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Merlino, a professional singer who fell into the game as a lucrative sideline, estimates that he recorded some 10,000 song-poems between 1960 and 1975, the period generally recognized as the genre's golden era. He likens the process to an assembly line. Moonlighting session players would receive a cobbled-together musical arrangement, singers would be given the lyrics, and production would begin, one eye always on the clock. ''In an average day, we could lay down about 40 or 50 songs,'' he says. ''We rarely did more than one take. It's not glamorous, but I had more fun doing these things than I had doing anything else in the business.''
Merlino counts himself lucky to have known the late arranger-singer-musician Rodd Keith (né Rodney Keith Eskelin). Keith, who worked in the song-poem business until 1974 (when he either jumped or fell to his death from an overpass onto the Hollywood Freeway), has been likened to Brian Wilson and Burt Bacharach for his meticulous renderings of often banal material. One of his productions, ''Ecstacy [sic] to Frenzy,'' sounds like a lost '60s masterpiece, all Beach Boys harmonies and creamy, layered psychedelia. ''Rodd was a very talented songwriter,'' says Merlino. ''But the guy was fried on all kinds of drugs. You never knew whether he was gonna be halfway out of his mind or all the way out of his mind when you came into the studio, but he was brilliant.''
Another unheralded hero of the song-poem story is Tom Ardolino, drummer of cult rock band NRBQ. Ardolino, a self-confessed ''record nut,'' got hooked on song-poems when he stumbled on an LP called ''Variety Songs for '69'' by Rodd, Teri & the MSR Singers in a used-record bin in the early '70s. ''It was this totally strange album with songs like 'Richard Nixon,''' says Ardolino. ''Somehow, I figured out that it was a collection of songs from those companies that would advertise for lyricists in magazines.''
Ardolino began putting selections from ''Variety Songs'' on mix tapes for friends. ''Tom sent me a tape, and I flipped,'' recalls Kaplan. Ardolino also started haunting flea markets and secondhand stores for albums and 45s of song-poems, amassing a sizable collection. ''I don't think these companies pressed many copies of these things,'' he says. ''They claimed they'd send them out to radio stations, and maybe they did.''
Milstein says that pressings -- as well as promotional efforts -- were indeed limited, in most cases ranging from a handful of copies to as many as 100 for the lyricist, with a few shipped to radio. In no cases did a hit record result. ''It is a rip-off on a certain level,'' admits Milstein, who nonetheless contends that the finished products can approach the level of art.
If there's a sucker born every minute, the same can be said for song-poets. The industry is still booming. Art Kaufman has been a ''song-shark'' (industry vernacular for a song-poem magnate) since 1984, when he started Magic Key Productions. Today, Kaufman, whose song factory operates from Cedar City, Utah, charges an average of $350 to produce a song-poem (although he sometimes offers a $99 ''special'' for an arrangement with just voice and guitar). ''I've found that a lot of people want to express themselves since 9/11,'' he says. ''When there's bad news, that's good news for the business.'' Kaufman normally presses between 10 and 20 CDs for a customer and, rather than send songs out to radio, posts them on his site (redrockrecords.com).
The business may get yet another boost through the upcoming film ''Great Unknowns,'' based on Rodd Keith's life. The movie is currently in development with the indie Archer Entertainment and is slated to begin production in the spring.
''His story immediately seemed like a movie to me,'' says scriptwriter Tal McThenia. ''The more research I did on Rodd's life, the story just seemed to grow richer and richer.''
Whether or not the Keith biopic helps make song-poems trendy, Milstein believes these ditties serve a purpose. ''There are a lot of people out there who have something to say, and they're very frustrated because the mainstream music industry won't give them any access. There's a lot of musical and social validity to this.''
You won't get any argument from Waskey Walls Jr., the 75-year-old Native American farmhand who penned ''Jimmy Carter Says Yes'' (which Yo La Tengo have performed live) in the '70s and has written ''30 or 40'' song-poems over the years. ''It was nice, the way they recorded my songs,'' he says. ''I'm very happy with them.''
Another satisfied customer!
