THAT SONG-POEM JUBILLEE

Had a request for some Rodd Keith songs-poems. Song-poems, as extensivley documented on Phil Milstein's crucial American Song-Poem Music Archive, were lyrics sent in by anyone with the money to have them set to music by "today's top musicians and singers!" And Rodd Keith(aka Rod Rogers, Cleveland Becker, Lindon Bridges, etc) was perhaps the genre's greatest singer/songwriter of lyrics so awkward (or awful) that few mortals would even attempt getting a good song out them, much less actually succeedding. (Since the ASPMA has taken down their mp3s, I'll put up a few.)

Case in point, this well-meaning, if corny mid-'60s social statement that Rodd infuses with noir atmosphere:
Rodd Keith: Los Angeles City Lights
now available on a new Keith collection, "Saucers In The Sky."

From the sublime to the, well, you know...'60s electronics-a-go-go:
Rod Rogers and the Swinging Strings: That Martian Jubilee

Tragically, Keith died when he fell (was pushed? jumped?) from an LA freeway overpass on to traffic in 1974. Thanks to his son, saxophonist Ellery Eskelin for preserving his music. And, of course, thanks to the anonymous Middle Americans who forked over the 200 bucks or so to have their doggerel set to music, without which the song-poem phenomenon (or today's post) wouldn't have been possible.