When Pea-Pickers Get Together (mp3s)

Down in the Valley/Medley
(The More We Get Together, Dear Evalina, Keep on the Sunny Side of Life, How Many Biscuits Can We Eat, For He’s a Jolly Green Giant)

How the Green Giant Found His Song (and almost lost his HO! HO! HO!)/Good Things from the Garden (as heard on TV)

Here’s a bit of pure fun from America’s favorite frozen vegetable company, Green Giant. A collection of happy songs with Tennessee Ernie Ford and a bit of drama with the Green Giant himself. There’s no copyright date on the record, but the musical style suggests the period from 1955-1962. There’s also no indication as to whether it’s a stereo or a mono recording, which may be an oversight but may also date it to a time before stereo became common in the home.

My best guess is that this was a mail-in premium, the sort of benevolent pro-frozen vegetable propaganda that children would enjoy as their minds hard-wired the Green Giant as the best source of tasty greens. All the songs feature Tennessee Ernie Ford on lead vocals, backed by the perky Green Giant Singers. Side 1 opens with “Down in the Valley,” then jumps to a quick medley of songs about valleys and food.

Side 2, sadly a bit more rough than Side 1, tells the story of how the Green Giant song came to be. Mr. Ford and the Jolly One are, it seems, friends enough that the Giant can lean on Mr. Ford for some free jingle-writing. The script by Bob Pride is as good as any Rankin-Bass children’s show, and as catchy, without being too heavy on the advertising message.

You’ll have the Green Giant’s theme stuck in your head by the end of it, but you’ll also be smiling. Maybe you’ll even get a hankering for some frozen peas.

Hidden in Plain Sight Secret Message Postscript
Congratulations for reading below the fold! As a reward, here’s some more information for you and you alone. The Super-Secret Safe-Harbor Broadcast of Hear It Wow will happen this Monday night at midnight, in all the usual places you’re used to hearing the show, be it over the air on 91.5 FM or through one of the convenient links on this blog. I’ll be playing two entire albums that I can’t get away with in my regular slot, plus Side 3 of THE SOURCE SUMMER MOVIE SPECTACULAR, and a couple of songs with filthy lyrics, if there’s time.

That’s 12-2AM this Monday, March 19. Sucks if you’re on the East Coast, but that’s still early for the rest of this country, and it’s morning in some other parts of the world. Can’t stay up? You know I’ll post the podcast, and you do need the beauty sleep. You look a bit peaked.

There’s also a show on Thursday at the regular time—Monday is a bonus broadcast for your adult listening enjoyment.