Music Videos

Beautiful Lies Music Video with Gary Carlisle vocals

Recently, some things have happened to restore my interest in music and song writing. First, a few weeks ago I discovered that one of the first songs I helped write back in 1965 is currently on a play list at a Soho England dance club. Then, this morning I learned from Gary Carlisle that one of the songs we worked on together is currently one of the top songs in a UK song writing contest which is being judged by top musicians and producers such as those for Paul McCartney and Elton John. Not exactly light weights in the music industry. So, I have a new home music studio in place and have a basic video editor that will allow simple music videos. The first is with The Vikings which is one of the first bands of which I was a member playing bass guitar. The second is Beautiful Lies that Gary and I worked on together. BTW, Gary and I graduated high school in the same class back in 1963. Gary, please add whatever comments you would like about this song because you did most of the heavy lifting to bring this 40 year of song up to modern standards and to completion. BTW, the girls are doing a Shuffle Dance. The third video is the Janis Joplin version of Cry Baby. However, note that this is not Janis singing and not Big Brother and the Holding Company backing her. This is all studio musicians. I am playing bass and note that the song intro has a jazz organ and then at about the 3 minute mark, the jazz organ comes back in to close out the song which is totally different than the original song. I tried adding a little extra 6 string rhythm but it just muddied the excellent way the piano and guitar lead played off each other. The video portion comes from a You Tube of Janis performing the song with Spanish text lyrics that had a lot of photos of Janis. In the future, maybe we can look at some of the classic 50s and 60s music plus take a look at some of Birmingham's great 60s groups such as The Torquays, Swinging Playboys, The Hard Times, The Rocking Rebellions, The Distortions, The Epics, The Ramrods and others. This first song was written in 1965 and Released in 1966. It is one of my first songs and I am pleased that people still enjoy the music more than 50 years after release. The young lady in the video is Violeta, the 60s DJ that has the youtube channel and she has this song on her current play list. I don't know how this ended up being played in a Soho England dance club but it has encouraged me to do some more recording and maybe make some music videos. Violeta's web site is on the video with contact info so please contact her and say thanks for keeping the music alive.

It's True by The Townsmen

The Romp by the Epics - 1963

Today, let's visit with The Townsmen. As mentioned in my last post, one of the likely best two young sax players in Birmingham and fellow band member at Banks High School, Durwood Bright joined The Townsmen band helping to make them one of the top teen bands in the Birmingham area. The first song posted here is the Townsmen's single "It's True". Another Birmingham band in the early 60s was Vicky and the Spades. After Vicky and the Spades broke up, Vicky joined The Townsmen in 1963 or 1964. They continued to play local dances and played for the 1964 Banks High School Senior Prom. They recorded a single with Vicky titled "My Man About Town" which is our second song for this post. Unfortunately, I do not know Vicky's last name so if someone knows Vicky, please tell us about her in the comment section. And, I think the dance photo in this video is from the 1964 Banks High School Senior Prom.

Today, we will feature The Epics Band from the early 1960s in Birmingham, Alabama. The Epics were a group mostly from the Phillips High School area and were together from 1961 to 1964. The core group members were Ross Gagliano, Rick Hester, Joe Ardovino, Bob Sheehan, and Terry Ryan. When the band broke up in 1964 some of the members joined former Banks High School classmate, Durwood Bright to form The Townsmen. Durwood and Wayne Alexander were probably the best two sax players in the Birmingham area at the time. The Epics were likely the most creative group of all the Birmingham bands at the time as you will see by the two songs presented here, Epic Cha Cha and The Romp. This was at a time when young musicians were encouraged to create new kinds of sound instead of the corporate formula music we have today. Interestingly, at the time these songs were recorded, The Epics did not have a record contract so they made up a record label name, Anco. The name came from an empty bottle of glass cleaner found outside Boutwell Studios. They had 500 copies made in Nashville and they received them a few weeks later shipped on a Greyhound bus. Like the Vikings and Ramrods, the local DJs promoted the group. I have about a dozen other songs by The Epics so we will visit with them again in the future. The "B' side of this 45 record is The Romp and is a fun song to play so I have added a bass guitar part to the song.

