Happy Birthday Elvis Presley

Happy birthday Elvis Presley. I'm sure you are celebrating with a banana and peanut butter sandwich in your secret hiding place.

Hanna-Barbera Records Spotlight: The Guilloteens - I Don't Believe/Hey You!

I Don't Believe (Call On Me)

Hey You!

We're going to wrap up our almost two-week long Hanna-Barbera Records Spotlight Series with a real nice gem. I know, they've all been real nice gems, right?

The Guilloteens not only had a real clever name, but they also had real solid talent. The band hailed from Memphis, TN and they made some pretty good friends and fans in that town. From the cool cats at Stax Records to a local star named Elvis Presley. It was Elvis who, after catching the band perform in Memphis, brought the trio -- Louis Paul Jr., Laddie Hutcherson and Joe Davis -- out to LA to get a residency at a hotspot called the Red Velvet Cloud. In walked Phil Spector who started working with the band. Everything was going great as they started recording I Don't Believe, a Louis Paul Jr. composition. But Spector may have treated the band as an afterthought and an over-eager manager signed the band to the newly formed Hanna-Barbera Records label without the Guilloteens knowledge. So The Guilloteens severed their relationship with Spector and started recording their first single with a new producer working for HBR.

That first single, released July 1965, is our final song of the HBR series. A series, btw, I have really enjoyed putting out. I Don't Believe features the incredibly strong vocals of it's composer, Louis Paul Jr. The song is like a kudzu vine, it grows on you quickly. The chimey guitar work creates an incredibly strong bed for the echo chamber harmonies and Louis Paul's baritone vocals. Paul really takes flight on his vocals towards the end of the song. At 2:14 we really get to see how strong a vocalist this Guilloteen was.

The Flip-Side, Hey You!, features the vocals of it's composer, Laddie Hutcherson. Hey You! is pure garage joy. A strong guitar riff and tons of teen bravado. Hutcherson isn't as strong a singer as Louis Paul Jr., but the pairing with the A-side makes this double sided gem one of the stronger singles HBR ever put out.

Louis Paul Jr. quit the band after their second single and returned to Memphis. The band soldiered on with other musicians, making another strong single for HBR before signing with Columbia when HBR got the axe. They even supported Paul Revere and The Raiders on tour, but like so many others, the band faded into obscurity without ever really getting the recognition they needed to succeed.

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

Song of the Week: Bill Haley & His Comets - Razzle-Dazzle

Whack-a-doo-a-whack-a-doo! Bill Haley is one of the most influential figures in rock-n-roll history. But he doesn't seem to make it onto the Mt. Rockmore carvings like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly. Perhaps it was his relatively senior age of 30 when he recorded Rock Around The Clock, or his tartan dinner jacket, his comb-over, or his relatively tame demeanor. One thing is for sure: Bill Haley was the first caucasian musician to consciously record a rock-n-roll record with his 1953 recording of his original tune, Crazy, Man, Crazy. 1953! Stop and think about that. 1953. His groundbreaking recording of Rock Around The Clock came out the next year in 1954.

Today we take a listen to his 1955 recording of a Charles Calhoun penned number called Razzle Dazzle. It's a swinging little number with some beautifully ridiculous back-up vocals (whack-a-doo-a-whack-a-doo). One of the reasons this is on the top 3 list of my favorite Bill Haley recordings is the stunning guitar work from lead guitarist, Franny Beecher. Do not overlook this great jazz influenced guitar work. Holy crow that guy could play. But more than just play, Beecher successfully lifts the song up from a good number to a great number. And just as important is the top-notch production on the recording. Every instrument is distinct and clear and nicely balanced. It may be hard to hear on crappy little lap-top speakers, but pay particular attention to the slap bass work of Al Rex Marshall Lytle. It is more clear and distinct than most recordings of a bass for another 10+ years when people like Charles Mingus would make recording the bass their hallmark.

That's all I have to say this week. Have a good one and also enjoy the video below of Bill Haley and His Comets performing Razzle Dazzle. Don't Go out there, they'll crucify you!

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

Song of the Week: The Who and Otis Blackwell -- Daddy Rolling Stone

The Who perform Daddy Rolling Stone

Otis Blackwell performs Daddy Rolling Stone

A little something different for this week's posts. We're going to take a look at five songs by The Who and trace them back to the original composer...or at least, to the inspiration behind the song. Not easy as The Who dropped studio recording of covers pretty early on and, unlike The Yardbirds, the early days of The Rolling Stones, or Led Zeppelin, Pete Townshend wrote largely fresh material.

We start today with Daddy Rolling Stone. That song was never released by The Who in the US, but it did see release in Europe as the Flip-Side of their third single, Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere (the second under the name of The Who).

The Who's upbeat number was released on May 21 of 1965 on Brunswick in their native UK. Keith Moon's tin-can drum kit gets beaten to a pulp and Pete turns in some very fine single string lead work to make this a pill-infused mod raver. Roger is still in his "growl" phase and is supported nicely by John and Pete doing their best Marvelettes impersonation. From live recordings I've heard, I can say definitively, that this studio recording successfully captures The Who's live sound at this stage of their career.

