25 Mellotron Melodies – part 1

The sound of synthesized strings and choirs, as played on the keyboard instrument we will generically call a Mellotron throughout this post, has always thrilled your Dentist.  The history can be found in great detail online, but let’s summarize.  In the late 1940’s, Californian Harry Chamberlin became intrigued with the idea of creating a keyboard that could duplicate the sounds of an orchestra.  Each key activated the playing of a generally 8 second piece of tape that ostensibly used the sounds of The Lawrence Welk Orchestra in the ’50s.  The Chamberlin is on the far left at the beginning of this article.  It is said that Chamberlin’s salesman Bill Fransen went to England with 2 of these allegedly unreliable models and enlisted the Bradmatic company to make new heads for the machine.  With modications and the new name Mellotron, Streetly introduced their Mark 2 in 1963 which is in the middle above.  Apparently in 1965 Chamberlin found out about Fransen’s deception and negotiated a settlement whereby Mellotron’s would be available in the U.K. and Chamberlin’s in the U.S..  The string sounds are pretty darn similar so only a true expert can tell which recordings use which instrument it appears.  A 1970’s modification was the Orchestron (shown above far right) which used an optical disc instead of tapes so a note could sustain as opposed to the 8 seconds only on the mellotron.  Today many players utilize samples on their synthesizers rather than the cumbersome and unreliable original instruments.  That was confirmed on 2019’s On The Blue Cruise when Strawbs keyboard player Dave Bainbridge did just that (check out the amazing “We Have The Power” on 2017’s The Ferryman’s Curse).  Watching Dave play, however, I did miss seeing the original mellotron in action which I did up close in 1974 at Ebbets Field in Denver.  My seat was so close to the stage I had to be careful not to accidently put my shoe in the back of the machine and tangle up in the moving tapes as John Hawken played “Hero & Heroine” by that version of The Strawbs.

The original idea of this post was to list 25 of my fave mellotron (or other synth strings/choirs) containing songs.  To keep from filling it up with just a few bands, I decided to not list more than 2 songs by any one artist.  Even then I found that 25 songs wasn’t enough so we will do part 2.  The order is fairly fluid except for the first dozen or so.

1.Strawbs – Hero & Heroine

The sheer power of John Hawken’s mellotron combined with Dave Lambert’s guitar chords and Chas Cronk’s bass is simply breathtaking.  This is from the 1974 LP Hero & Heroine.  Dave Cousins crafted a masterpiece here and if I wasn’t so intimidated by him on last 2019’s On The Blue Cruise, I would have loved to ask him to go in to detail how a folk band mutated to this powerful progressive act.

2.Barclay James Harvest – For No One

Another 1974 masterwork from the Everyone Is Everybody Else LP – their first on Polydor.  When Woolly’s mellotron and John Lees’ raw guitar crash in at the beginning, I still get chills and want to crank the volume like my pal Chuck Davis and I used to do back in the day.  The anti-war protest lyrics are still relevant.

3.Genesis – The Fountain Of Salmacis

This song is from the first Genesis record to include guitarist Steve Hackett and drummer Phil Collins completing the classic line-up with singer Peter Gabriel, bassist Mike Rutherford and keys man Tony Banks.  The 1971 LP Nursery Cryme (their 3rd) was also the first to include mellotron thanks to Hackett suggesting they purchase one.  The story is from Greek mythology about the creation of a dual sexed child by a godly joining of the naiad Salmacis and the unusually attractive boy Hermaphroditus.

4.Strawbs – Grave New World

Once again a powerful mix of a great song and crashing mellotron supplied by Blue Weaver who later joined The Bee Gees.  This was before Dave Lambert replaced the folkier Tony Hooper on guitar so the power this time was supplied by the rhythm section of John Ford on bass and Richard Hudson on drums.  Dave Cousins sounds like he was bursting his vocal chords at the seams.  The 1972 LP Grave New World was a total package – excellent songs and performance coupled with a booklet and an outstanding gateful album cover.

