7.05.2009
New Orleans
Eddie Hodges New Orleans b/w Hard Times for Young Lovers 45 (Aurora, 1965)
From the 1950s on, seems like one of the "natural" trajectories of the child actor is from the movie/TV set to the music stage. From Sean Cassidy to Leif Garrett to Britney Spears to Annette Funicello and so it swirls downward. How many of these kid actor's were successful in their musical transition? And by successful, I do not mean that they sold a lot of records, for if that was the case any of those mentioned above would count and I wouldn't really have anything to rant about. By successful, I mean made some damn good records. Okay, for kitsch factor, Annette, but not as far as memorable and exciting. I can think of only two: Ricky Nelson and if you don't believe me pick up his version of "Milk Cow Blues" - it is nearly as rippin' as the Kinks take on it - and then move on to his other singles on Imperial. It is hit and miss, but the keepers are soooooo good. The other child actor turn rocker that is worth checking out is Eddie Hodges. "Eddie who?" Yeah, I didn't know about him until I started researching this single.
Eddie Hodges had brief film career. In 1959, he made is movie debut in A Hole in the Head, a Frank Capra film starring Frank Sinatra and Edward G. Robinson. He then played the lead role in the 1960 version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a movie I've seen probably a half dozen times but recall nothing of. He appeared in six more films, including C'mon. Let's Live a Little, notable because it also starred the great girl group singer Jackie DeShannon, Bobby Vee, and - drum roll - Kim Carnes! He did some TV work as well, mostly guest spots on I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, and the Dick Van Dyke Show. In the midst of all this he cut three singles on Cadence (one produced by Phil Everly) and this one on Aurora. Two of the singles charted in the teens, two in the forties. This one peaked at #44.
Initially I was taken by the song "New Orleans," a great R&B style rocker ( you can see him sync it on Hollywood A Go-Go). I spun it about a half dozen times before I flipped it and got knocked out by a really great pop rocker "Hard Times for Young Lovers". That slapback on the snare is genius! Hope these bowl you over, too.
New Orleans
Hard Times for Young Lovers
6.28.2009
A Pile of Hot (or maybe warm) Wax
Well, it isn't even noon and it is close to 100. Yesterday, it hit 105. Today it will top that. I spent the last two days digging for records at the annual public radio record sale, so today it is lock myself in doors and go through stacks of records. I figure I might as well do a rundown of them while I am at it.
Jimmie King L-O-V-E b/w Pretty Little Baby 45 (Ark)
Great old-style country tear-jerker with some nice slide guitar and fiddle playing. The A side is the ace here, with some great lyrics.
The Tingles Rain, Rain b/w Tell Me Now 45 (Era)
"Rain, Rain" is decent 60s folk pop. "Tell Me Now" is a folk rocker with some weird reverb effect going on in the background. Both songs marred by sappy group vocals.
Ray Allen & the Upbeats La Bamba b/w Peggy Sue 45 (Blast)
A 1962 tribute single to the rockers who found their end in a corn field. "La Bamba" is pretty true to the Richie Valens original. "Peggy Sue" is slowed down and mournful, creating a nice tension and showing how a great song can be molded any which way when it is truly a great song.
Cyd & Cheri Lonesome for You b/w I'm A-Lookin' for Blue Eyes 45 (Lute)
Girl group. Miserable slow one and an okay peppy number. Sounds like someone tried to mold the Andrews Sisters as a girl group, but wouldn't quite commit. So you lose the charm of both.
Johnny Cymbal Bachelor Man b/w Growing Up with You 45 (Kelden)
I guess Johnny Guitar was taken so we get Johnny Cymbal. A-side is early rock & roll with Pah-Pah-Mau-Mau style backing vox and a fresh faced lead who occasionally hiccups and squeals. Backing track is raw enough to be a keeper. Flip is a ballad typical of the time. Good single but not particularly notable.
Odell Brown & the Organ-zers Mellow Yellow b/w Quiet Village 45 (Cadet)
You wouldn't know it now, but start digging for records and you realize how damn influential Jimmy Smith was. Take him and King Curtis and you have hundreds of R&B instrumental singles by pretenders and better, all with some kinda Hammond organ and sax take on popular tunes of the day, as well as originals in a soul-jazz mode. Here Odell Brown does a same-same version of Donovan's "Mellow Yellow" and a funky version of Martin Denny's "Quiet Village." Of course, it is the Denny tune that stands out. The rendering is much more Latin jazz - think Cal Tjader as he was sliding into slickness - than lounge exotica. Good stuff.