Daddy Rolling Stone was written by Otis Blackwell and was his first release in 1953 for the Jay-Dee label. Blackwell's original is a slow brooding number with strong jazz undertones. Otis Blackwell was a prolific writer of many of the songs we consider standards. All Shook Up, Return To Sender and Don't Be Cruel for Elvis Presley, Great Balls of Fire and Breathless for Jerry Lee Lewis, Fever for Little Willie John are just a few of the notables.

Enjoy and we'll see you on the Flip-Side. 

Vinyl Frontier - Elvis Presley

Song of the Week: Elvis Presley - A Big Hunk O' Love

A Big Hunk O' Love is notable as Elvis' only recording while serving in the Army. It was recorded in 1958 at Bradley's Barn in Nashville, Tennessee and released in '59. It is also notable for being the first recording to NOT employ Scotty Moore or Bill Black. The lead guitarist is Bradley's Barn session man, Hank Garland who also appears on much of The Johnny Burnette Trio's work as well as work done for George Jones and Johnny Horton. Chet Atkins is also rumored to be playing baritone guitar on the number.

Song of the Week: Onie Wheeler - Jump Right Out of This Jukebox

Onie Wheeler and his Ozark Boys hailed from southern Missouri. In 1957 Onie cut one single for Sam Phillips' much heralded Sun Records and toured with Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. Jump Right Out of This Jukebox was the Flip-Side of his lone Sun Records single. It's just a classic honky tonk number that would sound downright perfect in any honky tonk or rockabilly club today. 

Vinyl Frontier: Elvis Presley

Video Diary: Elvis Presley - Trying To Get To You

Thirty Five years ago today, Elvis Presley (allegedly) died.

Song of the Week: Louis Prima - Jump, Jive An' Wail

Our Song of the Week probably isn't new to anyone who knows their music. The song is Jump, Jive, An' Wail. It was written and recorded by veteran New Orleans band leader, Louis Prima. It is just flat out one of the all time great songs ever recorded. A perfect song. So perfect, it was always hard for me to imagine anyone actually writing it. My reasoning has been that it must "just have been" because it was too great to be written by an actual person. But it was. And that person is the aforementioned Louis Prima.

Mr. Prima grew up in the storied New Orleans neighborhood called Storyville. There he learned his art at the feet of his fellow Storyville local, Louis Armstrong. (click here to listen to Dave Alvin perform Armstrong's Perdido Street Blues). Sometime around '34, Louis Prima began fronting his own jazz bands and making a name for himself in the competitive world of New Orleans jazz. Prima's larger than life personality, solid trumpet playing and gregarious vocals would form a new, hyped up form of jazz that would become known alternately as Jump Blues and Swing, a direct ancestor, many would argue, to Rock-N-Roll.

By the time Louis Prima wrote and recorded his original composition, Jump, Jive, An' Wail in the Spring of '56, Rock-N-Roll had already taken a foothold in Memphis (see previous two videos). Jump, Jive, An' Wail was a huge crossover hit for Prima where his number struck a responsive chord with Rock-n-Roll crazed white teenagers, the pop music fans of Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra and be-bop Jazz fans alike.

Papa's in the ice box looking for a can of ale/Momma's in the backyard learning how to jive and wail. You gotta jump and jivin', and then you wail away. 

Prima calls out "Willy the Wailer" and a rollin' piano, subdued for most of the song, deftly propels the song along with a rapid rag. One more verse and a beautiful call and response with the dueling horn section takes the song to a crazed finale. Just a damn perfect song.

P.S. See our Los Straitjackets post to hear a surf version of Louis Prima's original composition -- made famous by Benny Goodman and Gene Krupa-- Sing, Sing, Sing.

P.S.S. Brian Setzer scored a hit with his version of Jump, Jive, An' Wail back in the Swing craze of the early 90's. Don't believe me? Look below.

Video Diary: Elvis Presley - Hound Dog

Video Diary: Elvis Presley - Baby, Let's Play House

Song of the Week: "Tell Me How", Buddy Holly and the Crickets

Listen - Buddy Holly and the Crickets perform Tell Me How

Seventy five years ago today, Charles Holly Hardin was born. We know him better, of course, as Buddy Holly. The singer, guitarist, songwriter died at the stunningly young age of 22. In that glimmer of time the bespectacled young man from the dusty ranch town of Lubbock, Texas, wrote and recorded one of the most impressive libraries of music of any composer, regardless of age.

Try as I may, my words would of course fail to honor the man appropriately, so I will let his music stand on its own merits. Here is his own composition from 1957, Tell Me How. He wrote and recorded this at the age of 20.

Happy Birthday, Buddy.

