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Sunday, November 30, 2014

Princess Ramona: "Lover For A Night" b/w "I Need All The Help I Can Get" (Buddy K Records, #K-5001, 1960s)

Princess Ramona, AKA The Cherokee Princess, is Ramona Kemp, and she was born February 9, 1925. Her Facebook page was last updated March 7, 2014. I've tried to contact her and a few of her contacts via Facebook, but I've come up short on replies.

This 45 is, as the label sez, "A Little Bit of Royalty." Both of these songs are great. "Lover For A Night" is a sultry, seductive slow jam, and "I Need All The Help I Can Get" is a fun B-side with some interesting guitar flourishes. I don't know if that's Princess Ramona on guitar also or a studio musician.

Before we hear the songs, here's all the information I could find on Princess Ramona:

Per her Internet bio I found on a couple of different sites, Princess Ramona has traveled the globe singing, yodeling, and spreading the gospel for more than 50 years. She is the daughter of Chief Frank Buckshot Standing Horse. Princess Ramona was the wife of producer and fellow musician Buddy Kemp. I couldn't find much else about Buddy Kemp other than the work he did with his wife.

As far as the Internet is concerned, she has one full-length secular LP, "On the Wings of a Dove," and two seven inches, one from 1963, "Yesterday's Memories" b/w "I Wouldn't Let Myself Believe," and the one I'm presenting here tonight. I'm not sure of the year on this, and can only safely assume it was put out by Kemp (on Buddy K Records) sometime in the 1960s.

As a Christian singer/yodeler, Ramona has put out at least three LPs, all, I believe, released during the '70s - "Talk About Jesus," "Wait A Little Longer Please, Jesus," and "Yodeling Praises Unto the Lord."

Back in September of this year I did a post featuring Sammy Masters' "Say Yes Or No" b/w "When Fools Get Together" from 1966. Sammy Masters' song, "Say Yes Or No," was written by B. Kemp-R. Dale-S. Masters. I picked up both the Sammy Masters 45 and this Princess Ramona from the same place - The Record Parlour in Los Angeles. I'm not a hundred percent sure but I'm going to venture to guess that this B. Kemp was Buddy Kemp, Princess Ramona's husband, producer, and co-performer, and that the Ramona Dale who helped write "Say Yes Or No" and sang back up on both of the Sammy Masters tracks was, in fact, Princess Ramona.

As far as I can tell, the two songs on this 45 have not been shared with the Internet before. "Lover For A Night" was written by Oklahoma-born country songwriter Eddie Miller, who also wrote "Release Me," and, per his Wikipedia entry, "was the founder of the Country and Western Music Academy in Hollywood, as well as a co-founder of the Nashville Songwriters Association International (of which he served as the first president and also another term in the presidency)."

"I Need All The Help I Can Get" was written by Glen Garrison, a country singer-songwriter born in Arkansas.

On a final note, Princess Ramona's father, Chief Frank Buckshot Standing Horse, became a preacher late in his life and apparently had a keen interest in UFOs. He had his own contactee experience in 1959, in which he claimed to have been taken on a space ride across the solar system. He also founded the First Indian Spacecraft Convention in Sulpee, Oklahoma. Click here for the details on that.

Listen and download:

Lover For A Night:

I Need All The Help I Can Get:

If the embedded players above don't work for you, try clicking these links for listening and downloading:

Lover For A Night

I Need All The Help I Can Get

Here's Princess Ramona playing to a church congregation up in Oregon, back in 2011:

I wish Princess Ramona and her family the best this holiday season.