Get ready to FREAK OUT with this collection of mind-melting psychedelic...uh Surf Rock Songs. The titles, the 1967 date, the wording, everything about this suggests full-on-fuzzed guitar trip-outs for the NEW GENERATION but really you get some pretty mediocre covers of surf songs. I don't quite have them all picked out, but to give you the idea "Aerial Flip-Out" is "Rumble" except with less distortion than Link used. Don't make the same $15 mistake I made, there's much more exciting stuff out there that actually makes good on the promise. But if you're curious here it is
I'd been meaning to upload it's Twistin' Time for a little while so when I pulled out my thrift store purchase of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" and found George Hudson's "Dance Time" instead (UGH, ROOKIE MISTAKE) I figured it was a sign that this must be posted.
That's not to suggest it's exactly mindblowing. These are twist records number a-billion and a-billion and one and though plenty of fun and worth it if you want another two twist records, there's not too much to make them stand out. Dance Time is the better record of the two, with a better swing and more exciting recording sound. However, if it's your thing It's Twistin' Time has a couple of pretty good organ-fueled instrumentals, where Dance Time only has one bluesy one. A whole lot of covers on these... and plenty off rip-off-might-as-well-be-covers. But who really cares?
Who is George Hudson anyway? I've been trying to get to the bottom of this and been kind of confused with what I've dug up. One site claims that his "Kings of Twist" are a supergroup including Hank Ballard, Jack Hammer, Chubby Checker and Joey Dee. If ze means that literally I don't know where that info's coming from and it seems way too sonically consistent for that to be the case. One site has said that he was a New York DJ and most of the singers, including Hoagy Lands, were uncredited.
I've even had a little trouble finding the cover for Dance Time because mine looked like this
Ugh, you got me this time, Al
Anyway, here's the full track list of these two albums
I'd reckon over the past year I've probably played more off of Sublime Frequency's Bollywood Steel Guitar Compilation over the radio than anything else, with a possible exception of the extremely similar Sound of Wonder. But I never really followed up on any of those artists because I figured chances of coming across their works were pretty slim. New Orleans' Domino Sound Record Shack strikes again, with this artist featured on Bollywood Steel Guitar! And it was so cheap too (cover's pretty beat up I guess (and looks like a half-assed attempt at a Boston album)).
It's not exactly tough to figure out what a surf enthusiast would enjoy about an album like this, but that's hardly to suggest that their similar. Ganguly actually plays a Hawaiian steel guitar, and a lot of this is a lot more relaxed than most surf, though a little more exciting than your average 50's Hawaiian album. Some of these are funky, some of these are really weird. The real paragon of everything that makes this great is the sixth track, Hari Om Hari, featuring frantic drums, wild steel guitar and punctuated by goofy electronic effects.
If you want to know more about Sunil Ganguly he's really not that obscure, wikipedia page and everything. There are a few MP3 downloads of his other work, a few blogs mentioning him, but as far as I could tell know way to hear this album. And man, you should, I'd post a ton of this sort of stuff if I had any idea where to find it. This one, you can find here
Lee Allen was a huge part of the New Orleans sound during the R&B era and backed up an absurd amount of new Orleans big names on his saxophone, and this is a sample of his instrumental outing. You can read about it all down there on the back cover or anywhere really, I just said that in case blog links wanted a blurb of this post.
I was looking for this for a while, mainly because I loved my 45 of Cat Walk/Creole Alley and had to find the LP it was put out on. Not to mention the outrageous cover, with a tasseled stripper clearly pasted on to make this look CRAZIER. As I expected, this isn't a proper full-length and was made well after the fact, what I didn't really realize after when I bought it was that almost all of these songs were on his main LP "Walkin' With Mr. Lee". So what's the point? Cat Walk/Creole Alley are in my opinion his best two songs, it has a CRAZY cover, and a much fatter (and in this case scratchier) recording than my CD copy of Walkin' With Mr. Lee, which seems to have all the fun sucked out of it. And I suppose if I post it up here, the rest of y'all won't drop $40 on this just to hear the difference. Purchasing music is good, go buy the actually available Walking With Mr Lee. In fact, do it tomorrow on Record Store Day.
If you've never heard any of this instrumental stuff, I'll give you a warning. Some of this can get very laid-back. If you want some jumpers, just follow the track titles. If it sounds jumpin' it probably is. When he's good though, I think he's one of the great examples of how the saxophone was once king in Rock & Roll, a fact now forgotten.