5.The Moody Blues – Nights In White Satin

This is Justin Hayward’s best song and the lyric and arrangement is a brilliant synthesis of unrequited love that he supposedly wrote when he was 19.  It featured on their 1967 LP Days Of Future Passed and hit #9 on the U.K. charts that year.  Amazingly, the following year it could only get to #103 in the U.S. and it would take a 1972 reissue to finally push it to #2 here.  It was Mike Pinder’s extensive use of mellotron on this album that mainly brought the instrument to the fore.

6.The Bee Gees – Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You

Maurice plays an eerie descending mellotron figure with Robin chanting “O Solo dominque” which is very different than Saturday Night Fever kids, but this was your (grand)father’s Bee Gees – a frankly better version.  This song was found on their 1967 LP Bee Gees’ 1st.  The song was written by Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb and could also be found on the B-side of their “Holiday” single.

7.King Crimson – Epitaph

The first King Crimson album In The Court Of The Crimson King (1969) is one of the most important albums all-time in creating what we now know as progressive rock.  Singer/bassist Greg Lake was one of the best prog singers ever and Robert Fripp is still an influential guitarist/composer.  They helped write this song with Ian McDonald (mellotron) and Michael Giles (drums).  Pete Sinfield’s lyrics are about despair and confusion.  They made their live debut playing the free concert put on by The Rolling Stones in Hyde Park (London) July 5, 1969.

8.Hudson-Ford – Silent Star

After the 1973 Strawbs LP Bursting At The Seams, the rhythm section of Richard Hudson and John Ford decided to strike out on their own.  Their sing-along song “Part Of The Union” had been a #2 hit from that LP and stood at odds to Dave Cousins’ more serious songs.  After a fine first album of guitar rock (Nickelodeon), their 2nd returned them to prog with this song from the 1974 Free Spirit LP.  Chris Parren played the mellotron.  They put on an excellent show at the intimate Denver club Ebbets Field so it was fun that on their 3rd LP they saluted us with the song “Mile High City”.

9.Barclay James Harvest – Song For Dying

U.K. band BJH didn’t have the U.S. success they deserved, but did manage to become stars in Germany playing in 1980 to a crowd of 250,000 there.  Guitarist John Lees wrote this song for their 2nd LP Once Again (1971).  Suffering from depression, mellotron man Woolly Wolstenholme offed himself in 2010 sadly.

10.The Moody Blues – Watching & Waiting

To Our Children’s Children’s Children is my fave prog album and maybe my fave album period.  This song was one of yearning and still brings chills to your Dentist.  As a single in 1969 it flopped.  “Watching and waiting for someone to understand me, I hope it won’t be very long” was a lyric this high school senior could identify with back then.  It was the kind of song to put on at max volume with the lights out late at night.  Gorgeously eerie mellotron sets the mood on this Justin Hayward and Ray Thomas composition.

11.Steven Wilson – A Door Marked Summer

Quoted from year end post in Dec. 2017: “It is perverse that by far the best song on the album To The Bone (“A Door Marked Summer”) is only available on the horribly pricy boxset version along with several other more progressive tracks and demos.”  I would hope that one day Wilson will put together a rarities set with B-sides and outtakes so this and others will be easier to own.  52 year old Brit Wilson still looks like a kid and seems to have endless energy between all his own music and remixing while remaining the great white hope for modern progressive music.

12.New England – Don’t Ever Wanna Lose Ya

The Rock & Roll Dental Hygienist and I attended a concert by these guys at the sadly shuttered Rainbow out on Evans and Monaco east of Denver back in 1979.  After their set, the crowd went absolutely crazy due to the powerful use of mellotron and power pop guitar on songs like this.  The cheering wouldn’t stop and the band came out to say they didn’t know any more songs so they repeated some of their show.  Unfortunately that 1978 self-titled 1st album was their high water mark.  This Mike Stone and Paul Stanley produced single made it to #40 on the charts.

13.King Crimson – The Court Of The Crimson King

This is an abridged version of the final track on the first King Crimson album (as officially posted by Robert Fripp?).  An even shorter version (listed at 3:22 on the 45) made it to #80 early in 1970 – their only single to make the U.S. chart.  For a totally unknown group when this album was released, it was pretty bold to make the cover strictly a painting.  There was no writing to indicate the artist or title yet people noticed it and still remember the schizoid man’s red face.  It was done by Barry Godber, his first and only album cover as he died of a heart attack only 4 months after the LP was released.

