King’s Dalliance with Psychedelia — Keith Murphy & the Daze

Posted on June 18, 2018 by Zeroto180

Keith Murphy & the Daze would help King Records expand its popular reach into the emerging “psychedelic” rock market (following the previous year’s foray into Jamaican ska via Prince Buster). May of 1968 would find the release of King’s first “psych” 45 [as noted previously in “Rare & Unissued King“] with two sides by Keith Murphy & the Daze, “Slightly Reminiscent of Her” b/w “Dirty Ol’ Sam.”

Keith Murphy (front, right)

Left to right — Standing: Phil Fosnaugh – keyboard/organ (deceased); Jerry Asher – bass (deceased); John Asher – guitar (now Evansville IN); Sitting Bill Shearer – drums (Gas City IN), Keith Murphy – lead singer/rhythm guitar (Long Valley, NJ)

The single’s recording, however, would take place against the backdrop of (1) label founder Syd Nathan‘s passing two months prior in March, (2) followed, in April, by civil unrest in the neighborhoods adjacent to Cincinnati’s Evanston neighborhood – King’s home base – when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis.

“Slightly Reminiscent of Her” Keith Murphy & the Daze 1968

The Daze, Keith Murphy postulates, are among King’s final signings while Nathan was still actively involved:

“Louis Innis [previously celebrated here] was a wonderful man, and you can see from the letters [featured below] how nicely he treated me. No letters in 1967, then in 1968 I reapproached him with The Daze, the band of which I was lead singer. Again, the band was so sure the idea of getting a contract with King was so slim, none of the band members went with me to talk to King. As it turns out, it was just as well, for when King wanted only me as the lead singer songwriter, they did not resent my name being on the label. This was the pattern of King I thought, to just sign the lead singer/songwriter then they had one person to deal with and the most valuable property, like James Brown and the Famous Flames, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, etc. I did insist that the band name also be on the record and they were ok with that.

We recorded the record in May of 1968, but it was not released until September or October of that year. I see in their final letter, it was chaotic. Actually, Syd Nathan died in March 1968, and it was chaos then too, as I recorded about 2 months later. I suspect, but do not know, that I was one of the very last artists that was approved by Syd Nathan himself. Louis mentions that he wanted to see me alone to proceed forward, and they were releasing the record in England. I had just graduated from college, had a baby daughter, had a regular job and was too busy to attend to everything. I don’t think I ever went back. I think he mentioned something on the phone about re-recording the songs.”

The same single would find its release 6 months later in the UK on Polydor, albeit with the A and B sides flipped. Murphy would inform Zero to 180:

“I attached a picture of the exact Yellow King record [below] that was sent to England to see if Polydor was interested. As you can see, they considered ‘Dirty Ol’ Sam’ the A side there. I do know they must have shipped the tape or master there, as ‘Sam’ does not fade out in the UK version and is 7 seconds longer with a limp ending. It is a near miracle I have that record. The person who sold it worked for Polydor UK and was asked to clean out the warehouse or library. He kept the records, and confirmed it was where it came from and the markings on the record are the numbers that ended up as the Polydor number.”

This very King 45 led to the song’s issue in UK on Polydor: note ‘A’ & ‘B’ markings

The single’s UK release of 15 November, 1968, unfortunately, would be a mere 8 days or so before Starday* would sell the entire Starday-King operation to Lin Broadcasting for a mere $5 million (*see related vintage news item appended to this piece).

UK release on Polydor – with A & B sides flipped!

“Dirty Ol’ Sam” Keith Murphy & the Daze 1968

Keith Murphy & the Daze at Cincinnati’s King studios – May, 1968

Photo notes from Keith Murphy

“Here is the sole picture that was taken in the King Recording studio in May, 1968. L to R: Phil Fosnough – Keyboard; John Asher – Lead Guitar; Bill Shearer – Drums; Jerry Asher – Bass, Keith Murphy – Lead singer, songwriter. I remember two incidents during the recording session: Someone came in and said they needed to send somebody to the jail to give Hank Ballard a pack of cigarettes, he had been arrested for public intoxication. The other memory is that it was a hot day, and along side the building, the workers had the doors open and had a pressing machine partially outside to get some cooler air for the workers!”

Louis Innis & Keith Murphy:
Selected Correspondence || 1965-1968

Dec. 14, 1965: “Have [Becky Wiggins] do 3 or 4 different type songs” [see Q&A]

Dec. 21, 1965: “Please find copy of my agreements” + “5% of the retail price”

Jan. 25, 1966: “Anxious to get the sides recorded” + “what a rat race I’m in”

Feb. 17, 1966: Pardon the delay – “echo chambers have been out in the studio”

Apr. 13, 1966: “Returning your contracts so you can do something else” (!)

Sep. 16, 1968: “Record should be out pronto” + keep your chin up

Oct. 9, 1968: Final note = 45 to be issued in UK, but King “under new management”

PDF copy below of Keith Murphy’s contract with King (click on link)

Keith Murphy – Louis Innis contract (June 5, 1968)

Prior to the King 45, Murphy had actually recorded under the name Keith O’Conner as part of The Torkays, who recorded exclusively for Chicago’s Stacy Records (home of Al Casey, guitarist/bandleader behind three Lee Hazlewood A-sides in 1963 & 1964 for the label and not to be confused with The Torquays from Cincinnati’s Walnut Hills High School, located across the [future] interstate, interestingly enough, from King Records).

In that pre-Beatle era, O’Conner was part of a Mark, Don & Mel-type of arrangement (sorry, kids – that’s a Grand Funk Railroad joke) with The Torkays — Frank, Keith, and Jimmy — who would write a martial arts-themed composition, “Karate,” for their recording debut in 1963, with “I Don’t Like It (But What Can I Do)” on the flip.

Q & A with King Recording Artist, Keith O’Conner Murphy

Q: What led up to your getting signed by King?
A: I started with a side project apart from my band The Daze. They felt the chances of getting on a R&B label was such a long shot that they did not want to pursue it. I wrote a Sonny and Cher type song called “We’re Gonna Get It” for myself and a girl named Becky Wiggins. I started talking to Louis Innis of King in 1965. He was very interested, as reflected in his letter which I have shared. Sometime in 1966, Ft. Wayne native Troy Shondell, who had the big hit “This Time,” persuaded her to record for his small label 3 Rivers as Beck Holland with “I’m Going Away.” So that scuttled the King deal. In 1968, I then connected with Louis again, by myself, as the band still did not think it was worth the effort. I actually was hoping to get on the Cincinnati Fraternity label, and interviewed with Harry Carlson, the owner. He was a genuine caring person, but did not see a place in their current roster for me. I liked his artist Mouse and the Traps, and he gave me a copy of their newly released “Sometimes You Just Can’t Win” – still one of my favorites. The label was also home to Lonnie Mack, who recently passed, and my all time guitar instrumental favorite “Memphis.” My next stop was King, and Louis was ready to go once I dropped some of my bold royalty demands!

