This song was a hit on pop radio in the early 1960s, and it’s enough to make you wanna puke. [Wiki: The song was composed by Ghanaian musician Guy Warren in 1956 under the original title "An African's Prayer (Eyi Wala Dong)".]
Communism 101. I laughed, but I cried, because I laughed, because it sums up what’s been going down for a long time. Note that the girl goes Galt. [via]
CheetahBot is awesome. Now get it to make a U turn, and the time-space continuum will dismantle itself in shame.
Zappa’s cover of the Allman Brother’s classic “Whipping Post” was classic. And with that we’re done for this classic episode. Have a great weekend, folks.
One of my favorites of The PreFab Four (posted previously).
What the heck. Here’s Zappa’s version.
Here’s to the Royal Disco Wedding for our friends across the pond: “There was funky Chinamen from funky Chinatown.” Great lyrics from Carl Douglas. Reminds me of National Lampoon’s classic “Have a Kung-Fu Christmas.”
Heh. The Black Keys are my current favorites in the land of retrorock, and they fit right in with the Soul Train motif. [Tip o' the tarboosh to Bunkessa]
And as long as we’re going retro, here’s some rockabilly from the UK: The Streamline Rockers.
That makes five for this episode of the Saturday Matinee, and with that I’m out. Have a great weekend folks, and see you back here tomorrow for more fun.
King Sunny Adé popularized Nigerian juju music during the “World Music” meme of the 1980s. Didn’t hurt that he was awarded the title of Minister of Music there, either.
Oh ya mon. Me got de steel drum reggae.
Adjust your volume up and groove it.
Great Googly Moogly! Here’s The Sonics “Anyway The Wind Blows” from 1967 – and all these years I thought it was a Frank Zappa composition. Woof.
[Update: Maybe I was right after all. On the Wiki list for "Cruising with Ruben & the Jets" the song is credited to Zappa.]
Have a great weekend folks. See you back here tomorrow.
Woof. Yeah, that’s 10cc doing it’s best Zappadoowop attempt with “Donna.” A few days ago, “Brian” reminded me that 10cc sang what I mis-remembered as “I Wanna Be A Bus.” (See this post.)
Here are The Donnas doing their best Ramones impersonation with a puzzling and cheap video.
From The Donnas, we thought we’d find a video of Ritchie Valens singing “Donna,” but no dice. Jump search to “La Bamba” and there’s just garbage and clips of Lou Diamond Phillips limp sinking. So here’s the greatly underrated Los Lobos‘ version of the Mexican traditional song.
Since we started off with a brief reference to Zappa, here’s a double header from a 1980 concert in France. The segue line is perfect.