14.Steve Hackett – Spectral Mornings

This man obviously loves progressive music.  He was the one who convinced Genesis to add a mellotron and was bold enough to quit as they were moving into pop music.  He was quietly friendly on our 2019 On The Blue Cruise and mixed Genesis and solo works in to his amazing live show.  He was the only artist to schedule an autographing session as well.  During the virus lockdown of 2020, on youtube he posted a series of at-home videos where he played about 2 1/2 minutes of a song and commented about it.  In those he comes across as a thoughtful student of music who delights in what he has been a part of.  I respect his commitment to his craft and you sense he is a man that would be interesting to spend time talking prog music with.  This song is on his best early solo album, his 3rd (Spectral Mornings 1979).

15.The Rolling Stones – 2000 Light Years From Home

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band inspired a lot of bands in 1967 to experiment with new sounds and lyrical content.  One of those bands apparently was The Rolling Stones who released Their Satanic Majesties Request in response.  It’s own up time as I wasn’t much of a Beatles fan back then so didn’t buy Pepper till the ’70s.  Mick and Keith’s band were a different matter.  When I bought this album in ’67 it was mostly for the cool 3-D cover, but musically only half the album was great – the other half…?  This was one of the great songs and also appeared as the B-side to the single “She’s A Rainbow”.  While allegedly Brian Jones was a miserable bandmate, musically he made the Stones interesting and he performs mellotron and theremin here.

16.Yes – Heart Of The Sunrise

Jon Anderson’s high voice plus the mixture of jazziness with their music has always made me less of a Yes fan than most proggers – sorry.  The iconic Roger Dean cover plus Rick Wakeman joining the band made Fragile (their 4th) the 1st of their albums in my collection back in 1971.  While “Roundabout” was the hit from the album, this has remained one of the most popular Yes songs in concert.  Composition was given to Anderson, Bill Bruford and Chris Squier, but supposedly Rick Wakeman also helped but couldn’t be listed due to contractual reasons.

17.Elton John – Grey Seal

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was the album that finally pulled your Dentist in to being a fan of Reg Dwight (his 7th – 1973).  Sorry, but I am still not much in to his early stuff and there are songs here that don’t move me either (i.e. “Social Disease” and “Jamaica Jerk-off”).   On this LP his music was more powerful and the songs better in general.  For me, “Grey Seal” should have been a single as opposed to the execrable “Bennie & The Jets”, but that was a #1 so go figure.  Elton plays the mellotron.

18.Genesis – Watcher Of The Skies

Once again your Dentist is wildly out of step with many proggers as the canonization of the overlong Genesis track “Supper’s Ready” totally escapes me.  For that reason I didn’t buy Foxtrot right away back in 1972 thus it took awhile to appreciate what a great mellotron song “Watcher Of the Skies” is.  It is the lead-off track on the LP with the title taken from a John Keats poem.  Songwriting credit goes to the whole band.  While the LP version is good, frankly this take from their 1st live LP (Genesis Live 1973) is far more powerful without sacrificing any musicality.  Peter Gabriel would wear a bat-wing headdress while singing this plus pound on a bass drum pedal to accent the beat late in the song.

19.Greenslade – Tide

The amazing album cover art by Patrick Woodroffe is what roped in the young me to buy the LP Time & Tide back in 1973 (their 4th).  This melody leads directly in to “Catalan” on the record which has a lively Spanish riff that alternates with more sedate mellotron passages.  They really need to be played together, but aren’t posted on youtube that way.  This British band were named for keyboard player Dave Greenslade.

20.The Beatles – Strawberry Fields Forever

Well this is when the lovable moptops really got weird and it did take some time for the young Dentist to catch up.  This single B-side (U.S. chart #8) was supposed to be a track on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP along with the A-side “Penny Lane” (chart #1).  EMI pushed for new product so in early 1967 they put this out on 45.  While it is too bad that those song’s weren’t on the album, you have to wonder what would have been left off then (my vote “Within You, Without You”).  The story of its creation is pretty interesting and has been covered in detail over the years, but basically it comes from 2 very different takes that producer George Martin expertly grafted together.  The flute mellotron that opens the song is the first time any of us had heard that instrument before.  Lennon’s lyrics are a nostalgic recollection (filtered through the drug LSD) of a place he played at while a kid near his Aunt’s home.  Paul McCartney plays the mellotron except on end section which is played by John.