Q: Was Louis Innis Innis your main point of contact, given Syd Nathan’s death in March, 1968? Who were some of the staff – as well as artists – you encountered during your time with King?
A: I only worked with Louis Innis, a man I cannot say enough kind words for. The only other person was a King engineer who I do not know the name of. A white guy maybe in his 30’s.

Q: Where was “home base” during your time with King — and what were your impressions of Evanston, as well as Cincinnati, during your tenure with the label?

A: My home was the small country town of Sweetser, Indiana, and the other guys lived in the “big” town of Marion or the nearby Gas City. Grant County Indiana is the same small rural county that Fairmount is in — home of James Dean and Jim Davis who created Garfield.

Q: Did you live in Cincinnati for any extended period of time?
A: I never lived in Cincy. Being in the middle of Indiana, we knocked on doors in Chicago, Memphis, Nashville, and Cincy — the major cities with record companies. I love Cincy, however, the hills and the friendliness and especially the Chili!

Q: I dig the far-out backdrop used in your King promotional photo — was that photo taken at King’s art studio and who designed the cool “Daze” logo?
A: We had a booking agent, Bill Craig Jr. of Muncie, Indiana who I think partially owned a TV station there. He also managed the Chosen Few, who later were on RCA and Mercury. That photo was taken at a nightclub he owned called Halcyon Days, and he used it to get bookings. Our keyboard player who used a Hammond B3 Organ with a Leslie speaker, he made that DAZE sign which had colored lights that rotated behind it.

Q: Which make/model of electric guitars, basses & drums were plugged into the Fender amplifiers pictured in the King promo photo?

A: John played a Fender Jazzmaster, and at that time it looked like he was using Fender amps. At other times he used Sunn, and I think for a short time the rolled and pleated Custom amps. Jerry played a Fender bass, but bought a bass like Paul McCartney played sort of looked like a violin, a Hofner. He didn’t have it long when it got stolen off the stage when we played a club in Detroit called The Mummp.

Q: Where was home base originally for The Torkays, and what was the local response to your “Karate” 45 (which has a cool musical bridge, by the way, that loops back nicely to the verse)?
A: “Karate” never got off the ground except in Pittsburgh. Stacy’s biggest hit record, “Surfin’ Hootenanny” rightfully pushed everything else aside. For some reason it has been revived on YouTube with several people posting it and 6,000 total views. I wrote a song “Tiddlywink” for a German rockabilly band Black Raven, and they recorded it. They have notified me they want to record “Karate.” I am surprised at the interest in this record.

← ↑ →

“Two Kings”: A True Tale by Keith Murphy

“Chip Taylor — did not know him, but we were both on the King label. He was on King under his real name Wes Voight.

“He was doing a concert here in NJ and I called him and left a message, and said I would like to meet him afterwards, telling him I was in the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Well, I was out in the yard, but fortunately he left a phone message congratulating me! I met him after the concert and brought my and his King record and had him sign it along with my copies of “Wild Thing” on both the Atco and Fontana labels by the Troggs. Reg Presley of the Troggs died around that time, and Chip had flown to England to attend the funeral, as their careers were forever bound together by that one iconic great rock song. It is the example I always give of how important arrangement is. The Troggs had the creative genius to put an ocarina and other stuff on there. Chip just was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame [also famous for 1968 smash hit, “Angel of the Morning”] this summer, and I called him and congratulated. He should have been in there a long time ago.”

“Two Kings”: Chip Taylor (a.k.a., Wes Voight) and Keith Murphy

Keith Murphy is also a voting member of the Grammys and Country Music Association

A K i n g R e c o r d s V i n t a g e H i s t o r y M o m e n t

Full text of news item from the Nov. 23, 1968 edition of Billboard

Lin Broadcasting Buys Starday-King for $5 Mil; Execs Policy Retained

NASHVILLE — Lin Broadcasting Corp., owner of communication outlets, has purchased Starday and King Records and their affiliated companies for $5 million.

Fred Gregg Jr., Lin’s chairman of the board and president, said this would mean a great expansion program here. “It will mean an additional $6 million to $8 million in gross income to the Nashville music economy,” he said.

The corporate structure of Starday-King will remain the same, with Don Pierce, president; Hal Neely, vice-president; Jim Wilson, vice-president for marketing; Johnny Miller in charge of the Cincinnati office; Henry Glover, manager of the New York office; and Harlen Dodsen, general counsel.

“Nashville will now be a complete operation in the rhythm and blues field,” Pierce said. Pierce said James Brown now would record here, and would bring in the “right musicians for the r&b sound.” Just having Brown record here, he said, would give tremendous impetus in this direction. “Now that we’re working under a huge corporate structure,” Pierce said, “we can effect economies, efficiencies, acquisitions and total expansion. We can compete for larger acts, go after great catalogs.” He made it clear, though, that the sale in no way affects the operation of the business or its past policies.

Both Gregg and Pierce said they plan new overseas music companies in England, Germany and France at first, and eventually in other nations. Pierce said the firm would expand its overseas distribution and exploit its various companies around the world.

The Starday president said he was obtaining a record club contract for King with Columbia, RCA and Capitol, the same ones with which Starday now has an arrangement. He said the club membership would include James Brown.

Pierce, one of the founders of the Country Music Association, was Billboard’s Man of the Year in 1962 and is vice-president of RIAA. Starday was founded in 1952 in Los Angeles and moved here in 1957.

Recently (Billboard, Oct. 26) Starday acquired the King Records operation. Those holdings included the record and distribution operation and masters, Lois Music and its publishing subsidiaries, the Royal Plastics Pressing operation, and the long-term contract of Brown. Starday holdings include Hollywood, Look and Nashville Records, and Starday, Tarheel and Kamar Music.

Bonus Craft Project! Make Your Own King Records stationery

Additional history on Keith Murphy in this interview from 60sGarageBands.com

Ace Visits King Records Archives

Posted on May 13, 2018 by Zeroto180

“There is an argument that it was all downhill for recording when music stopped being cut straight to disc.”

