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Post by Kapitan on Aug 14, 2024 19:18:13 GMT
That hammer on steel sound reminds me of "The Legend of John Henry" by Johnny Cash. I have no idea which record came first... "The Legend of John Henry's Hammer" was released in January 1963, so "Big Bad John" was first. As for this novelty tune, I could absolutely do without it. I remember my parents often singing that closing "big bad John" line every now and again, but I never knew the song itself. And I feel no need to know it any better than I do right now, after a couple of listens.
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Post by jk on Aug 14, 2024 21:02:56 GMT
”Big Bad John,” by Jimmy Dean
Nov. 6 - Dec. 4, 1961 (5 weeks)Dean recorded several versions of the song through the years, including immediately, when a version replaced the controversial line “one hell of a man” with “ one big, big man.” There were also multiple response songs (such as by Dean’s sometime duet partner Dottie West) and parody songs. I remember hearing it at the time -- it didn't really grab me, although I was intrigued by Floyd Cramer's little invention. The version we had in the UK is the one in the video, with the words, "At the bottom of this mine lies a big, big man -- Big John." Looking at the song's wiki, I noticed there had been a French-language parody entitled "Gros Jambon" (Big Ham).  As LS says, another novelty hit. I seem to remember US fans going more for novelty in early to mid-sixties pop than UK fans (five Beatles songs in the top five, anyone?). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bad_John
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Post by kds on Aug 15, 2024 0:21:50 GMT
A song called Big Bad John by a sausage guy. There's a joke in there somewhere.
I vaguely recall this song from a TV commercial (for what I can't recall) as a kid.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Aug 17, 2024 12:52:55 GMT
Another thing I learned with this thread is how the record companies and record producers jumped on the bandwagon. Novelty songs, "story" songs, young handsome "Bobby"  singers, southern gents, etc. With "Big Bad John", here we go again!
Listening to "Big Bad John" by Jimmy Dean reminds me of, as was mentioned above, Johnny Cash's "The Legend Of John Henry's Hammer", but also "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford, and "Ringo" by Lorne Greene. I'm sure there were others. Maybe those rough and tough Southern guys appealed to music fans - both male and female. Maybe people liked stories of legendary characters, fiction or non-fiction. And, not to accuse the listeners of being simpletons, but maybe they liked the simple, sing along aspect of those songs..."Big John, big John, big bad John..." It does get to you. But #1 for five weeks?! Didn't people get tired of it after maybe two?
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 5, 2024 18:58:58 GMT
”Please Mr. Postman,” by the Marvelettes
Dec. 11, 1961 (1 week)
In the fall of 1960, a 15-year-old student at Inkster High School recruited three of her classmates and one graduated former classmate to form a singing group, which they dubbed the Casinyets.
Less than one year later, that group (minus one member) released a song they’d cowritten on Motown Records. A few months later, that song—their first single—topped the Billboard Hot 100. But their first No. 1 was their last No. 1. Thus the Marvelettes.
Gladys Horton was the ambitious 15-year-old, and her fellow Casinyets were fellow Inkster High students Katherine Anderson, Georgeanna Tillman, Juanita Cowart, and the recently graduated Georgia Dobbins. (Casinyets was a play on “the can’t sing yet,” a self-deprecating joke amongst the group.)
A teacher suggested the fledgling group enter a local talent show in spring 1961, the top three finishers of which would win an audition with the newly incorporated Motown Records. The Casinyets finished fourth, but were granted an audition anyway thanks to the efforts of two supportive teachers. That first audition was for a group including Brian Holland (of the famed Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting trio) and singer-songwriter-producer Robert Bateman. They did well enough that they received a second audition, this one for a group including Motown chief Barry Gordy and Smokey Robinson.
That audition didn’t get them signed, but it did generate more interest. Gordy asked the group to come back with an original composition. Dobbins had a friend named William Garrett who had been working on a blues song called “Please Mr. Postman.” She—not previously a songwriter—brought it home and rewrote and arranged it into a doo-wop style that was more suited to that era’s teenagers.
Gordy liked “Please Mr. Postman” and signed the group, which he renamed the Marvelettes. However, Dobbins was no longer in the picture: her father pressured her to leave the group and show business in general to focus on family obligations. She was replaced by another Inkster grad, Wanda Young. Horton, still just 15, was now the group’s sole leader and lead singer.
While Gordy liked the song, he didn’t like it enough to leave it alone. He had Holland and Bateman and another of Holland’s songwriting partners, Freddie Gorman (who actually was also a postman!) rework it again. The group recorded the song in April of 1961; it was released on Motown’s Tamla imprint on Aug. 21, 1961.