Sound Experience You Don't Know What You're Doing b/w Don't Fight the Feeling 45 (Soulville)
I say yes to: 1. Delfonics-influenced sweet soul, 2. Lyrics of the "Girl, I am gonna tell you how it is" variety, and 3. Awkward talk-overs...and the A side has all three. The flip is Simtec & Wylie-style dance floor funk.
Carl Henderson Please Stop Laughing at Me b/w Sharing You 45 (Omen)
Sam Cooke/Jackie Wilson stamp on this single. "Please Stop Laughing" is uptempo, with a great odd intro and a better (and longer) than average guitar break. Excellent! "Sharing You" is a great R&B ballad with good vocals and more great guitar.
Jimmy Barnes No Regrets b/w Keep Your Love Handy 45 (Gibraltar)
"No Regrets" is an Otis Blackwell song that was a minor hit for Barnes (1959) and a bigger hit for the great Little Willie John (1960), and it is as good as a soul ballad got. "Keep Your Love" is a good early rock & roll tune, made about the time that the powers-that-be re-segregated the music market and once again started calling rock & roll by Black artists "race records."
Albatross Rock 'n Roll Boogie Man b/w Witchy Witchy Lady 45 (Mooncrest)
Great boogie-glam with jaunty piano and a cool fiddle. Just enough hick sound to give it flavor and a nice fuzz guitar. At times it reminds me of early ELO, which is always a good thing. I am pretty sure Robin Wills posted the A side on purepop. The B-side has that semi-Latin/semi-funk/semi-rock sound you get with some Santana, Ides of March, Doobie Brothers, etc. Not bad, not memorable.
Barry Mann Amy b/w Talk to Me Baby 45 (Red Bird)
Yup, Barry Mann of the famous Brill Building Mann/Weil writing team, the one that turned out great songs for the Red Bird label and the Shangra-La's and many many others. And that is the most interesting thing about this single. "Amy" is a pap. "Talk to Me Baby" sounds like the Goff/King classic "I'm into Something Good", also from 1964.
Four of a Kind Prance Around b/w Chippies Playground 45 (Laurie)
Somewhat faceless R&B from 1965. For some reason this single brought to mind Huey Smith's "Sea Cruise." Make of that what you will.
Tutti Frutti Don't You Just Know It b/w Honeysuckle Workout 45 (Reprise)
And by some stroke of magic here is a version of Huey Smith's "Don't You Just Know It" done a bit slick and funky. Surprise surprise, Richard Perry is behind this, which might account for the Tina Turner sounding lead lady in the A side, as he produced Turner in the 70s (and Capt Beefheart in the '60s). The B-side is a very good instrumental.
Bobby Sansom & the Maus Marks Don't Leave b/w Hows About It Baby 45 (Sublime)
Oh shit! This is what makes going through piles of records worth it. Fantastic sweet soul, the kind that you hear for the first time and melt. So many things great about "Don't Leave" you just have to listen to it. "Hows About It Baby" is a great Bo Diddley-style raver. Double A-side Paradise!
Five by Five Hang Up b/w Fire 45 (Paula)
Sixties psych punker of the Seeds/Love variety coupled with a swell organ-driven cover of Hendrix. Future Crud material, without a doubt.
Resolution 717 The Old Man b/w Pretty Girl Why 45 (GM)
Wheezy organ + wheezy lyrics ("Tears trickled down his wrinkled cheek") = wheezy song. Now if dude would have been singing about purple hot dogs or psychedelic ponies and not a dying old man, this would be a outsider classic. The flip is a Stephen Stills song. What saves this single is the wheezy organ. It sounds out of place and the organist throws in weird bits. It is those weird bits that keeps this thing around.
The Don Scarletta Trio York's Sauna Pt 1 & 2 45 (Capitol)
Good jazz jam of the Brubeck school with a very cool drum break on the B-side. Not much more to say about this one.
Shawn Gorden Stop! b/w The Time has Come 45 (Gigantic)
Curiously catchy country pop from the 60s. Musically it reminds me (fast and slow) of Roy Orbison, though a bit out of whack. Gorden's vocals are not anything like Orbison, instead he has a lounge singer goes country style. The more I spin this record, the odder it sounds.
The Victorians Lovin' b/w Move a Little Closer 45 (Arnold J.)
"Lovin" is a total Grassroots pop but without the dramatic builds. It is good but "Move In...." is great Pet Sounds pop via Gary Zekeley. Great 60s pop.