Ace Records UK has a catalog of reissues that is both all over the map and right out of this world. I am hardly the first person to be knocked out by the amount of attention and care Ace lavishes on its subjects, one of them being the King Records musical legacy. Ace’s website, unsurprisingly, documents the company’s journey in meticulous chronological fashion. 1993, for instance, would find Ace gaining the confidence and trust of IMG/Gusto, owner of the King master recordings:

Originally stationed in Cincinnati, Syd Nathan’s immense King Records was, by the 90s, located at Gusto Records in Nashville. We had licensed the Scepter/Wand and Musicor labels owned by the same company for some time. We finally got to access the well-organised King vaults and what a wonder they were. Pretty soon, the Delmore Bros where rubbing shoulders with Freddie King, Wynonie Harris shouted the blues at Moon Mullican: great sounding records from well-preserved tapes. Some years later, we shipped the original 16” acetates that contained the first recordings to our studio. We have been transferring them to digital ever since, releasing many previously unheard performances in pristine sound. There is an argument that it was all downhill for recording when music stopped being cut straight to disc.

Twelve years hence, Ace’s work with the original King acetates would reach fever pitch:

In the wake of some intense tape research and unearthing original 16” acetates in Nashville, the King label was our big thing of the year. Before recording on tape, music was cut directly to large discs which were then copied, processed and used to make commercial 78s. These acetates are a remarkable archive. In those 16” grooves are many previously unheard recordings. Also, those that were released were often drenched in reverb. Our first two releases from this source were a pair of contrasting sets, one with six new performances from the Delmore Brothers, and one with seven previously unissued sides by Roy Brown.

Ace UK’s Tony Rounce would serve as fly-on-the-wall reporter to document the effort – this information reprinted with the understanding that Zero to 180 readers will seek out and purchase these quality King reissues from an honest-to-goodness music store:

Ace Visits the King Records HQ in Nashville by Tony Rounce

As all R&B fans will know, Ace has long reaped the benefits of its ongoing access to the King Records catalogue, thanks in no small way to the cordial relationship we enjoy with the catalogue’s owner, Mr. Moe Lytle, his international representative Stephen Hawkins and the excellent, hard working team at King’s Nashville HQ. Ace’s A&R team makes no secret of the fact that each of us loves multiple aspects of the King catalogue, and thus it’s never anything but sheer pleasure to be involved with the reissue of the company’s superlative recordings.

Through the kind auspices of Mr. Lytle, Ace’s A&R team has, or the past couple of years, been privileged to receive the ‘run of the vault’, during what has now become annual two-week trips to Nashville. Under the supervision of Ace’s MD Roger Armstrong a team of the company’s senior A&R guys has been permitted to access the entire King tape inventory, and to copy as much repertoire to DAT as can be copied in the time we have available to us. Happily for us, the friendly folk at King are more than amenable to putting in a few extra hours here and there to enable us to start early, and leave late, each day in our attempts to bring you as many quality reissues as we can assemble from two weeks worth of heads-down, no-nonsense copying. It’s a win-win situation for everyone concerned, on both sides of the pond.

King’s formidable and extremely well-organised tape vault is complemented by a well-preserved collection of mint ‘library copy’ 45s and 78s, which between them contain a copy of virtually every record ever released on King, or one of its subsidiaries. If this information is not itself enough to make most long-time R&B and soul collectors go weak at the knees, the knowledge that many of those vinyl and shellac masterpieces are blank label test pressings, with the label copy written in King founder Syd Nathan‘s own meticulous hand, will surely have most collectors reaching for the nearest comfy chair, while simultaneously clutching a bottle of maximum-strength smelling salts.

But that, as they say, is definitely not all, folks. Until very recently, the King vaults also contained most of that company’s original acetates, cut between 1944 and 1951 (Syd, like many other indie operatives, did not initially trust the longevity of tape, and he insisted on cutting acetate ‘safeties’ until such times as the durability of oxide could be fully confirmed), and it also included a copious quantity of acetates from those labels King acquired along the way, such as De Luxe. Most of the acetates had been in storage since Mr. Lytle’s Gusto Records purchased King in the mid 1970s, and most of them were in the same immaculate condition that they had been when they were first cut, over 50 years ago.

« « Zero to 180’s samples of King acetates » »

1953 tune penned by henry Glover + 1966’s “Stop Talking to Your Child, Mother-in-Law“

Acetate of James Brown’s 3-part single from 1971

Those who are worrying about the use of the past tense here will be glad to know that it’s being used for a very good reason. The acetates were in the King vaults, until very recently. However, and as this piece is being written, those same acetates are now on their way from Nashville to Ace Towers, where each and every note of music they contain will be copied, downstairs at Sound Mastering Ltd over the course of the next year, to produce an unprecedented series of Ace CDs which will aim to present this historic and hugely important catalogue’s early masters as they have never been heard before (and, in many case, as they have never been heard, period!)

Ace had been discussing the possibility of undertaking such a task with Mr. Lytle and his team for some considerable time, so it goes without saying that we were all beside ourselves with happiness when permission was given for us to undertake the formidable task of decanting several hundred crumbling 25-count boxes of acetates into bigger and sturdier ones, for safe shipment from there to here. My Ace colleague Alec Palao and I had the arduous, but ultimately very rewarding, task of packing over 60 boxes, each containing at least 60-80 acetates. This might sound like a chore to some but, as we opened each box and steadily annotated the packing list, we were as excited as a couple of alcoholics with a month-long lock-in at their favourite neighbourhood bar. It took us the best part of a week to work our way through the lot, but we couldn’t have been happier with the end result.

An incredible number of acetates have survived the passage of time and, in most cases, in a condition that could only be described as “Mint Minus”. Unfortunately, a few of the earliest acetates were glass-based, and several of them had broken somewhere along the line, including, sad to say, some unique items that will now never be heard in anything other than ‘from 78’ quality. However, the vast majority of the acetates were and are metal-based – so no fear of breakages there, although a few had corroded beyond salvation. On the whole, though, the condition of these unique sound sources was, and is, superb, and the quality of the CDs that Ace will be able to produce from them ought to be nothing less than phenomenal.

