SONGS OF COUCH AND CONSULTATION - Katie Lee

YEAR: 1957

LABEL: Commentary

TRACK LISTING: Shrinker Man, The Will To Fail, The Guilty Rag, Stay As Sick As You Are, Hush Little Sibling, Real Sick Sounds, Repressed Hostility Blues, I Can't Get Adjusted to the You Who Got Adjusted To Me, Schizophrenic Moon, Properly Loved, Gunslinger (A Ballad For Adult Westerns), It Must Be Something Psychological

IMPRESSIONS: Before Cheryl Wheeler's "Is It Peace Or Is It Prozac?" there was Katie Lee. This here album was actually given to me by friend Roxor whom I met back in the late 90's on The Monster Club Forum. We've lost touch over the years (owing probably to his unending quest for world domination) but for a while there we were sending great boxes of tapes, cds and videos to each other; many of my favourite examples of lounge music were originally sent to me by Roxor including this and Katie Lee's follow-up album "LIFE IS JUST A BED OF NEUROSES". Anyone who has ever read Re/Search's classic two volume "INCREDIBLY STRANGE MUSIC" books is familiar with Katie Lee's two novelty albums sending up psychoanalysis. There was just something magical about this time in the 1950s-1960s when superb examples of "incredibly strange music" seemed to swarm America's hi-fi sets like a shining bevy of silverfish.

MY FAVOURITE TRACKS: Shrinker Man, The Will To Fail, Stay As Sick As You Are, Hush Little Sibling, Repressed Hostility Blues, Schizophrenic Moon, Gunslinger (A Ballad For Adult Westerns), It Must Be Something Psychological

FACT SHEET: SONGS OF COUCH AND CONSULTATION is Katie Lee's second album. Katie Lee became a folk singer after studying with Burl Ives and Josh White. Jazz saxophonist Bud Freeman dreamed up the album's concept and wrote the lyrics to the songs with Leon Prober tackling the music. Lounge legend Bob Thompson did the orchestral arrangements. Katie Lee plays guitar on "Hush Little Sibling". Utah Phillips pays tribute to Katie Lee and SONGS OF COUCH AND CONSULTATION in his 1996 song "Half A Ghost Town". "It Must Be Something Psychological" was featured in the soundtrack of a 2010 episode of "UNITED STATES OF TARA".