=Wednesday, January 28, 2009

A House by the Side of the Road - Lee Martell

Up this week is another single out of Nashville, Tennessee...

A House By The Side Of The Road - Lee Martell - Renegade



Much like Eddie Mobley last week, there isn't a whole lot of information available on Lee Martell (a.k.a. Lee Bynem). What I do know is that he recorded two very soulful 45s for the Renegade label under the name Martell, A House By The Side of the Road* (1970) and A Good Woman (1971) as well as one 45 under the name Bynem for the True label, Two Warm Bodies. As a whole, the Renegade label only released four 45s in all, the two credited to Martell listed previously, one from Lattimore Brown that is supposedly relatively easy to score, and one from Jimmie Baker that's considered to be fairly rare. The soulful nature of the Renegade 45s is somewhat surprising based on the label credentials, as the label was run by Chuck Chellman, a Nashville-area country music promoter and producer (who is also credited with starting the Country Music Disc Jockey Hall of Fame in 1974).

*While Bynem is credited with writing his later Renegade single, A Good Woman, today's selection is credited to Gloria Shayne and Pearl Bender. I haven't been able to dig anything up on Pearl Bender. What is still leaving my curious is if the Gloria Shayne credited with writing today's single is the same woman credited with the Christmas classic, Do You Hear What I Hear?

P.S. For more Renegade records coverage, head over to Sir Shambling's Deep Soul Heaven

2 comments:

Soul Son said...

One of Gloria's great songs.
Yes, she is the same co-writer of the classic Christmas songs "Do You Hear What I Hear", and she also wrote "What I Want I Can Never Have" the flip to Jimmy Radcliffe's "Long After Tonight Is All Over".
In fact it was Jimmy Radcliffe's recording of "A House By The Side Of The Road" that lead Arthur Prysock to record the song in 1966-67 I believe.

greg a.k.a. DJ GA said...

Thanks a lot for the additional information. The Gloria Shayne connection certainly makes for an interesting bit of music trivia.