The song was a huge success, becoming Motown’s second million-seller and its first No. 1, which it achieved the week of Dec. 11, 1961. It spent 23 weeks on the Hot 100. The song also became the title track of the Marvelettes’ Nov. 1961 debut album.
The Marvelettes continued to score hit singles on both the Hot 100 and R&B charts throughout the ‘60s despite numerous changes in membership. Cowart left the group in early 1963, citing stress of the industry. Tillman left in early 1965, leaving just a trio behind. Horton left in 1967, partly to care for her first child, who was born with cerebral palsy. She was replaced by Ann Bogan in 1968. But by this time, most of Motown’s original musicians had left the organization due to financial disputes, the times had changed, and Rogers became unreliable. The group’s 1970 album The Return of the Marvelettes featured just one Marvelette: Rogers. (Anderson and Bogan refused to appear in the cover photo because of the label’s disrespect in the situation, and were replaced by “fake Marvelettes.”)
As was common for legacy groups through the decades, various iterations of the Marvelettes continued to appear in live performances, at one point with multiple acts all under the control of the band name’s owner, Larry Marshak (none of which featured any real Marvelettes). Horton and Young, in particular, continued to pursue music careers and occasionally work to reform more official versions of the group, including being offered a deal with Motorcity Records in 1989. But little came of such efforts.
Of all the group’s members, only Cowart (who left in early 1963), now Juanita Cowart Motley, is still alive.
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Post by jk on Sept 5, 2024 20:42:00 GMT
”Please Mr. Postman,” by the Marvelettes
Dec. 11, 1961 (1 week) To quote myself from elsewhere: "'Please Mr. Postman' was one of the first 45's I ever bought (in 1961, with pocket money). A word of warning: there is at least one other version floating around with slightly altered lyrics. This here is the original version, the one I bought, with its reverb-heavy 'deliver ze letter, ze sooner ze better' in the final break. This is the version The Beatles covered, I can only conclude because the revised version came later (1965?). (The change of lyrics may explain the chaotic history of its songwriting credits.) While on the subject, I can't believe it has never been pointed out that Lennon's throaty delivery sounds very similar indeed to that of lead singer Gladys Horton's. The Fabs made an excellent job of it but the original still reigns supreme." What a beauty!  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Please_Mr._Postman
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 5, 2024 21:22:07 GMT
(The change of lyrics may explain the chaotic history of its songwriting credits.) From what I could tell--and I didn't get into it in the summary--that's a whole story unto itself. I think labels' laziness and/or shoddy record-keeping probably comes into play as well.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Sept 7, 2024 12:05:43 GMT
I didn't know "Please Mr. Postman" was Motown's first #1. A great trivia question. And, 23 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100...wow! It is a great record, and obviously The Beatles thought so, too. 
The Marvelettes had two other singles that I like very much - "Beechwood 4-5789" and "Don't Mess With Bill" - which still receive a lot of airplay on oldies' stations.
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 7, 2024 12:33:49 GMT
A few more things on "Please Mr Postman" that I didn't include in the summary, but near mention.
The musicians on the recording were not too shabby. They were the Funk Brothers, with Marvin Gaye on drums, James Jamerson on bass, Eddie Willis on guitar, and Richard "Popcorn" Wylie on piano.
And the song was popular enough to be covered by numerous other artists. The Beatles added it to their live repertoire in December 1961, meaning while it was a No. 1 hit in the U.S. They recorded it in July 1963 and released it in November of that year.
In late 1974, the Carpenters released it as a single, and it also topped the Hot 100 (and various other charts domestically and abroad) in early 1975.
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Post by jk on Sept 9, 2024 20:10:58 GMT
I didn't know "Please Mr. Postman" was Motown's first #1. A great trivia question. And, 23 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100...wow! It is a great record, and obviously The Beatles thought so, too.
The Marvelettes had two other singles that I like very much - "Beechwood 4-5789" and "Don't Mess With Bill" - which still receive a lot of airplay on oldies' stations.
I missed out on "Beechwood..." -- I saw it mentioned in the music mags but never heard it. I see now it charted around the time I became smitten by symphonic music and dropped out of the pop world for a few months, so that would explain it. "Don't Mess With Bill" has a wonderful vibe -- you really feel you should not be messing with this Bill fellow. Another one I love is "Too Many Fish In The Sea". I like the way the title is sung by the backing vocalists only. And there's the catch-as-catch-can of voices in the chorus ("short ones, tall ones, fine ones, kind ones"). And what a groove! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Many_Fish_in_the_Sea
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 13, 2024 19:15:43 GMT
”The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” by The Tokens
Dec. 18, 1961-Jan. 6, 1962 (3 weeks)
In 1939, the Gallo Record Company—South Africa’s largest—brought in 30-year-old singer-songwriter Solomon Linda and his group the Evening Birds for a recording session. Among the songs they recorded was Linda’s composition “Mbube,” Zulu for “lion.” It featured rhythmic, chant-like background vocals beneath Linda’s partly improvised, sometimes soaring lead vocal.
