Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

After a hiatus of a few months we return to the history of country music. In the last narrative instalment (Volume 4) we noted the rise of female country singers; some of them will feature in this mix, which covers the years 1950-51, and its follow-up, 1952-53. In the course of the 1950s we will also review country’s contribution to rock & roll, and discuss some of the artists featured. What follows then is a brief overview of country music in the 1950s.

Country had always been a diverse genre. New forms emerged in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Bluegrass took country back to its rural roots, with a sound based primarily on the interplay of string instruments — banjo, guitar, fiddle, mandolin. The pioneer of bluegrass was Bill Monroe, a big fellow with a small mandolin, who in 1939 had formed a band called the Blue Grass Boys. The line-up kept changing, with the most consequential incarnation, in 1946/47, including the hitherto unknown Lester Flatt and Earl Sruggs, who soon would form their own band, have a massive hit with the instrumental Foggy Mountain Breakdown (revived later as a theme for the film Bonnie And Clyde), and enjoy long careers together and separately. Bluegrass has never become mainstream. Various revivals and dedicated musicianship have kept the sub-genre alive; it is possibly more popular now than it ever was, thanks to the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack  and the efforts of singers such as Ralph Stanley, Doc Watson, Ricky Skaggs, Del McCoury, Alison Krauss and Dolly Parton.

Rockabilly borrowed from western swing, boogie woogie and the new genre of black music, rhythm & blues. It had in fact been around for a while: the record commonly identified as the first ever rockabilly record was Buddy Jones’ Rockin’ Rollin’ Mama in 1939, with its boogie woogie piano solo and guitar work that anticipates the sound of the 1950s. The evolution of rockabilly is key to the birth of rock & roll as much as R&B. The slap bass style of playing which was so integral to early rock & roll was a common western swing and rockabilly technique (Bob Wills argued that he had been playing rock & roll since 1928). Western swing artist Bill Haley turned into a rock & roll pioneer via rockabilly. Carl Perkins was first and foremost a rockabilly musician. Elvis Presley was initially regarded as a rockabilly singer who also did R&B — and, as mentioned before, he was a regular on the Louisiana Hayride, having made one appearance at the Opry (supporting Hank Snow).

Other acts initially rooted in country would become rock & roll legends, such as the Everly Brothers  (who were so well served by Nashville songwriters Felice and Boudleaux Bryant), Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran. And the folk scene that had begun growing from New York City in the late 1940s (and would reach its zenith with the rise of Bob Dylan in the 1960s) had its roots in country. Woody Guthrie was initially regarded as a country artist (before the term was in wide use, the label “folk” was often employed to describe the genre).

The 1950s also saw a revival of cowboy music, with Marty Robbins enjoying some big success with his Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs and its pop #1 El Paso.

Finally, the 1950s launched the biggest, most important star in country: Johnny Cash. Cash’s influence on almost all areas of country cannot be underestimated. And it was Cash who pioneered a new trend in country: the outlaw movement.

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TRACKLISTING
1. Eddie Kirk – Sugar Baby
2. Moon Mullican – I’ll Sail My Ship Alone
3. Cotton Thompson – How Long
4. Red Foley – Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy
5. Tennessee Ernie Ford - Mr And Mississippi
6. Tex Williams - Wild Card
7. Ole Rasmussen – Sleepy Eyed John
8. Bill Monroe – Alabama Waltz
9. Jesse James – Rag Mop
10. Ted Daffan’s Texans - I’ve Got Five Dollars And It’s Saturday Night
11. Bill Strength – Black Coffee Blues
12. Lefty Frizzell – I Love You In A Thousand Ways
13. Leon Chappel - True Blue Papa
14. Stuart Hamblin – Remember Me, I’m The One Who Loves You
15. Tex Ritter – High Noon
16. Wilf Carter (Montana Slim) - Apple, Cherry, Mince And Choc’late Cream
17. Bill Haley - Rose Of My Heart
18. Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys – Brown Skin Gal
19. Carl Smith – Mr Moon
20. Hank Williams – Baby, We’re Really In Love
21. Lefty Frizzell - I Want To Be With You Always
22. Johnny Bond - Sick, Sober And Sorry
23. Flatt & Scruggs – Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’
24. Carolina Cotton with Bob Wills – You Always Keep Me In Hot Water
25. Pee Wee King’s Golden Cowboys – Slow Poke
26. Hank Snow & Anita Carter – Bluebird Island
27. Gene Autry – Peter Cottontail
28. Spade Cooley – Indian Summer
29. Cliffie Stone – Jump Rope Boogie
30. Tennessee Ernie Ford – Rock City Boogie

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Previously in A History of Country
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As before, this album refers to artists and songs featured on both 1940s compilations.

