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Speaker 4: Hey, this is Tom Chapin.
Speaker 5: Hello, just preaching in Rock and Roll History Show.
Speaker 3: You're listening right now.
Speaker 4: Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Rock and Roll History
Speaker 4: Show on Hudson River Radio. I'm Brian Horowitz. Tonight, we
Speaker 4: are gonna do a topic that comes up every once
Speaker 4: in a while. We're gonna check out some interesting covers
Speaker 4: of original tunes. And I'm always intrigued by the selections
Speaker 4: because it's always something that I'm not expecting. So I
Speaker 4: like these episodes and I'm looking forward to it. But
Speaker 4: as always, before we hop in, allow me to introduce
Speaker 4: all the crambones who are joining us here tonight. First
Speaker 4: and foremost, from the Richter Observatory, he says, you should
Speaker 4: never criticize someone until you walk a mile in their shoes,
Speaker 4: because then you'll be a mile away and you'll have
Speaker 4: their shoes. L Richtor is back tonight.
Speaker 6: How you doing everybody good?
Speaker 4: Plan From in Paranormal Yours, she says the difference between
Speaker 4: a well dressed person on a bicycle and a poorly
Speaker 4: dressed person on a tricycle is a tire gale.
Speaker 3: Nucle is here, Oh.
Speaker 7: Wow, okay everybody.
Speaker 4: And from the silver screen she saw a Russian mule
Speaker 4: walk into a bar. The bartender says, hey, we have
Speaker 4: a drink named after you, and the mule says, you
Speaker 4: have a drink named Ivan.
Speaker 6: Yes, hey, everybody, I love that.
Speaker 4: Excellent. And last but not least, the host of shaving
Speaker 4: Cream she just found out that orcas are technically porpoises.
Speaker 4: They just do a killer whale impression revealed, Oh the groans.
Speaker 4: I love the groans.
Speaker 1: Very good, Brian.
Speaker 4: Hey everyone, so welcome back cram Bones. And like I said,
Speaker 4: I'm looking forward to hearing tonight's selections, and Neil, you're
Speaker 4: gonna kick us off.
Speaker 2: You know, just in general, the topic of covers and
Speaker 2: and and artists who do covers, it's really there's there's
Speaker 2: two schools of thought.
Speaker 3: I think. One is that.
Speaker 2: You you copy the song almost entirely verbatim, you know,
Speaker 2: and make it sound mainly in in bands that you know,
Speaker 2: like bar bands. Okay that and the other is where
Speaker 2: the school that I grew up in was that you
Speaker 2: would take a song and pretty much make it your own,
Speaker 2: be creative with it instead of just like, you know,
Speaker 2: doing it note for note. Yeah, and the board.
Speaker 4: Even when you look at orchestras, every orchestra that does
Speaker 4: a symphony does it. That's their interpretation of it's.
Speaker 2: Even if you're doing it. You know, if you're doing it,
Speaker 2: you know straight so to speak. You know, the each
Speaker 2: individual instrument or each person adds their own little thing
Speaker 2: to it. So it does give it a little more
Speaker 2: of a it's different. It makes it your own, you know.
Speaker 2: And I've always gone with that other than and there's
Speaker 2: nothing wrong with you know, technical ability, you know, being
Speaker 2: able to copy everything note for note. I'm not saying
Speaker 2: that that's a bad thing at all. I think a
Speaker 2: little a balance of both is the best way to go,
Speaker 2: is the way I'm thinking. I like creativity possibly a
Speaker 2: little better than technical superiority, but that's just me.
Speaker 3: But the song I've.
Speaker 2: Chosen for this topic today is called Heartbreak Hotel.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: It's a song that was originally recorded by Elvis Presley.
Speaker 2: I think everyone knows he's the king of rock and roll,
Speaker 2: and if you don't know, who Elvis was. I then,
Speaker 2: you know, I really don't.
Speaker 4: Go back to episode one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So suffice to say he was one of
Speaker 2: the most musically and culturally significant figures of the twentieth century.
Speaker 2: And his impact is still being felt today. And I
Speaker 2: think as of this taping, his birthday was just yesterday
Speaker 2: or the day before. So yeah, and people are still
Speaker 2: celebrating it now. Heartbreak Hotel was released as a single
Speaker 2: in January of nineteen fifty six, so that's seventy years ago, right, wow.
Speaker 2: And it was on the RCA label, to whom Presley
Speaker 2: had just recently signed with, and the record was an
Speaker 2: unqualified smash hit. It was Presley's first million seller and
Speaker 2: one of the best selling singles that year. It topped
Speaker 2: the Billboard Top one hundred for seven weeks, the Cash
Speaker 2: Bock Pop Single chart for six weeks, the Country Western
Speaker 2: chart for seventeen weeks, and it only reached number three
Speaker 2: on the R and B charts. Oh too bad guy
Speaker 2: only number three. It was eventually certified double platinum by
Speaker 2: the ri double A. Heartbreak Hotel was written by May
Speaker 2: Bourn Axton and Tommy Durden, and while Elvis isn't generally
Speaker 2: knows as a songwriter himself, thus making most of his
Speaker 2: songs covers. I guess he has given songwriting credit for
Speaker 2: Heartbreak Hotel, and I think that was kind of one
Speaker 2: of the conditions that he agreed to record it, as
Speaker 2: they put my name on the writing credit.
Speaker 4: That was the kernel that I appreciate it. That's why
Speaker 4: he didn't do I Will Always Love You when Dolly Parton.
Speaker 4: He wanted to do that, and Parker said, he gets
Speaker 4: half of the songwriter, and she said, you know.
Speaker 2: Go and crash, and Colonel Parker got half of what
Speaker 2: Elvis made.
Speaker 3: So yeah, there you go. Yeah, I wasn't going to
Speaker 3: go there, but yeah, it's all. It's all Colonel point.