Cry Baby by Studio Musicians

I'm not big on African sayings but a couple are worth noting. One says that it is a happy man that marries the girl he loves, but a happier man who loves the girl he marries. Another says that we spend our lives looking forward but to understand and appreciate our lives, we must look back in time. So, look back with me in appreciation of some things I experienced in the 1960s but did not appreciate at the time. First is a song by The Ramrods. In the late 60s I played bass guitar with this group one summer. We performed at a club on the Bessemer Super Highway but I do not recall the name of the club. Hopeful someone will recall the club because it was very popular and always packed on the weekends. Popular radio D.J. Duke Rumore does the introduction on this recording. A few years before that, I was playing with the Vikings and co-wrote this second song in 1965 and it was released in 1966. This was recorded at Boutwell Studies and Bill Lowery who is now in the Music Hall of Fame was our manager which is another story for another time. Again, Duke Rumore and Rumore Record Rack promoted the song but back then, I was going too fast to appreciate much of anything. A few years ago I learned that Cargo Records in California had picked up the song and had included it in their series on popular Garage Bands of the 60s. And now, I found out that after over 50 years, the song is on a current DJ Dance Club play list in Soho England, near London. This is the You Tube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ4ow7Um4V8 The young lady in the video has a copy of the original 45 record but I have no idea how it ended up in England over 50 years later. Her web site is on the video and you can contact her there so please send her a note of appreciation for keeping our music alive. So, the African saying proves to be true but it is really a shame that we have to look back in time to truly appreciate the many things and many wonderful people in our lives. Also recording at Boutwell Studies the same year were The Allmon Brothers Band (Duane and Gregg) and soon to be a star, Tammy Wynette. At the time Tammy was on TV in the mornings on The County Boy Eddie Show and sitting in with our band on the weekends. I have posted her singing with our band "Don't Touch Me If You Don't Love Me" on my Sound Cloud page. Tammy, before becoming "The First Lady of Country Music" recorded her demo songs at Boutwells and included "Don't Touch Me" on her first album. But, all this is another story for another time. So, enjoy this old song by the Ramrods, "My Babe". Oh, and Skeet Waites, I think I remember seeing somewhere that you were associated with The Birmingham Record Collectors. A really great group of people.

As you may already know, Little Richard passed away recently. He passed quietly at his Tennessee home at the age of 87. Born Richard Penniman, Little Richard was one of rock 'n' roll's founding fathers who helped shatter the color line on the music charts, joining Chuck Berry and Fats Domino in bringing what was once called "race music" into the mainstream. He sold more than 30 million records worldwide, and his influence on other musicians was equally staggering, from the Beatles and Otis Redding to Creedence Clearwater Revival and David Bowie "Here's Little Richard" is the debut album from Little Richard, released on 4 March 1957. He had scored six Top 40 hits the previous year, some of which were included on this recording. It was his highest charting album. The album contained two of Richard's biggest hits, "Long Tall Sally", which reached No. 6, and "Jenny, Jenny", which reached No. 10 in the U.S. Pop chart. It also contained "Tutti Frutti" (his first hit), "Slippin' and Slidin'", and "Rip It Up," all of which were Billboard top 40 hits; and "Ready Teddy" I offer the following song in tribute to Little Richard's great contribution and influence on today's music. However, instead of one of his biggest hits, I've chosen a lesser known song that he wrote which set the stage for the songs that he would later record. This song, "True Fine Mama" was included on Side 1 of the above album but was not a big Billboard hit. Unfortunately, the only copy of this song that I have has almost no bass and very little mid range. But fortunately, through the magic of my modern home studio music software, I was able to add a rhythm for mid range and bass for the bottom and then re-master the entire song which turned out pretty good. At the very end, you can hear pretty much what I had to work with. The video is from a 1960s American Bandstand. Hope you Enjoy !