The importance to country music of Ernest Tubb’s Walking The Floor Over You cannot be underestimated. It was not the first honky tonk record, nor the first to use the new-fangled electric guitar. But it was the first really big hit to use electric guitar solos, performed by Fay ‘Smitty’ Smith, and is considered the breakthrough record for honky tonk music, a label that was variously used for different genres, but now usually applied in country music.

Trouble is, honky tonk is difficult to define as an identifiable genre. One can identify the distinction between, say, barndance, bluegrass, and rockabilly, but barroom music (a honky tonk is a bar) has few definable characteristics. Honky tonk arguably is an attitude more than a genre. In fact, most of what would be defined as mainsteam country — from Tubb to Hank Williams to Hank Thompson to Lefty Frizzell to George Jones to the stetsoned gang of latter years — is honky tonk. But so are the Outlaw of the ’70s, such as Waylon Jennings, Tompall Glaser and Willie Nelson. But here we are moving ahead of ourselves.

If there are three absolutely pivotal singers in country history, then consensus would surely be that they are Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams and Johnny Cash (though I’d insist on the group being enlarged to include the original Carter Family). Williams has become something of a litmus test for country authenticity, as in the title of Waylon Jennings’ protest against the sentimental, automated schlock churned out by the Nashville machine by the mid-70s: Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way? (No need to specify which of the genre’s many Hanks he meant). In his short career, from his first hit in 1947 to his death while touring on New Year’s Day 1953, Williams recorded 66 songs. Of these, 37 became hits – an astonishing strike rate. Williams’ death at 29 (though he always looked at least ten years older than that) established in him as an icon, much as the other three big premature deaths of the decade that followed did for James Dean, Buddy Holly and Marilyn Monroe.

Williams’ first hit, Move It On Over, was a rockabilly number that in parts sounds more than a little like Rock Around The Clock, and reflected Williams’ affection for and knowledge of blues. We’ll look at the extent of country’s parentage of rock & roll at a later stage, but no discussion on the futile question of “the first ever rock & roll record” is complete with a consideration of Move It On Over.

The song that borrowed from Williams’ debut hit is remembered as rock & roll’s big breakthrough. The performer, Bill Haley, came from country music, specifically the western swing scene. Just a couple of years before he started to shake, rattle and roll with his Comets, Haley was still churning out country records (of course, the likes of Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ricky Nelson, Everly Brothers and even Elvis had their roots in country as well, and would revisit that heritage periodically). Unlike most of the era’s country musicians, Haley was not a Southerner, even if his band, the future Comets, was known as the Saddlemen. Born in Detroit, he lived and gigged in Pennsylvania, where he was a director of music at a radio station in Chester, before becoming a rock & roll pioneer.

If Hank Williams was the live-fast-die-young prototype for the rock & roll lifestyle, then his favourite artist was among the most influential on the yet-to-be-conceived genre. Moon Mullican drew his influences widely—blues, honky tonk, jazz, western swing, folk, bluegrass, Tin Pan Alley—and reflected these in his versatile repertoire. Long before Elvis, Mullican could sound white or black or both at the same time. His piano-playing style directly inspired that of Jerry Lee Lewis. His first big hit, New Jole Blon, updated Harry Choates’ cajun-country hit.

In the 1940s, Bob Wills was still a big star, but he was being eclipsed by Spade Cooley, whose brand of California-based western swing was more pop oriented than the rest of the genre. Indeed, it is said that the term western swing was invented by Cooley’s manager, and after Cooley beat Wills in a Battle of the Bands contest (on Cooley’s hometurf), he modestly styled himself “King of Western Swing”. His appearance in 38 western films helped further to make Cooley a star, and by the late 1940s he hosted his own Emmy-winning variety television show. That show was dropped in 1956.

Five years later, his wife asked for a divorce. In a drunken rage, Cooley beat her to death. He served eight years of a life sentence. The night before he supposedly was to be paroled, he died backstage after playing a benefit concert in Oakland for the Deputy Sheriffs Association of Alameda County.

Al Dexter’s catchy Pistol-Packing Mama (“Now down there was old Al Dexter; he always had his fun, but with some lead she shot him dead; his honkin’ days are done”) was the first record to top what would become Billboard’s Hot Country & Western Sides Charts, but was initially known as the Most Played Juke Box Records chart, which was based, as the title suggests, not on sales but on juke box requests (today’s equivalent probably would be download charts). A huge World War 2 hit, Pistol-Packing Mama was also the theme song of the New York Yankees. Dexter, whose version was released by Okeh Records, shared the incipient top spot with the versions by the Andrews Sisters (on Decca) and Don Baxter (on Musicraft). Dexter was also at #5 with Rosalita. The other top 5 artists that week were Ted Daffan, Bob Wills and Floyd Tillman.