Speaker 2: The song itself is a standard eight bar blues progression,
Speaker 2: and the recording contains the trademark rockabilly reverb that Elvis
Speaker 2: used on his earlier recordings on the Sun label. But
Speaker 2: now for the words. They were inspired by a newspaper
Speaker 2: article about a man who would jumped from a hotel
Speaker 2: window allegedly and left a note that simply said, I
Speaker 2: walk a lonely street. That's pretty grim stuff, particularly for
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty six and rock and roll. But let's fast
Speaker 2: forward about twenty years to nineteen seventy five, when Welsh
Speaker 2: musician and former Velvet Underground number John Kale beleased his cover.
Speaker 3: Version of Hartbreak Hotel and took it to a whole
Speaker 3: new level.
Speaker 8: Since my baby is left me, I found a new placed.
Speaker 9: At twelve.
Speaker 6: Down at the end of long.
Speaker 4: Street, Break Hotel.
Speaker 6: So long.
Speaker 8: Long love the baby, the bellhops, tears, keep long, the
Speaker 8: desk clouds dressed in black.
Speaker 4: They have been so long, long long this street.
Speaker 10: They never will get back.
Speaker 11: Cousin feeling so long, black baby, feeling something, feeling so
Speaker 11: long baby.
Speaker 8: So if you are bad.
Speaker 12: You and you have a take to town.
Speaker 9: We're just keeps.
Speaker 8: Take a lot down long straight.
Speaker 12: To halt Break Hotel where you could be.
Speaker 13: And could be, so.
Speaker 9: You could be so long.
Speaker 3: Could now? Is that right out of a horror movie?
Speaker 4: Or what is that's a Halloween song?
Speaker 3: That riff is just oh it just I think it's great.
Speaker 7: I love the backup singers. I like that better than
Speaker 7: the original. Thank you very much well.
Speaker 3: John Klee.
Speaker 2: He was born in Wales back in nineteen forty two. Again,
Speaker 2: he's a musician, composer and record producer and as I mentioned,
Speaker 2: earlier a founding member of the very influential American band
Speaker 2: The Velvet Underground along with Lou reed I appeared on
Speaker 2: their first two albums, I Believe the Velvet Underground. In
Speaker 2: his sixty plus year career, he has worked in various
Speaker 2: styles of rock and avarant guard music. His version of
Speaker 2: Heartbreak Hotel appears on his fifth solo LP called Slow
Speaker 2: Dazzle Again from nineteen seventy five. Kel's cover of Heartbreak
Speaker 2: Hotel was called one of the best cover songs ever
Speaker 2: recorded by music critic Ned Raggett and ok Ned. Over
Speaker 2: the years, Kel has released a slew of solo and
Speaker 2: collaborative albums, as well as producing records for the likes
Speaker 2: of Patty Smith, the LP Horses in particular, which just
Speaker 2: celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, the band Squeeze, and the Modern
Speaker 2: Lovers with Jonathan Richmond. He even worked as a talent
Speaker 2: scout for a while for Island Records. Kel also recorded
Speaker 2: a cover version of Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah back in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one. Now, his version didn't get too much interest,
Speaker 2: but Jeff Buckley's cover, which used Cale's arrangement, it achieved
Speaker 2: quite a bit of popularity. John Kele was inducted into
Speaker 2: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member
Speaker 2: of the Velvet Underground nineteen ninety six, and as of
Speaker 2: this taping, at eighty three years old, he is still
Speaker 2: recording and performing new music. And yes, I did see
Speaker 2: him perform you were waiting for that one. I saw
Speaker 2: him in fact a number of occasions, mostly at CBGB's
Speaker 2: down in New York City in the late nineteen seventies,
Speaker 2: and his version of Heartbreak Hotel was always a highlight
Speaker 2: of the set. It always brought down the house, so
Speaker 2: to speak.
Speaker 3: So that's it. That's my cover for tonight.
Speaker 4: Excellent.
Speaker 6: It reminded me a little bit of Sounds of Silence
Speaker 6: that Gail did a while back.
Speaker 3: And I was disturbed.
Speaker 4: Disturbed, Yeah, David dream thinking the guy's name.
Speaker 6: Oh I did go to sea after hearing that song.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're legit. I would definitely go see that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's got that same kind of like existential dread
Speaker 2: hanging over it like.
Speaker 3: Like a shroud.
Speaker 4: You could have said that that was released this year
Speaker 4: and I would have believed that.
Speaker 1: It's still It kind of reminds me of the soundtrack
Speaker 1: to Queen of the Damned like Adopted Anne Rice. That's
Speaker 1: what it reminds me of.
Speaker 7: It actually reminds me a little bit of the American
Speaker 7: Horror Story season that was called Hotel.
Speaker 4: Hmm. Nice. I have a side note if I can
Speaker 4: go off on a tangent, because you mentioned you mentioned
Speaker 4: that the echo sound and.
Speaker 2: Elvis is originally that reverb sound.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that Sam Phillips came up with that. We
Speaker 4: talked about this long time ago. I'm not going to
Speaker 4: be the original or in Elvis's version, so you know,
Speaker 4: I'm not going to go through the whole story again.
Speaker 4: But Sam Phillips at Sun Records came up with that technique.
Speaker 4: It was called slap back echo, which he wound up
Speaker 4: using two reel to real tape machines to make an
Speaker 4: echo that didn't really exist. So it was one of
Speaker 4: the one of, if not the first, artificial echo reverb sounds.
Speaker 4: And RCA bought Elvis's contract from Sun Records, which is
Speaker 4: how we wound up over at RCA and they were
Speaker 4: trying to record Heartbreak Hotel and they couldn't figure out
Speaker 4: how to make that sound, so they went back to
Speaker 4: Sam Phillips and said, well, how do you get this?
Speaker 4: And he's, you know, basically said, you bought Elvis, she
Speaker 4: didn't buy my technique.
Speaker 3: So go scratch so that that that that sound is
Speaker 3: a st Yeah.
