Roger at the Nugget - Reno, NV, July 1975

Fifty Years Ago This Week In Upstate South Carolina

 I can't vouch for the current whereabouts of the other D.J.s , but Country Earl can be found at his restaurant in Simpsonville every weekend. Have a look-see!

As near as I can tell, I currently have 27 out of 40 (and eight of the MIAs are intentional). How about you?

Ed. note:  you can hear Country Earl's radio program under the "Aircheck" section on the right side of this here blog.

Do you like the Chipmunks?

If you do (and what right-thinking American doesn't?), then I strongly recommend you go have a look at this swell blog stuffed full of photos of rare Chipmunks items. It looks like she may have given up on it, but perhaps a flood of comments might wake things up again.

Christmas Fun...or Christmas Misery. Choose Wisely!

(This post was supposed to go up around lunchtime, but I didn't press "post".)

Spike Jones & His City Slickers - "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer"

Bill Anderson - "My Christmas List Grows Shorter Every Year"

WARNING: If you're having a bad Christmas, or are alone right now, I strongly urge you not to click on this one. Seriously. Proceed at your own risk!

Arthur Alexander Month: The Death of Joe Henderson

     So... while browsing through old issues of Billboard for info about Mr. Alexander, I stumbled upon this article in the November 7, 1964 issue:

    While on the one hand, this does answer the question of why I'd never seen any further records by Henderson, on the other, it just generates further questions. What causes a 27-year old to have a heart attack? A congenital heart defect? Amphetamines (certainly a common thing in the Music City)? Or something else? And why was he bunking with Arthur, rather than his wife and kids? Mrs. Henderson died in 2008, so she's obviously not a good resource.

If you're only going to have one song that people remember, you could do a lot worse than this. 

    I have no answers for those questions, but thanks to the efforts of crack digital librarian and first-rate spouse Mandy Mastrovita, I do know a few things about where Alexander was as his roomie lay dying:

"Social...Spin," Red and Black, October 22, 1964, p. 6
Presented online by the University
of Georgia Libaries.

     Homecoming 1964 at the University of Georgia would have been a pretty good weekend to crash some Greek parties. I can't say which one I would have chosen, though. How could you? Not just Mr. Alexander at Chi Psi, but The Five Du-tones, Eddie Floyd, The Tams, The Sensations (I'm assuming it was these Sensations),  The Upsetters (minus Little Richard), The Catalinas, whichever sets of "Ambassadors" and "Vibratones" these were... even Dionne Warwick (or "Warlick", as they render it here) would have been  worth seeing at that point. Of course, you'd have had to go to a frat party. And, since the Bulldogs apparently won their game by 21-7, they were probably especially wild and rowdy that night.

Chi Psi House, 320 S. Lumpkin St.

       Here's a tiny photo of the house where you'd have been attending the party in question; it was pretty new at the time, having only been built in 1960. The frat was kicked off campus for booze violations in the late '80s, and the building was razed in 2004.

Joyeux Anniversaire à la Reine du Rock Français!

Édith Giovanna Gassion, 19 December 1915 – 11 October 1963

     I refer of course, to the "Little Sparrow", Édith Piaf, who would have been 96 today, though realistically, everyone knew she was never going to get that far (as it is, she was lucky to have made it almost halfway). You may question my characterization of her in the above title, but to that challenge, I offer her 1956 rendition of a popular Leiber & Stoller composition about the life and death of a leather-clad motorcyclist thug... and what's more Rock 'N' Roll than that? 

Edith Piaf - "L'Homme á la Moto"*

     Also: Happy Birthday wishes to the great Professor Longhair (he'd have been 93) and to Phil Ochs (who'd have been a mere 71, but like our featured artist, has now been gone as long as he was here).

* Pairhops zis ees bettair known to you feelthy Americain peegs undair eets original title, "Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots", as first recorded by ze Cheers.

One Hundred Years Ago Today

December 14, 1911- May 1, 1965

On this day in the year Nineteen Hundred and Eleven, in the city of Long Beach in the land of California, a child was born unto a humble railroad agent and his bride, and they did christen the infant Lindley Armstrong Jones. And lo, because he was so slender, like unto a railroad spike, men did call him "Spike." And when he became a man, he gathered unto him many odd-looking Disciples, and together they made Music of a nature unlike any the the world had ever heard. And they traveled throughout the land, bringing this Music to all the people, and their Glorious Cacophony brought Joy unto the Multitudes,even unto his death and beyond, and his Song shall sound throughout the world, until the End of Days. Amen.

