The Real Kids

Every once in a while ya get lucky, even in Beantown. I did a stint there myself from '06-'09, unhappy years for me, for the most part. Wasted years if not for (and you'll probably write me off as brain-dead for saying this) the Lyres--yep, Monoman having temporarily re-assembled one of his best line-ups (with Paul Murphy, Rick Corraccio, & Dan McCormack), they played some incredible shows during this period before the whole mess imploded again. Also, Boston's still got some great record stores, like Looney Tunes and In Your Ear. Then there's the odd occasion when the Real Kids, or what's left of them, play a show. The following footage was shot on one of their good nights, live at the dank old Cantab Lounge in Central Square, in the People's Republic of Cambridge, MA, March of 2009. Sure, John Felice's voice is a little raw, and he's kinda rough around the edges, as always, and the camera mic sounds like, well, a camera mic, but it's still amazingly intimate footage. Give a listen as Felice belts it out with real heart and peels off lick after lick. I was lucky enough to have been there too that night, one night when Beantown seemed all right.

Thanks to Bob Colby for posting these vids on YouTube.

Glen Glenn - One Cup of Coffee (And a Cigarette)

That's Glenn on the left.

Glen Troutman, better known to rock’n’roll fans as Glen Glenn, might have continued playing country & western music, instead of cutting some of the greatest sides from the rockabilly era, if not for one thing: Girls!

“If you played country, girls might want your autograph,” Glenn has said. “If you did this kind of [rock’n’roll] music, girls freaked out.”

Young Troutman spent his formative years growing up in Joplin, MO, in the Missouri Ozarks, reared on the Louisiana Hayride and Opry radio, young ears tuned to the music of Roy Acuff, Red Foley, Ernest Tubb, Little Jimmy Dickens, and others. At age 14 the Troutman family, like thousands of other midwesterners [read: Okies], packed up and moved to Southern California, settling in San Dimas.

In that era, LA was a jumping musical oasis. The largely Okie enclaves of Compton and San Pedro tuned in to Town Hall Party, and the Maddox Brothers and Rose, while Central Avenue wailed with R&B by the likes of Wynonie Harris, Louis Jordan, Pee Wee Crayton and others. Too young for the clubs, Troutman soaked up the sounds of Dick "Huggy Boy" Hugg’s radio show on KRKD, and taught himself to play many of the blues and R&B songs he heard there.

Soon Glen Troutman struck up a friendship with another young guitarist named Gary Lambert. Together they formed the duo Glen & Gary and began to play talent shows and square dances at various spots around the LA basin. Sunday nights the duo hung around the old Riverside Rancho dance hall near Griffith Park at guitar legend Joe Maphis’ regular show there. During set breaks Uncle Joe hung out back, bumming their smokes, and eventually took a shine to the youngsters. Maphis suggested they take a crack at the weekly amateur show hosted by KXLA Pasadena DJ “The Squeakin’ Deacon.” This they did, taking first prize on their first attempt with their rendition of a Joe & Rose Lee Maphis number “Dim Lights, Thick Smoke.”

Despite this victory, Glen & Gary struggled to land a regular paying gig axnd recording deal. Eventually they earned a spot on The Country Barn Dance show, where, among other things, they got to be pals with the young Eddie Cochran. Recording deals remained even more elusive. Their earliest recordings were done live, in the KXLA studios, and featured versions of “That’s All Right Mama”and Glenn claims to have not yet heard Elvis’ version at that point, but rather based his rendition on what he’d heard on Huggy Boy’s radio showin 1955.

Meanwhile, as Glen & Gary kept at the hob-nobbin, rock’n’roll began to shake up the country & western world. Our two young poon-hounds had already noticed how the Town Hall Party groupies hung around seeking autographs out back behind the Riverside Rancho. But they had a revelation one night in April 1956 when they drove from San Dimas down to San Diego to catch Elvis Presley’s first west coast appearance.

“You could barely hear him,” Glenn has said. “The girls were screaming so loud.”

Due largely to these observations, Glen & Gary jumped on the R’n’R bandwagon. Their next KXLA recordings were “Baby, Let’s Play House,” and “Be-Bop-A-Lula.”

