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VIP 25012 (A), November 1964
b/w Happy Ghoul Tide
(Written by “Ray Oddis”)
Towards the end of 1964, Motown embarked upon another concerted exercise in cupboard-clearing, resulting in a slew of dismal A-sides that were either rush-released (like the two Jerk records we’ve just seen), or things which had been sitting around for ages, or things which were only put out as favours.
All of these “problem” Motown 45s came out in one big concentrated burst, over something like a two-week span at the end of November ’64, shoved out and quickly forgotten – but that means here on Motown Junkies we get to wade through them all in order, one shoddy record after another, side after side. Lucky us.
Every source I’ve ever seen states that “Ray Oddis” didn’t exist; The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 4 state that between them, comedians Bert Haney and Brice Armstrong were responsible for the two sides of this record – apparently, this one’s Brice, the B-side’s Bert – and that story was backed up by Mr Haney himself here on Motown Junkies a little while ago. But Al Abrams (see comments!) has confirmed that there really was a Ray Oddis, a pseudonym for DJ Ray Otis, and their voices are identical – it’s clearly the same person.
So, that’s that mystery finally cleared up, then. But Ray shouldn’t be too proud; the result is this, commonly quoted as the worst single Motown ever released.
A vanity novelty designed to win over a DJ to the Motown cause by pandering to his ego and allowing the frustrated artist within a big break… Berry Gordy had done this before, as with Joel Sebastian’s long-forgotten Angel in Blue, or the pre-Motown efforts to woo Tom Clay. But this one is, unbelievably, even worse.
This is a Christmas novelty record; it’s meant to be a re-telling of the story of Tiny Tim from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, relocated to “Bigtown, USA”, though what it actually reminds me of is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It’s also terrible.
Ray Otis has an excellent voice, probably the strongest narrator we’ve yet met among Motown’s small collection of curious spoken-word oddities – but the material is not only hammy and schlocky (obviously), it’s also really poorly written. The lines are clunky – at various points, the listener is asked to imagine what it would be like to be a wall, or a closet, or a fireplace, and there’s a startling moment where “Oddis” tells us what might have happened if you had followed (that little boy) home on Christmas Eve once the last paper was sold… You’d be arrested, I’m guessing?
It’s not just clunky literary devices that mar this, though, it’s the whole structure, the basic idea behind the record. It’s probably supposed to be a warm and uplifting tale, but it over-eggs the pudding, laying it on so thick you can’t really get involved – the music is very pretty, but unmistakeably doleful, and Ray’s dolorous monologue stops just short of asking “Are you crying yet? You’re meant to be crying”. It’s unremittingly bleak throughout, as we see dirt-poor orphan Randy in his tattered clothes trudging tearfully home from work to his tenement in the snow to look after his bed-ridden grandfather, filled with “a sad awareness that Christmas morning would be, in reality, just another morning… the crushing blow that Santa was a myth”.
Merry Christmas, listeners!
There’s a happy ending, though (I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but a load of presents mysteriously appear in Randy’s house on Christmas morning. Oh, bother, I’ve spoiled the surprise.) It’s not very important as to how those toys got into the living room – let’s just say that, maybe, there IS a Santy Claus!” Too late, guys; not only have you spent the whole song explaining how there isn’t, and how his bedridden grandad couldn’t give Randy the magic of Santa because of his disability, but if 95% of the song is unrelenting in its misery, you can’t undo it at a stroke, throwing in a sudden deus ex machina resolution whipped up out of nowhere to finish on a high note.
But its heart’s in the right place. Manipulative and mawkishly sentimental though it all is, at least it’s trying to do something nice, something in the spirit of the holiday. It’s awful, and artistically indefensible – let’s be clear on that point, this is a terrible record – and yet I can’t quite bring myself to hate it enough to mark it down as the very worst record of all time. High praise indeed.
MOTOWN JUNKIES VERDICT
(I’ve had MY say, now it’s your turn. Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, or click the thumbs at the bottom there. Dissent is encouraged!)
You’re reading Motown Junkies, an attempt to review every Motown A- and B-side ever released. Click on the “previous” and “next” buttons below to go back and forth through the catalogue, or visit the Master Index for a full list of reviews so far.
