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.
Art Clokey passed away 9 January 2009. Here’s his (pre-Gumby) tribute to Disney’s Fantasia. [Found here.]
Whoa. Bill Wyman, Georgie Fame, Peter Frampton, Gary Brooker, Beverley Skeete, all rolled into one rock. Nice late night low key roadtrip music.
Very nice piano version of Zappa’s classic f-u song to an ex*, originally recorded by the Mothers in the mid 60′s. That final chord is awsome.
*The story I heard, Larry… Someone named Wendy was one of FZ’s early loves. There is also a story that no one was named “Wendy” until Disney’s “Peter Pan” was released in 1953. Although that may be true, “Peter Pan and Wendy” was published in 1911, according to The Wikiness, and “Wendy” may have appeared as early as 1902.
Now for our feature presentation: HOMUNCULUS [Warning: NS for young kids.]
Don’t know who these folks are, but “Oh Gee” was a hit in 1955 by the Crows. Could be them.
The Persuasions were/are possibly the most underrated acapella group (featuring bass singer Jimmy Hayes, who Frank Zappa called “the human sub-woofer”).
(This group was featured here before, but unfortunately the videos were yanked by Utoob for seventy mental reasons.)
This is an old one from the Beeb, narrated by David Attenborough. It’s cool, bizarre and gross at the same time, but it’s nature. I posted it just because Thelit said her kids and their friends love this kinda stuff. Go for it.
After the Slugs (wasn’t that a Grateful Dead tune, or maybe a Peter Sellars movie?) this may help clean your eye sockets. Other than the dopey devilpigs, it’s all cool.
The Dell-Vikings’ “Jitterbug Mary” is an unrecobanized classic. They were my favorite doowop group. I hear this kinda stuff and it makes everything better.
My favorite doowop group was The Five Satins. Here they lipsynch for a bunch of white people.
Gene Chandler was better known for “Duke of Earl.” Here’s the Duke singing “Good Times.” Although this song is R&B, he’s my favorite doowop singer.
“Love of My Life” is one of the greatest songs ever, and Frank Zappa’s bands are my favorite doowop group. (This song is still my favorite — too bad The Ramones aren’t still around to do a Zappa tribute album.)
Now Ebo Walker was born in Kentucky, and raised by his daddy on a hillside farm,
He took up fiddle playing just for fun, that’s the last work that Ebo Walker done.
Well Ebo Walker, he left Kentucky
’cause Ebo’s daddy said durn your hide,
You won’t plant corn, and you won’t make hay,
you sit on the porch and play that thing all day.
Well Ebo Walker, he walked and he fiddled and he walked and he fiddled and he fiddled till he died,
But I’ve heard tell when the winds is down and the moon shines bright, and the leaves are brown,
You can hear old Ebo fiddlin’ all around.
The Dillards (as the Darling Boys) on the Andy Griffith Show, around 1960 sumpm.
Pure Oddness. Now for something completely different.
FZ on the Mike Douglas Show, 1976, playing “Black Napkins” with the studio band. Amazing benign culture clash. [This is part one of a two part interview... kinda slow to load, and we may have linked to this one before. So what.]
Zappa’s “Black Napkins” live on MTV’s Halloween BFD, 1981.
