The Cleverlys are pure country, and their take on The Bangles’ 1985 hit is pure awesome.
Let’s move on to something entirely different. How ’bout some Magic Sam?
Magic Sam Maghett graduated from a diddlybow to electric guitar. Pure country bluesman who travelled up the Mississippi to Chicago’s Cobra Records.
Have a great weekend, folks. Be back here tomorrow and maybe we’ll discuss the many ways to secretly deflate footballs and turn them into a national crisis.
Jim Stafford‘s “My Girl Bill” popped into my head the other day for no good reason. I’d forgotten about it for decades, and kinda wished it had stayed that way. So where do we go from here? Maybe this.
There’s a bizarre history to that familiar song credited to The McCoys, and it traces to Dorothy Sloop of Steubenville Ohio who became a New Orleans singer and piano player with the stage name “Sloopy.” The song was originally recorded by The Vibrations in 1963, predating the McCoys’ version:
So how did a 60s soul group from LA decide to sing about a girl who moved to New Orleans?
“Sloopy” was Dorothy Sloop, a Bourbon Street piano player. Born Sept. 26, 1913, in Steubenville, she performed at a New Orleans nightspot under the stage name Sloopy.
‘Hang on Sloopy’ was written by Bert Russell Berns and Wes Farrell, two New York City songwriters. Berns also wrote The Isley Brothers and Beatles hit Twist and Shout. Farrell went on to become the musical brains behind the Partridge Family.
The song was originally recorded as My Girl Sloopy by the Los Angeles R&B vocal group the Vibrations. It debuted in April 1964 in the Top 40 of the Billboard pop chart, where it spent five weeks and reached No. 26.
A rock version, ‘Hang on Sloopy,’ was recorded by the McCoys, a Dayton garage band led by Celina native Rick Zehringer. Locally, the band was known as Rick and the Raiders, but it changed its name to avoid confusion with chart-toppers Paul Revere and the Raiders. Hang On Sloopy debuted in September 1965 in the Top 40 of the Billboard pop chart, where it spent 11 weeks and reached No. 1.
Rick Zehringer later changed his name to Rick Derringer and became one of the top rock guitarists and producers of the 1970s. He recorded with the Edgar Winter Group and scored a 1974 solo hit with Rock and Roll, Hootchie Koo. [More at this source]
“Dottie” Sloop recorded an album, “Sloopy Time” Featuring Dixie and Sloopy, in 1957 with Yvonne “Dixie” Fasnacht, a jazz vocalist and clarinetist.
“Dixie” Fasnacht operated a bar called Dixie’s Bar of Music on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. It was there that Dorothy’s acquaintance and co-writer of “Hang On Sloopy” Bert Berns-Russell found the inspiration for the song. During problems with the sound equipment and a crowd getting rowdy, he heard a regular call out to her “Hang on, Sloopy!” [Source]
I couldn’t find a recording of either Dottie Sloop or Yvonne “Dixie” Fasnacht, but there has to be a copy of the album in someone’s basement somewhere. One more piece of trivia: Ohio is the only State to have an Official State Rock Song.
The Best Damn Band In The Land adopted “Hang On Sloopy” as a signature song for the times when OSU was down a few points, and their a capella version is classic.
Here’s Dave Brubeck‘s partially discordant cool jazz classic “Take Five” in 5/4 time (also known as quintuple time, i.e, five beats per measure, quarter note gets the beat: 1-2-3-1-2, 1-2-3-1-2, etc.). Here’s an interesting take:
Sachal Studios, Lahore, Pakistan, with sitar and that boingy drum thingy.
“Anijam” was a 1984 animation experiment created by Marv Newland, and appeared in the movie/video series “Animation Celebration.” No plot, just an exercise in surreal animation focused on an odd character named “Foska.” (Watch for some early computer animation sequences.)
“ANIJAM was created by 22 animators, each doing a different sequence. The first drawing of each sequence is the last drawing of the previous sequence. The animators did not know what action came before, or went after their own sequence. The animators were free to create any animation that they wished. They were required to begin and end their sequence with Foska.”
So where do we go after that level of bizarre? How ’bout this:
“The Flight of The Bumble Bee” [ca. 1900] on trombone is VERY tough to do. I could barely double-tongue on trumpet (dugga-dugga), or triple-tongue (dugga-ta-dugga-ta-dugga) but that guy was quadruple tonguing (dugga-dugga-dugga-dugga) on a trombone at high speed. Spike Jones’ band was awesome.
John Prine & Iris Dement at Sessions at West 54th (full concert) February 2014 [via]. The only thing I have against John Prine is/are his forced rhymes, but his voice and songwriting makes up for it. After all, it’s a Big ‘Ol Goofy World.
Have a great weekend, folks. Be back here tomorrow for more fun.
Very cool audio/visual display of pendulum motion [via]. Visual demo of sound waves, mathematical sine wave congruences, electronics, physics, gravity, art and bowling all in one. Surprising stuff happens about 1:00 in. There’s medical info in the video as well – one of the kids has whooping cough. I haven’t heard that sound since I was in 3rd grade. [A screencap of the video is the source of the top image.]
TrollfesT is a Norwegian folk metal band (according to Wiki) who want to party in Cabana, and “Solskinnsmedisin” translates to “Sunshine Medical” according to Mr. Google. Where the hell is Norwegia? Bunkarina’s boyfriend thought I might like it, and I did. If that was a bit much, here’s something a bit lighter.
Irma Pany is a singer-songwriter from Cameroon. “Save Me” is kinda catchy, and the video is kinda interesting [via].
Have a great weekend, and we’ll be back tomorrow with more blatant inanity.
Tacky Raccoons 