Originating at WPDQ in Jacksonville, Fla., These folks performed on WAGA in Atlanta from September 1946 to December 1948. From there, they traveled to WQAM in Miami, then back to Atlanta on WGST from October 1949 to JAnuary 1950. Tommy Trent would subsequently join the Louisiana Hayride. Apologies to Tex Anderson and/or his descendants for the ink blot Partly obscuring his face... that's how I found it.
Like Captain Kangaroo and Walter Brennan, Grandpa was already playing an old man when he was still in his twenties, and eventually grew into the part. This songbook is from 1942, 27 years before he'd first step before the Hee Haw cameras.
The Jamboree is still on the air after almost 79 years(!), though the last decade has seen some bumps in the road.
Offhand, I don't recognize any of these folks except for Lew Childre, eventual Grand Ole Opry star and father of the noted fishing tackle magnate who shared his name.
More information about the Jamboree can be found here, here, and here.
Small-time private eye Lloyd Llewellyn meets a client at a showing of the Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies in a scene from "The Crazy Hot-Rod Drop-Outs From Beyond Jupiter" (Lloyd Llewellyn #3, Aug. 1986).
He's not generally perceived as a big fan of post-depression era pop music, but Crumb has spoken at various points of his fondness for early rock 'n' roll. And while his general distaste for hippie music has been addressed in many interviews through the years, no one has ever asked what '60s music he did like until now:
Robert: "Yes! Last great proletarian rock 'n' roll band. 1966 -- My Baby Does the Hanky Panky, great record. That to me was the last year there was a bunch of good, proletarian rock and roll hits on the radio. After that it was taken over by the California psychedelic thing. I just didn’t find that as interesting. That was all very middle-class. Once the Beatles became famous, then the middle class began to embrace rock 'n' roll and abandoned the kind of middle of the road sound of Bobby Rydell and Pat Boone and all that stuff. And when the middle-class embraced it, they cleaned it up, it wasn’t the same. But Tommy James was one of the last bands, and Sam The Sham, he was another one of the last ones: Wooly Bully and stuff like that." Alex: "Did you like Little Red Riding Hood?" Robert: "Great, great masterpiece. [laughs] But after that, I started to lose interest in rock n’ roll. The golden age of rock 'n' roll was in the 50s and for me, particularly Rockabilly. I really liked that. A lot of the rockabilly stuff was really wild and kind of scared the bourgeois, scared them." Alex: "Like Jerry Lee Lewis?" Robert: "Yeah, great! Great piano player. Little Richard too, excellent piano player but they’re showmen so you don’t get to hear enough piano. But going back to Tommy James, he made a psychedelic song called Crimson and Clover. Remember that? I thought that was pretty good… 'Crimson and clover, over and over…'"
Noted author and possibly the world's most perfectly developed man (now that Charles Atlas is gone) Eddie Deezen tells you about some of Mr. Presley's animal pals, right here.
The Wailers, 1959. Mr. Morrill is second from the right, on keyboards.
The mighty Kent Morrill, vocalist/keyboardist for the original Wailers departed this mortal coil on Friday, after a four-year struggle with cancer. His wife reports that he was singing "Louie Louie" in his sleep the previous night, which is about equal portions of comforting and heartbreaking. The Louie Report has the story; the band's official website is here. Condolences to his family and fellow musicians.
Eddie Brandt was a piano player, writer, and arranger for Spike Jones & His City Slickers for many years, which alone should qualify anyone for a cushy spot in the afterlife. But that's not nearly all! He was head writer (and provided "Incidental Voices") for Beany & Cecil, he wrote for Hanna-Barbera in the '60s on Frankenstein, Jr. and The Cattanooga Cats, among others, and he even had an uncredited role as a piano player in Paul Frees' classic The Beatniks! I didn't have a lot of luck tracking down any good photos of the man (here's a so-so one of him in the '70s with Johnny Bond and Bob Nolan), but you can see him talking about his old boss in this clip:
He also ran what sounds like a pretty amazing video store in North Hollywood, still being run by his wife and son. I would suggest checking it out if you find yourself in the vicinity.
The Hollywood Reporter has the story. Note that they cite his age as 89; I'm going with the birthdate cited by the IMDB, which isn't always wise. Caveat emptor.
BONUS LINK: here's Mark Evanier to say a bit more about Mr. Brandt.
In a show of good taste rarely seen in the last three or four decades, our cousins across the pond in Old Blighty have sent History's Most Perfect Musical Performance to number three on the U.K. Pop Single charts, according to this here article in the L.A. Times. Sure, one could argue that this represents less an act of respect for greatness and more one of eminently justifiable contempt for Simon Cowell and his diabolical puppets, but by God, it still counts! Congratulations to these great Minnesotans, who can next be seen on our shores January 15th in Anaheim, CA at friend of the blog Deke Dickerson's Guitar Geek Festival. If you're in the Pacific Time Zone or can get to the Pacific time zone by then, you'd be a chump not to attend!
My records are all in storage at the moment, which severely limits my ability to pitch in, but there's no way I'm going to sit out "Homer & Jethro Month" in its entirety. So here's a relatively early (1954) photo with a relatively late (1970) track that doesn't relate to it. And just so you know, digging out that magazine got me a fat lip when the box it was in slid off the stack and pasted me one in the chops! The things I do for you people...
Anyone who's spent much time being bombarded by my musical choices knows that two things I really love are Sonny Bono's solo records, as collected on the Rhino Handmade version of Inner Views (I'd avoid the Collector's Choice edition, which is only that album without his other singles), and Beach Boys' Party! So imagine my joy to hear Sonny's peanut butter in the Beach Boys' chocolate! Two great tastes that taste great together!
(Incidentally, you should go here, where the Sonny label is swiped from, to see one of the coolest autograph-collecting strategies I've ever seen)
Everybody's favorite Filipino kiddy rock band is back, this time on the Dinah Shore Show.
There was once a video of Maurice Williams performing the song (which he composed for his first group, the Gladiolas) here, but, like so many You Tube videos, it was taken down. C'est la guerre.
