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Mason Williams Songs

Overview

Mason Williams Songs --- 1966

This appears to be a demo recording intended to showcase the music and comedy of the then still relatively unknown singer-songwriter, Mason Williams. The DAVON etchings in the A&B side runouts signify that this record was issued by [l837215], an independent publishing company that likely was handling Williams' material at the time. Three of the "Pop Ballads" on Side One wound up being re-recorded by Williams (with far more elaborate arrangements than the stripped down renditions heard on this LP) for inclusion on later releases. Based on what could be readily found online, two of the songs from Side One (I Love You Little Girl, Sun Song) were never recorded for commercial release anywhere. Although three of the "Pop Ballads" were never reproduced for commercial release by Williams himself, they eventually did see the light of day, having been recorded and released by others. Those songs, and a list of the popular artists who released them, are as follows: A2: If I Had A Ship - [a326125], [a1014566] (Swedish Garage band) A3: Yes, I Can Feel It - [a326125] A9: Three Song [a573279] (Disclaimer: This list is not intended to be comprehensive. It is entirely possible that other artists recorded these songs as well.) Side Two of this demo was used to highlight Williams' comedic talents (in the 1960s he worked as a gag writer on "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour;" in 1980, he had a brief stint as a writer for "Saturday Night Live") Most of the 17 tracks are humorous musical vignettes, under a minute in length, There are also some spoken word poetic bits. Inexplicably, the heading on the label for tracks B14-B16 reads "A collection of 21 poems" but the the total number indicated on the track titles themselves adds up to 27. When listening to the tracks, the actual number of poems heard turns out to be somewhere around 10. Hard to know if this was a mistake or just part of the joke.