A Evil Bumble Bee

mp3: Lavern Baker - Bumble Bee

This is my new favourite find, the complete embodiment of what I'm looking for in a 45rpm record. Kooky beat, backing vocals, upbeat tune, tough bluesy lyrics, about bumble bees; it really ticks all the boxes. I'm not overly familiar with Lavern Baker but I did notice that this track's arranged by Jesse Stone, someone I was recently introduced to through an incredible version of Crawfish. Turns out he wrote Shake, Rattle and Roll amongst many other achievements. But I'll try not to get sidetracked because all this post needs to be concerned with is Lavern Baker's absolutely incredible 1960 release about a bumble bee, a evil bumble bee.

All Along The Motorway

mp3: Savage Grace - (All Along The) Watchtower

No prizes for guessing why, but there's a glut of 'album of the decade' lists currently bopping around the internet. A record that would have made it into these type lists of last decade is surely DJ Shadow's Endtroducing. Although now sounding dated in parts, anyone who was following new music will concur that, at the time, it was like nothing else. Testament to which is the fact that it took so long for others -- the likes of RJD2, The Avalanches and J Dilla -- to come up with something comparable using similar techniques. To create Endtroducing, Shadow used only samples. Samples he dug real deep to find. While some hip-hoppers were still recycling James Brown beats, Shadow was excavating weird European psych and cutting up Metallica.

A clever DJ has complied together, with some subtle mixing, a number of the more obscure tunes that Shadow has sampled over the years. It was during listening to one of these ace mixes that I first laid my ears upon today's offering. Rockers from Detroit, Savage Grace, do a splendidly excessive and spirited version of All Along The Watchtower. It's just the final scream that was sampled; not on Endtroducing but rather its follow up, The Private Press. You can examine the results on YouTube.

Diddify II

Here's another Spotify playlist for all those lucky folk in spotifiable countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain); just to prove that I don't listen scratchy ol' 45s all of the time.

Spotify Playlist: 000

More Louder

mp3: The Nashville Teens - Tobacco Road
mp3: The Nashville Teens - All Along The Watchtower

They weren't from Nashville, nor were they teens; at least not when these two tunes were recorded. Like Torture from the previous post, Tobacco Road was written by John D. Loudermilk. It was released in 1964 and became a reasonable sized hit for The Nashville Teens in both the UK and US. Interestingly, it apparently features the sizzling hot guitar of session gun for hire, Jimmy Page; as witnessed in the searing opening. All Along The Watchtower was a much later release, from 1968, but this particular record would have only been in the shops from 1969 when Decca reissued them together for some reason.

Tortuous

mp3: Kris Jenson - Torture

There something dark and unnerving about this lovelorn ballad. Written by John D. Loudermilk and released in 1962, it was Kris Jensen's biggest hit. The way he lets the refrain slowly seep out, as if he's caressing it, contemplating it, gives me the creeps.

Ain't No Town, Ain't No City

mp3: Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Diddy Wah Diddy
mp3: Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - Who Do You Think You're Fooling

I was thrilled to receive this record in the post the other day. Excuse the vinyl nerdiness but I feel compelled to inform you that it's a US promo copy, first pressing -- as demonstrated by the incorrect songwriting credit on the Diddy Wah Diddy side. I bought it from a true aficionado who has most of Beefheart's 45s in his collection. He reckons that, as this is their first foray into a studio, it's probably the most important Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band recording. He also told me that back in '95 he compiled footage of Beefheart into two VHS compilations, copies of which made their way into my possession a number of years later via a flea market in Melbourne. Before YouTube, this was the only way to see the Captain's Letterman show appearances.

This isn't the first time I've posted Beefheart's version of Diddy Wah Diddy, which, in someways, is this blog's namesake, but now the fuzzy monster is complete with its hand-clappy b-side and it sounds amazing.

From The Moment I Rise

mp3: The Kinks - Till The End Of The Day
mp3: The Kinks - Where Have All The Good Times Gone

Two sides of the same coin here from Raymond Douglas Davies. I generally prefer the garage rockin' joyousness of Till The End Of The Day to the reflective poppiness of Where Have All The Good Times Gone, but then again, who doesn't?