Bobby McDowell I'm Coming Home b/w Keep Her Out of Sight 45 (Amy)
Rick Hall of Muscle Shoals fame produced this but that matters not. What makes this is that it is a Vietnam War talkover. Bibles and bullets, the price we pay for ______ - no one says. This has a vaguely apolitical Support the Troops sentiment to it. Unfortunately, that also means that there is very little verve in McDowell's "statement." The flip is an average country jerker.
6.24.2009
Freeport, Grand Bahamas
Prince Charles & his Royal Cats Freeport, Grand Bahamas: More of... LP (Elite, 196?)
I was late in coming to reggae. My younger brother got to it earlier than I did and with his infatuation with the genre came an evangelical zeal. He was determined that I was to like reggae and relentlessly tried to convert me. Of course, I wasn't going to be converted and instead took on a Meatmen-sort of reaction to the music. "Blow me Jah," I echoed. It didn't help that everyone I knew that dug reggae were potheads, something I wasn't.
Then one day I was thrifting and found a copy of Byron Lee & the Dragonaires 1968 self-titled record on JAD. I had no idea who Byron Lee was and bought it only because it was an "and the..." band and, on the back cover, the band was posing on a hotel pool's diving boards, with their instruments. That looked cool, I bought it. Didn't take to the record, except a great version of William Bell's "Everyday Will Be Like a Holiday." That song slew me. Slowly the rest of the album sunk in. I wasn't quite yet a reggae fan, but I was now on the hunt for "tourist albums" from the Caribbean. You see, because Lee and band were posing on those diving boards, I assumed that JAD was some branch of Jamaican Airlines or some "Come to Jamaica" outfit. And while I was wrong about JAD being a tourism label, I was right in snatching up Caribbean tourist records.
Over the years, I've picked up a few hundred such albums. They range from steel drum to island soul to calypso to ska to pop ballads. Maybe a dozen of them are 100% keepers. A couple dozen more are very good records. And a few dozen have one good song on them. The rest are crap. As far as keep:discard ratio, Caribbean tourist albums offer pathetic returns. Off the top of my head, only White Christian music records and Christmas albums are a worse bet. However, when the tourist album hits, it is worth the all the crappy ones. It is how I got into calypso and lead me to some real gems like this Emile Volel album I posted some time ago. It is also why I picked up this one by Prince Charles and his Royal Cats.
I don't know anything about the Prince or his cats other than what the liner notes tell me: They were one of the first bands to make a scene in Freeport and are "now" an institution. They sing a lot about Freeport. The record is on the Elite label out of Nassau, a label that turned out a lot of tourist albums, a few of them damn good. This one is a damn good one. All the songs are good, a few of them are great or near great. When I first put it on, I didn't think much - good island soul - and then the second vocals on "Freeport" came in and I was sold. The songs posted today range from island soul to novelty ska to ska soul to some funky island jam. None of this fits into one genre, which is why it is safe to call it tourist music. The singing is good, and I love the guitar. Best of all is that the two guitar, conga, maracas, steel drum instrumentation keeps the sound stripped down and a bit rough at the edges. It is also good summer music.
Freeport
Bang Bang Lulu
Give Me the Right
Sea & Sun
Angelico
6.17.2009
Gringo
El Clod Gringo b/w Tijuana Watusi? 45 (Vee Jay, 1964)
Who says racism sells? Okay, I am sure it does, but try telling that to one Marty Cooper AKA El Clod, creator of this novelty notoriety, as well as one other of the same ilk ("Tijuana Border"). Cooper had his first hit in 1961, writing "Peanut Butter" with H.B. Barnum, a song which became a classic when done by the Marathons. A year latter, adopting the nom de putz El Clod, he started trading in Latino stereotypes with his parody "Tijuana Border." It stiffed. A couple years later, he tried to ride on Loren Greene's "Ringo". That is what we have here. It also stiffed. A later notible songwriting credit "A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock n' Roll" somehow became a hit for the duo that won't die Donnie & Marie Osmund. What dubious distinction followed that, I don't know.
Gringo
Tijuana Watusi?
6.13.2009
Goin' Too Far
The Fifth Order Goin' Too Far b/w Walkin' Away 45 (Diamond, 1966)
Here is a garage punker worth putting up with the surface noise. Kinda a mish-mash of the Outsiders and Paul Revere & the Raiders, the Fifth Order's first single was a big hit in hometown Columbus, Ohio. I'm not gonna tell you their story because someone else already did. I am just gonna shut up and let you listen to this gem.