21.Angel – Angel (Theme)

This song demanded to be much longer and should have shown the musical direction of the band.  Neither proved to be the case as this band from Washington, D.C. was not so much about prog as about glammy metal plus helium voiced Frank DiMino ruined them for me.  This was the last track on their 1975 self-titled debut record.  It was written by keyboardist Gregg Guiffria and drummer Barry Brandt.  Don’t confuse this with the inferior closer “Angel Theme” on their 2nd LP Helluva Band.  Punkie Meadows played guitar and Mickie Jones the bass.  Meadows and DiMino still lead a version of Angel.

22.Focus – Le Clochard (Bread)

For many the 2nd Focus album Moving Waves (1971) is known as the record that the novelty hit “Hocus Pocus” came from.  For this writer, it is the mostly instrumental excellent prog album that featured an excellent side-long song in “Eruption”.  Side 1 was highlit by the memorable “Focus II” written by flautist/keyboard player Thijs van Leer and this beautiful song by guitarist Jan Akkerman.  Focus are from Amsterdam and are still going under the leadership of van Leer and the drummer on this record Pierre van der Linden.

23.Purson – Tempest & The Tide

Rosalie Cunningham is a brilliant musician now recording under her own name, but previously the driving force behind the psych-prog act Purson.  The first album from this act from London was in 2013 – The Circle & The Green Door.  Cunningham started in the Goth band Ipso Facto, but is comfortable covering David Bowie and The Beatles.  During the virus lockdown she recorded an acoustic guitar version of this song for youtube release that is equally affecting.

24.The Zombies – Care Of Cell 44

I like so many of my generation managed to miss the brilliant album  Odessey & Oracle when it first came out.  Thankfully it continues to be revived and allowed for a couple reunions of the band over the years.  The album has been acclaimed a masterwork of psychedelic pop. It was created in 1967 England in the wake of Sgt. Pepper.  It wouldn’t be till 1969 that the single “Time Of The Season” from the LP became a hit and by then there was no band with The Zombies splitting due to lack of commercial success.  This Rod Argent composition was a November ’67 single from the LP and failed to chart.  It sort of has a psychedelic Beach Boys feel vocally and is lyrically about someone waiting for their love partner to get out of jail.

25.Camel – Air Born

We have already discussed this song in my blog about the best flute players in rock (check it out in the November 2019 post).  What I wrote then was that the U.K. band Camel was formed in 1971 and while never a huge success, they continue with one original member – Andy Latimer who also sang and played flute plus guitars on this song.  This was from their 1976 Moonmadness record (their fourth and last with the original lineup of the band which included Peter Bardens on keys).

Start Me Up – Covering The Rolling Stones

On December 18, 1932 my late mom was born.  Looking online, other folks born Dec. 18th were Steven Spielberg, DMX, Joseph Stalin, Brad Pitt, Christina Aguilera and the riff-king – Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones.  December 2020 Keith turned 77 (and Mick Taylor turns 71 Jan. 17th) so this seems like a good month to salute cover versions of songs written by Keith and Mick Jagger.  For a group that has been going since 1962, The Stones have generated far fewer covers than the songs of The Beatles, but there are still some goodies.

1.Humble Pie – Honky Tonk Women

Reportedly the late Steve Marriott could be difficult due to his issues with drugs and alcohol, but man could that dude sing rock and roll.  My pal DC and I caught Marriott’s band Humble Pie a few times in concert in Denver and they rocked like mad. In 1973 they released the double LP Eat It with one side being live.  One of the live songs that captured the raw ear-numbing Pie was their cover of the 1969 Stones single “Honky Tonk Women”.  The original #1 single apparently started life as a country song, but thankfully Keith rocked up the guitar riff and turned it in to a classic.  It was their first single with new guitarist Mick Taylor and was released in the U.K. the day after original guitarist Brian Jones had died, a member of the ‘dead-at-27 club’.  Sadly Marriott died in a housefire after falling asleep with a lit cigarette in 1991 (age 44).

