Louis Jordan For President!

It's only 2013 and I'm already tired of hearing about the next Presidential election.  Now if Louis Jordan were in the race, things might be different.  Via the fantastic JET archives.

Take a trip to Monkey Jungle!

"Recycled" Records

Self-explanatory...to listen to the mix, CLICK HERE.

Track list:

Ralph Smedley & the Breathers - Suffocate
Ernie Freeman - Jamboree
Duke Mitchell - The Lion
The Spinners - Boomerang
The Sandabs - Crab Louie
Larry Verne - Tubby Tilly

Surfing Hollow Days (1960)

Who Is That Knocking?

1 "Boodle It" Wiggins: Keep A Knockin' An You Can't Get In

2 Rex Allen: Knock Knock Rattle

3 Faye Adams: The Hammer (Keeps A Knockin')

4 The El Dorados: At My Front Door

5 Fletcher Henderson & His Orch.: Knock, Knock, Who's There

6 Boys And Girls Together: Knock Knock

7 Jimmy Work: Don't Knock (Just Come On In)

8 Bob Dylan: Knockin' On Heaven's Door

9 Earl Scott: Stop You're Knocking

10 Juanita Nixon: Stop Knockin'

11 Paula Watson: Stop That Knockin' At My Heart

12 Victor: Stop A Knockin' (courtesy Tom Taber)

13 Eddie Hodges: I'm Gonna Knock On Your Door

14 The Sonics: Keep A' Knock'in

15 Eileen Todd: Knock, Knock, Knockin'

16 Aimi Stewart: Knock On Wood

17 Ike & Tina Turner: A Love Like Yours (Don't Come Knocking Everyday)

18 Randy Rudolph: I Kept A-Knocking

19 Legendary Stardust Cowboy: Who's Knocking On My Door

20 The Genies: Who's That Knocking

21 The Genies: No More Knockin'

22 Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five: Keep A-Knockin'

23 Smiley Lewis: I Hear You Knocking

24 Billy Adams: You Heard Me Knocking

25 The Pastels: Don't Knock

26 Pete Best Four: I'm Gonna Knock On Your Door

27 The Stereos: The Big Knock

28 Half Japanese: Knock On Wood

29 The Rolling Stones: Can't You Hear Me Knocking

30 Billy Fury: Don't Knock Upon My Door

31 Carol Fran: Knock Knock

32 Carol Fran: I Quit My Knocking

33 Conway Twitty: Knock Three Times

34 Bernd Spier: Klopf Dreimal

35 Grazina: I Ain't Gonna Knock On Your Door

36 Harpers Bizarre: Knock On Wood

37 Little Richard: Keep A Knockin'

38 Pat Shannon: Knock Knock (Who's There)

39 Nilsson & Cher: A Love Like Yours

40 The Go-Betweens: Knock Knock

41 The Green Beans: Knock On My Door (Tap On My Window)

42 The Isley Brothers: I'm Gonna Knock On Your Door

43 The Orlons: Knock! Knock! (Who's There)

44 The Primates: Knock On My Door

45 Brent Dowe: Knock Three Times

46 Death: Keep On Knockin

47 The Humane Society: Knock, Knock

KNOCK KNOCK

Surf Crazy 1959

Slippery When Wet 1958

Bruce Brown shot 8mm films of surfers when he was stationed in Hawaii back in the 1950's.  After moving back to California, Dale Velzy gave him $5000 to shoot a 16mm film promoting the Velzy surf team.  Brown narrates and Bud Shank provides the soundtrack.  The goofy narration in these films is what makes it for me.

The Sandals

 

The Endless Summer  (mp3s)

Side 1:
Scrambler
6-Pak
Driftin'
Theme From The Endless Summer
Good Greeves
Decoy

Side 2:
Out Front
Wild As The Sea
Trailing
Jet Black
Lonely Road
TR-6

August Is Bruce Brown Month

Louis Armstrong

Happy birthday to Louis Armstrong, born 112 years ago today (08/04/1901) in the world's most musical city, New Orleans.  In 1961, he worked with another musical genius, Duke Ellington, on the soundtrack for the film Paris Blues, which featured Sidney Poitier, Paul Newman, Diahann Carroll and Joanne Woodward.  In addition to his soundtrack contributions, Armstrong appeared in the movie, playing a character, a trumpet player naturally, called Wild Man Moore.  Here's the song by that name from the soundtrack.

Duke Ellington featuring Louis Armstrong  -  Wild Man Moore


Photo: the Jet magazine archives.

Goodbye Slim Harpo

Ridin' with the Grumpy King: Broderick Crawford's 'Highway Patrol'

 

“Twenty-one-fifty to headquarters…What’s your ten-twenty?....Ten-four…Twenty-one-fifty by…”

 

If that numeral sequence is all Greek to you, you’re probably not familiar with the most utilitarian cop-show of all time. By comparison, Dragnet was high style, its dialogue sculpted like stanzas of Milton, Jack Webb’s Joe Friday a commanding presence every bit as authorial as Orson Wells. If The Untouchables was noir, Dragnet the boiled-harder reduction of a Forties radio drama, then Highway Patrol (1955-59) was the crime series that dispensed with all pretense and got down, most expediently, to the genre’s basic hood-bull transactions.

It helps that Broderick Crawford’s Lt. Dan Matthews is a gruff superior whose barked orders, issued from flapping jowls, betray nothing but an impatient drive to wrap the case pronto. Invariably, this means a quick trip to the wall map and a plan to “Put roadblocks here, here and here! Tell Twenty-one-ten to meet us there! I’m off to Centerville!” Matthews then hops into Car Twenty-one-fifty (a giant Buick) and burns rubber down open roads leading to Centerville and Capital City—which are, in reality, the palm-dotted country lanes of an as yet unsprawled San Fernando Valley.

The show’s thugs are generally great types: uncaring gunsels who’d just as soon plug a human obstacle as park illegally outside the gas station they’re robbing, and a fair amount of them are tough, good-looking dames who’d easily make a Miriam Linna bad-girls compendium. All, of course, are brought to justice, thanks to the unbeatable combination of roadblocks and Matthews’ bulky pursuit; Crawford’s weight doesn’t permit long chases, but he’s light on his tiny feet and has no problem hacking through the brush of a chaparral canyon in his dark suit and hard shoes if it means a brief shootout and swift apprehension of the perp.

Time constraints make mercy a luxury Matthews can’t afford. Wounded baddies are left to lie in the dirt, clutching exit holes. Victims are consoled with “Sorry about the loss of your husband and son, Mrs. Johnson. Now let’s get back to headquarters!” Nor is empathy or imagination wasted on the episode titles of the half-hour series: “Car Theft,” “Plane Crash,” “Released Convict.” An obvious promo tie-in with some SoCal aeronautics firm explains such riveting installments as “Desert Copter,” “Mountain Copter” and “Blast Area Copter.”

We’re talking functional, get-it-over-and-done TV. No brooding detectives, no smart-ass junior dicks, no quirky Goths manning under-lit crime labs. And each show closes with Crawford, anxious to get to his favorite after-work watering-hole, delivering a terse public-service announcement couplet—“If you care to drive, drive with care” or “Leave your blood at the blood bank, not on the highway…” Ten-four.

Now playing: on MGM DVD’s and the Antenna TV channel. Sample show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2sA5hiI7ZI