Speaker 4: But RCA could not figure out how to do it.
Speaker 4: They tried concrete rooms, they tried putting speakers at one
Speaker 4: end of a long hallway and microphones at the other,
Speaker 4: and they kept trying to figure out how Sam Phillips
Speaker 4: did it. They could not figure out how he made
Speaker 4: that sound for a long time. So heartbreak hotel Elvis's version.
Speaker 4: It's echo, but it's not slapback. It's not Sam Phillips.
Speaker 4: Sam Phillips' sound. It's different, you know. So give them
Speaker 4: props for trying, and props to Sam Phillips for telling them.
Speaker 2: Uh the record. The record did pretty well though.
Speaker 4: I know somehow we did well regardless, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 4: I love those stories, you know. On top of the song,
Speaker 4: I can just.
Speaker 6: Picture the two engineers running around the studio just for
Speaker 6: like days on end of no sleep, trying to figure
Speaker 6: out how to make that yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And now you can go buy a little box,
Speaker 2: you know, at a music store and plug your guitar
Speaker 2: and it sounds.
Speaker 4: Now, it's just a plug in on your computer and
Speaker 4: your software right right, you know, the amps come built
Speaker 4: in with it, with the modelers and all that. You
Speaker 4: don't even need a pedal anymore. So it's crazy. So
Speaker 4: that was awesome. Yeah, that was a That was a
Speaker 4: perfect lead off. But we're going to take a break
Speaker 4: and we have a lot more coming up, so stick around.
Speaker 4: We'll be right back, Hudson River Radio dot com. We
Speaker 4: could be worse. This concludes the first part of this cassette.
Speaker 4: Please turn the cassette over and begin again on side
Speaker 4: to Hudson River Radio dot com and welcome back. I
Speaker 4: know Gail that you're going to have something unusual and
Speaker 4: a deep cut for us.
Speaker 3: So what have you got?
Speaker 7: Neil's presentation is definitely a very hard act to follow.
Speaker 1: It always is.
Speaker 7: Yes, I just kind of picked a song that I
Speaker 7: liked that I never knew there was a cover of,
Speaker 7: and the cover isn't all that different from the original.
Speaker 7: I chose Walking with a Ghost, which the original was
Speaker 7: by Tegan and Sarah. They're a pair of Canadian sisters.
Speaker 6: Love that song and.
Speaker 7: They when they performed it. It came out in two
Speaker 7: thousand and four, now. Sarah wrote the song while living
Speaker 7: in Montreal, and she said, it's kind of a cheesy
Speaker 7: metaphor for walking around the city feeling like the person
Speaker 7: I wanted to date was hanging out with me, but
Speaker 7: they weren't. Some would call it an imaginary friend. I
Speaker 7: call it a ghost. Many years later, in two thousand
Speaker 7: and sixteen six twenty sixteen, Tagan and Sarah appeared on
Speaker 7: the parody talk show Comedy Bang Bang, which I've never
Speaker 7: heard of.
Speaker 4: Maybe it really Yes, Shocker Barber knows a content.
Speaker 7: And she explained jokingly on that show that the ghost
Speaker 7: in question was slimer from the Ghostbuster's French. Why not
Speaker 7: so the cover that I didn't know about until I
Speaker 7: was digging around deciding on a choice for this episode.
Speaker 7: The cover was by the White Stripes the year after that,
Speaker 7: in two thousand and five on an EP and it's
Speaker 7: it doesn't sound that much different from the original to me,
Speaker 7: It's got a little bit of an edge to it.
Speaker 7: One review of White Stripes cover of this stated, this
Speaker 7: genial cover sounds singularly unpersuasive, a performance unlikely to challenge
Speaker 7: anyone's previously held opinions about The Stripes Chigan and Sarah
Speaker 7: walking or ghosts so I guess they weren't impressed.
Speaker 4: But I just like the song.
Speaker 7: It's cute, so let's.
Speaker 3: Hear it now.
Speaker 5: Man, let's way you go. No man, you stay of
Speaker 5: my mind, out of mind, out of my mind, out
Speaker 5: of my mind.
Speaker 14: I was fucking with the ghast.
Speaker 5: I sat.
Speaker 9: Noting, said the mon shaye goat, you mouth sway steady,
Speaker 9: out of my mind, out of mynd, out of my mind,
Speaker 9: out of my mind. I was fucking the coast.
Speaker 7: Un set.
Speaker 5: Said that's fucking go. I said, please, don't sest. I
Speaker 5: was fucking with the ghast.
Speaker 14: Sai, no chest, no moth sway, your.
Speaker 9: Mother sway, shade, out of my mind, out of my mind,
Speaker 9: out of my mind, out of my mind.
Speaker 5: I was smoking with the ghost. I said, don't exist.
Speaker 14: I was walking with the ghost. I sest, no chest
Speaker 14: nor mother sway.
Speaker 5: But anyway.
Speaker 6: With me, I like the original.
Speaker 4: I love I do too.
Speaker 6: I find so much softer with the female voices. I
Speaker 6: just spookier.
Speaker 7: And they they did acoustic guitar apparently, and Jack White
Speaker 7: did electure. But with me, for the longest time, it
Speaker 7: was misheard lyrics because when they say please, don't insist.
Speaker 7: I thought they were singing please don't Exist, which.
Speaker 5: Gives a whole.
Speaker 3: Way right.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so yeah, I I do prefer like Mercedes does
Speaker 7: the Chigan and Sarah version. But I thought this was interesting.
Speaker 7: And apparently when this came out the year after Tigan
Speaker 7: and Sarah's came out, it reflected on them and brought
Speaker 7: them to the forefront after White Stripes covered it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess yeah, because White Stripes were already pretty
Speaker 2: munch established by by then. I mean, and you said, yeah,
Speaker 2: the difference between the electric and acoustic guitar he does.
