My Buick, My Love and I

My pal Ernie and I share a love for old promo records, so I was intrigued when he sent me a link to this specimen - "My Buick, My Love and I" by the illustrious team of Gisele MacKenzie and Gordon MacRae, dating from 1951.

It turns out that this song has a bit of a back history - and some more recent history as well.

I  also discovered in the course of doing this post that I actually had uploaded this song several years ago as a bonus to a MacKenzie album. But this post is far more complete and the transfer is much better.

Olds, Buick and Pontiac in Song

Songs promoting specific automobiles go back almost as far as the contraptions themselves. And they were contraptions in 1905 when Gus Edwards and Vincent P. Bryan came out with "In My Merry Oldsmobile." The song became popular and was used by the Olds people for many years as a theme song.

The 1905 Oldsmobile

Other songwriters recognized a good thing, so in 1909 Victor Smalley and Bernie Sidler decided to extol the virtues of the 10-year-old Buick marque with their song "I Love My Horse and Wagon, but Oh! You Buick Car." Then in 1922, there was a more romantic item called "Take Me on a Buick Honeymoon" by Art Hickman and Ben Black.

Neither of these Buick songs had the enduring appeal of "In My Merry Oldsmobile." It probably was the most famous automotive promotional song until Ronny and the Daytonas came out with "GTO" (usually called "Little GTO") in 1964. It was written in honor of the then new Pontiac GTO, the first of the so-called "muscle cars" of the 60s. Accounts differ about whether the song was the idea of the Pontiac promotional people or the musicians, but there is no doubt that Pontiac used it to hype the new GTO into a bit of a craze.

I am sure there have been many more auto-related songs - not to mention jingles - but let's turn to "My Buick, My Love and I."

'My Buick, My Love and I'

It's not clear where the idea of "My Buick, My Love and I" originated, although I suspect it was commissioned by Buick in 1951 from movie composer Frank Skinner and lyricist Jack Brooks. It first came out on both sides of an SRS-Capitol promotional release with one side by MacRae and MacKenzie, and the other by the Mellomen, a well-known studio quartet that featured Thurl Ravenscroft and Bill Lee. I haven't been able to discover what Buick did to promote the song at the time, save for a fellow recollecting that his college marching band had to play it at all their games because they had received a donation from Buick. That in itself does not seem like much of a marketing plan, so there must have been more to it.

Regardless, Skinner was fond of the piece and wanted to get it more exposure. He paid to have the promo record sent out to deejays, scaring up enough interest that Capitol decided to issue a commercial version of the MacRae-MacKenzie rendition, backing it with their duet on "A Lover's Waltz.

That's the story as related in a late 1951 Billboard article. And while it may be true, it is almost exactly the same tale that Capitol had put out a year earlier with regard to "Hoppy, Topper and Me," a Margaret Whiting record about cowboy star Hopalong Cassidy. It too was first issued as a promo and then a commercial disc. (The Hoppy song also has appeared on this blog.) In both cases, I suspect Capitol was just trying to attract some attention and press coverage.

What they were promoting - the toothy 1952 Buick

"Hoppy, Topper and My Buick" - err, "My Buick, My Love and I" was not a commercial success, as far as I can discern, and the critic at Billboard sneeringly advised deejays that "spins should be paid for at the regular commercial rate." But the song did later find some use as the theme of Milton Berle's Buick-Berle Show that appeared on American TV from 1953-56.

It's not a bad tune in the old-timey style popular in the early 50s, although it was clearly inspired by "In My Merry Oldsmobile." In recent years the song has had a surprising revival. I was amazed to find that it has been recorded by comic-turned-crooner Seth MacFarland and Nashville legend Reba McIntyre. I do not know what sparked their interest.

The download includes the versions by the MacKenzie-MacRae duo and the Mellomen, along with the Macs' recording of "A Lover's Waltz," which Capitol had previously issued backed by the unpromisingly titled "On Rosary Hill" (not included). As far as I can tell, these are the only records Mac and Mac made together.

By the way, if you want to check some automotive promo items on my other site, there is a post devoted to a 1970 album by The Going Thing, a Ford-sponsored group, and one to the dealer introduction show for the ill-fated Edsel, not one of Ford's better ideas.

Gisele MacKenzie and Hits from 1955

I have been neglecting this blog lately in favor of the parent blog, so to make amends, I will start posting a series of EPs that RCA issued in its Camden budget series under the titles "Today's Hits" or "Today's Top Hits'.

The series will include entries from the Honey Dreamers, Snooky Lanson, Bob Carroll and perhaps others. We start off with this 1955 issue by Gisele MacKenzie, a charming and talented performer of the time. MacKenzie's strengths were her flawless intonation and diction. I do believe she could sing most anything, which served her well on the television program Hit Parade, where she was one of the resident singers.

A hat wearing Gisele

In 1955, musical tastes were changing, and so in addition to pop songs, you would hear tunes such as "Two Hearts, Two Kisses," originated by the R&B group Otis Williams and the Charms, and covered by Pat Boone. "Two Hearts, Two Kisses" is actually the best performed song of the four at hand.

MacKenzie is less successful with "Unchained Melody," which lacks passion, and "The Breeze and I," which does not at all convey regret. "Unchained Melody" (from the film Unchained) was first an instrumental hit for Les Baxter and then a vocal hit for Al Hibbler. The Righteous Brothers had a huge success with it 10 years later "The Breeze and I" is a vocal version of Ernesto Lecuona's "Andalucia," and was on the US charts first in 1940 (Jimmy Dorsey-Bob Eberly) and then in 1955 (Caterina Valente).

From a Billboard ad

"Play Me Hearts and Flowers" was introduced by Johnny Desmond, who sang it on a television program, but was really not much of a hit. I featured Desmond's LP of the same name on my other blog a few years back.

The backing here is by Alvy West. I enjoyed the recordings he made with Sinatra some years before this, but these are not in that league. "Unchained Melody" sounds feeble and "The Breeze and I" is stereotypical. The recording of the band isn't very good, either - although Gisele sounds fine.