Our first repeat offenders on No Hard Chords don’t have the record to match pop chart recidivists like Elvis Presley, Paul Anka or Bobby Darin. As I wrote in the review of “Come Softly To Me,” The Fleetwoods were a high school vocal trio who managed to concoct an amateurish yet endearing pop sketch, charming record buyers enough to snag [...]
Archive for December, 2008
21) The Fleetwoods – “Mr. Blue”
Posted in 06, 1959, tagged the fleetwoods on December 31, 2008 | 2 Comments »
20) Bobby Darin – “Mack the Knife”
Posted in 08, 1959, tagged bobby darin, mack the knife on December 30, 2008 | 2 Comments »
When “Stagger Lee” topped the charts despite its cheerful glorification of homicide, it at least had the defense of being rock and roll. No matter how lovey-dovey or innocent the presentation was, rock still had an undercurrent of immorality. This was music whose very name celebrated wild dancing and/or sex, and was popularized by questionable young men [...]
19) Santo & Johnny – “Sleep Walk”
Posted in 06, 1959, tagged instrumentals, santo & johnny on December 30, 2008 | 3 Comments »
If the organ is my favorite musical instrument, as I wrote in the post on Dave “Baby” Cortez, then for a long time my least favorite was the steel guitar. The twangy, whiny sound was part of the reason, but mainly it just always seemed too obvious. Sticking steel guitar into a song was shorthand for “tragedy” [...]
18) The Browns – “The Three Bells”
Posted in 04, 1959, tagged the browns on December 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Listening to a song in an unfamiliar language can be freeing. For me, bad lyrics can render an otherwise great song unlistenable. But as long as the singer, the production and the melody work, foreign-language lyrics can be clunky or insipid or cliched with me none the wiser. If an English-language version of the song is recorded with bad lyrics, though, [...]
17) Elvis Presley – “A Big Hunk o’ Love”
Posted in 07, 1959, tagged elvis presley on December 28, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
”A Big Hunk o’ Love” hasn’t really persisted as part of the Elvis Canon, at least not to the degree that previous #1′s such as ”Heartbreak Hotel,” “Love Me Tender” and “Jailhouse Rock” or the trio of 1960 chart toppers to be discussed have. It’s a pretty standard rockabilly-blues number, the type Presley had cut while at Sun [...]
16) Paul Anka – “Lonely Boy”
Posted in 06, 1959, tagged paul anka on December 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“Lonely Boy” is a song tailor-made to appeal to female teenage fans, as blatant as Frankie Avalon’s “Venus” at constructing a narrative into which the girl can insert herself. Anka’s “got everything you can think of” (fame, money, talent, looks, the infatuation of thosands or millions of young girls), but all that he wants is “someone to [...]
15) Johnny Horton – “The Battle of New Orleans”
Posted in 07, 1959, tagged johnny horton, the big bopper on December 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
There’s very little accurate history in “The Battle of New Orleans,” despite its frequent appearance in my grade school history classes. But really, there’s not much else to interest kids in the War of 1812. Unlike the radical changes of the American Revolution or the Civil War, the War of 1812 was essentially a quarrel over territory and [...]
14) Wilbert Harrison – “Kansas City”
Posted in 08, 1959, tagged leiber and stoller, wilbert harrison on December 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
My first exposure to “Kansas City” was Wanda Jackson’s rollicking version on Queen of Rockabilly, where Jackson was anything but demure in her plan to nab a “crazy little fella.” Wilbert Harrison’s version is a little more low-key, based around a piano riff rather than electric guitar. “Kansas City” was one of the first songs [...]
13) Dave “Baby” Cortez – “The Happy Organ”
Posted in 06, 1959, tagged dave "baby" cortez, instrumentals on December 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I only discovered yesterday that the version of “The Happy Organ” I had been listening to for this project was actually a 1960 rerecording. The “Happy Organ” that hit #1 is the version above: tamer, more controlled, less exciting. In the rerecording, Cortez attacks the tune with the abandon of Jerry Lee Lewis, his organ-playing [...]
12) The Fleetwoods – “Come Softly to Me”
Posted in 07, 1959, tagged the fleetwoods on December 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“Come Softly to Me” is the first single on No Hard Chords where the YouTube video is more than an easy way for me to post the song. The video above finds the three teenage members of The Fleetwoods lip-synching their hit on American Bandstand. Their dancing is stiff and awkward and clearly choreographed by the group itself. But [...]