As the chief ‘acetate-sorter-outer’, it fell to me to decide which slates to ship where there were multiple copies of the same one, thus I got to see every acetate as it moved from box to box. I need not explain to any collectors how much of a thrill this was, as the original acetates for Wynonie Harris‘ “Good Rockin’ Tonight”, Cowboy Copas‘ “Filipino Baby” and just about all of Hank Penny‘s first session for King flashed before my eyes, en route from a small carton to a packing box. Even more thrilling was the discovery that, contrary to long-held beliefs in the blues community, early De Luxe acetates that were believed to have been lost in a warehouse fire in 1948 mostly had not been. At least one take of most of the multitude of unissued and unheard Roy Brown sides were present and correct, as were other potential delights from legendary New Orleans names like Smiley Lewis, Eddie Gorman, Annie Laurie, Paul Gayten, Chubby Newsome & Dave Bartholomew. If this is not exciting news, then I’ll eat both my hat AND yours.

From a personal point of view, coming upon the original acetates for King 501 (Bob McCarthy a.k.a. Merle Travis‘ “When Mussolini Laid His Pistol Down” [1943 – audio unavailable on YouTube] was a thrill and a half, as was locating the acetate containing several takes of the Travis/Hank Penny western swing classic “Merle’s Buck Dance”. Who among us could not have been delighted to find out that the unissued Roy Brown‘s were alive and well, or that the likes of Homer and Jethro, John Lee Hooker, and the early Delmore Brothers/Wayne Raney sides would soon be heard a quality comparable to that in which they were originally recorded. Certainly not anyone who works at Ace, that’s for sure.

The acetate reissue programme will not happen overnight, of course. Much prioritising has to be done, followed by much transferring. But we at Ace hope that we will have the first releases in the special ‘acetate’ series on the market by late spring of 2005. Once the first titles are out we will be issuing further packages throughout 2005 and 2006 and, well, effectively until we run out of acetates to reissue, really. In general, the release of these packages should forever do away with anyone’s need to buy any more unauthorised Out Of Copyright issues of King material from this era, which can only be a very good thing, really.

Of course, we will not be neglecting our programme of “from tape” King reissues, either. While we were ‘on site’ in Nashville we also transferred enough sides, from original mastertapes, to extend our King programme well into 2006, even without the ‘acetate series’. The first fruits of this side of our labours will be available in January, with the first-ever legal reissue of The Lamplighters‘ great Federal catalogue in superlative sound, followed by a ‘5‘ Royales package that obviously includes the hits but that focuses its attentions mostly on those King sides which have been reissued less often or not at all. As 2006 unfolds there will be a second volume of King Rock ‘n’ Roll, two more volumes (at least!) of King Doo Wop [four volumes in all], the complete recordings of Dominoes/Drifters-affiliated group The Checkers, a package of the early recordings of The Royals/Midnighters, a second volume of Little Willie John [sets one and two] and much more besides. As Roger A. made the majority of the tape transfers for these packages, the guarantee that these will sound better than any other reissue of this material comes straight from the top!

Here at Ace, King will always be King, and we’re firmly committed to continuing to send it victorious, happy and glorious, long to reign over all vintage R&B and Hillbilly aficionados. Long live the King!

King-Related Titles Available from Ace UK

Click on link - free shipping in UK when ordered from Ace

Various Artists: Hillbilly Bop ‘n’ Boogie

Various Artists: Beef Ball Baby! The New Orleans R&B Sessions

Various Artists: King Rockabilly

Various Artists: Rockabilly Kings [Charlie Feathers & Mac Curtis]

Various Artists: King Doo Wop (Vol. One, Two, Three & Four)

Various Artists: King Rock ‘n’ Roll (Vol. One & Two)

Various Artists: Honky Tonk! The King & Federal R&B Instrumentals

Various Artists: Chicago Blues From Federal Records

Various Artists: Welcome to the Club [Chicago blues on Federal]

Various Artists: New Breed Rhythm & Blues

Various Artists: King Northern Soul (Vol. One, Two & Three)

Various Artists: King Serious Soul (Vol. One & Two)

Various Artists: Soul Ballads from King, Federal & Deluxe

Various Artists: King Funk

Various Artists: Royal Grooves – Funk & Groovy Soul

Various Artists: The Best of King Gospel

Roy Brown: King & Deluxe Acetate Series [+ 1 other title]

The Checkers: Complete King Recordings

Delmore Brothers: Freight Train Boogie & Fifty Miles to Travel – Acetates

Bill Doggett: Honky Tonk Popcorn

Brother Claude Ely: Satan Get Back!

The ‘5‘ Royales: Catch That Teardrop + King Hits & Rarities

Herb Hardesty: Domino Effect – The Wing & Federal Recordings

Wynonie Harris: King & Deluxe Acetate Series [+ 2 other titles]

Ivory Joe Hunter: Woo Wee! King & Deluxe Acetate Series

Little Willie John: Early King Sessions & Later King Sessions

Grandpa Jones (& Merle Travis): King & Deluxe Acetate Series

Freddy King: Blues Guitar Hero: Volumes One & Two

The Lamplighters: Complete Federal Recordings

Little Willie Littlefield: Going Back to Kay Cee

Stick McGhee: And His Spo-Dee-O-Dee Buddies

Moon Mullican: Moonshine Jamboree & Seven Nights to Rock

The Platters: Complete Federal Recordings

The Royals/Midnighters: The Federal Singles

Smokey Smothers: Back Porch Blues

The Stanley Brothers: Ralph & Carter – The Later King Years

Otis Williams & the Charms: The King/Deluxe Recordings

The York Brothers: Long Time Gone: King & Deluxe Acetate Series

« « Additional King Reissues of Note » »

Various Artists: Soppin’ Up the Gravy 1945-1954

Various Artists: Another Taste of King 1946-1954

Various Artists: Shuffle Town: Western Swing on King 1946-1950

Various Artists: King Strings: King-Federal-Deluxe Guitar Grooves

Various Artists: Mark LaMarr’s Rocking Up a Storm

Various Artists: Mark LaMarr Presents Mule Milk ‘n’ Firewater

Various Artists: Jiving Jamboree: Vol. 3 [King/Federal dance tracks]

Various Artists: I’ll Go Crazy: The Federal Records Story

Various Artists: After Hours – The King Records Story 1956-1959

Various Artists: Only Young Once – King Records Story 1962

Various Artists: Crash of Thunder: Boss Soul, Funk and R&B Sides

Various Artists: King R&B Box Set

The fine folks at Rhino would issue their King Master Series in the 1990s, with volumes devoted to Roy Brown; Little Willie John; Hank Ballard & the Midnighters; Billy Ward & His Dominoes; The ‘5’ Royales; Wynonie Harris & Freddy King.

Also, Westside would issue CD anthologies for such King artists as Zeb Turner, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Tiny Bradshaw, Bonnie Lou & The Stanley Brothers, plus a special collection entitled Groove Station – King/Federal/Deluxe Saxblasters.