Speaker 2: He gets some interesting sounds out of that guitar. And
Speaker 2: I have to I have to say, I I think
Speaker 2: Meg White is like one of the best rock and
Speaker 2: roll drummers ever. There I said it because nothing fancy.
Speaker 2: She says, boom boo boo.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: That's all you need, you don't need anymore. And that's
Speaker 2: what she does. And I'm glad they're in the rock
Speaker 2: and Roll Hall of Fame. He has an interesting voice too,
Speaker 2: that's yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, I've yeah, I've seen him, and he's got
Speaker 4: a wonderful reputation. Everybody that works with him loves him.
Speaker 4: And you know, I get it.
Speaker 2: We just Mercedes and I just saw him over the
Speaker 2: last Fall and I had never seen him before, and
Speaker 2: I was like, wow, he does know what he's doing.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, jealous of men that can sing higher than me.
Speaker 4: All right, thank you, Gail. Moving on, Barbara, what have
Speaker 4: you got for us?
Speaker 1: Okay, Well for my song choice, I am first going
Speaker 1: to take us back to nineteen thirty eight. Mister Walt
Speaker 1: Disney was feeling nostalgic about remembering stories he had heard
Speaker 1: during his childhood, in particular the Uncle Remus stories by
Speaker 1: Joel Chandler Harris. Disney wanted to put those stories to film.
Speaker 1: He had this idea, but after World War Two, the
Speaker 1: Disney Studios experienced some financial difficulty due to the lack
Speaker 1: of foreign markets during wartime, and that plus a union
Speaker 1: strike in nineteen forty one, led Disney to consider adding
Speaker 1: live action films to its current lineup of animated films
Speaker 1: for which they were contracted. In nineteen thirty nine, Disney
Speaker 1: purchased the rights to the Uncle Remas stories from author
Speaker 1: Harris's family and began to develop a screenplay. Disney also
Speaker 1: traveled to the author's Georgia home. The following year in
Speaker 1: the hopes of getting what he called an authentic feeling
Speaker 1: of Uncle Remus country in order to present a faithful
Speaker 1: story adaptation. In nineteen forty four, filming finally began, and
Speaker 1: the studio ended up combining animation with live action, although
Speaker 1: at the start they were leaning towards having it entirely animated.
Speaker 1: Disney hired professional Righte Dalton Raymond to write the screenplay. Raymond,
Speaker 1: being a native Southerner, produced an outline which contains some
Speaker 1: terminology that the studio demanded be removed, such as characters
Speaker 1: referring to Remis as an old darkie and referring to
Speaker 1: white characters as massa. The film Song of the South
Speaker 1: ended up being the only screenplay that Raymond would write.
Speaker 1: Since its nineteen forty sixth release, the film has been
Speaker 1: associated with controversy as critics have been characterizing its portrayal
Speaker 1: of African Americans and plantation life as racist. This has
Speaker 1: resulted in the film never having been released on home
Speaker 1: video or streaming platforms. However, the film's featured song, Zippidy DooDah,
Speaker 1: won the nineteen forty seven Academy Award for Best Original Song,
Speaker 1: and the actor who portrayed Uncle Remus. James Basket received
Speaker 1: an Academy Honorary Award for his performance. So I'm sure
Speaker 1: most of us are familiar with the song of the
Speaker 1: South version of Zippity Doo Dah. But now let's flash
Speaker 1: forward from nineteen forty six to nineteen sixty two and
Speaker 1: listen to the song as recorded.
Speaker 5: By Bobby Socks and the Blue Jeans.
Speaker 4: Zip one Bo.
Speaker 15: Well, ma, stop, well, no, absolute, every thing's gonna be.
Speaker 9: Somebody do syby what wonder old.
Speaker 10: Oh mas.
Speaker 14: Sover love.
Speaker 5: Fuck no thanks Na beginn.
Speaker 14: S body, dude, what the fuck.
Speaker 9: Wonder?
Speaker 14: What the fuck.
Speaker 9: Wonderful?
Speaker 14: What the fuck.
Speaker 15: Okay?
Speaker 1: So, Bob the Socks and the Blue Jeans were in
Speaker 1: early nineteen sixties vote group produced by Phil Spector that
Speaker 1: featured lead vocals by Bobby Sheen, who adopted the stage
Speaker 1: name of Bob b Socks and the Blue Jeans, which
Speaker 1: consisted of Darlene Love and Fanita James Nice. I probably
Speaker 1: don't have to really tell you who they are. Both
Speaker 1: Darlene and Fanita were also members of the girl group
Speaker 1: The Blossoms. Sheen was the official group leader, but after
Speaker 1: the release of Zippity DooDah, Specter either had Sheen and
Speaker 1: Love share lead vocal duties or used Love as the
Speaker 1: primary vocalist. The only official album the group recorded was,
Speaker 1: in fact, Zippity DooDah, although Spector did produce a Christmas
Speaker 1: album in nineteen sixty three called A Christmas Gift for
Speaker 1: You from Phil Spector, where Sheen was credited as lead
Speaker 1: vocalists and Love appears as a solo artist.
Speaker 6: And that's credited with something that's amazing.
Speaker 1: I actually I actually follow her on Facebook, Darlene Love.
Speaker 15: Oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she is so kind and so lovely. She I
Speaker 1: recommend her Facebook page.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we saw it. We've seen her many times. But
Speaker 4: one time they brought us backstage because my daughter was
Speaker 4: young enough and we got pictures and she was an
Speaker 4: absolute sweetheart with my daughter. And her husband is so
Speaker 4: low key, the complete opposite of her, Like he's quiet
Speaker 4: one one syllable answers and all that, but the nicest
Speaker 4: guy to talk to. So I'm wondering when you listen
Speaker 4: to that, because it is a Phil Spector thing, and
Speaker 4: he did do a lot of studio magic, as crazy
Speaker 4: as he was. It sounds like it was recorded at
Speaker 4: a higher speed and played back slower and they sung
Speaker 4: over a slower tape.