The Black Sea Surfer just posted Aki Aleong's excellent 1963 surf album which pushed me to get this up here. I bought it intrigued by the monster surf instro "Body Surf" but is there more to him than that? Just look at the guy in the picture down there (and the blurb) of course there is! He looks so happy to put this album out! This 1962 album is full of dance scorchers at a high energy level. Just listen to that yell introducing "Mashed Potatoes". It makes me wanna do it! New Orleanians, dig the cover of Eddie Bo's "Popeye". There's some great instrumentals too, including "The Fly" and "Pony-Time". Seriously, this is one of the more fun twistin' albums I own. And you would hope so if he really has a 20 piece band backing him up (no, it doesn't sound that way). Then again if they're all teenagers who knows.
I've got to be completing my Crown Records collection by now. This is the same gist: a few instrumentals amongst some pretty good vocal tracks, backed by Jerry Cole and a whole lot of engine sounds. I can't say that any of these really stand out to me, but it's still a solid enough album. I know y'all go nuts for anything surf or drag related anyway, so it's not like anything I say about it really matters. Here, see what Pipeline magazine has to say:
For the “Shut Downs” album I was already pretty aware how it was going to sound before the needle touched down into the grooves, having previously heard to rest of the Crown hot-rod releases – and I wasn’t wrong ! Acclaimed studio sessionman Jerry Cole was once again the uncredited main force behind the long-player and his distinct single-layer vocals, coupled with his rhythmic guitar and an accompanying sax, are the most noticeable factors in all of the label’s auto releases – and in fact, such is the similarity between each offering that I’m sure many of the melodies are simply adapted and re-used accordingly (it’s just that I haven’t worked out which ones they are yet …). Yes, they sound under-produced and fairly basic … but each release does manage to stick one or two tunes in the memory bank and they’re all worth a listen – but not one after the after for sanity’s sake. In the instance of this particular album it’s the opening number, “With My Baby”, that gets the feet tapping and makes you wonder where on earth you've heard it before (answer - Cole rewrote it and included again on the later album by the Winners - see elsewhere) whilst the subsequent track has Cole clearly thinking in Dick-Dale-mode … and that’s not a bad thing …
By the way, this is not to be confused with the Del-Fi records Deuce Coupes. In fact, I'm not entirely sure whether the artist here is The Deuce Coupes or the Shut Downs.
RRHHWW and RockIsDeadRIP have both proclaimed their fandom of Billy Mure before, though I suspect we both feel that way for his abilities as a guitarist. Well here's the other side. This album cover and album title both give it away: this is mostly a spage-aged pop record, inventing music from other lands based on silly stereotypes, with little bad-ass rock & roll to be found.
In fact, I've saved you the trouble: this one track In A Persian Market sounds to me like Stereophonic Space Sound Unlimited decades before their time
For the type of music it is, it's pretty good, but I'm posting this here more for Billy Mure completion than to knock you internet folks out. So if you're curious, check it out
While I suppose the word "Twang" has deep love in the country music realm, I immediately think of Duane Eddy, and in general it seems to me that Duane's the aim right here. But they miss the mark, really, and fall more towards a Chet Atkins sound meets George Barnes. In fact, the more active songs on here are all written by George Barnes, though they all fall into the same "am I having fun or listening to the guitar player have fun?" traps that songs under the George Barnes name tend toward.
I'm not really sure what they're talking about with the "with a beat". I mean, this isn't free jazz here, but the whole thing proceeds at a mid-paced mosey; it's much more of a hang-out than a freak-out album. Still, if you're down for hangin' out, it's a pretty decent album.
There is no good reason for this to be on a rock & roll blog. I think the Gospel that post often has rock & roll spirit, this does not. The closest rock & roll parallel I can think of is Chicha Libre/Roots of Chicha Compilation, but that's a stretch. This is, as a friend of mine puts it "scrabble music". It's calm and soothing but still begs you to do a little dancing. I'm putting this up here because it flat-out owns and I can't seem to keep it on my shelf.
This translated wikipedia page seems to say that the poor Venezuelan guy went blind and the doctor suggested a piano. But he was all about the electric sounds of the organ. There's probably more info to gleam off the blurb below... if you speak Spanish. But I'm content enough with the pictures of him: fat, happy blind guy just screams "I'm gonna play some cool organ".
And so here we have another surf/drag "budget" album, this time on Mercury Wing instead of Crown, which means possibly Davie Allan and/or Mike Curb involved rather than Jerry Cole. But the story's the same: the vocal tracks are throwaways, and the instrumentals are actually pretty great, particularly the two on side B.
For once allmusic is a little helpful on this one though mostly saying the same thing as alla this
Cal Carter may not have made much of a name for himself as a solo artist, but as an arranger he's pretty prolific. I've seen his name attached to Canned Heat and Clarence Carter, though I'm not 100% it's the same guy. I do know from listening to this 45 (with Cal's name on the minit label) that Our Cal had a hand in it.
It's a good indication of what this album sounds like. Cal stuffs these worn classics so full of embellishment that they sound like new songs. It's almost got a rock & roll meets pep band thing (which is to say, sounds like the Routers) and I wouldn't be surprised if Cal has a background there.
