James Burton and Ralph Mooney - Corn Picken'

It's Corn Pickin' time! We return today to Shreveport, Louisiana and to James Burton. We mentioned in yesterday's post that a young James Burton was on guitar for yesterday's Dale Hawkins tune, La-Do-Dada. Today we feature that guitarist front and center.

James Burton was raised in Minden, Louisiana, just an opossums throw away from Shreveport. He cut his chops early as a self-taught guitarist and became the spokes-picker for a distinct style of guitar playing called chicken picken'. That flat pick/finger pick/under-string-pluck/note bending combo thing he does so well is on full display here on his own composition, Corn Picken'. Burton's second, and final, solo single was released on Capitol Records in March of 1968. It's one minute and 47 seconds of pure geetar pickin' goodness.

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

Dale Hawkins - La-Do-Dada

Dale Hawkins hailed from the swamps near Shreveport, Louisiana. The skinny, pimply faced white kid had a penchant for employing great guitarists like Roy Buchanan and James Burton. James Burton, who would go on to play with Ricky Nelson, Elvis Presley and Gram Parsons, plays on this Hawkins original, La-Do-Dada. This A-Side, Hawkins' 5th single, was released on the legendary Chicago blues label, Checker (a subsidiary of Chess Records) in July of 1958. He may be the only white guy on that label. Anyone?

Dale Hawkins got into the production business and worked with The Uniques, who we just featured a few days ago, Mike Nesmith of The Monkees, The Five Americans and The Blue Things. The Blue Things, incidentally, covered La-Do-Dada in 1965 for their major label debut.

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

The Uniques - Tell Me What To Do

Back in May of 2013 we featured a record by an Arkansas group called The 5x5 (aka The Five by Five) and their excellent recording of Tell Me What To Do for Paula Records. We've re-posted that so it now appears directly under this post. Today we turn to The Uniques doing Tell Me What To Do. 

The Uniques, based out of Shreveport, Louisiana, were led by Joe Stampley. The young Stampley, in addition to his job as leader of The Uniques, worked as a house producer for Paula Records. Not only did he produce The 5x5 version of Tell Me What To Do, but he also wrote it. The Uniques released the Stampley composition in April of 1966, almost a full year before The 5x5 put their stamp on it. It was the Flip-Side of their 5th single. This version features far more guitar work than does The 5x5 version. 

You can now listen to both back to back and let us know which you like better.

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