Calvin Shields – Musical Pioneer

Posted on May 3, 2018 by Zeroto180

Hard to believe it was only 20 years or so ago I was having cheese coneys with The Cincinnati Enquirer‘s preeminent music writer Larry Nager and asking what it would take for the city to finally “own up” to its King Records history. Last week, to my utter delight and amazement, the City of Cincinnati, under Mayor John Cranley’s leadership and with the support of City Council, leveraged the power of the state on behalf of music history — so now Zero to 180 will have to find something else to complain about.

Thanks to a $1 land swap deal, there will be no wrecking ball for the original structure used by Syd Nathan and his talented team to birth a musical enterprise that enabled King the ability to ship out in the morning a piece of music that had been recorded the evening before. As Brian Powers point out in his King Records Scrapbook, no other label – including almighty Columbia – had the nimbleness to operate in this capacity.

Photo courtesy of Brian Powers

Unique among fellow King chroniclers and researchers, Powers organizes his King Records Scrapbook categorically — The Executives; A&R Men; Sound Engineers; Session Musicians; Recording Artists — rather than chronologically, while throwing in fun tidbits, such as a King Records Timeline of historical highlights plus street addresses of selected King artists and executives, including Syd Nathan (who once lived in Bond Hill an easy walk from the home of drummer, Reg Grizzard, and about a mile and a half from my boyhood home in Roselawn, as the crow flies).

Rob Finnis, in his extensive liner notes for Ace UK anthology King Rockabilly, reveals some of the audio engineering aspects behind King’s legendary sound (e.g., “Fever” by Little Willie John):

The live, upfront studio sound attained by engineer Eddie Smith had the bass and drums leaping out of the speakers with maximum impact. [Charlie] Feathers wasn’t the only beneficiary [“Bottle to the Baby“]. This sharp, larger-than-life ambience characterizes several other titles on this compact disc including “Move” [Boyd Bennett], “Peg Pants” [Bill Beach], “No Good Robin Hood” [Delbert Barker], and “Rock n’ Roll Nursery Rhyme” [Dave Dudley]. “That old King studio had a terrific sound,” explained Henry Glover. “It had a very high ceiling, maybe 24 feet, and the control room protruded into the studio in a V-shape like the bridge of a ship so the engineer could see in front and to the side of him. I sent for an engineer by the name of Eddie Smith who was a very good technical man. He stayed with King for about 12 years and later worked over at Bell Sound in New York.

Everything was done at one time, there was no multi-tracking; you would continue making cuts until you got every instrument, every voice, on the 1/4 inch tape and that was considered your final mix. In those days, we were even thinking of frequencies and emphasis on various instruments. Out of the regular upright bass, we got a sound just like today’s electric Fender bass by close-miking it with a microphone called the 44BX and surrounding it with live-surfaced acoustic isolation panels. The drum sound in those days was generally gotten by releasing the drum snares completely and you’d put a heavy object like the drummer’s wallet – or Syd Nathan’s wallet – on the snare and the really hard-driving backbeat stroke was actually a rimshot.

Glover would be even more emphatic in his praise for King as a facility with great sound in this passage from Arnold Shaw‘s classic roots rock historical critique, Honkers and Shouters (which includes a chapter devoted to King Records entitled “Record Company in an Icehouse”):

Shortly after he joined King Records, Glover moved to Cincinnati “because Syd Nathan had built one of the finest recording studios in the country and staffed it with Eddie Smith, a former musician who was a brilliant engineer.”

Calvin Shields behind the kit [photo courtesy Brian Powers]

Last year, on the eve of the city’s Historic Commission vote to consider the request for demolition, The Cincinnati Enquirer would subtitle Sharon Coolidge’s feature story on King in the Sunday edition, “Fight to Preserve the Legacy of King Records and Founder Syd Nathan at Crossroads” and include quotes from Patti Collins (Bootsy Collins Foundation), Elliott Ruther (Cincinnati USA Music Heritage Foundation), Jon Hartley Fox (author of ‘King of the Queen City’), L.A. Reid (who actually grew up in Evanston), Otis Williams, Mayor John Cranley, former mayor Dwight Tillery, and Anzora Adkins of the Evanston Community Council.

Can you spot the gaffe?

Elliott Ruther, in the Enquirer piece, notes the progressive hiring practices employed by Nathan – in his attempt to extend his song publishing fortunes across the color line – that put King in the forefront of American race relations. Powers point out that Calvin “Eagle Eye” Shields, in his studio work from the late 1940s to the late 1950s, may have been “the first black drummer to record country music.”

CALVIN ‘EAGLE EYE’ SHIELDS – 1950
[PHOTO COURTESY OF BRIAN POWERS]

Quotes from Henry Glover & Calvin ‘Eagle Eye’ Shields
[special thanks to Brian Powers*]

“I started using drums for the first time for country music with Moon Mullican. He fell in love with a black drummer that I had been using on several dates around Cincinnati called Calvin Shields. He was better known as ‘Eagle Eye.’ He was very, very friendly and dear to Moon Mullican. He played on many of his sessions, and many of the other country & western records when they began to use drums, which they didn’t do when I first came to King. [With] Moon Mullican, I would use a heavy backbeat that this drummer called Eagle Eye, that came there with Tiny Bradshaw a few years back and made Cincinnati his home, he was ideal for that, the backbeat.” – Henry Glover

“Moon had such a great soul. He was just like a black man to me, you know, like he thought, felt, and expressed himself and everything else. Like we would say he had a whole lot of soul, Moon did.” – Henry Glover

“Drums were a must for Moon. Moon wanted drums. And he fell madly in love with this drummer called Calvin Shields that we called Eagle Eye.” – Henry Glover

“Moon Mullican was the first to use a black band at King. In just about every case, we had a black bass or maybe a black drummer with Moon in order to get the rhythm because Moon played like a black man and he even thought like a black man – in fact, I sometimes had my ideas about whether he was black or not! He was the very first white man, I believe, that caught my eye as being not filled with bigotry or hatred … he found himself as comfortable among blacks as he did among whites. And it’s a very funny thing – both races in those days were displaying standoff-ish attitudes — not Moon. Moon would make most of the black clubs in the worst parts of town and all of his friends during the course of his stay would be black people. He’d play in black clubs and they would give him a standing ovation. It was very rare.” – Henry Glover

