Here's a 45 I bought at least 25 years ago, and which has been bringing me a sort of disturbed pleasure ever since. A vanity special, in which Pinky Pinkston and the Dixie Drifters perform two unique songs, "Beggar or a Clown" and "I Am a Loser."
There was a time that a few friends of mine and I discussed (and disagreed) about whether Pinky was a man or a woman, but with the combination of the massive song-poem database, and some ads on eBay, we now know that he was Joseph Pinkston, who also made some vanity record for song-poem hybrid labels, none of which I've been fortunate to hear yet.
However, the lyrics to these songs, in places, remain a mystery to me.
A friend and I once went to the Chicago address found on this label, and found it to be an apartment building in the upscale Lincoln Park neighborhood. There was no listing for Pinkston at the building.
I Am A Loser (MP3)
Beggar or a Clown (MP3)
What a great voice!
Posted by: Jeffersonic | February 14, 2008 at 07:36 AM
"I Am A Loser" sounds like the country standard "You Win Again" translated into triple time.
Posted by: illlich | February 14, 2008 at 11:19 AM
Not so impressed with "I Am A Loser", but damn! "Beggar Or A Clown" packs a mean wallop! A Mouth full of marbles. Love it.
Posted by: Owen Baader-Meinhof | February 14, 2008 at 08:11 PM
Thanks for these. I hadn't heard them. I have two more records by Joseph L. "Pinkey" Pinkston that sound about the same. I wonder who his voice coach was?
Posted by: Don Julio Blanco | July 21, 2008 at 11:43 PM
OH NO!
Posted by: clown in boston | August 23, 2008 at 01:46 AM