For this post, let's venture outside of Birmingham, Alabama down to New Orleans. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, New Orleans was a hot bed of fresh new songs and new talent. The song featured today is the classic named "Haunted House". " Haunted House" was originally recorded by New Orleans artist Johnny Fuller in 1958. But the most popular version remembered today was recorded by Gene Simmons in 1964. A couple years later I was performing with a band and our lead singer was Ray Hogan who played piano and sang just like Jerry Lee Lewis. For several weeks we performed at a really nice club in Northern Jefferson County on old Highway 78 just south of the Walker County line. The club was called Queen of Clubs and it lived up to it's name. The first floor was really big featuring a large bandstand and extra large dance floor with tables and booths lining the walls. The second floor was shaped like a large bowl with a dining area on the outside and the middle totally open so people dining there could look down on the bandstand and dance floor below. I can only guess at the capacity but it had to easily be 300 or more and it was totally packed every weekend because Walker County was dry at the time. So, back to our song. Gene Simmons signed with Memphis recording label Sun Records in 1958 as an artist and song writer. He recorded some songs but none became hits so most of his time was spent as a studio musician and as an opening act for label mate Elvis while on tour. He also traveled a lot with Elvis on movie locations to play on different songs for the movie and even doubled for Elvis in the diving scenes for the movie Fun in Acapulco. Then, in 1964, when Domingo Samudio (better known at Sam the Sham) was asked to re-record a cover of Haunted House, he declined. Simmons volunteered to do the job and the rest is history. And, as fate would have it, Gene was dating a girl in Birmingham at the time we were playing at the Queen of Clubs and every Friday evening Gene would leave Memphis down highway 78 to Birmingham. It didn't take long for Gene to discover that we were performing a lot of songs as another of his label mates, Jerry Lee Lewis, and as good as Jerry Lee himself. So, Gene started stopping by the club every Friday night to sit in with us for a set before continuing down to Birmingham. Sadly, Ray passed away several years ago and Gene Simmons died at age 73 on August 29, 2006, on the 42nd anniversary of "Haunted House's" entrance into the top 40, after a long illness. As a side note, Kiss bass player Gene Simmons (birth name: Chaim Witz) chose his stage name as a tribute to the singer. So on this post, we take the original artist Johnny Fuller's song and play the second version by Gene Simmons in a rare stereo version where I have dubbed the bass part so you can hear what we sounded like years ago at The Queen of Clubs.

Continuing our look back into the 50s and 60s music scene, we focus on a song out of New Orleans. "Iko Iko" is a much-covered New Orleans song that tells of a parade collision between two tribes of Mardi Gras Indians and the traditional confrontation. The song, under the original title "Jock-A-Mo", was written and released in 1953 as a single by Sugar Boy and his Cane Cutters but it failed to make the charts. The song first became popular in 1965 by girl group The Dixie Cups, who scored an international hit with "Iko Iko". In 1972, Dr. John had a minor hit with his version of "Iko Iko". The most successful charting version in the UK was recorded by Scottish singer Natasha England who took her 1982 version into the top 10. "Iko Iko" became an international hit again twice more, the first being the Belle Stars in June 1982 and again with Captain Jack in 2001. In this post, we have a video version of the 2001 Captain Jack release. Note that the video portion was created by KM Music. Both KM Music and this Captain Jack version of Iko Iko can be found on You tube. On the audio, I have again dubbed my own bass part for the song. I hope everyone enjoys the video and the look back at another mostly forgotten song.

Few things in America bring people together better than music. In the future, we will have more examples. But since the pre-election demonstrations, I thought this would be a good post for today. And, again, I have replaced the old bass with my own bass part. So, if this is too loud, then you're too old. And if your toe is not tapping, you are beyond "too old" --- you're dead.