2.Johnny Winter And – Jumpin’ Jack Flash

The late Johnny Winter (1944 – 2014) was known mostly for his blues guitar work, but he could rock as well.  With Rick Derringer (The McCoys), he put together a short-lived rock and roll band called Johnny Winter And which released the popular Live album in March of 1971.  The #1 1968 Stones single was the last of the Brian Jones era.

3.Ellen Foley – Stupid Girl

As the B-side to “Paint It Black” (#1 1966), this was a serviceable track bogged down by a cheesy organ played by 6th Stone Ian Stewart.  The misogynistic lyrics take on a totally different feel when sung by a female (Ellen Foley on the Night Out LP-’79).  Ian Hunter’s band (especially guitarist Mick Ronson) really amp up the rawness making this way better then the original.  Foley was mainly known as a backing singer throughout her career – Blue Oyster Cult, Ian Hunter, Joe Jackson and The Clash to name a few.  Her best-known work was with Meatloaf on Bat Out Of Hell and despite Karla DeVito miming to her vocals in the video, it was Foley on “Paradise By The Dashboard Light”.

4.The Searchers – Take It Or Leave It

Before their April 1966 Aftermath LP The Stones were known more for their cover versions, but with this album Keith and Mick became a song-writing force.  The U.K release included “Take It Or Leave It” but apparently their U.S. company (London) decided to omit it before finally including it on the 1967 odds and ends compilation Flowers.  The Searchers released their cover of this song around the same time as the U.K. Stones LP and was a 45-only release till appearing on compilations.  The song didn’t chart in the U.S., but did hit #31 in England and emphasized the baroque feel of the original.

5.The Moonrakers – I’m All Right

The only act to contest The Astronauts for Colorado-band supremacy during the mid-60s was The Moonrakers.  Denny Flannigan turns in a suitably snotty vocal over the fuzzed-out guitars for this late ’65 Tower records single.  While it didn’t chart nationally, here in Denver on 950 KIMN-AM it climbed as high as #2.  The first record album your Dentist ever bought was The Rolling Stones LP Out Of Our Heads which here in the U.S. included “I’m All Right” taken from a live U.K. EP.  As can be seen from the label, the writing credit is given to the name Nanker Phelge which is a pseudonym used by The Rolling Stones, but that is really not correct.  I’m cheating and including this as a Stones cover, but really its a Bo Diddley song that first appeared on his 1963 live album Bo Diddley’s Beach Party.

6.David Bowie – Let’s Spend The Night Together

Guitarist Mick Ronson gets his 2nd inclusion on this list playing this time in David Bowie’s Spiders From Mars backing band.  Following Bowie’s break-through with the Ziggy Stardust… LP, Aladdin Sane (or A Lad Insane) was a big April 1973 hit (#17 U.S., #1 U.K.).  Bowie makes the song harder and faster.  Near the end David lets you know what the song is about adding a very sexual section before the hard rock comes back in.  The Rolling Stones released this as a single in Jan. 1967 as the flip to “Ruby Tuesday”.  While both sides were successful charters in the U.K., American radio was scared of the lyrical content and mostly played the other side of the record which meant “Let’s Spend The Night Together” could only hit #55.  Ed Sullivan wouldn’t let them perform this on his TV show till they changed the lyric to “Let’s spend some time together” which they did while looking disdainful.

7.Marianne Faithfull – As Tears Go By

This was always a fave song to sing and play on acoustic guitar back when your Dentist did such things.  While her eventual boyfriend Jagger didn’t get around to recording this with The Stones till 1965, Faithfull’s first single (U.S. #22) came out a year before theirs when she was 17.  This was one of the very first songs composed by Jagger and Richards and did chart for The Rolling Stones in the U.S. for them at #9 as 1965 gave way to ’66.  Faithfull’s version is more fleshed out with a prominent part played by the deeper oboe relative, the cor anglais while The Stones did it mostly on acoustic guitar with string quartet.