Esquerita Awareness Month: "As Time Goes By"

    It's time for the closing ceremonies of Esquerita Awareness Month, so if you start listening to this as soon as it's posted, it'll end right on time a few seconds before midnight. We're going to play you out with the B-side of Esquerita's last single (the flip can be heard here), his version of the 1931 standard better known for Dooley Wilson's version from ten years later, as heard in Casablanca. I was going to offer up my 78 of that version as well, but I can't seem to locate it, and I have a vague memory that it might have cracked beyond playability some years ago. C'est la guerre. And it's not as if you haven't all heard it, anyway.

    Self-indulgent personal note: As a kid growing up in upstate South Carolina in the '70s and '80s, there wasn't much evidence of anything good ever having happened there, so getting my copy of Kicks #3 and learning that Esquerita was from right up the road in Greenville... well, that was pretty gratifying. At last, a fellow South Carolinian who wasn't an embarrassment. I've learned a lot more about local music history since then , -- maybe sometime I'll tell you about the Monstabuckings, from Anderson, for instance-- but that was the first indication that maybe my homeland had spawned something greater than the Marshall Tucker Band*. And for that I'm grateful.

Magnificent Malochi - "As Time Goes By"


*To be fair, there's a lot worse to be found along the "Southern Rock" spectrum, but growing up in a redneck college town (the worst of both worlds!)gave me an exceptionally low tolerance for all AOR music, whether British- or Southern- accented, which has remained with me throughout life.

Esquerita Awareness Month: "Mama Your Daddy's Come Home"

As Esquerita Awareness Month draws to a close, we offer up the great man in another of his many aliases (to refresh your memory: Stephen Quincy Reeder, Jr. AKA Eskew Reeder/Eskew Reeder, Jr. AKA Esquerita AKA Esqrita* AKA S.Q. Reeder AKA Eskew "Esque-Rita" Reeder AKA Magnificent Malochi AKA Mark Malochi AKA Fabulash, and probably more that aren't documented) with a fine entry from 1968. The last solo record he'd release during his lifetime, it doesn't seem to have charted anywhere I can find, despite Billboard's prediction:

On a personal note, this is a particular favorite of my lovely wife. I hope you like it , too!

Magnificent Malochi - "Mama, Your Daddy's Come Home"



*This is how it's rendered in the songwriting credits on Little Richard's "Dew Drop Inn" and "Freedom Blues". Richard apparently nicknamed him "Excreta", so I guess we should add that one to the above litany of names.

Esquerita Awareness Month: Little Richard - "Dew Drop Inn"

Little Richard - "Dew Drop Inn"

     Today's tune, released in Spring 1970 by Little Richard and co-written by "Esqrita," was the first single off of The Rill Thing, his first new album in three years and was the flip side of "Freedom Blues", also co-written by Mr. Reeder, . It was Richard's biggest hit in the post-Specialty era, charting in Billboard at #47, and in Cashbox at #62, which I suppose makes it the best-selling disk that Esquerita was ever involved in.

     While the song is a tribute to the famous New Orleans night spot (located at 2836 LaSalle Street), it also serves as something of a eulogy, since it was at about this same point that the club breathed it's last gasp.  Jeff Hannusch has a good article about it's history at the Iko Iko website that I recommend.

     Esquerita's own version of this tune was recorded in the '60s. but not released until 1991 by the good folks at Norton Records. It can be had either as a 7'' or as a bonus on the CD version of Vintage Voola. Maybe you should just get both, to be safe!

Little Richard - "Dew Drop Inn"

Gary Garcia 1948-2011

The media coverage of Gary Garcia's death on November 17th was understandably  focused on his status as half of Buckner & Garcia (I'm not going to embed "Pac-Man Fever" here, but if you simply must hear it, you can see them perform it on American Bandstand here). Here in Ichiban-land, though, we mourn him as the leader of Akron, Ohio's Outlaws. You can hear them perform "The Scavenger" here, courtesy of Bob the Sponge. Side note: the still-living Jerry Buckner was apparently a member of the Rogues, who made a couple of records backing up Harvey Russell, the "Singing Cop".  Here's the first one-- a fine Isley Brothers cover.

Photo swiped from Buckeye Beat

  While they met in Akron as students at Perkins Jr High School, Mr. B and Mr. G plied their trade in Atlanta from the mid-'70s on, and that's where they created their most important contribution to American culture. Any Southerner-- or anyone who's ever gotten hungry on the interstate in the South, for that matter-- is familiar with the row of site-specific singles on every Waffle House jukebox. Most of those singles are produced or performed by Buckner and/or Garcia. Here's a label shot of one, courtesy of our own Greg G. 

  So, next time you're eating hash browns by the off-ramp at 2:45 AM, punch up a couple of WH anthems and raise your glass of sweet tea in a toast to Mr. Garcia. Make sure your food's already on the table, though... I've encountered Waffle House employees who aren't all that thrilled to hear "Waffle House Woman" or "844, 739 Ways to Eat a Hamburger" yet again, and they're not willing to say that they won't spit in your food. Fair warning.