Ted Daffan’s Born To Lose was recorded in 1942, but became a hit only in 1943/44, distribution having been held up by a war-time shortage of shellac. Daffan is better known for having written Truck Drivers’ Blues (first a hit for Cliff Bruner), and Born To Lose is probably more famous in Ray Charles’ interpretation on his seminal Modern Sounds In Country & Western album of 1962. It was also covered by artists as diverse as Dean Martin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Rosemary Clooney and Elton John & Leonard Cohen.

Perhaps the longest performing country musician today is Ralph Stanley of the Stanley Brothers, who feature on the 1947-49 compilation (or perhaps it is Charles Louvin of another brothers act that split due to one sibling’s mid-’60s death was born the same year as Stanley, or maybe it’s Earl Scruggs, now 86 years old). Stanley still recorded into the new millennium, playing a prominent role in the much-lauded bluegrass soundtrack for the Coen Brothers’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou. Now 83 years old, Stanley still performs.

The 1940s saw the rise of bluegrass with acts like the Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs (whose Foggy Mountain Breakdown featured so prominently in Bonnie And Clyde) and, of course, the virtual inventor of the genre, Bill Monroe, after whose band, The Blue Grass Boys, it was named. Founded in 1939 after Bill split from his brother Charlie as the Monroe Bothers, the band at its peak included Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, who lend their names to their distinctive guitar and banjo picking styles. Monroe, a mandolin maestro, resented other bluegrass acts for encroaching on his territory. So when the Stanley Brothers signed with Columbia Records, Monroe left the label in a huff for Decca. Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys performed for 57 years until a few months before his death in 1996. It was a Monroe song, Blue Moon Of Kentucky, that served as the b-side of Elvis Presley’s debut single.

As far as I can tell, the only other performer on this set still alive apart from Ralph Stanley and Earl Scruggs is Arthur ‘Guitar Boogie’ Smith, who was born in 1921 (he is a different Arthur Smith from the fiddlin’ one featured in Vol. 3). The instrumental song that gave Smith his distinguishing middle name – it draws from country, jazz and blues – sold 3 million copies and has been immensely influential; he was something like the Jimi Hendrix of his day. In Britain, the renamed Guitar Boogie Shuffle became a big hit for that country’s electric guitar pioneer Bert Weedon, who played an seminal role in a whole generation of kids picking up a guitar; some of whom formed part of the British Invasion. In 1955, Smith co-wrote a track titled Feudin’ Banjos, which would later be ripped off for the Duelling Banjos track in the film Deliverance. Smith successfully sued for copyright infgringement. His backing band, the Crackerjacks, comprised two more guys named Smith, none of them related, and Tommy Faile. Smith built a recording studio in Charlotte, North Carolina, in which counrtry artists such as Johnny Cash and Chet Atkins as well as James Brown (Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag was cut there).

Cindy Walker was a big star in the 1940s, one of the first female superstars of country. But she made an even bigger mark as a prolific songwriter. Her credits include Jim Reeves’ This Is It and posthumous megahit Distant Drums, Eddy Arnold’s Take Me In Your Arms And Hold Me and You Don’t Know Me (later a hit for Mickey Gilley), Roy Orbison’s Dream Baby, Dean Martin’s In The Misty Moonlight, Jack Greene’s You Are My Treasure, and more than 50 songs for Bob Wills. Walker died in 2006 at 87.

In 1964, the Beatles recorded a song, fronted by George Harrison, called Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, which was a cover of Carl Perkins’ song. Perkins himself borrowed heavily from Rex Griffin’s song of the same title. Griffin’s song was first released in 1936 (that version will feature at a later stage in a different series, as will his suicide anthem Last Letter). The version here is a re-recording from 1944. By then Griffin was washed up. His alcohol abuse did not go well with his diabetes. His recording career over, he wrote for others in the 1950s. He contracted tuberculosis in the mid-50s, and died in 1959 at the age of 47.

The 1940s compilations feature two notable originals that may be better known in versions by others. Cool Water was written by Bob Nolan of the Sons of the Pioneers, but became a bigger hit in versions by Vaughn Monroe and Frankie Laine. And in 1948, T. Texas Tyler gave us Deck Of Cards, in which a GI uses playing cards — associated with gambling and immorality — as a Christian catechism. Perhaps not coincidentally, the song is set at the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy, the site of a series of brutal battles in World War II. Tyler had a #3 hit with it in 1948, and it would become a huge international hit for Wink Martindale in 1959.

Edit: On a point of housekeeping, reader Don B. has rightly pointed out that track 18 by Judy Hayden is in fact Feudin’ And Fightin’, the same song as track 9 by Dorothy Shay. The happy upshot of the unfortunate mix-up is that we get to compare two very different treatments of the same song, at a time when songs would be covered copiously soon after the initial release. The tracklisting below has been amended accordingly; should you feel it necessary, as I would, please do the necessary editing of filename and ID3-Tag (if that’s your thing).

