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Mel-o-dy 110 (A), January 1964
b/w Beautiful Women
(Written by Gene Henslee and Mary Yielding)
The one and only Motown appearance of Gene Henslee, and the Mel-o-dy label’s third out-and-out Country & Western outing, this is among the rarest of these weird little curios.
It’s actually quite good fun to start out with, rockabilly rhythms rolling along with more than a hint of early Elvis, the opening fiddles giving way to some pedal steel guitar and to Henslee himself, whose anodyne but tuneful voice suits the melody of the song if not the sentiment (a recognition of the error of the narrator’s ways, and an acknowledgement that it’s now time to pay for past mistakes). When we get a 12-bar blues break just past the one minute mark, with the stomp of boots and slap of bass both briefly audible, this is surprisingly good.
Then, our Gene has to go and ruin it. All but the guitar is faded right down an angelic chorus of female backing vocals strikes up, and Henslee begins recanting his sins in spoken-word sermon fashion, making his peace with the Almighty with as much feeling as if he were reading Him the weekly shopping list. It’s clumsy, stagey and devoid of any passion at all.
A real shame, as it kills any momentum the record had previously built up stone dead. As if in recognition of this bad decision (and neatly mirroring the subject matter, though surely accidentally) the song then abruptly draws to an embarrassed close, leaving it to clock in shy of two and a half minutes’ duration having had nowhere near the emotional impact it was looking for. A pity – this could really have been half-decent, too.
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!)
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Never heard of the record or the man, but this does make curious about what your opinion will be of the equally-unknown-to-me Bobby Breen, who I know happens to have the last sequential 45rpm release on Motown before the historic turning point that Number 1060 would all but instantly become.
Update: but I just did some google-hunting and turns out Breen was a one-time kid star and is actually on the cover of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band!”
http://www.spaciousplanet.com/world/guide/who-are-all-those-people-in-sgt-peppers-lonely-hearts-club-band
Talk about ‘The More You Know,’ huh…? đŸ˜® Sorry about the getting off topic.
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Henslee is highly obscure in Motown circles, but a quick web search bears out the claim in the TCMS 4 liner notes that he’s considered a rockabilly legend. Quoth the liner notes (hopefully Keith Hughes and Bill Dahl won’t mind me reproducing their work here, but Henslee deserves some more online presence):
“Gene Henslee, from Boswell, Oklahoma, was a veteran country singer who began his lengthy career by forming the Rancho Valley Boys, a Western swing outfit, back in the ’40s in Artesia, New Mexico. he signed with Lew Chudd’s Hollywood-based Imperial label in 1953, debuting with How Can I Tell You. Rockabilly collectors revere Henslee’s Imperial releases Diggin And Datin and Rockin’ Baby as prototypes of the genre. Henslee moonlighted as a DJ at KIHN in Hugo, Oklahoma.”
After his super-brief Motown stint, he seems to have had a long career elsewhere, including a re-recording of Shambles for UA’s Brownfield label (though the video available on YouTube labelled as the UA cut is actually the Motown version, and so I’m not linking to it).
Bobby Breen we’ll be getting to in a few days’ time! In common with most obscure Motown signings, he has one cut I rather like.
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Gene Henslee had some good chart success with Imperial Records in the ’50s. This cut is a little better than its flip. A 3 rating is about right.
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Gene is clearly imitating Ray Price here (“Crazy Arms,” “Heartaches By the Number”). “Shambles” even uses Ray’s famous fiddle introduction.
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