Song of the Week: "Nothing's Changed", Chris Isaak

Listen - Chris Isaak performs Nothing's Changed

Sometimes I have thought I was born in the wrong year. So many of my musical, design and fashion sensibilities seem to have often been stuck in a different time. Maybe a different place too. I should have been standing on the Sunset Strip the first time Arthur Lee and Love performed at the Whiskey. Or maybe I should have been at the Crawdaddy Club in london when the Yardbirds took over a residency from the Rolling Stones. Sometimes those feelings can make for a sad and lonely Mr. Flip. Like when I awoke from a wondrous dream in which I had been at the Monterey Pop Festival only to realize, that, no, I was still in a small apartment in Providence, Rhode Island and Candlebox had a hit on the radio. Then, every once in a blue moon you meet someone for the first time that you think might just feel the same way as you do. You'll never have a friendship with them, and may never see them again, but at least their is someone else out there that thinks like you.

That was what happened the other night when a generous friend of mine introduced me to Chris Isaak. I had long followed Isaak's music (I hadn't realized how long until I really sat down to think about it) and had seen him perform live a few times. It was, however, the first chance I had to make his acquaintance. I'm not going to make too much of our cursory time together (other than to say that it was awkward when he asked for my autograph on his chest and wanted to take his picture with me...it feels so invasive to always have to do that!). But I will say, that I got that feeling of someone else who also felt as if they are of a different time. Chris Isaak exudes it in his dress, his mannerisms and his music. But, and this is a big but, his music is not so rooted in the past that it becomes a song of the past in the instant that it is born. Instead, Isaak seems to walk that beautiful and difficult line that divides tipping his pompadour to the music of Elvis, Roy Orbison and Conway Twitty and putting out fresh, original music. It's not so time out of place as it is timeless. Not everyone can do it.

Today's SOTW comes from Isaak's 1989 breakout album, Heart Shaped World. The album was recorded with the extremely lyrical guitarist, James Wilsey, who would soon leave the band, drummer Kenny Dale Johnson and bassist Rowland Salley. The latter two are still with Isaak, which says a lot about all of the men and the music. The song is the gentle and beautifully restrained Nothing's Changed. The title of which seems rather symbolic of the theme of today's article.

Enjoy Chris Isaak & Silvertone performing Nothing's Changed.

Video Diary: Elvis Presley, "Heartbreak Hotel"

The man says it all.

Song of the Week: "That's All Right", Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup

We're back under the covers this morning. Today we're snuggling up with a very young Elvis Presley. In fact, musically, it doesn't get any younger. Today we're looking at Elvis' first ever recording: That's All Right, Mama made for Sam Phillips' Memphis based Sun Records in 1954. Everyone should know this recording. After all, it was one of the earliest "rock" recordings ever made and has made every Elvis Greatest Hits collection out there. It's a great upbeat song and deserves all the praise one can give it. It's just Elvis, Scotty Moore on guitar and Bill Black slapping away at the bass in a live performance in the tiny studio.

The break-out hit for Elvis has its origins from 8 years earlier when it was recorded by it's composer, Mississippi based delta blues musician Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. Crudup's version is a surprisingly upbeat total band performance that features Crudup's tinny guitar front and center.

Click here to listen to both versions of That's All Right.

Song of the Week: "Purr, Kitty, Purr", Sid King & the Five Strings

The Flip-Side central command has many pleasures in life. Some of them to which we even admit publicly. One of those is turning people on to hep-cat (ooh, did we just try to get away with that term?) music that -- in all likelihood -- the aforementioned "people" have never heard before. And so it is, with great pleasure, that we present today's song of the week. The song is Purr, Kitty, Purr, by Denton, Texas band, Sid King and the Five Strings.

Sid King was actually a lad from Denton, Texas born with the un-rock-n-roll name Sid Erwin. Sid and his gang made a (new) name for themselves playing radio stations, school dances, roller rink "all night" hops and other assorted local gigs in the early to mid 1950s. Like the teenage Buddy Holly way over in Lubbock, The Five Strings were playing a steady dose of Bob Wills influenced Western Swing. Then they began flirting with a new sound. That sound, of course, is rockabilly. But unlike Holly or Elvis or the Johnny Burnette Trio, The Five Strings never quite stepped wholly into the nascent rockabilly craze. In fact, they remained, at heart, a western swing band. And a dang good one indeed. But, in the flip-side's humble opinion, their best work was their rockabilly forays. But even those weren't wild ravers like the other cats we mentioned. No, they were more in the vein of Carl Perkins: country boys at heart flirting, but never quite becoming, rock-n-roll. Their best songs, like Purr, or Shake the Shack, are a study in restrained power. Songs which hint at a break out, but never quite make that break. Songs that play with lyrical coyness but never quite turn into the bathroom-wall expose it may have become under a different band.

Purr, Kitty, Purr is a wonderful song with a snappy "tom-cat" beat and a lyrical guitar up front and center. But, again, the guitar, like the whole song, is restrained. Even Sid's kitty-cat growls seem innocent and somewhat humorous by today's standards.

I'm sure you'll agree, this kitty-cat is the type of song you'll enjoy making purr over and over again. Enjoy. And enjoy with a person you love. Or by yourself, if that's your thing, you know. I won't tell.