“Glover introduced us. I walked in and all those white cats sitting around wondering, ‘Hey, he’s got a black man playing his music.’ So I don’t say nothing to them and they don’t say nothing to me. So we played and that’s when I fell in love with him because it swung. So Moon says ‘This is my drummer,’ so when he went to buy some whiskey for the group, he bought a bottle for them and a bottle of whisky for me and him. He said, ‘Man, I want you to take me over to the Cotton Club,’ and I took him. Tiny Bradshaw invited him up and he played nothing but Duke Ellington music.“ – Eagle Eye Shields

“When a cat becomes a studio musician, he’s a musician who plays anything they bring in front of him to play. When I played with Moon Mullican, I enjoyed it. When I played that Country music, I learned to swing with that Country-Western cause I got into their mood and into their groove. When I got ready to play Rhythm & Blues, I got into their groove. When I play dance music, legit music, I get in to a legit feel cause I am a musician. I didn’t become a superstar. My thing was to be good, in order to be in demand, to be sought after.” – Eagle Eye Shields

[Moon had a number of hits in 1950 produced by Henry Glover including “I’ll Sail My Ship Alone,” “Mona Lisa” & “Goodnight Irene”; Mullican accepted the invitation to join in the Grand Ole Opry that year.] “Then Moon said, ‘I want to take you on the Grand Ole Opry with me, man.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t want to go on that.’ He asked me if I would travel with him. I told him if I’ll be out there in them towns, them junctions, you might not be around and they’ll done grab me and lynch me.’ But now I wish I had because, if I had got out with Moon, I might have made a name for myself. I might have ended up with the big one – Willie Nelson.” – Eagle Eye Shields

Moon Mullican & Henry Glover

Shields, who took not only his father’s name but nickname as well, came to King through his membership in Tiny Bradshaw’s Orchestra. Eagle Eye would conduct his session work for King in between performances with Bradshaw in town at Cincinnati’s Cotton Club and on the road in New York City. Shields would subsequently serve as drummer for the Billy Williams Quartet (1957-1961), Della Reese (1967-1973) and music director/drummer for Redd Foxx (1978-1984).

Calvin Shields with Paul Bryant (organ) & Norris Patterson (sax) – 1962 in NV

Photo courtesy of UNLV Libraries Digital Collections

The index in King Labels: A Discography, edited by Michel Ruppli (with assistance from Bill Daniels) helpfully identifies sessions where Calvin Shields served as the drummer, thus allowing Zero to 180 to compile a special list of suggested recordings — all of them captured on tape in Cincinnati (except Willis Jackson – NYC):

“I Like My Baby’s Pudding” and “Sittin’ On It All the Time” by Wynonie Harris (1949)
“Gravy Train” & “I Hate You” by Tiny Bradshaw and His Orchestra (1949)
“Cadillac Baby” & “Love Don’t Love Nobody” & “Train Time Blues” by Roy Brown (1950)
“Walk That Mess” & “Well Oh Well” & “One, Two, Three Kick Blues” (1950) by Tiny Bradshaw and His Orchestra, the latter (featuring Dorena Dean) with its pronounced rhumba rhythm — further evidence of Latin roots in the early rock era
“Me and My Crazy Self” by Lonnie Johnson (1951)
“Train Kept a-Rollin’” & “Two Dry Bones on a Pantry Shelf” by Tiny Bradshaw Orchestra (1951)
“Cherry Wine” and “Hound Dog” by Little Esther (1953)
“Howling at Midnight” & “The Cracker Jack” by Willis ‘Gatortail‘ Jackson** & His Orchestra (1954)
“All Around the World” & “I’m Stickin’ With You” by Little Willie John (1955)
“Stumbling Block” by ‘Champion‘ Jack Dupree (1955)
“Daddy Laddy” by Earl Connelly King (1957)
“Bacon Fat” [cover of Andre Williams] by Big Daddy & His Boys (1957)
“Big Old Country Fool” & “A Tale of Woe” by Wynonie Harris (1957)
“Love Life and Money” & “You Got to Get Up Early in the Morning” by Little Willie John (1957)
“Smokie” & “Night Train (pts. 1 & 2)” by Bill Doggett (1959)

Parlophone = Home of The Beatles French 10-inch LP

King EP – US French EP

Abstract expressionist cover art for 1952 French LP

Furthermore, Eagle Eye is believed – as best as Brian Powers can determine – to have played on Moon Mullican‘s version of Tiny Bradshaw’s “Well Oh Well” [recorded July 3, 1950] and the classic “Cherokee Boogie (Eh-Oh-Aleena)” [December 8, 1950], written by Moon with Chief William Redbird, plus Hawkshaw Hawkins‘ version of Tennessee Ernie’s “Shotgun Boogie” [January, 1951] and Al Dexter‘s “Hi De Ho Boogie on a Saturday Night” [May 19, 1950] — all recorded at King’s Cincinnati studio. Documentation from King’s early years, unfortunately, is often scant.

Shields would also keep time on an enchanting Latin-flavored instrumentalé tropicalé whose musical hook is a gloriously deep bass blast of the horn (B-flat):

“Ocean Liner (Bossa Nova)” Bill Doggett 1959/1963

[Link to other Zero to 180 pieces that feature Bass-Centric Recordings]

“Ocean Liner” – penned by Henry Glover and Bill Doggett – would originally be released in 1959 but then “rebranded” in 1963 as “Ocean Liner Bossa Nova,” just in time to exploit the runaway success of Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd’s Jazz Samba LP (only jazz album ever to top Billboard’s pop chart) of 1962

* * *

Calvin Shields: Inspiration for Mack Rice’s “Mustang Sally“?

According to Douglas Green Associates:

Mack Rice wrote “Mustang Sally” following a visit to his friend, singer Della Reese in New York City. Reese had off-handedly mentioned that she planned to buy her drummer a Lincoln for his birthday. Calvin Shields, the drummer, appreciated the thought but reportedly replied, “I don’t want a Lincoln, I want a Mustang.” Shields’ response confused Rice. He could not understand why anyone would want the small Mustang instead of the bigger and more powerful Lincoln. After returning to Detroit, Rice began work on a song titled “Mustang Mama.” A serendipitous visit to Aretha Franklin’s house led to the name change to “Mustang Sally.” Franklin believed that “Mustang Sally” fit better with the music. And so the song was born.

Obituary from the Las Vegas Review-Journal + personal remembrances

*Henry Glover quotes are from an 1980s interview with the Country Music Hall of Fame *Calvin Shields quotes are from an interview conducted by Brian Powers in 2009.