Later in 1956, Troutman, briefly going it alone without Gary Lambert, got on the bill opening for Porter Wagoner, and began to appear on the Ozark Jubilee show. Here he made another live recording, this time it was “Shake, Rattle, Roll.”

Back in California a short time afterward, Troutman reunited with Lambert to cut versions of more rockin’ material, doing Mac Curtis’ “If I Had Me a Woman,” and Sonny Fisher’s “Hold Me Baby.”

Around this time the classic line-up of Glenn’s band began to form around Troutman on vocals, Lambert on lead guitar, and bassist Connie “Guybo” Smith on loan from old pal Eddie Cochran’s band. Fellow Missourian Wynn Stewart, likewise a California transplant who would become instrumental in the formation of Bakersfield honky-tonk, got in on the action and persuaded the band to do a string of demos. Crown jewel in this batch of recordings was their version of Stewart’s song “One Cup of Coffee (and a Cigarette).” These demos eventually landed the boys a contract with ERA records, whose management rechristened Troutman as Glen Glenn. They promptly sent the band to the famed Gold Star studios in Hollywood, where they re-cut “One Cup of Cofee” along with “Everybody’s Movin’”, a couple of the greatest rockabilly numbers ever committed to wax.

And what’s “One Cup of Coffee (And a Cigarette)” all about? You guessed it: Girls! Or really, it’s about the loneliness caused by one particular girl, the Everygirl, if you will. And leave it to Lonesome Wynn Stewart to nail it in a couple of quick verses:

I think I’m gonna cry if she don’t show up
Tears are gonna fall in a coffee cup
Cigarette smoke gets in my eye
That ain’t the reason that I cry
Waitin’ on my baby and she ain’t here yet
One cup of coffee (and a cigarette).

You can really see the poor sap sitting at the diner counter, alone under the harsh lights with his coffee and smokes, midnight in the middle of the big American nowhere, the heart of which, as John Rechy said in City of Night, is loneliness.

"Yeah, You Ain't Heard the Lyrics Yet" - The Sacred Cows on "Get Smart"

So the Stooges didn't quite corner the market on the "Love is Out, Hate is In" 60s hippie eliminator punk. Check out the Sacred Cows, baby! They dished this number out on the "Groovy Guru" episode of Get Smart! from 1968, starring Don Adams, Barbara Feldon, and Larry Storch in a guest appearance as the Groovy Guru. More evidence that American television programming peaked in that long gone decade?

My old Pittsburgh pals, the Mt McKinleys --the 'burgh's answer to, I dunno, who? The Royal Pendletons?-- once cut an ace cover of the song, almost 20 years ago. Their version kinda takes the song from the realm of television novelty number and turns it into a raved-up blitz. And, AND, it just so happens that the Mt. McKinleys play TONIGHT at the Spike Hill Tavern in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. So, yes, this post has really been just an underhanded, sneaky, shameless plug for my friends' band.

One more factoid: playing bass for the Sacred Cows is Jerry Scheff, session man who also played in the early 70s line-up of Elvis' TCB band.

The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved

Art by Ralph Steadman

Forty years ago, Hunter S. Thompson attended the classic at Churchill Downs, and here, thanks to Google docs, is his account, "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved," which originally appeared in Scanlan's Monthly (vol. 1, number 4, 1970). According to the essay, which offers probably the world's first shot at Gonzo sports writing, this was the first occasion when HST worked with British artist Ralph Steadman. Steadman flew in from London, sketchbook in hand, hoping to capture the face of the Kentucky Derby. Or so the story goes.

According to HST, who grew up in Louisville and knew the Derby crowd all too well, what he wanted Steadman to see went something like this:

"It was a face I'd seen a thousand times at every Derby I'd ever been to. I saw it, in my head, as the mask of the whiskey gentry--a pretentious mix of booze, failed dreams and a terminal identity crisis; the inevitable result of too much inbreeding in a closed and ignorant culture."

Reporter and artist searched all over Churchill Downs, from among the thousands in attendance, for a glimpse of this face. As they searched, Steadman sketched much of what he saw, and as a sort of British quirk, would share his hideous renderings with his drunk and increasingly belligerent subjects. In this way Steadman risked taking a beating or two himself. Still, the face of the Kentucky Derby eluded them until, toward the end of the debauched weekend, HST saw his own face in the mirror.

