Here's another recent find from my trip to Indianapolis, "I Got A Good Thing" by the Poodles. It's also another mystery disc of sorts, with virtually nothing appearing on the internet. I inquired about the record over at The Record Collectors Guild. Some of the helpful folks there were able to fill in a couple of the blanks.
Apparently, The Poodles were a trio of teenage girls that included a pair of sisters and a cousin. The Southern City label was located in Gallatin, TN. The girls cut the a-side of today's reocrd, the rather lo-fi "Step By Step", at the label's small rehersal studio. It's a nice, sweet, r&b girl group ballad. As the story goes, the young ladies were eager to put out a record, so it was released, crude sound and all. Being a fan of raw sounding music, the quality of the recording doesn't bother me at all. In fact, it's not that much different from all of those great U.S. Bonds singles. Thanks to Mike Markesich, I know the release date was December 1967.
The real jewel on the disc though is the upbeat "I Got A Good Thing" on the flipside. It was supposedly recorded at a local club in front of a live audience. The thing is, you only hear the "crowd" before the music starts and then again when the song is over. Honestly, the sound effect used resembles someone running a vacuum cleaner more than it does a live audience. It's pretty cheesy but fortunately the song more than makes up for it.
"I Got A Good Thing" is an up-tempo, r&b pounder. The instrumentation is sparse, consisting mostly of drums, with just a little guitar audible. It's the lead vocal that really makes the song. The lyrics are very simple, with one girl singing, "I got a good thing, when I got you"/"Oh, I got a good thing, when I got you" and then a short refrain before returning to the lead lines. The other ladies provide backing vocals. The intense, almost shouted delivery of the lead vocalist whips this into a winner and a dancable one at that. Hey, if the Poodles did ever manage to perform this live, they must have filled a couple of dance floors. Today, the record has had the same effect on my own two (left) feet.
5 comments:
Where are all the comments? I am an avid label collector/accumulator. I just wanted to tell you that I appreciate the work you are doing here. Sure, the music would be cool, as well. But that's not the point to your site, is it? Keep going. It's all good. [Jack from Niagara Falls/Canadian side] Go Sabres!
Thanks for the kind words, Jack. And thank you for reading the blog.
Killer find...when I was living in Ky because of a move with my company...i used to travel to indy twice a month looking for 45's and 78's....always found something nice to come home with
plz post the song. thanks
Their back-up band when performing and also in the studio on the recording sessions was "The Fantastic Dukes", based in Middle Tennessee. Band members included Jimmie Figgins (Lebanon) - Tenor Saxophone, Woodie Douglas (Gallatin) - Bass Guitar, Horace Beatty (Murfreesboro) - Guitar, Harold Clark (Murfreesboro) - Drums, Harold Gilbert (Gallatin) – Trumpet/Piano.
Post a Comment