Brian Wilson, who will eventually struggle so much with stage fright that he will stay away from touring for a while, said this to the Telegraph in a 2005 interview about the night: “We were asking each other what the hell we were doing there. We were five clean-cut, unworldly white boys from a conservative white suburb in an auditorium full of black kids“. And clean-cut they were. They look like a bunch of frat boys from the whitest suburb of America, and I have to say that I know a lot of people who would like to take a swing at their punchable faces. But that’s neither here nor there.

Each of the band members was paid $60 for three songs that night, and even though they were nervous it won’t stop their career from blowing up next year. And the crowds will only get bigger!

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THE ALBUMS

Another album from Julie London, and this time it’s called «Send For Me». I’m a bit unsure if this one is released in ‘60 or ‘61, but that doesn’t matter as I’m not gonna give it too much attention anyway. This time the lounge singer goes a bit more blues with her big band music. It has its moments, like the opening track Evenin’ and…I don’t know, maybe ‘Taint What You Do. But she still doesn’t match with me at all. There’s also this guy Mark Murphy, and his album «Rah», that doesn’t wow me a lot. He’s a jazz singer, but to me, it’s just incredibly boring. There’s nothing to this album that has moved me even the slightest. Down Beat Magazine wrote in 1962: “Murphy should thank his lucky stars for, among other things such as his talent, Ernie Wilkins. Wilkins has written a set of arrangements for the young jazz singer that should turn Frank Sinatra green with envy. Much of the album’s success is due to the arranger’s pen”. And I guess I can agree that the music is probably a lot better than the singing of Mark, as it doesn’t really add anything to the record. And I realize just how bad of a statement that is for this record. But hey, I gotta be honest.

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CLIFF RICHARD & THE SHADOWS – THE YOUNG ONES

Cliff Richard is working hard at the moment, but he has yet to impress. «The Young Ones» is the soundtrack to his third movie and the first one he has been given a full album to. The others he only had a couple of songs on, so I guess he’s ready to go full throttle and kill it with this one. He’s not without The Shadows of course, and thank god for that, cause he wouldn’t be much without them. But if they can manage to pull it off on a soundtrack is under serious doubt.

But before I’ll say what I want about this let’s get some facts straight. The movie is about a millionaire’s pop-singing son who saves a local youth club from closure, and as lame as that sounds I kinda wanna watch it at some point. Not because I believe it’s good, but I’m pretty sure it can muster up some laughs. Now I didn’t bother to check how well the movie did, but the album, the album was a hit with the British. It topped the UK album chart for six weeks, spent 11 weeks at #2, and charted for a total of 42 weeks. It became the first British soundtrack to sell over a million copies, and it had no less than three charting singles (When The Girl In Your Arms Is The Girl In Your Heart, The Savage, The Young Ones). So if we’d go by those facts, then the album is fucking amazing!

But that’s not how this is gonna go. Cliff still sounds pretty weak, like a guy without testosterone. There is nothing about him that smells like rock’n’roll at all. I guess, if I have to choose, that The Young Ones is one of the best songs on here, and I could maybe say that Got A Funny Feeling is tolerable, and the instrumental song The Savage is good, but that’s obviously without Cliff, and The Shadows are a lot better without him. So yeah, this is not a very good album. But let’s not forget that this is basically a musical, and those are never really cool.

ROY ORBISON – AT THE ROCK HOUSE

«At The Rock House» is Roy Orbison’s first album at Sun Records. And as usual, Sam Phillips is trying to capitalize on artists that have already left his label. Roy has signed with Monument Records, and he’s had some very successful singles in the last couple of years, so Sam obviously decides to release the music Roy Orbison recorded while he was still signed on the Sun label. I get it, it’s not that, but it kinda seems like Sam Phillips is somewhat of a pussy. Like he’s waiting for artists to go big, and then he’ll release whatever music they recorded at his studio so that he himself can make money off of their success. And I’m not 100% sure, but I did read that Roy wrote most of these songs, but Sam actually credited all the songs to himself.

All of that aside though, this is first and foremost about Roy Orbison. The songs are recorded between ’56 and ’57, and already sound a bit retro in 1961, but there are a lot of cool songs on this album. The opening track This Kind Of Love, You’re My Baby (written by Johnny Cash), Rock House (Written by Orbison and Harold Jenkins/Conway Twitty), and Trying To Get To You are my favorites. There are other good ones as well, and it’s interesting to listen to where Orbison was at this time and to be able to see how he has evolved.

There’s also the song Ooby Dooby, the first song Roy Orbison recorded with his band The Teen Kings back in 1956. All in all, this is a worthwhile album to check out. Not for some new hits, but to see how Roy Orbison started his career.

MILES DAVIS – SOMEDAY MY PRINCE WILL COME

It’s gotten a lot easier to listen to jazz actually, and it thrills me that I’ve managed to expand my horizon a bit. But it’s still not the genre that excites me the most. For now, it works best as background music to whatever it is I’m doing. But Miles Davis is pretty cool. Miles is a legend, so I guess it’s easier for me to cut him some slack maybe.