Goin' Too Far
Walkin' Away
6.10.2009
All I Want is You
Underground Sunshine All I Want is You 45 (Intrepid, 1969)
The great thing about the rock & roll seven inch record is that there is an endless stream of little known gems out there, whether they be from the Fifties and Sixties or the Eighties and Nineties or in between or now. There's thousands of worthy one-off lurking in record bins, thrift stores, attics, garages, and basements just waiting to be found. Many of them are like this Underground Sunshine single, a great, compact rocker, done by an obscure band who had a minor hit. In this case, Montello, Wisconsin's finest hit with a tepid version of the Beatles' "Birthday" and backed it with the punk snarl presented here. I read that they did an album and three more singles and then faded away. As far as the label goes, I've found a few things on Intrepid and they don't adhere to any formula. There also is no regional focus on any of their artists. Just another small label of the time and worth checking out.
All I Want is You
5.31.2009
Smoke Dreams
Ronnie Deauville Smoke Dreams LP (Era, 1957)
Had this album turned out to be a dud, I would have been satisfied with staring at the record cover. What a fantastic sleeve! Then there are the tunes: slow and smokey, boozy and torched, they sound like what the are: music from another time and place. There are pretty good odds that most of the people involved in making this record are dead. And to top it off, Ronnie Deauville has a great back story. He had a short singing career and then was the victim of a car crash and polio, was paralyzed from the neck down and had to relearn how to sing. And then he made this record. As the people at Ill Folks write "A combination of factors...limited breathing ability, the difficulty of attracting female fans to a handicapped male singer, the physical problems of getting around to clubs or TV dates...led Ronnie to move behind the scenes, doing song-dubbing for less talented movie stars. He eventually retired to Florida with his wife and children, and passed away from cancer on Christmas Eve, 1990."
Here are four songs from Smoke Dream.
Smoke Dreams
I'll Close My Eyes
Love is Here to Stay
I Had the Craziest Dream
5.27.2009
Sisters
Bernard Herrmann Sisters OST LP (Entracte, 1975)
Like Ennio Morricone, Mikos Theodorakis, or Nino Rota, Bernard Herrmann is one of those names, that if attached to a film soundtrack, you have to pay attention. Though all of these composers have made some crummy soundtracks, their hit/miss ratio is way more than acceptable and when they hit, man, I challenge you to find better music. Herrmann is most famous for his soundtrack to Psycho, something you probably already know. He also scored a ton of other movies. His sound ranges from subdued to frightening and he relies a lot on strings to carry the mood. His work on Brian De Palma's 1973 film, Sisters - a very twisted tale which is mandatory viewing if you like your viewing a bit warped - is a bit more varied than his other scores. Most of the variation has to do with Herrmann increasing his instrumental palette. Rather than just rely on strings and booming percussion, he throws in bells, vibraphone and other sounds not typical of his work. The textures are also many. However, you aren't going to get much of a taste of Herrmann's variety here! The three cuts I chose for you are the film's main title and two others which incorporate the main theme, a fucked up version of a playground chant. While I dig the whole record, I am pretty taken by the theme. So here goes:
Main title
Phillip's Murder...
Separation Nightmare...
5.23.2009
Dark Shadows
The Robert Cobert Orchestra Dark Shadows OST LP (Philips, 1969)
I dropped my stack of the morning's haul next to my girlfriend's ottoman and sat on the couch. She starts flipping through the records, stops and exclaims "DARK SHADOWS! I used to watch that when I was a kid and it scared the Hell out of me." What was it? "A soap opera about vampires and monsters. It was pretty cool. I had a crush on Barnabas." Hmmm...I should know about this but for some reason I didn't.
Perhaps you don't either. Dark Shadows was exactly what my girlfriend said, a soap opera about vampires, monsters, and the spirit world. It aired on American TV from 1966 to 1971 and was pretty popular. Today, it has a pretty significant cult following. Important to this blog is that it also had a great soundtrack, one which in the day was considered groundbreaking.
Robert Cobert's music for the series is pretty startling once you consider that it was for a TV show. Rather than dumb down the sounds, Cobert seemed to approach Dark Shadows as if it was a film. While some of this would sound right for a late Sixties horror film - from Theramin to obligatory rock & roll instrumental - it is better than most TV soundtracks I've heard. The record was a best seller, so finding a copy should be pretty easy and cheap. I got mine for $3. If I held out for one in better condition, I would have been set back a fiver.