TRACKLISTING:
1. Cowboy Copas – Are You Honest?
2. Paul Howard’s Cotton Pickers – Drinking All My Troubles Away
3. Eddy Arnold – I’ll Hold You In My Heart (Till I Can Hold You In My Arms)
4. Hank Williams – Move It On Over
5. Bill Haley – Rovin’ Eyes
6. Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys – When You Are Lonely
7. Jack Guthrie – Oakie Boogie
8. Hank Thompson – Humpty Dumpty Heart
9. Dorothy Shay – Feudin’ And Fightin’
10. Merle Travis – Nine Pound Hammer
11. Sons Of The Pioneers – Cigarettes, Whiskey And Wild Women
12. Lonzo & Oscar – I’m My Own Grandpa
13. Harry Choates – Fais Do Do Stomp
14. Moon Mullican – Jole Blon’s Sister
15. Hank Williams - Honky Tonkin’
16. Arthur Smith and his Cracker-Jacks – Guitar Boogie
17. Spade Cooley – Fickle Woman
18. Judy Hayden – Feudin’ And Fightin’
19. Ernest Tubb – Forever Is Ending Today
20. T. Texas Tyler - Deck Of Cards
21. Roy Acuff and the Smoky Mountain Boys – Tennessee Waltz
22. Little Jimmie Dickens - Take An Old Cold Tater
23. Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs – Foggy Mountain Breakdown
24. Stanley Brothers - Let Me Be Your Friend
25. Tennessee Ernie Ford – Mule Train
26. Wayne Rainey – Why Don’t You Haul Off And Love Me
27. Tex Williams – With Men Who Know Tobacco Best (It’s Women Two To One)
28. George Morgan – Candy Kisses

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(Mirror 1 Mirror 2)

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Previously in A History of Country
More CD-mixes

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After a couple of Original specials — Beatles and Reworked Hits — we return to the usual random selection of five lesser known originals: the Bacharach/David song I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself, the seriously great Super Duper Love (which became a hit for Joss Stone), Gordon Lightfoot’s Early Morning Rain, rock & roll classic See You Later Alligator, and the story of the Coke jingle that first was another song and then a megaghit which most of us might have preferred to have been taught.

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Tommy Hunt – I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself (1962).mp3
Dusty Springfield – I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself (1964).mp3
Dionne Warwick – I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself (1966).mp3
Isaac Hayes – I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself (1970).mp3
One should think that a song written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, arranged and conducted by Bacharach and produced by the legendary Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller would become a big hit. Alas, R&B singer Tommy Hunt’s version, released on the Scepter label as a b-side to And I Never Knew and as the title track of Hunt’s 1962 album, went mostly unnoticed. Tommy Hunt a former member of The Flamingos (of I Only Have Eyes For You fame), never achieved the breakthrough, but he was very popular on Britain’s Northern Soul scene, and performed on the circuit as late as the 1990s. Scepter tried their luck with the song a second time in 1965 with a version by Big Maybelle, which used the same backing track as Hunt’s. It went nowhere.

In 1964, I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself provided Dusty Springfield with her second top 10 hit , while in the US Dionne Warwick — the great performer of the Bacharach/David songbook — had a US hit with it in 1966, also on the Specter label.

Also recorded by: Big Maybelle (1964), Jill Jackson (1964), Sheila (as Oui, il faut croire, 1964), Joan Baxter (1964), Chris Farlowe (1966), Chuck Jackson (1966), Smokey Robinson & The Miracles (1966, released in 2002), Brook Benton (1969), Isaac Hayes (1970), Gary Puckett (1970), Cissy Houston (1970), The Dells (1972), Marcia Hines (1976), Demis Roussos (1978), Elvis Costello & The Attractions (1978), The Photos (1980), Linda Ronstadt (1993),Linda Ronstadt (1994), Bloom (1997), Nicky Holland (1997), The Earthmen (1998), Sonia (2000), The White Stripes (2003), Steve Tyrell (2003), Trijntje Oosterhuis (2007), Tina Arena (2007), Jimmy Somerville (2009) a.o.

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Sugar Billy – Super Duper Love (1975).mp3
Joss Stone – Super Duper Love (2003).mp3
Not much is known about Sugar Billy, who was known to his mom as William Garner. Apparently a producer of some sort before he released what seems to be his sole album, also called Super Duper Love, on Fast Track Records in 1975, he then promptly faded into obscurity. It’s a pity, because the LP is quite wonderful (though some of it must have seemed a little outdated even by 1975), and the cover is one of the sexiest I can think of. Super Duper Love was the album’s lead single, released in 1974. It didn’t dent the charts. I don’t even know whether Billy, who is also playing the great guitar on the track, is still alive, though it seems that he eventually retired from the music industry and worked as a builder.