Speaker 3: I can hear that. I can hear what you're saying. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So I while it was.
Speaker 4: Playing, I'm furiously looking stuff up. I couldn't find anything
Speaker 4: to back that up.
Speaker 1: But I find anything either. When I was researching it.
Speaker 1: I was trying to find, you know, little details and
Speaker 1: things like that, but I didn't find anything like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm wondering if that's just you know, in the toolbox,
Speaker 4: something that he did and it just wasn't discussed or
Speaker 4: thought about. So cool, so cool, Thank you, Barbara.
Speaker 6: Big Big, Jim and I interviewed Darlene Love Yeah.
Speaker 4: Years ago at the old station from where I pilfered
Speaker 4: you many years ago.
Speaker 6: She was amazing and my daughter's band, New Myths. The
Speaker 6: drummer from New Myths plays the Christmas shows with Darlene
Speaker 6: every year.
Speaker 4: Nice oh nice and her on again off against saxophone
Speaker 4: player depending on the band is in the tokens and
Speaker 4: his friends with other I mean, I've known him now
Speaker 4: through other hosts from here a Hudson River Radio. Everything
Speaker 4: ties together, yep, which is why I try to be
Speaker 4: nice to everybody, because you never know when it's gonna
Speaker 4: come back exactly. So, yeah, especially in the music world,
Speaker 4: do you get you know, if the circles are smaller
Speaker 4: than you might think, and everybody knows somebody that knows somebody.
Speaker 6: And it's best to keep them all on your side.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I mean, just be nice and general, but you know,
Speaker 4: especially if that's your livelihood, something to keep in mind.
Speaker 4: So all right, thanks Bob. We're gonna take a real
Speaker 4: quick break and we have two more coming up, so
Speaker 4: stick around Hudson Riverradio dot com.
Speaker 3: This is Hudson River Radio dot com.
Speaker 4: All right, we're down to our final two. Mercedes, you're up.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 6: So I did things a little differently for the show.
Speaker 6: I didn't really follow the directions, even though I was
Speaker 6: the one that suggested that, I know, I'm such a rebel.
Speaker 3: You make the rules, you break the rules. That's it.
Speaker 6: I took a song that I think a lot of
Speaker 6: people know and went back to find the very first version.
Speaker 6: And this happened because, having nothing to do with this show,
Speaker 6: I had come across an early version of this song.
Speaker 6: It was pretty excited, but color me surprise when I
Speaker 6: found there was an even earlier version. And I suggest
Speaker 6: that you grab a pencil to keep notes because yes,
Speaker 6: it gets complicated. So my song for this show is
Speaker 6: titled Stranded in the Jungle and it was made famous
Speaker 6: most recently by The New York Dolls in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 6: It was released on their second album and was the
Speaker 6: album's first single release. When The New York Dolls began
Speaker 6: work on this album with producer George Shadow Morton, they
Speaker 6: weren't prepared with enough songs, so the band the band
Speaker 6: added oldies in with their originals, and the band was
Speaker 6: already a fan of Morton from his work with the
Speaker 6: Shangri Las. He was famous for writing Remember Walking in
Speaker 6: the Sand and Leader of the Pack for the girl group.
Speaker 6: Martin's sixties soul aesthetic blended seamlessly with the New York
Speaker 6: Dolls heavy sound. The song features singer David Johansson using
Speaker 6: character voices while backed by female dooop vocalists. It didn't
Speaker 6: do well commercially. Be commercially, it became a cult album
Speaker 6: and cemented the New York Dolls legacy as a proto
Speaker 6: punk and glam band. The Dolls were pivotal to the
Speaker 6: development of punk rock in the UK with the Sex Pistols,
Speaker 6: The Clash and the Damned and kiss Aarrasmith and Guns
Speaker 6: and Roses have cited the New York Dolls as primary influences,
Speaker 6: not to mention the glam hard rock movement in general,
Speaker 6: which includes Twisted Sister, Motley, Crue, Poison, on and on.
Speaker 6: About the song, music critic Robert Christigau says, on Stranded
Speaker 6: in the Jungle, David Johansson alternates between a comical reject
Speaker 6: and a lecherous man at lovers Lane. I was surprised
Speaker 6: to find that the song was a cover of The Cadets,
Speaker 6: originally the Jacks if you're keeping score, their nineteen fifty
Speaker 6: six hit. I'd always thought it was an original by
Speaker 6: the Dolls, but I also felt it was a weird
Speaker 6: song for them to do, And when I dug a
Speaker 6: little deeper, I found the Cadets song was not even
Speaker 6: the original. The original original was by the Jayhawks from
Speaker 6: nineteen fifty six, same year as the Cadets version, and
Speaker 6: a version by the Gadabouts was released a few weeks later,
Speaker 6: and that one peaked at number thirty nine. The Jayhawks
Speaker 6: version went to number eighteen. They had another hit with
Speaker 6: the song the Watusi in nineteen sixty one, and also
Speaker 6: had a hit at the same time with Peanut Butter
Speaker 6: under the name The Marathons, which is a really good
Speaker 6: song if you get a chance to look it up.