"There he was, by God--a puffy, drink-ravaged, disease-ridden caricature...like an awful cartoon version of an old snapshot in some once-proud mother's family photo album. It was the face we'd been looking for--and it was, of course, my own. Horrible, horrible..."

International Louie Louie Day

Cougar Marching Band rehearsing a classic.

On April 11, 1935, Richard Berry was born in Extension, Louisiana. Twenty years later, Berry, fronting his band, the great Richard Berry & the Pharaohs, would cut the original version of "Louie Louie" for the Flip label. Thus, Berry's birthday is International Louie Louie Day. The Louie Louie Advocacy and Music Appreciation Society, or LLAMA, can tell you more.

The following excerpt from an archived story from the LA Times news service, as syndicated in the Anchorage Daily News, May 6, 1988, tells us of the parade, yes, the PARADE, held in honor of "Louie Louie" in Philadelphia that year:

"Philadelphia has hosted 'Louie Louie' processions since 1985...Last year, in fact, nearly 70,000 people turned out to see the parade, which featured 5,000 kazoo playing participants, several zany floats and a string of rock bands all playing 'Louie Louie' in unison."

Philly's "Louie Louie" Parade was the brainchild of WMMR Philadelphia disc jockey John DeBella, who not only organized the event and assembled the kazoo ensemble, but also served as the parade's Grand Marshall on a few occasions. Morning man DeBella had apparently been inspired to organize the parade by the 24 hour "Louie Louie" marathon hosted by another California station. Such a marathon was made possible, of course, by the bazillion and one versions of "Louie Louie" that exist out there. Just try doing that with "Johnny B. Goode." The YouTube clip above features the Washington State University Cougar Marching Band's version.

Meiko Kaji

Meiko Kaji in Straycat Rock: Sex Hunter

Meiko Kaji, like Tura Satana, managed to use the sexploitation movie genre to portray strong, powerful, and dangerous female characters. Unlike her American predecessor, however, Kaji conquered her adversaries not with cleavage and karate kicks, but rather with bad-ass hats, knife skills, and a steely-eyed stare.

Born Masako Ota in 1947, Kaji might actually be better known as a singer in the Japanese Enka style, a kind of postwar pop ballad known for its embrace of traditional musical influence and socially conscious themes. Kaji began working in the film industry in the mid-60s, playing smale roles and using her real name. In 1970 she first used the name Meiko Kaji, starring in director Yasuharu Hasebe’s Alleycat Rock series. In these films about girl gangs, Kaji first began to establish characters that defied the stereotype of the docile Japanese woman, and kicking more than a few men's asses along the way. Here’s a clip from Straycat Rock: Sex Hunter.




In 1971, after doing the Alleycat Rock series, Kaji began working with exploitation director Shunya Ito, appearing in several of his women in prison films. The wildest of these would have to be Female Convict Scorpion Jailhouse 41. Scorpion has all the trappings of the genre: violence, lesbian sex scenes, brutality at the hands of male prison guards and wardens, etc. But it goes way beyond the usual limitations, adding unique twists like ghost mysticism and surreal sequences, which all probably have to do with the fact that the film’s an adaptation of a style of Japanese comic known as manga. Ito's films exposed Meiko Kaji to a wide audience, and earned her movie status in Japan.

A still from Female Convict Scorpion Jailhouse 41

Sexploitation & Japanese comics? How's that for dorky? Anyway, Meiko Kaji is still around, alive and well and still making records and appearing in films and television. As might be expected, some of her songs were recycled by Quentin Tarantino in his film Kill Bill, Vol. 1.

Zimmerman on Letterman, with the Plugz!

This clip makes my day. Bob Dylan backed by the Plugz wangin' out a Sonny Boy Williamson tune on Late Night with David Letterman, back in 1983. Not just great Rock 'n' Roll, but maybe the R'n'R pirate headband's greatest moment too.

Sunday Chicken Dinner

What’s that you say? Pass the chicken? Well, okay. But bear in mind, there’s no way I can give you every piece of the bird, as I’m no doubt missing a gizzard here, a drumstick there. Still, you get a pretty decent poultry platter with the following tracks:

Rufus Thomas “Chicken Scratch”, Joe Tex “Chicken Crazy”, Fuitt Forst “Chicken Bop”, Link Wray “Run Chicken Run”, The Raunch Hands “Chicken Scratch”, Andre Williams “Greasy Chicken”, and the toughest piece of all: Don & Juan’s “Chicken Necks”.

