Song of the Week: The Gants - Smoke Rings/Little Boy Sad

Here is a GREAT double sided single from Greenwood, Mississippi's, The Gants. The Gants were led by Sid Herring who composed the high energy Smoke Rings, the A-side of their 5th single for Liberty Records. The other cats in the band were Johnny Sanders on guitar, Vince Montogomery on bass and Don Wood on drums. The song has it all, cool guitar riff, a second guitar being run through a Leslie speaker and nice smokey vocals replete with Herring screwing up the lyrics and then laughing at himself (at 2:04).

The Flip-Side of Smoke Rings is nearly as good. That song is called Little Boy Sad. I had always assumed the Gants did the garage arrangement of the song themselves, which differs greatly from the 1961 original by Johnny Burnette (also on Liberty Records). But...sometime around 1988, I was living in Australia where I sat in a music rehearsal room in Melbourne playing Little Boy Sad on guitar. The drummer of our band, said, "hey, that's my boss' song...how do you know that?" I told him it was a Gants song. Well, long story short, his boss had once been in an Aussie 60's garage band called The M.P.D. Limited who had a hit in Australia with it in the Summer of '65. A full year before the Gants did it. And it's definitely the same, unique arrangement. In Australia I picked up the M.P.D. Limited version of the song on Go!! Records. Much to my surprise, when I returned to the US, I found a US pressing of the aussie single on LTD International Records. That must have been from where the Gants nicked it.

At any rate, enjoy The Gants best double sided single: Smoke Rings/Little Boy Sad.