The A-Side of this is way more exciting, despite being much more familiar songs. I was pretty pleased to find our New Orleans favorite "Mother In Law" covered, and he seems to recognize all the things that would make it a great instrumental. If you liked that Steve Garrick two posts ago, I kinda think this destroys it, though it may be a little less goofy.
This isn't a pristine rip, but it plays smoothly at least. Enjoy it!
This album is a cash grab. But really, before Rock & Roll became thought of as an art form (around Pet Sounds/Sgt. Peppers) it was probably more worth your while to identify what wasn't done with money as the primary focus than what was. Chubby Checker's version of the twist set a huge gravy train in motion with so many people wanting to take a ride. Plenty of groups tried to fill a niche in another dumbass dance move like The Frug. This album went straight for the honey hole, to the point where the artists' name isn't even on the front cover.
And I like their approach. Here we have 12 instrumentals that try to expand twisting to whatever ridiculous activity you may be enjoying. Chew gum to the Doublemint Twist! Do the Scientwist in your laboratory! Bullies, intimidate the puny to the Intimitwist(or is it meant for intimate situations?)
It's no surprise the album hasn't found its way into the rock & roll history books yet. That's because those books are horseshit. But also because these are pretty straightforward twistin'. No memorable hooks, though some pretty impressive use of stereo. Some of these, especially the Astrotwist, wouldn't be too out of place in a Las Vegas Grind et. al. compilation, though I wouldn't really say these are raw or raunchy... just simple, well done and enjoyable twistin' tunes.
Cover impressions: this is a seriously hip gospel choir! And it's on a Stax imprint (Gospel Truth)? 1972? Hunter, can you buy a scanner or something?
Yeah, the blog is back and will hopefully be movin' and I thought I'd kick it off with some gospel because I have plenty of it waiting to go. Don't worry, there's still plenty of capital-R-Rock-&-Roll to come, but I think this is plenty enjoyable stuff no matter what your belief set.
This album is not a raw funk masterpiece. If you want to check it out for that sort of reason, I'd go straight for "The Lord God Is On My Side". I wouldn't expect to be cutting breakbeats from it, but it's got some pretty hot little moments. Aw heck, have a listen
But there's also a pretty impressive breadth to this album. My other two favorites are the traditional gospel stomper "Save All Day" and the sweet sweet soul heartmover "God Really Cares For You". I gotta say, the vocals from Dolly Avant here are really sweet throughout, and the Reverend for which this album is named is pretty deserving as well.
This is a reasonably clean rip, though I was too lazy to do anything about some of the clipping. Still sounds good. Here, have a tracklisting.
This is a silly record. It has its slower moments such as Surf Dreams and St. James Infirmary, but the high points are undoubtedly goofy songs like "I Scream" (they are screaming for ice cream) and Hot Pastrami, not to mention other songs inspired by the culinary arts.
Who are they? The Dartells weren't exactly a sensation, though Hot Pastrami hit #11 on the pop charts back in the day... interesting when you consider the fact that it was essentially a cover of "Mashed Potatoes" (hey look! they even mention it straight off in the song!). They've been somewhat canonized into the surf craze, but it's not exactly written all over the record. There's a song called surf dreams, yeah, and there are some bare instrumentals on here, and Hot Pastrami was covered by, I believe, The Chantays, but that's about it.
I'll be honest though, while it has its fun parts, this Dartells album is a victim of pretty poor recording. It seems like there's a lot going on, but the sound is so subdued that it doesn't really get to the action that I think the band is really pumping out. This is a somewhat recognizable album that some of you may be familiar with, so you're welcome to disagree.
Go ahead and judge a record by its cover, we all know that it works. You've got the band in all cases performing in red suits, a woman seemingly in her underwear, across from a man leaping and yelling, and you've got a list of song titles seemingly matched with dance moves (with the RRHHWW favorite, the frug, listed among them). Would I surprise you if I told you this was raucous frat rock?
Funky16Corners can shed a little light on the make-up and history of this band (those are indeed the same names), as can the back of the album. These are the only liner notes I can think of that plug the name of the band's manager.
This is a pretty fun album. I'm not surprised that they're not essential garack rock listening material, but I'd just as happily listen to this as The Woggles. Some of these are originals, and there's even a few decent instrumentals on it, "Hand Clappin'" making an appearance on my show this past weekend. It says "recorded live" but there's definitely been some editing here, as the crowd noise will often cut in abruptly. There's also been some editing thanks to a few little hitches on my vinyl, but it still comes out pretty listenable. Get it here
Y'all are going to think I'm insane, but this is a desert island disc for me. The subject matter is stupid, the recording is muddy as hell, the cover art sure ain't much, but I'm going to have more fun on my island than yours. This is the sort of gleeful boogaloo nonsense that bypasses your frontal lobe completely and is strictly built for dance.