Joss Stone launched her career as a 16-year-old in 2003 on the back of her version of Super Duper Love (and a regrettable cover of the White Stripes’ Fell In Love With A Girl) in 2003. It was an inspired choice: a catchy tune which only few people knew, and poppy enough that it did not require her to imitate soul singing. It has a pleasant ’70s soul vibe — as it should have, since several ’70s soul legends appear on it, such as Timmy Thomas (on keyboards) and Betty Wright (as co-producer and on backing vocals). I hope that Sugar Billy did okay on the royalties. If Super Duper Love had been representative of the Joss Stone sound, I’d have been quite content. Alas, the white teenage girl from suburban Brittania was hyped as some sort of mystic incarnation of a soul mother from the deepest south, which clearly she was not. The Grammys loved it, of course, though that is rarely a token of artistic credibility. The girl didn’t know better, but she paved the way for a flood of entirely redundant British white soulstresses.

Also recorded by: nobody else, it seems

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Ian & Sylvia – Early Morning Rain (1965).mp3
Gordon Lightfoot – Early Morning Rain (1966).mp3
Paul Weller – Early Morning Rain (2004).mp3
Richard Hawley – Early Morning Rain (2009).mp3
Several artists had a bite of Early Morning Rain before the song’s writer, Gordon Lightfoot, released it (though he had already recorded it). First up were Lightfoot’s Canadian compatriots Ian & Sylvia, a folk duo discovered in 1962 by Bob Dylan’s future manager Albert Grossman, who’d also sign Lightfoot. The married twosome’s version, with a rather good bass break, appeared on their 1965 album named after Lightfoot’s song. It featured another song by the still mostly unknown Lightfoot, For Lovin’ Me, as well as the original version of Darcy Farrow.

Both Lightfoot songs recorded by Ian & Sylvia were soon covered by Peter, Paul & Mary, who released Early Morning Rain as a single in late 1965, by Judy Collins and by the Kingston Trio. In November 1965 it was also recorded on a demo by the Warlocks, who a month later would become the Grateful Dead, though their version would not be released till later (listen to the full Warlocks session here). Peter, Paul & Mary’s single release tanked, but a 1966 version by George Hamilton IV reached the top 10 of the country charts (he also had success with another Lightfoot song, Steel Rail Blues).

By then, Lightfoot had finally released the song, closing the A-side of his debut album, Lightfoot!, which came out in January 1966 but had mostly been recorded in December 1964. The songwriter, incidentally, had spent a year in Britain presenting the BBC’s Country & Western Show (among his viewers very likely was country fan Keith Richards).

Also recorded by: Peter, Paul & Mary (1965), Judy Collins (1965), Kingstion Trio (1965), Chad & Jeremy (1966), Bobby Bare (1966), Carolyn Hester (1966), The Settlers (1966) ,Joe Dassin (as Dans la brume du matin, 1966), Julie Felix (1967), The What’s New (1967), Bob Dylan (1970), Pendulum (1971), Elvis Presley (1972), Jerry Lee Lewis (1973), Eddy Mitchell (as Chaque matin il se lève, 1974), Moose (1992), Bill Staines (1995), Tony Rice (1996),Grateful Dead (1965, released in 2001),Eva Cassidy (released in 2002), Raul Malo (2004), Richard Hawley (2009) a.o.

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Bobby Charles – Later Alligator (1955).mp3
Bill Haley and his Comets – See You Later Alligator (1956).mp3
We previously looked at Haley’s Rock Around The Clock (first recorded by Sonny Dae & his Knights; see The Originals Vol. 11). See You Later Alligator, the final of Haley’s trilogy of million-sellers, was a cover of Bobby Charles’ Cajun blues number. Born Robert Charles Guidry in Louisiana, Charles (who died in January) recorded the song as Later Alligator in 1955 at the age of 17. It was released in November 1955 without making much of a commercial impact. His hero, Fats Domino, also recorded a couple of his songs, first Before I Grow Too Old and in 1960 the hit Walking To New Orleans. Charles also wrote (I Don’t Know Why) But I Do for Clarence ‘Frogman’ Henry, and played Down South in New Orleans at The Band’s farewell concert (it appears on the 4-disc set of The Last Watltz but, alas, not in the film). That Band song wasn’t his, but he co-wrote Small Town Talk with Rick Danko.

Haley recorded See You Later Alligator on December 12, 1955, apparently allowing his drummer Ralph Jones to play on it, instead of the customary random session musician. Released in January 1956, Haley’s version sold more than a million copies, but reached only #6 in the Billboard charts.