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| The Miracles “Baby Don’t You Go” |
Ray Oddis “Happy Ghoul Tide” |
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Perhaps it would’ve been better if H-D-H had a hand in the production, the Funk Bros. laying down that undeniable beat, Levi trailing Ray’s lines, the Andantes wailing in the background, ……naaaa
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I snuck a look at the list on HipoSelect, so I already knew, beyond this one, seven virtual unknown sides before the next masterpiece. We’re gonna hang in there with you, Nixon, as we did through the lame round of Jazz Workshop titles in early ’63. Don’t give it a worry; whether the record is a piece of shit or a piece of perfection, you’re always entertaining to read.
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I can’t agree with your 1/10 rating. It’s TOO HIGH! I know 1/10 is the lowest rating on your scale. But this needs to be a “0”. I also can’t agree that the break-in record on Mel-O-dy is worse than this. They are both horse droppings. But THIS is even worse than “Summit”. I can’t wait for “Happy Ghoul Tide”! It was ever so slightly “less terrible” than this. But, I guess that the difference doesn’t matter. This stuff is so incredibly awful that it makes the Richard Anthony, Bobby Breen and Irene Ryan cuts actually sound “promising”. IAt one time I collected ALL Motown Corp. records. But, I got disgusted, and I dumped the garbage including this one. Now, I see them selling for some actual money. But, I don’t regret my decision too much.
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Lmao! A 0 Robb says. Normally I would say that was too harsh, but I must agree. This song may even cross over to the negative side. -1, -2, -3, etc.
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As we stated in the “conversation” with Mr. Bert Haney, I don’t begrudge him his right to have a little fun in making these novelty records, and, maybe even make a little money off of them (which he did not). I only am sorry that it was Motown who released them. I didn’t listen to pop music stations (only R&B stations), so I never would have had the chance to hear them on the radio, in any case. I’ve never liked novelty songs of any kind. And I never liked “kiddie records” (even as a little child).
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Bad is the ‘Motown record’ nobody wants to post -even anonymously- at YouTube. I’ve looked.
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I’ve only ever seen DJ copies of this. Did it ever reach the shops?
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I don’t know about the shops, but there are definitely stock copies knocking about; the scan I have for the B-side is on the bright yellow commercial VIP label stock.
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I saw many stock copies. And, yes, many shops had it (much to their disgust). Can you imagine Ghetto record shops automatically ordering all the new releases from all Motown labels, and then finding out VIP, Mel-O-dy and some other subsidiaries had a bunch of Caucasian pop/novelty music? I have seen (and purchased from their bargain bins) most of those records. Most of them were stock copies. Although “Love Bug (Leave My Beatle Alone)” by R. Dean Taylor was never released on anything.
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I hate to break the news to you, but Ray Oddis really does exist.
That’s the full name of Ray Otis, who came to Detroit to join WKMH (later WKNR.) I helped Ray and his wife move to Detroit one weekend back when I was still in record promotion and not yet doing only PR. Maybe in 1961 or 1962. I remember how very impressed he was by the model-like qualities of the women I then dated. But then again, so was I.
I also recall that you could easily change Ray Oddis into “Odd is Ray,” and that Ray was the first person to tell me that he came from Erie, PA — “Dreary Erie, the Mistake by the Lake.”
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(go SeaWolves)
Welcome to Motown Junkies, Mr Abrams. So is the Ray Oddis on this record actually WKMH’s Ray Otis? Or were they just riffing on his name?
(By the way, if anyone has somehow failed to buy a copy of Al’s highly entertaining and informative book “Hype and Soul”, please rectify this now.)
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Thanks for the welcome and the much-appreciated good words about my book.
I don’t think that many people knew Ray’s legal name to lift it without his consent. I do know that Ray had told me about his desire to nake a record and I conveyed that to Berry. As you know I had already done this for Joel Sebastian when he was at WXYZ.
I believe Ray was only at WKMH for about a year and that he was in St. Louis by the end of 1962 before moving on to New York. He did have a great radio voice. Anyway, I always felt responsible for getting Ray released by Motown.
Now that the statute of limitations for payola have long passed, I can ‘fess up. What better way to make sure a DJ always would play your records than to let him play out his fantasy on your employer’s record label – even if he would be the only person on radio playing the record?