Normally, I don't know anything about what I post and google's not a help. This time, there's all sorts of information on Alvin Cash, and I'm not the first one to rip this record, but I haven't seen it on blogspot (his singles, on the other hand, are all over). In fact, for once the information on the back of the album is surprisingly informative: Born in St. Louis, starts a dancing troupe with his brothers, catches the ear of Andre "Bacon Fat" Williams and gets picked up on Mar-V-Lus. Twine Time shoots to the top (and sure enough, it's not hard to find covers of it), he keeps at it for a while and never gets quite the same success and, correct me if I'm wrong, never releases another LP. He also appeared in a couple of movies.
Seriously, everything on this has an addictive sort of bounce to it, and I actually kind of like the semi-nonsensical lyrics. One song is about not being able to see a hawk. One claims that a girl "shot him through the grease" and the album is packed with "awwwww but you're _____in ____, baby!"
I've heard this LP is a collectors item. I don't know, I got it off the amazon used marketplace for $20 lookin' pretty mint except for the holes in the cover, nothing claiming it's a reissue. The original Twine Time/Bump 45 (TWO SIDES OF FIRE) had a real badass Mushroom Cloud on the label, which might have been why I listened to Alvin in the first place
The Nitecaps play that raucous saxophone-fueled kind of instrumental rock & roll that gets forgotten behind the monstrous word that is "surf". Here they've prepared a fiery lineup of covers and pun-titled songs to promote their dance move of choice and mine: The Frug. I would kill to know how to do the frug, but my dreams of having an RRHHWW reader releasing a slew of Youtube oldies-dance instructional videos are mostly abandoned, though Wikipedia hasn't forgotten this particular dance.
Anyway, this is a good one. The worst songs are still worth a hipshake and tracks like "Sassy Frug" their rendition of "You Can't Sit Down" are an outright riot.
Despite the title and cover, this is not a surf/drag album. It's HOT ROD JAZZ, and they actually do a pretty good job of letting you know that; the LP label has it in bigger words than anything else.
So what does that meeeaaaannnn? That means it's fun jazz. Just think of all the other goofy jazz offshoots like Spy Jazz or Crime Jazz. While I think this is actually pretty aptly named, this has more in common with Hugo Montenegro than Charles Mingus, and it's actually pretty diverse. There's a song or two that could almost pass for surf such as the opening track "Big Deuce", his rendition of "(get right down to the real) Nitty Gritty" doesn't lose its funky edge, and "Loddy Lo" is just kind of weird.
So if you're a surf fan should you go ahead and give this a shot? Yeah, I'd say so, it's still got the same sense of adventure to it. I mean, just read the back cover here (which is where you'll find a tracklisting as well)
And a note about ripping: I'd been trying for ages to cut down on my record noise. I usually rip with Shure mx97e cartridge which is pretty widely accepted as a good needle. Despite Sansui's reputation, I switched to an Onkyo reciever like my main unit in hopes that the built-in preamp on the onkyo would smooth it out better. No luck. Then in desperation I swapped in a Stanton needle I had laying around (that I had researched and found to be "not that great"). Believe it or not, here we have a rip without a monster amount of audible pops and record scratches. I feel like I've lost my trademark!
Clear funk influence. I mean clear as in "check out the Cissy Strut riff jacking on "Working for Jesus".
A little bit of everything: This hits funk gospel, foot-stompers, shouted sermon and even a little bit of a soulful heart jerker.
Despite its existence being pretty recognized, its lack of backstory details are as well, meaning I don't have to feel bad about my knowing nothing as usual
There's a lot of them! Look at it!
Most mentions will say that this is a great album. I think it's definitely a good album, but about 3/4 on the way to great. They've got the energy and they've got some fun bass playing, but the songs are always just shy of having the form and hooks that make a real monster. In fact, I think the most memorable track on here is the much more subdued closer "Somebody's Missing"
Yet another Jerry Cole/Crown Hot Rod release, but really despite the budget label I think this is a fantastic album, better than yesterday's post with The Winners and on par with some of the more established surf classics. Not only are all the instrumentals fun in some manner, but the vocal tracks are as well. In fact, I'd say that without a doubt the standout here is "Spirit of America' in which an exploitation-film-style monotone voice tells you about an 11' tall, 60' long unbeatable dragster between evil laughs. This is the weird stuff y'all, and if nothing else this is worth it for that track alone
The music made available on this blog has been posted in hopes of helping the popuarity of culture that I enjoy and in almost all cases I try to post things that are out of print. If your music is featured here and don't like it, please contact me and I will remove it immediately. If you do like it, please drop some knowledge because I tend to be missing some.
I used to run this off my home fileserver. I can't anymore. So a TON of these links are broken. Your best hope for getting them back is to comment!