Contrary to popular perception, the catchphrase “See you later, alligator” with the response “in a while, crocodile” was not coined by the song, neither in Bobby Charles’ nor Bill Haley’s version. It was an old turn of phrase, used by the jazz set already in the 1930s, along the same lines as “What’s the story, morning glory?”, ”What’s your song, King Kong?” and “What’s the plan, Charlie Chan?”. It was, however, due to Haley’s hit that the phrase spread more widely throughout he US and internationally.

Also recorded by: Roy Hall (1956), Freddie and the Dreamers (1964), Millie Small (1965), Mud (as part of a medley, 1974), Rock House (1974), Orion (1980), Ricky King (1984), Dr. Feelgood (1986), Zachary Richard (1990)

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Susan Shirley – True Love And Apple Pie (1971).mp3
Coca Cola commercial – I’d Like To But The World A Coke (1971).mp3
The Hillside Singers – I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing (1971).mp3
The New Seekers – I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing (1971).mp3
The contribution of advertising to the origination of pop hits is scarce. There was We’ve Only Just Begun (discussed here) and, well, I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing, whose original function was to peddle Coca Cola. And somehow, a little-known Australian squeezed in her version as the song’s original release.

In January 1971, Coca Cola were looking for ways to popularise its new slogan, “It’s the Real Thing”, which had replaced the classic “Things Go Better With Coke”. The company’s advertising agency, McCann-Erickson, brought together its creative director, Bill Backer, with songwriters Billy Davis (who had written for Motown) and Roger Cook, a member of Blue Mink. Cook already had a melody, a ditty called True Love And Apple Pie which he had written with his regular collaborator, Roger Greenway. The Cook/Greenway partnership was prolific over the years, including hits such as Something’s Gotten Hold Of My Heart, Melting Pot and Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress. The three wrote the words for the jingle overnight in a London hotel room, with the New Seekers in mind as its performers. As it turned out, the New Seekers thought the song was trite and not just a little silly (and that’s the New Seekers pronouncing on sentimentality).

True Love And Apple Pie and was released in March 1971, produced by Greenway and with Davis credited as a co-writer. It seems that the Coke jingle had already been flighted a month earlier on US radio, albeit to negative response. There seem to have been legal wrangling as a result of a version of the jingle Coca Cola had commissioned being in circulation. Shirley’s song certainly received little promotion.

Meanwhile, the McCann-Erickson agency devised a new way to promote the jingle, deciding it needed visuals. The resulting TV commercial (video), filmed by the great Haskell Wexler, became an instant classic. The song, I’d Like To Buy The World A Coke, became so popular that radio DJs persuaded Davis to record it with adapted lyrics. Recorded by session singers without the branding, it was released under the name Hillside Singers, and started to climb the US charts when the New Seekers eventually consented to record it, minus the “it’s the real thing” tag. It became a massive hit, topping the UK charts in January 1972 and reaching #7 in the US.

Unbelievable though it may sound, those creators of entirely original music, Oasis, were sued for plagiarising from I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing, lyrics and music, for their song Shakermaker. The original opening line went: “I’d like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony.” How did the monobrowed twits expect to get away with that?

Also recorded by: Ray Conniff (1971), The Edwin Hawkins Singers (1972), The Congregation (1972),Jim Nabors (1972), Chet Atkins (1972), St. Tropez Singers (as Endnu er jorden grøn, 1972), Klaus Wunderlich (1972), Peter Dennler (1982), Jevetta Steele (1990), No Way Sis (1996), Lea Salonga (1997), Demi Holborn (2002), Bobby Bare Jr’s Young Criminals’ Starvation League (2003), Eve Graham (2005) a.o.

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More Originals

Shuggie Otis – Strawberry Letter 23.mp3
Brothers Johnson – Strawberrry Letter 23.mp3
Quentin Tarantino had a good line in compiling soundtracks. Among the nearly forgotten numbers he resurrected was the Brothers Johnson’s catchy Strawberry Letter 23. I loathe the use of it in Jackie Brown though – scoring a vicious scene with a cute song is so Clockwork Orange. The soundtrack for Jackie Brown surely sold very well. All the more the pity that the author and original performer of the song is now reportedly eking out a decaying existence in Oakland. Shuggie Otis, a gifted guitarist, indeed multi-instrumentalist, and son of R&B legend John Otis (Shuggie’s real name is John Otis Jr), released his ode of appreciation for the 22th love letter on strawberry-scented paper in 1971. The song was intended to represent a response to letter 22, hence the numbering. Six years after Otis recorded the track, Brothers Johnson recorded it in a more upbeat mood, produced by Quincy Jones (who, happily, amplified the opening hook) with Lee Ritenour taking over the guitar solo duties so integral to the song.
Also recorded by: Tevin Campbell (1991)
Best version: Much as I like the brothers’ take.and without wishing to come over all purist, I prefer Otis’ original. The clarity of his less lushly produced instrumental part can do your head in.