Speaker 6: The Marathons had another hit with a rewritten version by
Speaker 6: the name of Hully Gully, originally by the Olympics, which
Speaker 6: was covered by The Beach Boys, Chubby Checker, the Searchers,
Speaker 6: the Jay Giles Band, which I could not find on YouTube,
Speaker 6: and more. Back in the forties and fifties, bands covered
Speaker 6: and released other people's band song all the time, often
Speaker 6: reinterpreting older blues, R and B and country hits, turning
Speaker 6: them into new pop sensations. Many new music genres were
Speaker 6: emerging at that time. The Marathons, remember previously. The Jayhawks
Speaker 6: also released a song titled My Girl Sloopy in nineteen
Speaker 6: sixty four, which reached number twenty six and was later
Speaker 6: covered by the McCoy's as hang On Sloopy, which was
Speaker 6: a number one hit for them. Incidentally, it became one
Speaker 6: of the first songs recorded by the Yardbirds with guitarist
Speaker 6: Jeff Beck. Side note, the inspiration for hang On Sloopy
Speaker 6: was most likely inspired by Dorothy Sloop, a jazz singer
Speaker 6: from Steubenville, Ohio. Her nickname was Sloopy. Okay, so back
Speaker 6: to the song Stranded in the Juggle if you've lost
Speaker 6: track where we are or what we're talking about. The
Speaker 6: Jayhawks were an American doo wop group and the song
Speaker 6: was written by Ernestine's Myth and the band's first tenor,
Speaker 6: James Johnson. So today we're gonna hear the Jay Hawkins
Speaker 6: version of Stranded in the Jungle.
Speaker 16: I crashed in the jungle while trying to keep my
Speaker 16: date with my little girl, who was back in the States.
Speaker 16: I was spending in the jungle of grade alone, trying
Speaker 16: to figure a way to get a message back home.
Speaker 16: But how was I to know that the regulam I'm
Speaker 16: playing having big Father father at my girl loves name.
Speaker 10: Meanwhile, back in the States, BOMR.
Speaker 9: All time and I got a jazz.
Speaker 10: Come up baby.
Speaker 13: Meanwhile, back in the jungle, the boys and the Jungle
Speaker 13: had me on the run, or something heavy hit me,
Speaker 13: like in Atomic Call.
Speaker 16: When I woke up, my head started clear and I
Speaker 16: had a strange feeling. I was with cooking gear. I
Speaker 16: smelled something cooking and I looked to see. That's when
Speaker 16: I found out they was cooking.
Speaker 10: Me meanwhile back in the state time standing in the jungle.
Speaker 16: Standing meanwhile, back in the jungle, I jumped out the
Speaker 16: pots and I finally got away, frantic with worry. When
Speaker 16: the web, my baby would say, So, I jumped in
Speaker 16: a potion and started to swim, while my chance of
Speaker 16: the Bible getting mighty slimp. So I thumb not away.
Speaker 16: I was head my way and I reached the stats,
Speaker 16: and I have a day. When I got the level lanes,
Speaker 16: I was almost sins, but I so was gone. Here's
Speaker 16: what I said, baby, baby, that man is all gone.
Speaker 5: Oh, baby, baby, you should have understood. You can't trust
Speaker 5: me as long as I free. So come back, Grady,
Speaker 5: maybe where you used to be. Because I love you,
Speaker 5: Because I love you. I love that version.
Speaker 6: I think it's great. Supposedly in this version, a telephone
Speaker 6: can be heard ringing in the background. I I have
Speaker 6: not heard it, so I don't know as far as
Speaker 6: the meaning. I don't think I really have to explain anything.
Speaker 6: A guy stranded in the jungle while he's supposed to
Speaker 6: be on a date with his girl in Lover's Lane.
Speaker 2: Why is he in the which happens all the time doesn't.
Speaker 4: Albuquerque very inconvenient.
Speaker 6: So back in the state, the mother guy is creeping
Speaker 6: on his woman. The boys in the jungle catch the
Speaker 6: jungle guy and start to put him on a pot
Speaker 6: to cook them. He escapes and catches a ride on
Speaker 6: a whale, as one does. He gets back in half
Speaker 6: a day. Half a day, I don't know where this
Speaker 6: jungle is pretty close, he gets, yeah, and when when
Speaker 6: he gets back to lover's lane, his girl has gone
Speaker 6: off with the other guy.
Speaker 3: Is that right though?
Speaker 6: Is that the right ending? I've heard so many versions
Speaker 6: of it, and I swear sometimes she's still there.
Speaker 4: And you know what, even if she did or didn't,
Speaker 4: good riddance for entertaining the thought. You don't need that,
Speaker 4: that's true.
Speaker 6: I don't need that negativity in.
Speaker 4: Her life, his life. Yeah, right, right, right right.
Speaker 6: So something that I thought was super cute that came
Speaker 6: up when I was researching under the YouTube video was
Speaker 6: three comments. These three comments, for the record, the original
Speaker 6: writer of this song is my mother, Ernestine Smith, which
Speaker 6: I thought was really cute, and then it says rip mommy.
Speaker 6: And next one was my grandfather was in this group,
Speaker 6: Cleo White, And the other one was my aunt co
Speaker 6: wrote the song. I just think that was really cute.
Speaker 6: It was very touching when.
Speaker 1: I love reading YouTube comments.
Speaker 4: I know, I know me too. That's cool.
Speaker 12: So that's it.
Speaker 6: And you know, Brian and I were talking about the
Speaker 6: Cadutch version, which I really like that version.
Speaker 4: Also it's more polished. The baritone voice is a little
Speaker 4: more natural, I think, yeah, for sure, but they're both.
Speaker 6: It's really this book's really raw. Yeah, obviously early stuff.
Speaker 6: And I just think that's really cool.
Speaker 4: That's awesome, and it's cool. You know, that was a
Speaker 4: time when a song was published, which is going to
Speaker 4: lead into mind, a song was published and anybody, if
Speaker 4: you paid for it, you can put it out, which
Speaker 4: you can still do today, you know, depending on who
Speaker 4: owns it, which that's a whole nother story. But back then,
Speaker 4: the song would be published and then you just pay
Speaker 4: for it and you can put it out, and you
Speaker 4: would see multiple versions of the same song by a
Speaker 4: whole bunch of different groups, all coming out at the
Speaker 4: same time.
Speaker 6: I mean, in this one, three of them, three of
Speaker 6: the versions came out of the same year, within months
Speaker 6: of each other. Yeah, which is wild. Now you wouldn't
Speaker 6: think of that, you.
Speaker 4: Guess what happens with my pick that we're going to
Speaker 4: talk about.