Opening Themes: 1. Dark Shadows 2. Collinswood
Night of the Pentagram
I, Barnabas
Back at the Blue Whale
1. Epilogue 2. Dark Shadows
5.17.2009
Congo Mombo
Muvva Hubbard & the Stompers Congo Mombo 45 (ABC-Paramount, 1956)
If you've followed this blog, you know that I am a sucker for this kind of record. First off the musician Muvva Hubbard is pretty damn obscure. Though he released a couple other singles around the same time as "Congo Mombo", there is no information on him that I can find. Second, the music is one of those attempts at trying to capitalize on duel trends. In this case, the Latin music craze of the mid-1950s and the instrumental, rock & roll, guitar twang inspired by Duane Eddy, one of my first rock & roll loves. Third, what the hell is a Congo Mombo? Are the bongo drums supposed to be African (Congo) or Latin (Mombo)? And mombo? Why because mambo doesn't rhyme with congo? So lame, but so good. Four, sure this record is kinda kitschy but it is really fucking killer, too. Ultimately, it is the killer that makes it worthy to throw up here. Hope you enjoy it.
Congo Mombo
5.07.2009
Que Ironia
Los Muecas Que Ironia LP (Caytronics, 1972)
Of course, when you pick up a record with a cover like this, your secret wish is that it contains some wicked Latin psych or wild garage stomp. Most of the time, that is not the case and this is one of those times. No reason to get down: When brooding organ comes in and the songs have that uber-dramatic vocals that only the Mexicans, Italians, and French can pull off all is fine in the world. I am not sure what this genre of music is called but it is some form of Mexican pop, a sound equally influenced by Euro pop of the 1960s and American rock & roll of the late 1950s through the 1960s. It still has a Latin sound to it, something kind of Tex-Mex, but it is modernized. Whatever it is, I heard a lot of it in the 1970s and 1980s, almost exclusively in Mexican restaurants. Into the 90s, the Mex joints that went yuppie either tried to go authentic with music and went full Mariachi or segged into mall salsa. Mexican restaurants that were truely authentic opted for Norteno or whatever Mexican pop was playing on Spanish language stations. No more stuff like Los Muecas. Too bad. Or maybe not. If the taco shop around the corner was playing stuff like this, I'd dine there everyday and wind up lugging around 300 pounds of man boob and sag ass.
I don't know anything about Los Muecas other than they must have been pretty popular in Mexico and among Mexican Americans. There are multiple "best of..."s and "greatest hits" CD listed on the interweb. Unfortunately that is the extent of the information I could find.
Sin Razon
Obscuridad
Ojala
5.03.2009
Ronnie Prophet
Ronnie Prophet s/t LP (Art, 196?)
Ronnie Prophet has been around a long time. After starting his career in his native Canada, he trucked around upstate New York, Florida, and the Bahamas, working up a country music/guitar instrumental/comedy lounge act. He took it to Nashville and played a year at Boots Randolph's club, and then bought the place and held court for 16 years. His exposure to Nashville's music heavies lead to touring gigs backing George Jones, Kenny Rogers, and others. After Nashville he moved back up to Canada where he became a television staple, hosting a series of country music shows, ending with his "Ronnie Prophet Show", a mix of country and comedy. In the late '90s, he moved to Bramson, Missouri, a country music tourist destination - kinda a cross between Nashville, a State Fair, and a sanitized Reno. He opened up a theater with his wife Glory-Anne and has been tremendously successful. Among the country music hardcore he is known, among Canadian country music fans he is legend, but outside those worlds he isn't very well known. Too bad, though his comedy is a bit schmaltzy and his stage show is pretty slick, he is a hell of a guitarist. Influenced by Merle Travis, Chet Atkins, and Joe Maphis, he has a sound which alternates between blistering finger picking and full reverbed ballads. This record is his first, made when Prophet was a young man bopping between Florida and the Bahamas. Recorded at the Jolly Roger Hotel in Ft Lauderdale and the Jack Tar Grand Bahama Hotel, this is Prophet a little rawer than in his later years. The record has all the markings of one sold at his appearences and nowhere else. It is a combo of instrumentals, popular songs and ethnic joke tunes. Here are three songs off the album, two instumentals and a vocal number. Some of the guitar playing is exceptional and in "Malaguena" there are times in which the lickage is near heavy metal. Enjoy.