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On our discussion over Mel-O-dy 107, “SummitChantedMeeting”, the poster who claimed he is Bert Haney, claimed that he sang on one side of the Ray Oddis record, and his partner on the Mel-O-dy record, “Brice Notruce” sang on the other side. He also said it was fun singing “Happy Ghoul Tide”.
The Ray Oddis VIP record was released in 1864, and the publishing date on the songs was 1964. If Ray Otis was gone to St. Louis by the end of 1962. Maybe Haney and his partner DID sing on the Ray Oddis sides, and they just “borrowed” a corruption of Ray Otis’ name? Or, maybe the poster was NOT really Bert Haney (but a Motown fan prankster, who had done enough research on Haney to pose as him for a joke?).
Shouldn’t we be able to tell by comparing the voices from the Mel-O-dy sides to those of the VIP record, if they are or aren’t the same people?
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Robb:
There is a posting of a You Tube voice over by Ray Otis on line. Maybe even more than one. Just Google his name. Why not check that against the voice on the record?
Al
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Hi Al,
Thanks for this. Comparing the voice on “Randy” here with the clips of Ray Otis’ voice, they’re absolutely, unmistakably the same person – clearly Bert Haney was mistaken, and I’ll edit the review accordingly.
The B-side here, “Happy Ghoul Tide”, as with Haney and Armstrong’s “The Interview”, involves the protagonists putting on a series of silly voices, so it’s impossible to check by listening whether any of them are the same person.
However, I believe the B-side here was cut in 1962 by Bert Haney (who copped the writing credit), and that – just as with the Haney and Armstrong 45 – Motown packaged up two unrelated sides on one 7″, crediting them both (inaccurately) to the same act, perhaps knowing nobody was listening…!
Thanks again for helping to clear this up.
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Thanks for the clarification, Al. We appreciate any information we can get from people who were around back in the day, or came soon after earlier events and could have heard about them from colleagues that WERE there at r=the time they occurred.
Speaking of such things, we have a long discussion on Wade Jones’ RayBer Records two sides (just before Tamla 101, at the beginning of the Motown singles’ list). Being that you were there with Berry and Raynoma and the other early Tamla crew, and are likely the source we can tap for the earliest first or second-hand information we can access, I hope you will read those discussions and correct or corroborate our guesswork on issues with unknown answers.
One of the big questions is Berry’s connection with the records he produced that ended up on labels other than RayBer (such as Zelman, Ridge, Penny, Chant, Ken Masters on Decca, Wyatt Shepherd on UA, Frances Burnett on Coral, Little David Bush (David Ruffin) on George Goldner’s Vega Records (During Anna’s period being distributed nationally by Goldner, and The Miracles recording for his End Records.
You might also be able to provide insight about Tamla’s leasing of Little Otis’ record from The Leaner Brothers’ One-Derful Records out of Chicago, and the leasing of Herman Griffin’s Tamla release to Columbia Records, and Lee and The Leopards’ Gordy release to New York’s Laurie Records.
We’d like to know if Berry and Raynoma owned all or part of Ridge Records, which was pressed only a few months before Tamla started and the RayBer record was released, and seemingly, was pressed in the same plant, and has all 4 known cuts published by Jobete Music, and has only 2 known soon-to-be Motown artists recording for the tiny label (The Biscaynes (AKA Nick and The Jaguars) and Don McKenzie.
I hope you might also enlighten us on exactly how Gwen and Harvey’s Harvey/Tri-Phi assets and personnel were “absorbed into the Motown Family, and who owns the rights to most of that material., and also how the people that went with Roquel (Billy) Davis to Check-Mate (Chess) (Voice Masters (Lamont Dozier & some Originals’ members), David Ruffin, Alan Story, etc. were “gathered back into Motown”.
I hope you are interested enough in those topics to add to the commentary and provide more knowledge and insight to us in those discussions.
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Thanks for that invitation. I can probably help on Zelman (which I touch upon in my book) and Frances Burnett on Coral. and maybe a few others as well. I’ll look at he postings.
