The Medallions “The Letter’ (DooTone 347-B - 1954)
2:50
Perry Amberson
1.61K subscribers
619 views
June 21, 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyjzNjztKM4
B-side of their debut 45 and 78 “59 Buick,” a summer of 1954 release. The song features some masterful gibberish from the Los Angeles-based group’s lead singer (and talker) Vernon Green. At the time he wrote and recorded the song he was a 14-year-old runaway who walked with the aid of crutches: “Let me whisper sweet words of pismotality and discuss the puppetutes of love”
I have seen the Medallions in concert a couple times. “Buick ‘59” concludes with the line, “oh, no, I done run out of gas,” but when they performed it, Vernon announced, “I’m not going to say, ‘I done run out of gas,” because we ain’t never going to run out of gas.”
Vernon walked with a cane because he was a polio victim during his childhood.