Don't You Know Yockomo ???

Huey "Piano" Smith, owner of a black belt in gobbledygook, was at the top of his game in Don't You Know Yockomo.

The other day my friend Pete Menchetti spun a cool version I didn't know, by cute New Zealander Dinah Lee. It cracks me up to hear her make her way (rather effectively for a kiwi) through Huey's goofy New Orleans lyrics. Her version reached #1 in Australia and New Zealand in 1964. And here's a nice live clip.

According to this blog, the Y-word comes from "Jockomo" as found in the song cut in 1953 by James "Sugar Boy" Crawford : Jock-A-Mo.

That number was later a hit for the Dixie Cups as Iko Iko. Here's a live clip.

And to bring one more cute chick into this blog, here's a French adaptation by Julie D. and its charming clip (unfortunately out of sync)*.

Bonus track : Casey Jones and the Governors, a second-rate British beat band, tries their best to do Yockomo, but loses the groove.

They nonetheless continued their campaign to bring Huey's music to the British public with a somewhat more successful cover of Don't You Just Know It. But even their clever renaming as Don't Ha Ha was not sufficient to make it a hit. And if that's not enough, here's a live clip !

* As a particularly astute reader pointed out, the chicks in the Julie D. clip are actually the Parisiennes.