A half century before the Brooklyn Americana scene exploded onto a national stage, Mimi Roman was representing for the borough. Now in her eighties, she remains a beloved figure in the vintage country music demimonde. The scion of a...
A half century before the Brooklyn Americana scene exploded onto a national stage, Mimi Roman was representing for the borough. Now in her eighties, she remains a beloved figure in the vintage country music demimonde. The scion of a Brooklyn Jewish pickle empire, she was an outdoorsy girl who grew up riding horses and became enamored with all things western, including country music. By the time she’d graduated college, she’d become an accomplished guitarist and a hell of a singer, won a big talent contest and went on to regional stardom in the emerging medium of tv.
Overcompressed digitized versions of her singles have been circulating on the web for years. But there’s never been a complete Mimi Roman album until this year, when Sundazed Music released the vinyl compilation The First of the Brooklyn Cowgirls, streaming at Bandcamp. The record begins with rare tv audio from 1954. It ends with a series of rare, low-key, often gorgeously nocturnal, mostly acoustic demos from late in the decade.
In general, the digitzation is very good, considering that much of the source material is wobbly old radio and tv clips and worn crate-digger vinyl. Many of these 35 tracks clock in at under two minutes. In the Nashville style of the era for female singers, Roman’s strong, expressive vocals are typically way out front, music in the back. These songs trace from the early 50s era of small groups with acoustic and electric guitar and fiddle or pedal steel, to a full-band rockabilly sound. Likewise, it’s a trip to hear Roman grow from a demure girl with an outer-borough accent to a polished, sophisticated frontwoman (check out her elegant jazz-inflected phrasing on the cover of Route 66 here).
The musicianship is often tremendous: there’s a mind-melting cyclotron pedal steel break in Bill Monroe’s Rocky Road Blues, purist honkytonk piano in places and lots of inspired fiddle and guitar picking.
The live material comes first. There are two versions of Weary Blues From Waitin’, an early theme for Roman which has a suspicious resemblance to a Hank Williams classic. The hazy, opiated cover of Folsom Prison Blues is chillingly brilliant. With its surprisingly risque lyrics, He’s My Marathon Man foreshadows some of her later material. And There’s No Holdin’ You is a tantalizing look at what Roman could do with a Memphis soul-tinged tune.
Wait, there’s more. Roman’s alter ego was Kitty Ford, whose much harder-rocking and often utterly bizarre 1961 album Pussycat has also been reissued on vinyl and is streaming at Bandcamp. The band – which includes piano, roller-rink organ, bass, electric guitars and occasional horns – scrambles and pounces, fueled by an uncredited, inspired extrovert drummer.
The title track is a proto Pink Panther theme. Things get seriously surreal in the faux-Middle Eastern Harry’s Harem. F.K.A. Roman gamely tackles proto-go-go soul, hi-de-ho Vegas balladry, campy proto Hairspray teen pop and bossa nova, with varying results. There’s also a faux French dixieland theme, a suspect stab at calypso and a regrettable phony cha-cha.