Speaker 6: Well, I apologize for not doing following the rules, but
Speaker 6: I just I had a great time to Well.
Speaker 4: Also, guess what I did, by complete coincidence, I did
Speaker 4: the exact same thing you did.
Speaker 12: You did.
Speaker 4: I went backwards to the original I did so great
Speaker 4: minds I know, and us too. So yeah, all right,
Speaker 4: So we talked about Fats Domino. It's been a long time,
Speaker 4: but we talked about Fats Domino. While ago a home
Speaker 4: body of New Orleans, didn't really like the tour, loved
Speaker 4: the food, New Orleans didn't want to leave it, had
Speaker 4: problems when he you know, when New Orleans got flooded
Speaker 4: out during the hurricane and all that. But his biggest
Speaker 4: hit is one I don't remember if we talked about
Speaker 4: his version of this. It was his biggest hit. It
Speaker 4: has become a rock and roll standard, Blueberry Hill in
Speaker 4: nineteen fifty six. I don't remember if this was the
Speaker 4: song we talked about. I think we did. But okay,
Speaker 4: Rolling Stone ranked at number eighty two of the five
Speaker 4: hundred Greatest Songs of All Time. Anytime you see a
Speaker 4: list like this, I'm like, okay, whatever, But you know,
Speaker 4: it does show its historical significance as a song in
Speaker 4: rock history. But obviously, since we're talking about it here,
Speaker 4: his was a cover. His was the cover of the original.
Speaker 4: So I went all the way back to the beginning.
Speaker 4: The music for Blueberry Hill was composed by Vincent Rose.
Speaker 4: But you're gonna need a pencil, same thing with Mercedes,
Speaker 4: all right, So write this down. Keep writing, yeah, keep writing.
Speaker 4: So the music was composed by Vincent Rose born Vincenzo Cacciopo,
Speaker 4: a bandleader, composer, piano player, violinist who was born in
Speaker 4: Italy and moved to New York City. He was born
Speaker 4: back in eighteen eighty died in nineteen forty four, and
Speaker 4: wrote over two hundred songs for RCA, Columbia and other labels.
Speaker 4: The lyrics for Blueberry Hill were written by Larry Stock
Speaker 4: and al Lewis. Larry Stock was born Lazarus Goldberger in
Speaker 4: eighteen ninety six in Manhattan. At age twelve, he was
Speaker 4: accepted into the Institute of Musical Art in New York City,
Speaker 4: which would later be renamed the Juilliards School, which may
Speaker 4: sound familiar, So that's pretty good. Age twelve he graduated. Yeah,
Speaker 4: he graduated at sixteen and continued to study music and
Speaker 4: piano afterwards. This was during the Great Depression, so not
Speaker 4: many people could afford to go out to the big
Speaker 4: formal concerts, so Larry made ends meet by playing nightclubs
Speaker 4: and writing songs during his own downtime. He died in
Speaker 4: nineteen eighty four, so he got to see a lot
Speaker 4: of rock and roll history come al Lewis, not Grandpa
Speaker 4: Lewis from the Monster's a different al Lewis because I
Speaker 4: know what he neo was chopping at the ben and barber,
Speaker 4: But no different al Lewis. He was born in nineteen
Speaker 4: oh one and spent most of his career writing lyrics
Speaker 4: in tin pan Alley. His other big hit was co
Speaker 4: writing Tears on My Pillow, made a big hit by
Speaker 4: Little Anthony in the Imperials. He died in nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 4: so he also got to see a lot of rock
Speaker 4: and roll come about. They all wrote so many songs
Speaker 4: that have just been forgotten in his history, and so
Speaker 4: many of them now are in the public domain. So
Speaker 4: we're talking about covers. There's so much good stuff out
Speaker 4: there if you can put the time into digging them
Speaker 4: up and do it for free. Now you don't have
Speaker 4: to pay for them anymore. Make your own versions. So
Speaker 4: get to work, everybody, those of you looking for that
Speaker 4: next hit. It's out there, it's already written. You just
Speaker 4: got to go find it. So Blueberry Hill was first
Speaker 4: published in nineteen forty by Chapel and Company, which was
Speaker 4: a British music publisher and piano manufacturer. Believe it or not,
Speaker 4: they sold off the piano manufacturing side to focus solely
Speaker 4: on music publishing, probably because it's easier to move sheet
Speaker 4: music than pianos. Having done both, they started in eighteen
Speaker 4: eleven when sheet music was the thing. There were no
Speaker 4: recordings back then, but they created such a good reputation
Speaker 4: for themselves that a composer by the name of Ludwig
Speaker 4: von Beethoven inquired about them publishing of his pieces. That's
Speaker 4: how far back we're going. And they were still in
Speaker 4: existence at this point. Chapel was ultimately brought out by
Speaker 4: Warner Music Group, which just ruins everything in nineteen eighty
Speaker 4: seven for two hundred million dollars. Not too bad. So
Speaker 4: as soon as Blueberry Hill was published, a whole bunch
Speaker 4: of different artists jumped all over it. They knew it
Speaker 4: was going to be a hit. The Glenn Miller Orchestra
Speaker 4: made a recording of it. They missed putting out the
Speaker 4: first recording by thirteen days, but it still became a hit.
Speaker 4: We never talked about Glenn Miller, have we. That's a
Speaker 4: good story. Yeah, he got lost at sea during World
Speaker 4: War two. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, there's a good story there.
Speaker 4: Louis Armstrong did it. Elvis did a version, Little Richard
Speaker 4: did a version. Jerry Lee Lewis did a version. Kuntless
Speaker 4: international groups did versions of it around the world. Fats
Speaker 4: Domino was the one who made it the definitive version,
Speaker 4: but he was not the first. The first recording of
Speaker 4: Blueberry Hill was recorded in nineteen forty, right after it
Speaker 4: was published by a very popular bandleader named Sammy Kay.