The World is Waiting for the Sunrise
Scotch & Soda
Malaguena
4.27.2009
Micah Kennedy 1970 - 2009
Micah Kennedy 1970 - 2009
Sacramento musician Micah Kennedy died last week. He had been ill for some time, though only his close friends and family knew. His body gave out while he was surrounded by those closest to him. He was only 39 years old.
I knew Micah from my involvement in Sacramento's underground music scene. My bands played with his. I put on shows by his bands and released a record with one of them on it. My friendship with him was casual - record talk at shows, hanging out a few times, etc. - though I was fond of him. He was a good guy. And he was an ace guitarist.
He played in several bands but the two he is remembered for are the Tiki Men and the Lazy J's. The Tiki Men were the more popular of the two. A great instrumental garage band with a hard edged Link Wray-like sound, they earned praise from garage punks to surf music die-hards. They released one album and a handful of 7"s, all excellent. Their records and live shows - fueled by Micah's raw, aggressive guitar sound - earned them a worldwide following.
The Lazy J's never were as popular as the Tiki Men. Their influences were a bit more rarefied (Dion, Del Shannon, various British bands) and they tended to play only within a hundred mile radius of Sacramento. Still, they were a great band. Unfortunately, their output was pretty slim, one song released on the Sacramento: City of a Beer 7" compilation.
I've chosen four songs in tribute to Micah - Two by the Tiki Men, two by the Lazy J's. "Tiki Torcher" comes from the Tiki Men's debut EP Sneak a Drink with the Tiki Men, released in 1994 on Secret Center Records. The Tiki Men's second single contained Micah's song "Cattle Prod", one of the best garage instrumentals ever. It was released on Hillsdale in 1994. As noted, the Lazy J's released only one song. That song is "She's So Refined", which came out in 1997 on the aforementioned compilation. I am also posting one unreleased Lazy J's song, "Each Day." I believe it was recorded at the same time as "She's So Refined".
Good bye Micah and thanks for some great music.
Tiki Torcher
Cattle Prod
Each Day
She's So Refined
4.15.2009
Rentak Tarian Melayu
Orkes Gazal Penembang Rentak Tarian Melayu (Malay Dance Beat) EP (Parlophone, 196?)
I wish I could tell you something about this record or the style of music you are going to hear but this disk is pretty obscure and anything I'm gonna rattle off about Malaysian music would be cribbed from wikipedia and me bullshitting. Instead, I am going to write about what I do when I have no historical or cultural context to place a record or music in and that is think about the things that make the music on this record in common with other culture's music - or babble on about how crazy it is that in this Malaysian EP I hear really raw American Southern dance floor blues, hillbilly fiddle music, Irish jigs, Indian raga beats, West African guitar music, odd lo-fi cumbias, goombay... the list goes on. Perhaps the time period in which it was made explains the variety of sounds I hear touched on. I am assuming this was made in the 1960s, but even if I am wrong, I know it was made post World War II. From the Fifties on, music from all over the world was making it into different cultures. The airliner was making global tourism a reality. Western aid workers and businessmen were making their way into the "Third World" and the elite of the "undeveloped" countries were studying in American and European universities. Music, fashion, cuisine, art - all aspects of culture were bound to be affected by this mass meeting of people. So, perhaps, this record is a product of that. Or it could be that many of the things I hear on this record in other music are certain universalities, stuff that comes from some musical collective unconscious. I really don't know. But such things are fun to ponder.
4.09.2009
A Message to the World
Eddy's Group A Message to the World (BT Puppy, 1965)
An unusual obscurity this single. It is an anti-war song from 1965, which is too early for the protest song trend of a few years later. Sixty-five saw American advisers in Vietnam, but the war was still pretty much hidden from the public. Thus Eddy's Group doesn't sing of Vietnam, but the dead end of any war, with more than a hint at fearing nuclear war. This is a sentiment you hear in folk music of the time, but it doesn't turn up much in pop music (not to mention excellent haunted pop). Even more unique is that this single is on B.T. Puppy, whose discography is dominated by the doowop and pop of The Tokens, Del Satins, and The Happenings. This might just be the one protest song in the entire BT singles discography. And, to conclude, this looks to be the only record by Eddy's Group...until you realize that Eddy's Group is really The Tokens! Yes, the same band that did "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." If I had to guess, I'd say that The Tokens wanted to make a statement record, but didn't want to tarnish the Tokens brand by having people think they were a bunch of radicals; hence Eddy's Group.
