The Greatest Obscure Rock-and-Roll Tunes (Just for Fun)

4/09/02 | Myself

[Chi-townChief]

Forgive me for a little diversion from the day's events.

How about these two numbers:
"I Want Candy" by The Strangeloves
and for a ballad:
"Smokey Places" by the Corsairs

Whaddya think?

[Chi-townChief]

I remember the follow-up also - "Little Red Riding Hood." You're quite right about the Jagger sound.

[BluesDuke]

Aaaaahhhhhhh....the real thing! Who needs Woof! Woof! Woof! when you're hearing the Strangeloves?

[Revolting cat!]

Hey Baby by Bruce Channel with young Delbert McClinton on harmonica who, according to the legend, showed John Lennon some harmonica tricks during their 1963 tour of Britain. Rockabilly don't get better than that!

[Revolting cat!]

I'm Just a Prisoner by Candi Staton. Soul don't get better than that!

[Revolting cat!]

Probably every single that Burt Bacharach produced in the 1960s (with Hal David) that didn't make it big. I have the RGINO box that has some of them. There was a male answer to Dionne Warwick they were trying to promote and gave up after 3 singles, who was terrific, unknown (except in England where listeners had more capacity for music than the top 40,) named Lou Johnson. He recorded some mediocre albums after his Bacharach period and ended up playing lounges in LA. A waste...

[BluesDuke]

I remember the follow-up also - "Little Red Riding Hood."

You're thinking of Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs; "Little Red Riding Hood" was their followup - to "Wooly Bully"...

Let's see...how about...

"£.s.d" - The Pretty Things
"You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" - The Silkie (yes, it's the Lennon-McCartney number; the Silkie covered it for the chart hit)
"Blackberry Way" - The Move
"Cherry Blossom Clinic" - The Move
"You're Gonna Miss Me" - The 13th Floor Elevators
"I'm The Leader of The Gang" - Brownsville Station
"Hippy Hippy Shake" - The Swinging Blue Jeans (hands up to everyone who heard this one and first thought it was the Beatles having a lark!)
"Roll Away The Stone" - Mott the Hoople
"It's All Right" - Adam Faith
"Nobody But Me" - The Human Beinz
"(We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet" - The Blues Magoos

[Revolting cat!]

"Hippy Hippy Shake" - The Swinging Blue Jeans (hands up to everyone who heard this one and first thought it was the Beatles having a lark!)

Hands up everyone who knows the original artist (no Googling allowed!)

[BluesDuke]

How about - don't hold your nose yet - "My Boy Lollipop": Millie Small (and we do mean small - this Jamaican-born British lady, billed as "The Blue Beat Girl" and blessed with a voice like Alvin Chipmunk on alum, was about five foot even tall), harmonica solo blown by a Scottish kid named Rod Stewart (his first recording date). By the way, if you think rockabilly doesn't get better than "Hey, Baby," you sure haven't heard the original Rock and Roll Trio (Johnny and Dorsey Burnette, plus Paul Burlison on very early distortion guitar, a technique he learned from Howlin' Wolf's original lead guitarist, Willie Johnson)...

[BluesDuke]

Hey, ask me a tough one...Chad Romero!

[Revolting cat!]

Dude, I met Paul Burlison a couple of years ago when he came out retirement, recorded an album with the Burnette progeny and went on tour (the album did well on the American chart.) I haven't washed my right hand yet! Johnny Burnette couldn't do wrong by me even when he recorded I'm Dreaming and You're Sixteen (You're beautiful and you're mine!) I then followed Dorseys fine country career until his early death. I nearly peed in my Fruit-of-the-looms when the Trio was portrayed on that short lived TV series about Elvis that was produced by Priscilla some years ago. Rockabilly royalty we're talking about.

[BluesDuke]

I didn't know Paul Burlison was still alive - thanks! heheheheheh...my crowd used to sing it as, "you're sixteen, you're beautiful, and you're jail bait!"...*snickering*...

Quick! Which Rock and Roll Trio number did the Yardbirds soup up and Foghat turn into the benzedrine beat laying the lyrics of Joe Turner's "Honey Hush" over the music?

[CARDINALRULES]

Alley Oop by the Argyles.

My mom loves this song, she tells the story of the DJ that locked himself in the booth and played it for hours and hours.

[Revolting cat!]

Dunno 'bout Foghat, but the Yardbirds did The Train Kept-A-Rolling. Hey, did Foghat ever hear the original version or were they like those Eastern European bands doing Eddie Cochran's tunes according to the Tommy Steele versions (but they had an excuse.) (Tommy Steele did Elevator Rock and maybe others.)

[Revolting cat!]

Everlasting Love by Robert Knight was another obscure one that got re-made in recent years note for note by somebody. There is something in that single that just grabs ya! Pop soul doesn't get better than that.

[BluesDuke]

You had it right with "The Train Kept-A Rollin'" - Foghat used "Train's" music with "Honey Hush's" lyric. Foghat were pretty likely to have heard the originals; they were nothing if not blues archivists (you'd expect as much from a band who started up in the first place after they broke away from the second and best-remembered incarnation of Savoy Brown in 1971-72 - lead/rhythm guitarist Lonesome Dave Peverett, bassist Tony Stevens, and drummer Roger Earl added slide guitarist Rod Price to form the original Fog; Savoy's "Looking In" album was practically a dress rehearsal for the original Foghat, particularly a track called "Leavin' Again," which Foghat also cut on their own first album) and were always good for a cover of one of their old blues favourites in their concerts. (Their "Stone Blue" album was, if I remember, an album full of nothing but their own versions of old blues favourites.) I got my first gander of Foghat when I was dragged to a Bachman-Turner Overdrive concert - Foghat was the opening act and they stole the show completely. BTO didn't know what hit them when their entire set, practically, was slammed by crowd chants "We want Foghat!"

[BluesDuke]

"Everlasting Love" has had a few covers for hits: Carl Carlton had a huge hit with it during the early disco era of the 1970s; in the 1990s, Gloria Estefan took it back to the top ten...

[Revolting cat!]

I've gotta tell ya, the best stuff is the obscure stuff. At one point ages ago, I put myself in charge of a jukebox at a, uhm, semi classy joint. I was watching the charts anyways, and through the jukebox operator, a mob associate, I could get just about any 45 RPM. Or else I'd venture to the local city record shops who stocked more than just the top 40. While the bar clientele was eager to hear the latest tearjerkers I was putting in stuff from the Bubbling Under the Hot 100 Billboard chart, plus every single by the Stones and I was also watching the charts from Cashbox and Record World as well. Ah, those were them days!

[Dan from Michigan]

The Train Kept-A-Rolling

How many bands did that song? I know Aerosmith's version was the most often heard. Who was the original?

Great song too.

[Revolting cat!]

The Johnny Burnette Trio did the original rock'n'roll version (was it a blues song? I don't remember off the top of my head,) and if you like rockabiolly, you definitely want to check them out (search on 'Burnette' on Amazon.) There are credible arguments that the Trio were the original albeit forgotten inventors of rock'n'roll. The Burnette Brothers are both dead but the lead guitarist Paul Burlison, a bona fide inventor, no question about it, just ask any Brits from the 60s era, recently made a comeback album which was quite, quite good.

[Dan from Michigan]

"Nobody But Me" - The Human Beinz

I forgot about that one. no-no, no, no-no, no-no-no-no.