1. The Real Don Steele, 93 KHJ - Los Angeles, 1966. Maybe I'm cheating a bit but it's not all 45's all the time around here. With no clear cut #1 record, this fills the bill quite nicely. Besides, I've spent more time listening to this trio of 1966 airchecks from the height of Boss Radio than anything else over the past month. KHJ sounded tremendous at this time and The Real Don Steele was their absolute best. A few musical surprises even pop up, like The Stones' version of "Fortune Teller", "Falling Sugar" by The Palace Guard and Love's "My Little Red Book". Boss indeed.
2. The Denims - The Adler Sock (Part 1)/(Part 2) (no label name) Garage band rocks their way to stardom promoting socks for a Cincinnati company. Both sides are great but part 2 wins out because that's where the cool guitar break comes in.3. Mitch Ryder - I'd Rather Go To Jail (New Voice) Went to a flea market this past weekend and found a few of Mitch's later 45's with the Detroit Wheels and a couple of early solo things. Here's the pick of the litter, an absolute cooker. You can tell the fun's about to end though. This wasn't even the a-side of the 45.
4. The Roller Coasters - Wild Twist (Holiday Inn) Rockin' sax and organ driven 1962 instro with some really good guitar that also saw a release on Del-Fi. Not sure which release came first. Anyone?
5. The British Walkers - Shake (Cameo) Garaged up version of the Sam Cooke classic, complete with fuzzed out guitar break.
6. The Show Stoppers - Ain't Nothin' But A House Party/What Can A Man Do?? (Showtime) Here's one that I like better every time I hear it. Great soul, dance tune from 1968 backed with an equally great song.7. Paul Revere & the Raiders - Over You/Swim (Columbia) Almost clicked my heals together when I spotted this one. From just before they made it big and thus a bit tougher to track down than most of their Columbia singles. And it's flipped with a cool instrumental.
8. Pilot - Magic (EMI) A huge hit in the States, circa the spring of '75, I just now picked up a copy of the 45. I loved it when I was 10 and I love it now. This is just great power pop.
9. Robert Parker - All Nite Long (Part 1)/(Part 2) (Ron) Nice early single for Mr. Barefootin'. Part 1 is totally instrumental while Parker gets off a few lines in part 2.
10. Clarence Carter - Funky Fever (Atlantic) Tremendous, uptempo, soul dancer tucked away on the flipside of his hit, "Slip Away".11. Bob Kuban & the In-Men - The Pretzel/Pretzel Party (Musicland U.S.A.) Finally scored a couple of Bob Kuban singles on a trip to St. Louis. Not sure which song was the intended a-side here but does it really matter? I'm sure the kids who were dancing to these back in the middle 1960's didn't care.
12. Rene Hall's Orchestra - Twitchy/Flippin' (Specialty) A cheap eBay purchase based on the label and song titles. And it doesn't disappoint. "Twitchy" is one of the coolest 50's instros ever. And the flip holds its own too.
7 comments:
Todd
Holiday Inn Records was Sam Phillips label after Sun. I think the Robert Parker 45 might feature him on sax (he played in Professor Longhair's band) which might explain why there isn't much of a vocal there.
I'd love to hear those Real Don Steele airchecks. He went on to do some cameos in Roger Corman movies like Death Race 2000 and Rock and Roll High School.
Larry
Larry, I'd just recently read that Holiday Inn was a Sam Phillips label. Any idea how he got to use the name and logo? Thanks for the info. on Robert Parker. I sort of wondered why he recorded an instrumental.
That Adler Sock record IS a very cool record. There is a small subgenre of garage records that plug records. I have a few. But one that I want, that I have heard of but not heard is a Maiden bra ad song by the Push-Ups. I hear it's the tits.
Scott, I have another Denims record, "Salty Dog Man" that was used to promote jeans. It's a really good one too.
Brian, "The Pretzel" is credited to band member John Krenski.
I'm late coming in on this; but that is Robert Parker playing sax
on "All Night Long". Eddie Bo is doing the talking (he produced it), and Mac Rebennack (Dr John) is on guitar.
Guitarist Rene Hall did make some great instrumental sides. He was originally from Morgan City, LA and played jazz before getting into R&B in the 50's on the West Coast. That's him on a lot of Larry Williams hits like "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" and "Bad Boy". I think he was the guitarist on the original "La Bamba", too, with
Earl Palmer on drums. They both did lots of session work in L.A.
Dan, better late than never, I always say. Great info on the Robert Parker disc. Never would have guessed that was Eddie Bo's voice I was hearing. Also, nice background on Rene Hall. Thanks
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