The song, marketed to black audiences, made Linda a star. It even launched a musical genre of a cappella music, also called mbube. (Though as is typical of these things, the supposed origin of a genre is usually simply the first of its type to become famous among wealthier listeners: mbube music can be traced at least back to the 1920s, when coal miners and other laborers formed singing groups to entertain themselves and one another at work camps.)
In the late 1940s, Alan Lomax brought the recording to the attention of Pete Seeger, whose group The Weavers began performing a version of it live. They called the song “Wimoweh,” a mishearing of the lyric “Uyimbube,” which means “you are a lion.”
The group enlisted Decca Records’ arranger and composer Gordon Jenkins to incorporate brass and strings into their arrangement, released on that label in 1952. In a typical music business maneuver, they credited the song to “Oral tradition” and the vocal arrangement to “Paul Campbell,” a fictional persona that funneled royalties back to the Weavers. (Apparently communists enjoy personal property and profit after all! Seeger claims the group acted out of ignorance, and the blame lay with the label. He arranged for them to pay some future royalties, though the extent of their compliance is questionable.) The song hit No. 6.
After more than half a dozen other recordings of “Mbube” and “Wimoweh” were released, RCA Records producers Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore hired George David Weiss—a songwriter who had been involved in Yma Sumac’s 1952 version of “Wimoweh”—to arrange a doo-wop version of the song to serve as a B-side for the Tokens’ single “Tina.” Weiss wrote English lyrics to go along with the now-familiar melody and faux-African lyrics (such as the title). The song was now “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” now credited to Peretti, Creatore, and Weiss.
But wait, who were the Tokens?
Formed in 1955 as a high school doo-wop group called the Linc-Tones (a play on their Abraham Lincoln High School) that included Neil Sedaka among its members, they became the Tokens in 1960 and comprised Jay Siegel, Hank Medress, and brothers Mitch (13 years old!) And Philip Margo.
Their first single, “Tonight I Fell In Love,” released on Warwick Records, hit No. 15 on the Hot 100 and landed the group a performance on American Bandstand. That success led them to better recording opportunities, and their fourth single of 1961 was released on RCA Victor. That single was “Tina,” backed with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”
That version of the song topped the Hot 100 for three weeks, making it the final No. 1 of 1961 and the first of 1962.
The Tokens went on to a long career, although with more modest success and changing membership. Eventually, as was the case with many legacy acts, there was more than one version of the band competing for the name.
In the decades since, there have been dozens of versions of the song(s) released, ranging from Hugh Masekela to Glen Campbell to REM to N’Sync.
Also in the decades since, legal battles have cleared up copyright issues related to the song, and Solomon Linda’s estate eventually reached a settlement with Abilene Music Publishers, which controlled the rights to the song.
Linda, however, died in poverty in 1962. He had unknowingly sold his rights to the song to Gallo Record Company back in 1939 for 10 shillings, less than $2.
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Post by kds on Sept 13, 2024 19:26:34 GMT
I love The Lion Sleeps Tonight. It's easily one of my favorite doo-wop songs.
I really can't recall a time in my life when I didn't know the song. But, I remember at one point in the 90s or 00s, there was a game on Ocean City's Boardwalk that was always playing it. I'm sure the poor attendants have nightmares about that. So, I began to associate the song with summer nights. And, that's one of the reasons it lives on a few of my summer playlists on Spotify.
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Post by lonelysummer on Sept 13, 2024 19:46:21 GMT
I grew up with Robert John's carbon copy of the Tokens version. Never hear it anywhere these days, though, except when 1972 turns up on American Top 40 reruns.
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Post by jk on Sept 13, 2024 21:24:51 GMT
The hit version we had in the UK was by Karl Denver and entitled "Wimoweh". It seems to have been released in the wake of The Tokens' hit but I can't swear to it. I never liked the Karl Denver record -- or, for that matter, The Tokens' big hit (sorry, kds). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_DenverPS: On the subject of The Tokens and their long career, how about this oddball album of theirs from later in the decade? Is this really the same band? endlessharmony.boards.net/post/63423 |
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 13, 2024 21:53:55 GMT
If the history of popular music tells us anything, it's that artists/bands are happy to genre-hop as trends dictate. And on that album, their wiki page says:
(B.T. Puppy was their label, "Bright Tunes" Puppy)
Definitely an interesting detour.
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singers, southern gents, etc. With "Big Bad John", here we go again!