Esquerita Awareness Month: "Sweet Skinny Jenny"

      This is the A-side to Mr. Peek's first solo single; the B-side may be heard here, where its context, and the origins of this particular copy are discussed at length. Besides Peek and Esquerita, this session also included future NRC recording artists Joe South and Ray Stevens.

     I held off on posting this last week because I was hoping to relate an amusing anecdote about Mr. Peek, but the person I heard it from some years back no longer remembers the details, so I'm gonna skip it. It wasn't that great anyway, I guess.

    Paul Peek (with Esquerita) - "Sweet Skinny Jenny"

WIBG TOP 99 For The Week of November 4, 1963

This post is going up 48 years and 4 days late, but close enough, right? Looking over this, I believe I own 39 of these on 45. Here's #51 for your listening pleasure.

    This one presumably got a few spins over in Merrie Olde Englande, because the next year, Pep-pill popping P.R. Man Peter Meaden (1941-1978) shamelessly rewrote it with new "mod" lyrics for the first single from a band he was then managing called the High Numbers. The single flopped, Meaden was dismissed, and the band presumably vanished into obscurity.
   I'm certainly not going to post every song here for you, but here's #76 and the flip side of #92 (the A-side's fine, but the backside is more appropriate for this venue).
  If you want to hear what the kids in Philadelphia were listening to a few years earlier, Joe Niagara recreated a bit of his show on Cruisin' 1957, which shouldn't be too hard to track down. And while he checked out of this world in 2007, Hy Lit can still be heard deejaying from beyond the grave on www.hylitradio.com (I assume... I had trouble making it load, but it may be a Mac/PC thing).

Esquerita Awareness Month: "The Rock-A-Round"

     
     Paul Peek and Esquerita were both from Greenville, SC, and met while Mr. Reeder was headlining there at the Owl Club in 1958. Paul was justifiably impressed with Mr. Reeder's act, and introduced him to his boss at the time, Gene Vincent, who would soon use his influence to get him signed to Capitol records. Before that point, though, he helped arrange for Esquerita and his band to cut several demos in Dallas, as well as today's selection (this material is all collected on Vintage Voola, from Norton records). This was Mr. Peek's debut record, as well as the first NRC single, and was co-written by Peek and "Esque-Rita" (if by "co-written", one means "swiped from Ahmet Ertegun and Ray Charles"--- but why nitpick?).
      This particular scratchy sound file, however, is not from that album. It's from the single pictured above, which I and an accomplice "shoplifted" from a Kroger supermarket, circa 1993! Perhaps this requires explanation: at that time, the now-defunct Broad St. Kroger here in Athens, GA was doing a goofy "Back To The '50s" promotion, with the store haphazardly decorated for the occasion. There were posters and crepe streamers throughout the store, the freezers had an assortment of pedal cars on top for some reason, and the deli section had dozens of 45s dangling on ribbons from the ceiling. They had clearly just gone to the Potter's House thrift store and grabbed up a six-or-eight-inch stack of singles from the top of the pile, and the bulk of them were '70s & '80s junk: Osmonds, KC & The Sunshine Band, and worse. On maybe my second or third visit during the promotion, though, I was shopping late, around midnight, and happened to see a familiar label out of the corner of my eye, and looked closer to see the above record (no sleeve-- I added that later). Looking around a lot more carefully, I saw nothing else of interest, except for a second copy! THey were hanging just out of my reach, so I went home, grabbed a couple of junk 45s, then went next door and fetched a fellow record hound, the slightly-taller Mr. Jim Tucci, and returned to the grocery store. he yanked down the records, we tied the ribbons to our replacement singles and left them on the floor (see? It wasn't actual thievery!), selected our groceries, and went home.

Paul Peek (with Esquerita) - "The Rock-A-Round"

H.M. Subjects

There's a pretty good chance that, as the sort of person who reads this blog, you're aware of Miami, Florida's legendary Montells. It's also not unlikely that you're aware of their cover of the Pretty Things' "Don't Bring me Down," which was reissued as part of the Montells/Evil split compilation released on Corduroy in 2002 (apparently out of print). It's at least possible that you own the 45, and if you do, it might look like this:

...or it might look like this:

My copy, however, looks like this:

...and it sounds like THIS (i.e. pretty scratchy). Any of you record hounds seen one like this before? This copy just has the "censored" version on both sides with loud bleeps over the mildly suggestive lyrics, which makes it sound a million times dirtier. The gimmick, as well as the new, more "British" name (shades of the Sir Douglas Quintet!), was the brainchild of their manager, local WFUN DJ "Doc" Downey. Say what you will about  the late Morton Downey, Jr (and there's plenty that you could say!), he knew a few things about getting people's attention.