Speaker 4: Swing and sway with Sammy Kay. That was his trademark,
Speaker 4: kind of catchphrase, so swinging and swaying. He was born
Speaker 4: samuelke Zarnik or zarn Ok, I'm not really sure, but
Speaker 4: he shortened it to Sammy Kay. He was born in Lakewood, Ohio,
Speaker 4: in nineteen ten. He studied saxophone and clarinet at Ohio University,
Speaker 4: but he never played as a feature artist himself. He
Speaker 4: was all about putting the bands together and being the
Speaker 4: director and doing all that kind of stuff. He also
Speaker 4: had a big string of hits, including a song titled
Speaker 4: Remember Pearl Harbor, which they recorded ten days after the
Speaker 4: Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He would also do an
Speaker 4: audience participation thing, inviting an audience member to come up
Speaker 4: and try to conduct the swing and Sway band, and
Speaker 4: then that audience member got to keep the baton that
Speaker 4: they were trying to conduct the band with. I'm hoping
Speaker 4: the band didn't really pay too much attention to the
Speaker 4: conductor because that would be a train run.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's like a rolling Stones guitar pick.
Speaker 4: I have nice. Yeah I can't prove it, but yeah,
Speaker 4: it's okay. It's cool to have. And you know the story.
Speaker 4: So Sammy Kay died in nineteen eighty seven in Ridgewood,
Speaker 4: New Jersey, not far from here. I played in the
Speaker 4: Ridgewood Symphony, So I'm there. I don't know where his
Speaker 4: house is, but I'm going to start knocking on doors
Speaker 4: and see did Sammy Kay live here?
Speaker 3: Get out of here.
Speaker 4: I'm talking about. So this is the first recording of
Speaker 4: Blueberry Hill from May thirty first, nineteen forty The Sammy
Speaker 4: Kay Orchestra with vocals by Tommy Ryan. Tommy Ryan was
Speaker 4: born Are you writing all these down? Okay? All right?
Speaker 4: So Tommy Ryan was born Nathan Levine in nineteen twenty one.
Speaker 4: Could not sound more Jewish, which is why he changed
Speaker 4: it to Tommy Ryan, which could be none more generic,
Speaker 4: which is exactly why he did it. He played guitar
Speaker 4: and sang in big bands. He sang on Broadway. He
Speaker 4: would wind up leaving show business because he wanted to
Speaker 4: chase the money. He opened restaurants, He got into rare
Speaker 4: coin dealer ships kind of stuff. He bought race horses.
Speaker 4: He died in two thousand and seven, so he was
Speaker 4: around for a long time. So let's play Blueberry Hill
Speaker 4: by Sammy k. The first minute or so is just
Speaker 4: an instrumental and listening to it, all I can picture
Speaker 4: is back when everybody used to dress formal, no matter
Speaker 4: what you did. The suit and tie, the fancy dresses
Speaker 4: and carrying the picnic basket and walking up a hill.
Speaker 4: That's all I can imagine when you're listening to this
Speaker 4: first minute or so, So let me play it. Tell
Speaker 4: me what you think let's.
Speaker 3: Check it out.
Speaker 12: On Blueberry A beautiful picture in these words by Tommy Ryan.
Speaker 3: I found my triad.
Speaker 12: On Blueberry Hell, on Blueberry here.
Speaker 10: When I found you.
Speaker 17: The moon stood stand.
Speaker 3: On blueberry.
Speaker 12: And lingered until my dreams came true.
Speaker 17: The wind in the willow play love sweet mellowed.
Speaker 9: But all of those bars we made were.
Speaker 12: Never to be.
Speaker 17: The will upon. You're part of me still, for you
Speaker 17: were my true on Blueberry Hell.
Speaker 4: Slightly different take than Fat Phenomena did a.
Speaker 7: Few years later, right, This was much more innocent.
Speaker 4: Right, But it was sixteen years apart, and Fats Nomenal
Speaker 4: dug back and did a cover of an old standard.
Speaker 4: And I'm saying, you know, the opportunity is still there.
Speaker 4: Every year, more and more stuff goes into the public domain.
Speaker 4: So now we go from talking about picnics to what
Speaker 4: Fats Domino is talking about. You could do that with
Speaker 4: a whole lot.
Speaker 6: Of different songs, you know, Are you telling me there
Speaker 6: are two different things.
Speaker 4: No, I'm implying there are two different things to do
Speaker 4: with that what you will?
Speaker 3: So there you go?
Speaker 4: All right, that does it. That's all I've got. I
Speaker 4: think this was awesome. Yeah, we always go across the
Speaker 4: whole spectrum, new to old, you know, all the different styles.
Speaker 4: That's what I like doing these kind of things. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it keeps it interesting, very cool. All right, any final
Speaker 4: thoughts before we pull the plug here.
Speaker 1: All right, it's one of my favorite topics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh this could be be visited, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: over and over.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it pops up every once in a while. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's worth it. Yeah, and this is one of those
Speaker 4: rare weeks where we know what we're doing next week.
Speaker 4: I just mention Ludwig von Beethoven, So we're actually gonna
Speaker 4: talk about Beethoven next week. But I promise it won't
Speaker 4: be painful. It's okay, a little culture won't kill you.
Speaker 6: It'll be fun.
Speaker 4: It'll be fun.
Speaker 3: It'll be fun, all right.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Crambones, excellent selections. As always, thank you all
Speaker 4: for joining us for the Rock and Roll History Show.
Speaker 4: Don't forget to subscribe in your favorite app and check
Speaker 4: out all the other shows we do here. We have
Speaker 4: something for everybody. We'll see you next week with another
Speaker 4: brand new episode. Until then, be safe, have fun, everyone,
Speaker 4: and peace out.
Speaker 10: Come a rock cop bottomed cram
Speaker 4: Okay, Bye bye, Hudson River Radio Dot com, a subsidiary
Speaker 4: of Glacier Entertainment LLC, potentially successful its multi hundred dollars
Speaker 4: corporation