But «Someday My Prince Will Come» is not really a game-changer for me. It feels a lot more like lounge music than anything else, and it doesn’t make me want to put Miles up on a pedestal. It’s quite alright you know, but when it comes to jazz there has to be something that really triggers me, and if that’s not there, it will just sound like white noise or something. And that’s where we are with this album.

I understand that Miles is looking to replace John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, who left the group, and that this task is not an easy one, so maybe that’s why this doesn’t sit right with me. But like I said, this is not a bad record at all, it’s just missing that key ingredient.

ETTA JAMES – THE SECOND TIME AROUND

Before Etta released her brilliant debut album, «At Last!», she had a couple of R&B hits with the songs Good Rockin’ Daddy, and Dance With Me, Henry. They are pretty cool. I would say they have a more rockabilly vibe than R&B, but that doesn’t really matter. My point is that these singles, and her debut album, are a lot better than what she delivers on her second album «The Second Time Around».

While there are some good tunes here, like Don’t Cry Baby, Seven Day Fool, and Plum Nuts, I don’t feel like this album showcases what this girl can do. The album consists mostly of standards from the ‘40s, and the orchestration is a lot more big band-ish than soul. So this is a step back if you ask me. I mean, she’s doing a good job on all the tracks, and there aren’t any terrible ones on here, but it’s just a bit too boring considering that it’s obvious what she can do with her powerful voice.

Etta might need to change it up a bit to reach the heights that she’s capable of, and hopefully, that will happen sooner rather than later.

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THE SINGLES

Johnny Cash released the song Tennessee Flat-Top Box this December, and it’s a good one! It’s a song that IS Johnny Cash. If I had to choose one song to promote Johnny, without choosing the obvious ones, one song that would perfectly show what this guy is about, it would probably be this one. His storytelling, the way he plays his guitar, his voice, I think it’s all perfectly embodied in this song. And it did pretty well on the charts as well. It might not be his best song, but I like it just the same.

The B-side to this one is called Tall Men, and it’s quite the odd number coming from Johnny Cash. It’s not completely awful, I guess it’s just the fact that it is weird. The girls singing back-up sounds like something taken from a Disney movie, the scary part, where the main character walks around in a candy shop at night or something. But even though it’s not something I would recommend listening to it’s still quite funny.

Dear One is Larry Finnegan’s only hit song, at least in the US, and this is probably the only time I’ll write about him. So I’ll give him credit for the song. It’s perfectly fine. By 1966 it had sold over one million copies and earned him a gold record. So that’s when he decided to move to Sweden and start his own record label called SvenskAmerican, publish his own music like the singles Good Morning Tears and Bound For Houston (which he was obviously not), and even play with a Swedish group called Sven-Ingvars who are pretty big in Sweden. Later he moved to Switzerland, then back to the US in 1970, and he passed away in 1973. I guess that covers it all.

And lastly, there’s a well-known tune brought to life by Bruce Channel; Hey Baby. The melody to this song is even sung by supporters of football and ice hockey, where they change the lyrics to fit whatever they are singing it for. So this one does not really need an introduction.

But I had no idea that it was a guy called Bruce Channel who co-wrote it and performed the original recording. Bruce has been performing since he was in high school and at some point joined the prestigious The Louisiana Hayride show, which then resulted in him getting a record contract with Smash Records.

Hey Baby is an infectious song that made it big in the UK and the US (probably elsewhere as well), and it works just as well now as it did then. It has been covered by a lot of artists and is at least known by everyone over thirty years in 2021. It’s the harmonica that most people talk about when listening to this song, and the fact that some people say that it influenced John Lennon’s harmonica playing on songs like Love Me Do and Please Please Me. According to John himself though; it did not. Bruce Channel’s career will slow down until 1968, so maybe I’ll write about him when I’ll get there, but for now, this song is more than enough.

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THE CHARTS

The G-Clefs sound a lot cooler before you listen to them. The group name could trick me into thinking that they were a lot tougher than they sound. Cause this song, I Understand, is not tough. It’s not cool either. And I wouldn’t even say it’s good. It’s dead-ass boring. And considering that this is their only Top 10 hit I think I should just leave it at that. And the new Ferrante & Teicher song, Tonight, isn’t much better. They continue like they have done for a couple of years now (at least since I started writing), and it’s not for me.

Joey Dee and the Starliters is another act that helped fuel the so-called twist craze. They resided at the Peppermint Lounge in New York, and about a year after Chubby Checker topped the charts with The Twist, the wealthy socialites who frequented the Peppermint had finally discovered the dance. That’s when Joey Dee and his band wrote their own twist song, appropriately named Peppermint Twist. And it’s actually pretty good. One would think, considering the origin of the idea, that this would be a shit show, but I guess one shouldn’t judge Joey and the Starliters on where they play their music.

And I’ve decided to write about a Christmas song considering it is December and all.
It didn’t hit the Top 10, but it did enter the chart this month, peaking at #76. So I feel that it is warranted to give this some attention. The song in question is Please Come Home For Christmas by Charles Brown. And it’s fair to say that this song has become a classic over the years.

I have a weird obsession with X-mas music, so I’m gonna try to write about the ones I like when they are released. This is not one of my favorites, but it sure is a good one.

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Petter Milde

This Band Could Be Your Life