The records were in the part with the canopy over the door, the record players were in the part to the right in that picture. Monument Circle has all changed since I saw it last. Abel's Auto Company, a used car business, was at 1030 North Meridian, a three-story structure. Their schtick was cars up to ten years old. You used to have to drive right down the main drag, Meridian Street, to get to the stockyards on the south end of town. It was four lanes, even back in the day. Hot as the hubs of "you know where" in the summertime, with all the buildings on both sides of the road. IIRC, US 31 was one of the first, if not THE first, roads to be four lane in that part of the country. It went thru Westfield, a little town that was dad's hangout. I think it is the same US 31 that goes up into Michigan. Known as the roughest road in the entire United States, with the possible exception of US 49 in Oklahoma......

Looks like 1030 North Meridian might be covered by parts of Interstate 65?

I see that Pennsylvania Street is between Meridian and Delaware.

"Taylor who?"

[TC Chris]

Here's my record store, Lucky's, in Bay City, MI. That's me on the left, younger, skinnier, & with hair, and my buddy on the right. We were models for a HS yearbook ad for Lucky's. My brother was the photographer.

Lucky's had a wonderful mono sound system. There was a turntable behind a Plexiglas cover. The clerk was place the record and lift the arm over, a long transcription arm, and the best sound ever wold fill the store.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

I have been reading a book about David Buick. Did you know that Bay City was considered as the site for a big Buick plant in the early 1900's? I didn't....

I remember digging thru the thousands of albums in a well-stocked record store back in the day.

[TC Chris]

Earlier this winter I read a biography of Walter Chrysler, and it discussed Buick some. It did not tell me about the proposed plant. There was a local wealthy family in BC. Back in the late 19th century they had owned a bicycle factory. Then when cars came on the scene and were displacing bikes as the modern mode of transport, they sold their plant to a startup automobile company. They were the laughingstocks of the city because they got most of the purchase price in stock, not cash. Hoo-hah, what a bunch of rubes. But the new company was called General Motors. He who laughs last.... None of them actually worked after that.

Later it was a Chevy parts plant; now they make camshafts there, I think.

My great-grandfather moved his family around a lot because he eventually got a job with the railroad. They lived in Flint for a while. My great-aunt write a short autobiography and listed some of her little friends in their Flint neighborhood. One of them was Margery Durant. Wait... Flint, Durant? Checked it out and yes, Billy Durant had a daughter named Margery and the years matched up. So Aunt Edna probably met the man who created General Motors.

On the other side of the family, my brother found an article about a maternal great-grandfather. He had 7 kids in TN and his wife died, so he left the kids behind and took off for TX and was an engineer for the Santa Fe, and then for the Rock Island line. In TX, he took off with the wife of Presbyterian minister. She had "received his attentions and clandestinely left her home and husband." They made a grand journey around the principal cities of the North and East and then settled in OK, where they got married. Then he died in a train wreck. This is all from a news article about the custody battle when his son, my grandfather, went from TN to OK to get custody of his 4 youngest siblings fro the stepmother.

It all makes my life seem kinda boring. For excitement I took my ice skates to work and afterward went skating at a little city rink on the way home. It was 16 deg. out and the wind was blowing 30 mph from the north and I hadn't been on ice skates in 20 years so the outing didn't last too long. The only others were a young couple at least 50 years younger than I am who kindly tolerated the old guy wobbling around.

Chris Campbell