I'm sorry for the lack of posts here recently. I haven't been as active here as I'd like but I have done a lot of digging for records all the while. Last Friday, we had a beautiful day here in southern Illinois. In fact, we've had a nice run of cooler days (especially for July) and Friday I hopped, skipped and jumped around looking for records. I found myself about 100 miles from home, visiting thrift stores in quest of my fix. Such is the nature of the search. And my little road trip paid off with a few nice finds. I hope to head out again later this week and look some more.
If you've stopped by the blog during the past couple of weeks, you may have noticed (or maybe not, who knows?) that I dropped the old mp3 player in the right-hand column of the page and replaced it with a new one. This new player is much more user friendly than the old one. It's easier to scroll up and down, read song titles and skip from one song to another. It's also easier for me because I can upload songs directly to the player from my hard drive, without having to go through an online host for my mp3's. For this reason, I'm also going to start posting mp3's for all new blog entries directly to the the new player. The mp3's for new blog entries will always be at the top of the playlist and remain at least until the entry has fallen off the first page.
Anyway, on to today's music. I realized that I hadn't posted anything nice and garagey here for awhile, so here's one that I picked up at this month's St. Louis record fair, "Hurt Me" by Larry Knight & the Upsetters. When I spotted this at the show, I had it pegged for soul because the Golden World label is out of Detroit and released lots of good soul records back in the sixties. So, I was quite surprised when I play tested it and found it to be a bona fide garage rocker. I was even more pleased when I got it home and heard just how good it really is.
I haven't been able to find any good information on Larry Knight or his band. I'm not even sure if they released any other records nor if Golden World has any other garage rock nuggets in its catalogue. What I do know is that "Hurt Me" certainly has an r&b influence, with lots of hipshakin' action.
"Hurt Me" opens with a drum beat wallop, with the guitars jumping in next. The vocals are very r&b revue-esque for lack of a better term. I just gotta think this song was a great one to see performed live. It's easy to conger up images of a sweat soaked dance floor packed with teen-aged kids. The vocalist lets out a scream that unleashes a cool guitar break making for a perfect garage take on rhythm and blues. Gotta listen at maximum volume for the full effect.
3 comments:
Greetings from Baltimore, where the weather is just as pleasant. I'll take 'em how I can get 'em...
I love the new look of your jukebox. I'll have to give it a spin soon. Work has really been hectic the past few weeks.
Like the mighty DJ Prestige says, Keep Diggin'!
Peace And Blessings
"Hurt Me" by Larry Knight & The Upsetters was very big in St. Louis May 1966-July 1966. In May of 1965 I believe that they opened for Herman's Hermits at the old Kiel Opera House along with a local band, "The Bob Kuban Band" (a little later to be called "Bob Kuban & The In-Men) and Freddy "BoomBoom" Cannon.
Larry also opened for Jan and Dean at the Kiel. He was drafted shortly after Hurt Me came out. When he returned from Viet Nam he played for a short while with Jules Blattner. In the 70's he switched from lead to bass and toured withe the Spirit for several years also with Delaney and Bonnie(also a St.Louis girl). He now has a group called Blowin' Smoke Rythm and Blues Band. They have a CD called Beyond the Blues Horizon avail. cdbaby and amazon. He is presently working on a new CD called Sky King coming soon. His group plays at Harvelles in Santa Monica,Calif. He's presently looking for any old pictures of the Upsetters or of himself from the old Gaslight Square days(Russ Lewis' Whisky a go go or Pepe's. His email is blowinsmokeband@ktb.net thanks Donna
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