Have A Smile With Me (1964)

1. Smack Dab In The Middle
2. Feudin' And Fightin'
3. Two Ton Tessie
4. I Never See Maggie Alone
5. Move It On Over
6. Ma (She's Making Eyes At Me)
7. The Thing
8. The Man With The Weird Beard
9. The Naughty Lady Of Shady Lane
10. Who Cares (For Me)

The UK (EMI) release specified the personnel.

A concept album of saucy and silly comedy songs, and with that the counterpart of the preceding album Sweet & Sour Tears.

Personnel:
Curt Miller, Oliver Beener, Floyd Jones, Philip Guilbeau, John Hunt, Roy Burrowes, Wallace Davenport - trumpets; Henderson Chambers, Julian Priester, Keg Johnson - trombones; Danny Turner, Harold Geezil Minerve, Bill Pearson, Hank Crawford - alto saxophones; David Fathead Newman, James Clay - tenor saxophones; Leroy Cooper - baritone saxophone;  Sonny Forriest, Al Hendrickson - guitar; Wilbert  Hogan, Irving Cottler, Bob Thompson (drums). Background vocals: The Jack Halloran Singers, The Raelettes. Unknown contributor roles: Frank Gauna; James Austin.
Arrangers: Gerald Wilson (#5, 10), Johnny Parker (#3, 4, 7,8, 9), Benny Carter (#1, 2, 6). Produced by Sid Feller.


Some sources say that #5 and #10 were recorded between gigs in Los Angeles, in the first Days of May '64, but Move It On Over and Who Cares (For Me) were recorded in 1962 at the Capitol Studios in New York City for, but left off, Modern Sounds I in 1962. Ray pulled them out for Have A Smile With Me two years later (instead of using the original Capitol stereo mix, to get more billing, Bell Sound remixed it, badly; cf. 1, 2).
Steve Hoffman remarked, "Irony is in the fact that the great songs like Smack Dab In The Middle, which were done at Bell originally were ALSO given a bad sounding remix and the original mixes discarded. So, at one time both sets of mixes remained for the [Have A] Smile With Me album, eventually only the mono original mixes were left, sad to say."

The other 'comedy' tracks were recorded in New York on May 7th, 1964.

ABC/Paramount 495, June 1964.