**Willis “Gatortail” Jackson played a pivotal role in Jamaican music history when spies working for Duke Reid identified the source of Coxsone Dodd’s theme song (i.e., “Coxsone’s Hop”) that cemented Downbeat‘s status as the superior sound system in Kingston: “Later for the Gator” by Willis Jackson [1958 – sounds not a little unlike ska]. In those pre-Internet days, operators of competing mobile sound systems would use American 45s with the labels scratched off as proprietary source material. Duke Reid’s discovery of Coxsone’s source material would prompt Dodd into creating an original Jamaican sound in 1962 – ska – in time for the birth of JA’s independence. Much more direct evidence of the Cincinnati-Kingston connection can be found here and here.

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“Chopper ’70”: Horn-Heavy Funk

Posted on January 20, 2018 by Zeroto180

Jaco, the 2015 documentary about the virtuosic electric fretless bassist, informs us that Jaco Pastorius’s first professional engagement was with former King recording artist, Wayne Cochran, whose contributions to the field of funk have not always been fully acknowledged.

50-DOLLAR 45

While there’s no denying James Brown’s pivotal musical influence, Cochran and his backing band, The C.C. Riders, bring their own creativity to bear on “Chopper 70” — an appropriately high-adrenaline way to bring to a close an album that bears the gritty title, Alive and Well and Living in a Bitch of a World:

“Chopper 70” Wayne Cochran 1970

Pastorius would join the band by 1972, when Cochran & C.C. Riders had made the big move to Epic, an imprint of almighty Columbia. Two years prior, Cochran and company would record a pair of albums for King (with the first issued on its Bethlehem subsidiary) that would both be released in 1970.

Wayne Cochran & the CC Riders: ALIVE AND WELL and living in …

… a b*tch of a world

Dave Dexter, in his “Dexter’s Scrapbook” column for Billboard, would file this report on Cochran in the May 23, 1970 edition:

“Platinum-haired Wayne Cochran was driving a garbage truck in Georgia, the father of three sons. Today’s he’s a sizzling nitery star, with his C.C. Riders, and a big gun on Starday-King disks. He blames parents for the generation gap: ‘In this world today, you’ve got to change, you’ve got to move with what’s happening and that way you’ll never grow old. The kids do their thing in order to dig what they are digging more, not so they can hate the kid next to them. I’ve never seen a fight at a teen-age concert and I think I never will.’

Does that make sense, assuming you dig what he’s digging?”

CLASSIC COVER: High Point for ‘biker funk’ Culture

Zero to 180 regrets waiting until now to sing the praises of Cochran, who left us only a couple months ago, as it turns out. Cochran’s large horn-heavy ensemble, I would learn from Matt Schudel’s obituary in The Washington Post, was famously unrelenting, as their “shows had no stopping point: The band kept vamping from one song to the next, as the music and audience reached a point of frenzy.”

Choppers for the teenyboppers: vintage 1970 Raleigh ad

Jackie Gleason, who wrote the liner notes for Cochran’s self-titled 1967 release on Chess, would call the singer (who would often leave the stage to take his show out into the audience) “the wildest guy I’ve ever seen in my life.” Gleason’s dance ensemble leader, June Taylor, apparently “took ideas for her dancers from the C.C. Riders choreography” during Cochran’s extended mid-60s run at Miami’s major soul club, The Barn.

I count 12 musicians in this photo (courtesy of Discogs)

Impossible to write about Cochran without making reference to Cochran’s mountainous dome of hair. Neil Genzlinger, in his New York Times obituary, would point out who inspired the decision behind the hairdo’s platinum color — Johnny and Edgar Winter (“Every time the lights over their heads changed colors, their hair changed colors. And I said, “Now there’s the color, if I could figure out how to get it”) — thanks to Cochran’s appearance on Dave Letterman’s NBC Late Night show in 1982.

UNESCO World Heritage Site
(Photo from Michael Ochs Archives via PITCHFORK)

Cochran’s first stint with King would last about two years – from late 1963 through early 1965 – before similarly brief runs with Mercury (1965-66) and Chess (1967-68). King founder, Syd Nathan, would pass the year prior to Cochran’s return to the label (now renamed Starday-King), whose first single release would be an elaborately-arranged two-part Beatles mash-up medley of “Hey Jude” and “Eleanor Rigby.”

King Records Turns 75! Cataloging the Classics

Big tip of the hat to Tim Garry of School of Rock – Mason, OH for allowing Zero to 180 the opportunity to compile a list of classic recordings put out by King Records (and its subsidiaries) in time for the label’s 75th birthday celebration. This special tip-top list of nearly 200 songs – stretching from the mid-1940s to the early 1970s – is a fascinating cross-section of popular music styles (secular, as well as sacred) from the original rock ‘n’ roll era and beyond. This PDF document is to be updated over time, as additional classic King recordings are identified by talent scouts embedded here and abroad — click on link below:

Classic Tracks from King Records: Zero to 180’s Top Picks

“Frankenstein’s Party” Turns 60

Posted on October 28, 2017 by Zeroto180

Five years before “The Monster Mash,” King Records would peddle their own piece of Halloween pop in 1957, with the only release ever by The Swinging Phillies on DeLuxe — “Frankenstein’s Party” (backed with “L–O–V–E“):

“Frankenstein’s Party” The Swinging Phillies 1957

Thanks to the unnamed Discogs contributor who posted this biographical sketch:

The Swinging Phillies are a Philadelphia-based group, and are composed of Charles Cosom, lead; Philip Hurtt, first tenor; Richard Hill, second tenor; Ronald Headon, baritone; and Al Hurtt, bass singer and founder of the group.

More band history below courtesy of the “bio-disc“:

Hard to believe that people have paid hundreds of dollars for an original copy of this doowop 45, but they have.

A search of the 45Cat database seems to suggest strongly that DeLuxe 6171 is the first of the “Frankenstein” songs, two years before Buchanan & Goodman’s “Frankenstein of ’59” (and one year before Bo Diddley’s “Bo Meets the Monster” – although this source says 1956), but is it also pop music’s earliest Halloween-slash-horror song? All attempts to find “scary” songs earlier than 1957 – using such search terms as monster, ghoul, vampire, mummy, spooky, haunted, Halloween, et al. – have not yet proven abundant. According to AllButForgottenOldies, the “flying saucer” songs of 1956 would kick start the teen horror fad in popular music, which merely echoed the big screen — although I’m not sure I would include “Old Black Magic” (especially as rendered so touchingly by the Glenn Miller Orchestra; same goes for Margaret Whiting’s “Old Devil Moon” — ditto Perry Como’s “Haunted Heart“) on a Halloween song list.