Hasil Adkins knew poultry too. In fact Norton Records put together an entire LP of his chicken songs called Poultry in Motion.

Here chick, chick, chicken... Here chicken...

Arthur Alexander: A Shot of Rhythm & Blues

Back in 1961, Arthur Alexander, a rhythm & blues singer who dug country music, teamed up with Dan Penn & the Pall Bearers, country boys heavily into soul. Together, at Rick Hall's Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, they pioneered the so-called "country soul" sound. The most famous product of this successful collision of American musical strains was the single “You Better Move On,” an Arthur Alexander original which has been covered by everyone from the Rolling Stones to George Jones.

Alexander had already proven his song-writing abilities before writing and recording that first big hit. In 1959 he co-wrote a single “She Wanna Rock” for Candian C&W singer Arnie Derskin. The following year he wrote and recorded for Judd Phillips’ Judd label his own first single, the amazing double-whammy “Sally Sue Brown” b/w “The Girl that Radiates that Charm.”

During these formative years Alexander struck up a partnership with his manager/co-writer Tom Stafford, who, like Alexander, had grown up in small-town Alabama. It was Stafford who took the “Sally Sue Brown” demo to Judd Phillips, and it was Stafford who helped to arrange those first sessions with Rick Hall at Fame, and Stafford, again, who convinced Alexander leave Muscle Shoals to seek his own undoing in Nashville. In that corporate Babylon, Alexander’s song-writing & recording career was stripped of creative control and publishing rights, setting him up for eventual obscurity.

Conflicting stories surround the sale of “You Better Move On”--was it Stafford or Rick Hall who first peddled it around Nashville? Apparently every A&R man in town rejected it at first, everyone but Noel Ball, that is, a local disc jockey and Nashville rep for Dot Records. Dot agreed to release the record and quickly nabbed Alexander’s contract. Sadly, “You Better Move On” would be some of the last original material Alexander would record for a long time. Under the guidance of Ball, Alexander’s records began to suffer from the usual Nashville trappings typical of that era: cover songs, corny background singers, and string sections. Meanwhile, the big hit made a ton of money for everyone but its writer.

And yet those follow-up Dot records, however tarnished, are killer. To hear Arthur Alexander perform “A Shot of Rhythm & Blues,” “Black Night,” “Pretty Girls Are Everywhere,” “Soldiers of Love,” “I Hang My Head and Cry,” even the Johnny Bond number “I Wonder Where You Are Tonight” (set to the same melody as Kitty Wells' “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,” which is also the same Hank Thompson’s “Wild Side of Life,” which is, again, the sameRoy Acuff’s “Great Speckled Bird”--follow that melody any further back and you begin to wander into the mystical realms of country music’s origins), you wouldn’t think you were hearing a man who was disappointed by his treatment in Nashville. Still, great as these songs are, they're no “Sally Sue Brown.” Imagine the catalog Arthur Alexander might have left if he'd have maintained creative control.

By the late 60’s Alexander ditched Dot Records. In 1972 he recorded an album Arthur Alexander for Warner Brothers, which includes his great version of “Burnin’ Love,” predating Elvis’ version. Still the money was poor and he was forced to play the gut-bucket circuit of small southern clubs. Finally, in 1975, Alexander threw in the towel after getting stiffed for another record, this time for the Buddha label, then quit the business entirely.

One song on the Warner LP, “Rainbow Road,” a sort of hard-luck ballad involving a knife fight and prison time, written by Dan Penn & Don Fritz, helped to surround Alexander’s retirement with fictional mystique. Whatever happened to Arthur Alexander? Didn’t you hear? He’s doing time for knifing a guy! In actuality, he'd settled in Cleveland where he worked as a bus driver for some 15 years.

In 1993 he returned to recording, making the Ben Vaughn-produced album Lonely Just Like Me for Elektra Records. A few months later, in June of that year, Arthur Alexander died of a heart attack.

*****

Post Script: Check the always amazing archive of Radio Hound airchecks, April 17, 1993, for a great interview with the man himself, done a mere few months before his death.