More Songs We Taught Porter Wagoner

During our "Country Music Week" festivities the other week, there was some discussion of the relative merits of "The First Mrs. Jones" as performed by Porter Wagoner versus Bill Anderson's own version (SPOILER ALERT: they're both awesome!). This week, I'd like to initiate a similar discussion about another song from The Cold Hard Facts of Life, arguably Porter's greatest  (I'd certainly argue for it!).

Here's Porter's familiar version:

And here's a version by its composer, Mr.Willie Hugh Nelson.

   As much as I love Porter's version, I've got to lean toward Willie's rendition:  cooler and detached, yet with the quiet menace lurking right under the surface. This is a record that my wife doesn't care for, particularly if I'm singing along (she's also not fond of Jack Kittel's version of "Psycho", for some reason). Women! Who can figure 'em?

A Change Of Tense

While Johnny Cash claims to walk the line, Don Costa does not make that claim for himself at present, but aspires to that course of action at some unspecified future time. Regrettably, Mr. Costa failed to provide any vocals that might clarify the issue.

Don Costa - "I'll Walk The Line"

Two More Things About Jim Reeves

    (1) This didn't really fit into my previous piece, but I didn't want  to abandon it: Reeves was and remains a HUGE star in certain other countries, including Great Britain, Germany and Norway, but especially  so in South Africa, India, and Sri Lanka. If I may quote from Wikipedia:

"Robert Svoboda, in his trilogy on aghora and the Aghori Vimalananda, mentions that Vimalananda considered Reeves a gandharva, i.e. in Indian tradition, a heavenly musician, who had been born on Earth. He had Svoboda play Reeves' "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" at his cremation."

(I'd like to note that this was entirely unsolicited, unlike Stephen Seagal's promotion to "reincarnated lama" status. I don't anticipate that any such honors will be bestowed on Trace Adkins or Lady Antebellum any time soon.)

     A year or two ago, I was playing a Roger Miller album at work when a young South Asian woman walked up to the counter and asked if it was Jim Reeves. In talking to her, I learned that while she wasn't that knowledgeable about Reeves, that her parents and other family members were big fans, and that her aunt had gone to the Jim Reeves Museum while on vacation in America. Back home in either Pakistan or Sri Lanka (I forget which), this was seen as a big enough deal that she was asked to write an article for the local newspaper about her experience.

    (2) On a more personal note, my grandfather was not a major music fan (he didn't own more than a dozen records and a handful of 8-tracks), but his two favorite singers were Jim Reeves and Jimmy Rodgers. He had spent some time as a hobo in the 1930s, and as a result, this was his favorite song by either of them:

I still prefer my grandfather's off-key rendering of it, but Jim does it pretty well, too.

Mrs. Jim Reeves

 A couple of years ago, my buddy Robert got me this pocket date book off of eBay as a Christmas present, because of the Hatch Show Print logo. The only writing in it (other than what appear to be some notes made while doing a crossword puzzle) was the two-page spread seen below.

 Examining this, I realized that it seemed to have some connection to country legend Jim Reeves; my initial assumption was that it had belonged to Jim's manager or some other close

associate, who was making notes toward figuring out what to give Jim and Mrs. Reeves for Christmas a half-century ago. A subsequent perusal of one of my vast collection of postcards would lead me to a different conclusion.

Mary Reeves (1929-1999)

After Reeves' death in 1964, his wife Mary  dedicated most of the rest of her life to preserving Jim's legacy , both by releasing a great many overdubbed posthumous recordings, Norman Petty-style (some perfectly good, others notably less so--- also like Petty's Buddy Holly products), and by operating a Jim Reeves Museum in Nashville for over 20 years. At some point during that period of time, the souvenir shop sold postcards of the widow Reeves, one autographed specimen of which was in my possession.

Comparing her signature to the notebook, I concluded that the book had been hers, and that the "Mrs. Reeves" in the book was in fact her mother-in-law!

Judge for yourself... it's not an absolutely perfect match, but the 20-plus year gap between the two documents, added to the different nature of a signature and scribbled notes would explain that adequately in my view.

So that's the story of my "Holy Relic", as I currently understand it. Regrettably,if this actually was Mary's, it was likely released into the world when her second husband sold off all of her property and all rights to Jim's recordings and name when she went into a rest home. Her obituary has the sad details.

Here's Mary in happier times:

And here's the man himself:

(written by his old buddy Roger Miller)

James Travis Reeves
(August 20th 1923- July 31st 1964)

Postscript: For any Hatch Show Print fans here in the Athens, GA area, American Letter press: The Art of Hatch Show Print is in town at the Georgia Museum of Art until November 26th.

COUNTRY and WESTERN