There’s actually a slew of audio checks of Ray Otis on line including his advertising work, so it should be easy to make a comparison. Also found an identification from 2001 of him as Ramond (sic) Oddis. By 1964 he was a much bigger force as a DJ in St. Louis than he had been in Detroit. Besides, I can’t believe Ralph Seltzer would have let someone’s name be used like that without a ton of paperwork to protect Motown.
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Good news folks.
This terrific Motown albums discography site
http://littleurl.info/rrn
has been updating lately, and seems now to included pictures of every LP cover, at least as far as I’ve looked, on Motown, Tamla, Gordy and Soul, and in more than a few instances, the exact year, month and day of release.
Have a look 🙂
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Thank you, Dave L. The above is a great site. Besides the LP covers, it contains beautiful scans of the LP labels themselves throughout the history of each of Motown’s subsidiaries. For a LP collector (which I am), that’s a real bonus.
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Christmas in July…wait it’s August now, but you guys get my point lol. I think 144man comment best describes how I feel about this record.
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Vinnie Massimino rating: 10/10
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Um… what?
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Undeniable – the quality of laughs in “Randy, the Newspaper Boy.”
I work at a shoppe in Detroit’s (gentrified) Cass Corridor, and have spent the last three months digging into the archives of Motown (thanks to the Complete Singles), listening everyday at the store. One song that makes people terrified, laugh, freak out? “Randy, the Newspaper Boy.” It’s on heavy rotation, for the sheer absurdity.
When people ask what it is, I proudly proclaim, “Motown!”
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10/10 just for the LOLs.
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My god, this truly is awful. One comment referred to it as horse droppings. It’s worse than that: horse droppings are at least of some use for growing plants, this record is no good for anything. Not only is it almost certainly the worst record Motown released in the 60s it’s a good contender for the worst record of all time. It’s even worse than Pat Campbell’s “The Deal” which was a minor UK hit in 1969 and was considered by many at one time as the worst record ever made. Of course, most of those people had not heard this monstrosity.
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I don’t think The Deal is that bad. I mean, okay, yes, it is that bad – my LEGS gave way! – but it’s up front about what it is: a spoken-word religious tract, a genre with a notoriously low quality threshold for both acting and writing (and one which Motown will be visiting around the turn of the decade).
This, on the other hand, is just baffling nonsense that neither knows what it wants to be nor has any chance of getting there – we won’t meet anything quite so staggeringly poor in both concept and execution until we meet Jud Strunk and his excruciatingly laugh-free monologue which boils down to “boobs, LOL” in the mid-Seventies.
I’ve tried to avoid doing this in the past, but yeah, there are definitely some 1s that are closer to 2 and some 1s that are closer to zero.
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I thought I’d give this another play the other day, as I haven’t heard it since I bought an imported copy of it on VIP in 1973. I played it once then and that was it, I never threw it away, as it was part of my Motown collection, but simply shelved it. I thought this time I’d play it from Hippo’s ‘Complete Motown Singles 1964’ CD set as the sound quality would probably be better than the singles. Unfortunately it still sounded equally as dire as it did 44 years ago when I first heard it. I thought my increasing age would perhaps look on it a little differently, but no, it really is bad beyond words. I would recommend to anyone who feels depressed enough to want to inflict self harm on themselves, don’t cut your wrists, simply listen to this record. The result will definitely be more painful!!
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OK. So you all prefer to knock “Randy” from stem to stern. However, I prefer to view this effort as source of inspiration. As I see it, if this poor lad in tattered clothes with no mother nor father and only the companionship of a bed-ridden granddad; a boy in such despair working all day selling newspapers and devoid of the hope of ever receiving a gift from Santa in whom he has lost all faith can wake up and discover a roomful of toys, then it is equally possible that all who are reading this may awaken one morning and discover a review for Song #689 “There’s No Love Left” by the Isley Brothers. Yes, Randy’s good fortune inspires me to believe that we may one day be rewarded with what we really want most of all. (Did I put enough pressure on you, Nix? Now you have another reason to despise “Randy, The Newspaper Boy.”)
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Just remember, there is no Santa so your wish probably wont come true!!
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Just remember, there is no Santa Claus so your wish probably wont come true!!
Perhaps someone could set up another site, so the reviews and comments could continue on later releases.
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Ho Ho Ho, motherFUCKERS. 😉
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