“Frankenstein’s Party” just might be King’s only Halloween and/or horror tune.

Q: Aside from the “flying saucer” discs of 1956, can you find a Halloween/horror tune earlier than 1957?

“Oooh-Diga-Gow”: King-a-binghi

Posted on October 26, 2017 by Zeroto180

One can be forgiven for mistaking the heartbeat bass line and the off-kilter, syncopated hand drumming in this 2-minute heavy chant as being part of the Jamaican Nyabinghi tradition. Note the special effect at song’s end — somewhat “high tech” for King in 1954:

“Oooh-Diga-Gow” Cecil Young Quartet 1954

And yet, this King track by the Cecil Young Quartet, according to Michel Ruppli King Labels discography, was recorded December 7, 1953 in Cincinnati. But where – given the live audience sounds – exactly? We the listeners can only presume that stage movements and vocal inflections, designed to accentuate the “meaning” of the lyrics, are what’s eliciting periodic bursts of laughter. To make sense of the laughs, it is imperative, given the lack of accompanying video, that the listener consult his or her inner oracle.

“Oooh-Diga-Gow” was originally a B-side that enjoyed release on 78 as well as 45. Five years later, King would reissue the song on Audio Lab LP, Jazz on the Rocks. One Ebay ad for this song (with no reference to the A-side) describes the music as “rare jazz exotica Yma Sumac,” while another seller would go even further.

King’s art department would turn out some delightful ‘cool jazz’ covers for Cecil Young and his crew during their short run with the label 1953-54:

These back cover notes serve as band biography:

Photo courtesy Univ of Wash Libraries – from a 1951 concert available online

Auction prices for the Cecil Young Quartet on vinyl are not too shabby.

Prison Work Song Recast as “Rock”

Posted on October 20, 2017 by Zeroto180

The Guerrillas‘ “Lawdy Rolla” is a King reissue of a European single on Polydor.

Points out the YouTube contributor who posted this audio clip:

“Traditional worksong recording [from] Alan Lomax’s Negro Prison Blues & Songs – ‘Early in the Mornin” http://youtu.be/lw6GFCupesI US ish (issue) of a French Congo acoustic RnB/Jazz tune, has an amazing vibe and groove”

“Lawdy Rolla” The Guerillas 1969

Alan Lomax would record a performance of “Early in the Mornin'” in 1947 at Mississippi State Penitentiary’s Parchman Farm, thus setting into motion a chain of events that would lead to this prison work song entering the realm of popular music.

Australia’s Purple Hearts would inject “Early in the Mornin'” with fresh energy in 1966, as would Christchurch, New Zealand’s The Chants (as noted here), no doubt using The Graham Bond Organization‘s more polite version from the previous year’s The Sound of ’65 album as a template.

King would release “Lawdy Rolla” in October, 1969. Little to no information seems to exist about this obscure 45, which commands a respectable price at auction. The Guerrillas would record these two songs at Studio CBE in Paris.

Polydor picture sleeve – Note the spelling variant of Guerrillas

Lyrics to the original prison work song can be found here — for mature audiences only.

King’s “Red River Rock” Cash-In

Posted on September 29, 2017 by Zeroto180

Catchy King instrumental — and what is that instrument, exactly? Sounds like a blend of organ and harmonica, most likely:

“New Annie Laurie” Gene Redd 1960

“New Annie Laurie” seems an obvious attempt by King to “cash in” on the fresh organ retooling of “Red River Rock” made famous the previous year by Johnny and the Hurricanes, although without directly resorting to plagiarism, cleverly enough, by using an olde Scotch ballad.

Billboard‘s review of the single in its October 10, 1960 edition would have this to say about the A-side “New Sidewalks of New York” — “Gene Redd sells this happy rocker with warmth on this driving instrumental side, it’s the old tune dressed up with a rocking beat” — and then, hilariously, utter two words “same comment” about the B-side “New Annie Laurie”! Worth noting that Redd covered “Red River Rock” for King the previous year.

Brian Powers’ King Records Scrapbook informs me that Redd, originally a session player and King artist who became a talent scout for the label, would go on to do arrangements for Kool & the Gang, for which his son, Gene Redd, Jr., served as manager.

King’s “Tequila” Knock-Off

Posted on September 27, 2017 by Zeroto180

King Records would try to cash-in on the success of “Tequila” by The Champs, as Johnnie Pate‘s 1958 Federal 45 “Muskeeta” would demonstrate:

Johnnie Pate’s “Muskeeta” 1958

Johnnie Pate (b, ldr); Ronald Wilson (fl); Williams Wallace (p); Wilbur Wynne (g); Donald Clark (d).

Chicago, March 20, 1958

According to Armin Büttner‘s Johnnie Pate history website, the version of “Muskeeta” on the French EP (below) is exactly the same as the version on King LP 584, but for a tenor sax probably overdubbed by Ronald Wilson himself. It is not yet known, which version of “Muskeeta” is on Federal 45-12325.

This would not be the first time King Records would attempt to mine this particular vein, as Zero to 180’s lengthy examination of “Rare & Unissued King Tracks” revealed another 45 released that same year, “Snake Charmer” by The Puddle Jumpers that attempted to ride the coattails of “Tequila” and its unexpected meteoric ride.

Billboard‘s April 21, 1958 edition would report that “Muskeeta” made the #5 spot of “R&B Best Sellers” that week in the Cincinnati area. Song would be included on 1958 full-length release Swingin’ Flute: Dance Beat for the Ivy League.

Lue Renney’s Novelty 45 on King

Posted on September 25, 2017 by Zeroto180

Lue Renney‘s quirky and endearing “Your Wiggle And Your Giggle” would be recorded at King’s Cincinnati studios on January 27, 1964:

“Your Wiggle And Your Giggle” Lue Renney 1964

45Cat informs us this song would be issued May, 1964 on King’s Bethlehem subsidiary label. A half century later, this “teen-rock” 45 sells for a respectable amount at auction. “Your Wiggle and Your Giggle” merited inclusion on French bootleg LP Inferno Party, as well as Dutch bootleg compilation More Real Gone Girls.

As with Lord BooBoo, Little Mummy, and Carolyn Blakey, this one release would comprise the full extent of Lue Renney’s entire recorded output (although copyright records show that that artist would register her song “Time to Love” later that same year under the name Lue Rennebaum).

It’s been over a year since Zero to 180 has posted a piece tagged as humor & satire