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Smiley Lewis – I Hear You Knocking.mp3
Dave Edmunds – I Hear You Knocking.mp3
Smiley Lewis will feature again with another song when we visit the Elvis originals. Here he provided the original for an early ’70s hit. Lewis, a New Orleans musician nicknamed for his missing front teeth, recorded I Hear You Knocking in 1955. The song was written by Dave Bartholomew and Pearl King, and the former was Fats Domino’s writing partner. Fats naturally later recorded the song. At a time when US radio and charts were subject to much racial segregation, Lewis’ record made little impact outside the black charts, where it peaked at #2, and Lewis’ career never really took off. Instead the song enjoyed commercial success in its version by Gale Storm in 1956. Lewis died of stomach cancer in 1966.

Four years later, he would be remembered by the Welsh singer Dave Edmunds, whose cover of I Hear You Knocking reached #1 in Britain and #4 in the US with slightly altered lyrics which name checked Lewis, among others (including Huey Smith, who played on Lewis’ version). Edmunds himself hadn’t known the song until he produced a version of it for the young Shakin’ Stevens – a decade away from fame as a revivalist rock ‘n roller and Christmas #1 hunter. In fact, Edmunds almost didn’t record what would become his biggest hit. He had planned to find stardom with a cover of Wilbert Harrison’s Let’s Work Together, but was scooped in that endeavour by Canned Heat (as we’ll see below). So he adapted the arrangement he had in mind for Let’s Work Together to create a truly original cover.
Also recorded by: Fats Domino (1955 & 1961), Jill Day (1956), Gale Storm (1956), Connie Francis (1959), Shakin’ Stevens (1970), Andy Fairweather-Low (1976), Kingfish (1976), Orion (1979), The Fabulous Thunderbirds (1981), Rocking Dopsie & the Cajun Twisters (1988), Screamin’ Jay Hawkins (1991), Quicksilver Messenger Service (1991), Bart Herman (1993), Alvin Lee (1994), Yockamo All-Stars (1998), Tom Principato (2003) a.o.
Best version: I do like the original better than Edmunds’, but I suspect that Fats Domino would trump either.

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Wilbert Harrison – Let’s Work Together.mp3
Canned Heat – Let’s Work Together.mp3
Bryan Ferry – Let’s Stick Together.mp3
When Wilbert Harrison released Let’s Work Together in 1969, it was a slightly customised take on his 1961 song Let’s Stick Together. For all intents and purposes, it is the same song. Where “Stick Together” failed to make an impression, its reworked version was a minor US hit. Canned Heat, who were canny in their selection of obscure songs to cover, recorded their version soon after and scored a hit with it in 1970 (the same year their hitherto unreleased album produced by John Otis – Shuggie’s dad – was released). To their credit, Canned Heat delayed the US release of the single to let Harrison’s single run its course first. In 1976 Bryan Ferry took the song to #4 on the UK charts, having reverted to the original title, introduced some thumping saxophone and applied the suave working-class-boy-gone-posh vocals. Outside Roxy Music, everybody’s favourite fox-hunting Tory never did anything better. Thanks to Wilbert Harrison’s retitling, it is now evident which version – Canned Heat’s or Ferry’s – has inspired subsequent covers.
Also recorded by: Climax Blues Band (Work, 1973), Raful Neal (Work, 1987), Bob Dylan (Stick, 1988), Dwight Yoakam (Work, 1990), Status Quo (Work, 1991), George Thorogood & The Destroyers (Work, 1995), Francine Reed (Work, 1996), Paper Parrot (Stick, 1999), Kt Tunstall (Stick, 2007)
Best version: Thanks to the sax, Ferry’s. Marginally.

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Sonny Dae & His Knights – Rock Around The Clock.mp3
Hank Williams – Move It On Over.mp3
Bill Haley & his Comets – Rock Around The Clock.mp3
It is indisputable that Bill Haley was a key figure in converting rock ’n roll into the mainstream – or, if we prefer to stray from euphemistic rationalisation, make a black genre infused with some country sensibility palatable to white audiences (so that’s a doctoral thesis delivered in 13 glib words). The notion of Haley as the father of rock ’n roll is about as plausible as describing the Bee Gees as the “Kings of Disco”. Rock Around The Clock most certainly wasn’t the first rock ’n roll single either (on the original label it is categorised as a foxtrot), or even Haley’s first rock ’n roll song. It was the first rock ’n roll #1 hit, though, and the song’s pivotal influence is undeniable, even if it ripped off a 1947 hit, Hank Williams’ Move It On Over (which Chuck Berry also seems to have borrowed from for Roll Over Beethoven).

