Songs The Yardbirds Taught Us (#3): The Johnny Burnette Trio - The Train Kept A-Rollin'

Rip Roaring Rock-N-Roll is embedded in this post. You've been warned.

Day three of On The Flip-Side getting Under The Covers with The Yardbirds and their many cover versions of songs takes us to Tennessee where The Johnny Burnette Trio recorded and released The Train Kept A-Rollin' in 1956 for Coral Records. True, this is not the first version. Tiny Bradshaw gets that credit. Listen to it here. But it is this version that Jeff Beck heard. This record inspired Beck to radically reimagine the song as he and his bandmates hit Tennessee on a tour and squeezed in a recording session at Sun Records in '65. The Yardbirds' version was released in the US Germany on Epic in November of '65. As a Flip-Side we might point out. In the US it was part of the Having A Rave Up long player released in '66.

The Johnny Burnette Trio give us a very different version than what The Yardbirds gave us. But I think you'll agree, it's pretty dang amazing.

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

Song of the Week: Johnny Burnette Trio - The Train Kept A-Rollin'/Honey Hush

Train Kept A-Rollin'

Honey Hush

You knew it was coming. The second published version of The Train Kept A-Rollin' comes from Tennessee. The Johnny Burnette Trio recorded their massive imagining of The Train Kept A-Rollin' at Bradley's Barn Studio outside of Nashville sometime during the summer of 1956. With the very important assistance of session guitarist Grady Martin on lead, The Johnny Burnette Trio laid down arguably the most rocket fueled song of the whole decade. Heck, ever!

From the opening notes of Grady Martin's distorted descending notes to Dorsey's bass slappin', Johnny's hillbilly hollerin' and Paul Burlison's rhythm, the listener is taken on a ride upon a runaway freight train barreling down a winding mountain track at 100mph. The Trio's version, released on Coral Records in October of 1956, does away with the cool demeanor of Bradshaw's recording, rewrites a number of the lyrics, and replaces the horns with a guitar attack that was 100% original in tone and attitude. It is probably best described as sounding like a schizophrenic badger on an all-night crack bender. This radically rewritten Train had left Bradshaw's station and was now on the nascent track towards becoming something much bigger.

We're also flipping our original copy of the 57 year old single over to give you the crispy goodness of the Flip-Side, their cover of Honey Hush.  

Full disclosure, we swiped this picture from the good folk at Roll Call Blog. 

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

Song of the Week: Tiny Bradshaw - The Train Kept A-Rollin'

The Train Kept A-Rollin'!!!!!!!! Sure, you've heard the song before. Probably from The Yardbirds. Maybe Aerosmith. But here is the original recording. 

The Train Kept A-Rollin' was recorded in 1951 in Cincinnati, Ohio by it's composer, Tiny Bradshaw. Bradshaw led a jump blues/swing band that recorded for King Records and had a number of regional hits, but his recording of The Train Kept A-Rollin' is his most enduring legacy. Not necessarily for his recording of it alone, but for what the song would become in the hands of others.

Tiny Bradshaw's pre-Rock n' Roll original is a rollicking up-tempo swing number that features solid saxophone playing, subtle jazz guitar, driving drums and a great vocal performance filling out a largely traditional I-IV-V jump blues arrangement. In the original version, the sexual innuendos are far more evident than any other version. Perhaps Tiny wasn't so tiny after all. D'oh!

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

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.