Rock Around The Clock was written for Haley, but due to various complications involving a feud between record company and authors, it was recorded first by Sonny Dae and His Knights, an Italian-American band, released on a label co-owned by Haley. The original version – quite distinct from the more famous version – made no impression, and there is no evidence that Haley referred to it in his interpretation – indeed Haley and his Comets played it frequently on stage before recording it. Haley’s Rock Around The Clock (recorded on 12 April 1954 as Sammy Davis Jr sat outside the studio awaiting his turn to record) features one of the great guitar solos of the era, by session musician Benny Cedrone. Alas, Cedrone didn’t live to see his work become a seminal moment in music history – he died on 17 June 1954 in a fall, three days short of his 34rd birthday. Perhaps Cedrone might be regarded as the first rock ’n roll death. Which would give the Rock ’n Roll Hall of Fame two reasons to admit him.
Also recorded by: Sam ‘The Man’ Taylor and Alan Freed’s Rock ‘n Roll Band and The Modernaires (1956), Eddie Cochran and Gary Lambert (1956), Royale Orchestra (1956), Noe Fajardo (1956), Macky Kasper (1956), Renato Carosone (1956), Max Greger Orchestra (1956), Pat Boone (1957), Marimba Chiapas (1957), Winifred Atwell (1957), Isley Brothers (1959), Ray Martin Marching Band (1961), Meyer Davis Orchestra (1961), Sandy Nelson (1962), The Platters (1962), Frank Zappa (1964), Peter Kraus (1964), Jumpin’ Gene Simmons (1964), Mike Rios (1965), Bill Haley (1968), The Troublemakers (1968), Wild Angels (1970), Mae West (1972), Tritons (1973), Sha Na Na (1973), Harry Nilsson (1974), Peter Horton (1976), Jack Scott (1979), Telex (1979), Sex Pistols (1979), Les Humphries Singers (1982), The Housemartins (1986), Ty Tender (1987), Smurfarna (1993), Starlite Orchestra (1995), Ernie from Sesame Street (1999) and a few thousand others.
Best version: Haley’s. The guitar, the drums!

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Johnny Darrell – Green Green Grass Of Home.mp3
Porter Wagoner – Green, Green Grass Of Home.mp3
Tom Jones – Green, Green Grass Of Home.mp3
I make no secret of it: I think Tom Jones is a hack. I’ll cheerfully concede that his delivery on Bacharach’s What’s New Pussycat is amusingly over the top, and It’s Not Unusual is a fine song sung well. But look at what Jones did to Green Green Grass Of Home. He robbed it of its pathos and lent it as much depth as his contemporary panty recipient Engelbert Humperdinck invested in his material. The spoken bit is droll, but inappropriately delivered to the point of creating a template for generations of hammy karaoke singers. And the cheesy backing vocals. Much better then to return to the song’s roots in country music.

Written by Claude “Curly” Putman Jr, it was first recorded by Johnny Darrell, the ill-fated associate of the Outlaw Country movement which also included the likes of Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson. In other words, country music that was cool. Darrell’s 1965 version failed to make much of a splash, but Porter Wagoner – who was cool but dressed like an overdone Nashville cliché – did gain some attention with his recording made in June 1965. Both versions communicate empathy with the protagonist, a dead man walking awakening from a dream of being reunited in freedom with the scenes of his childhood but in fact is awaiting his execution in the presence of the “sad old padre” (not “peartree” or “partridge”).

Jones was introduced to the song through Jerry Lee Lewis’ version, also a country affair recorded a few months after Wagoner, and proceeded to turn it into hackneyed easy listening, selling more than a million records of it in 1966. Who said pop was fair?
Also recorded by: Bobby Bare (1965), Jerry Lee Lewis (1965), Leonardo (L’erba verde di casa mia, 1966), Conway Twitty (1966), The Statler Brothers (1967), Dean Martin (1967), Hootenanny Singers (as En sång en gång för längese’n, 1967), Jan Malmsjö (as En sång en gång för längese’n, 1967), Agnaldo Timóteo (as Os Verdes Campos da Minha Terra, 1967), Dallas Frazier (1967), Trini Lopez (1968), Skitch Henderson (1968), Merle Haggard and The Strangers (1968), Belmonte and Amaraí (as Os Verdes Campos da Minha Terra, 1968), Joan Baez (1969), Stompin’ Tom Connors (1971), The Fatback Band (1972), The Flying Burrito Brothers (1973), Elvis Presley (1975), Kenny Rogers (1977), John Otway (1980), Jetsurfers (2000)
Best version: I am most partial to Porter Wagoner’s interpretation, which Jones might have consulted concerning the spoken bit.

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