8.Merry Clayton – Gimme Shelter

The December 1969 Let It Bleed album still stands as one of the best by The Stones.  The opening track “Gimme Shelter” (“Gimmie Shelter” on the LP) is a classic.  The moody original builds adding a female vocal (Mary Clayton on the record) that screams the lyrics “rape, murder – it’s just a shot away – it’s just a shot away” which really gives the performance an edge.  Called late at night to sing, Clayton was pregnant and after the session had a miscarriage that has been ascribed by some to her intense performance.  NOLA born Clayton started recording as a 14 year old.  In 1970, Clayton recorded this song making it the title track of her album and charting the single at #73.  In 1973 she did vocal backing on Ringo’s “Oh My My”.  In 2014 my friends Ted and Nancy took me to see the excellent film about backing vocalists titled 20 Feel From Stardom in which Clayton is featured.  She reportedly lost both her legs the following year in a car crash.

9.Flamin’ Groovies – Paint It Black

If quality meant anything, America’s Flamin’ Groovies would be 12-string superstars but instead they are only worshiped by power-pop fans.  Their 1976 Sire LP Shake Some Action was a classic of that genre with the follow-up 2 years later Now nearly as good.  It contained a couple of fine Stones covers in “Blue Turns To Grey” and “Paint It Black”.  It didn’t hurt that both were produced in the U.K. by Dave Edmunds who knows a little something about making a great retro-sounding record.  The Stones’ May 1966 single was the first #1 to feature sitar (played by Brian Jones).  The pumping bass part was done by Bill Wyman on the pedals of an organ.

10.Del Shannon – Under My Thumb

Casual fans only know Shannon from the classic “Runaway”, but Del had a much longer career sadly ended by suicide at age 55 in 1990.  The former Charles Westover’s last big hit was the #9 “Keep Searchin’ (We’ll Follow The Sun)” in late ’64 on Amy.  After moving to Liberty records he tried several covers including “Under My Thumb” which had been on the 1966 Rolling Stones Aftermath album.  Del’s version barely moved in to the charts at #128 in the fall of ’66 with his a mostly straight cover of the Stones’ even down to the marimba riff.  This is one of the few ’60s Rolling Stones album tracks played by oldies radio and is notable for the riff as played by Brian Jones.  As someone who believes in woman’s rights, the lyrical content does annoy your blogger.

11.Airlift – Tell Me

“Tell Me (You’re Coming Back)” was the 2nd U.S. chart 45 for The Rolling Stones making #24 in the summer of ’64.  Oddly it wasn’t released as a single in England.  The sound is very different from the blues and rock you associate with them as it’s a pleading pop ballad.  Wish I could tell you more about the 1976 wall-of-sound version by Airlift, but other than what is on the label of my 45 I have nothing to give.

12.Gene Pitney – That Girl Belongs To Yesterday

Jagger and Richards took a page from the Lennon and McCartney book by writing songs for other performers they didn’t intend to record themselves (though not nearly as successfully).  When Mick and Keith started trying to write, their first results were surprisingly poppy compared to the music of The Rolling Stones.  This only got to #49 here in the U.S. for Pitney in January of 1964 and is notable for being the first cover of a Jagger-Richards song to chart here.  At the same time, he attended the recording sessions for their first LP and is credited in the notes for playing piano.  As heard on bootleg, The Stones recorded an early version but rejected the song in Nov. 1963.  The late Pitney (1940 – 2006) was a successful singer and songwriter inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 2002.

13.Cheek – So Much In Love

Had to look at the charts to prove that indeed when everything British was taking over the U.S. airwaves, Ian & The Zodiacs could only take this song to #131 in mid-1965.  That album is in your Dentist’s collection and frankly that version of this song isn’t as good as the more produced U.K. single from ’64 by The Mighty Avengers that charted at #46 and apparently had some Australian success.  They were managed by Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham.  In 1977 the group Cheek released a new recording with more guitar and handclaps which made it an Aussie hit and put it on our list.  Disparate versions were also done by The Herd with Peter Frampton and a Brit going by Charles Dickens whose version isn’t bad either.  There doesn’t seem to be a Stones recording of it.

14.The Dead Daisies – Bitch

This is the newest cover on our list appearing on the 2018 Burn It Down album, their 4th.  Aussie David Lowy in a pretty interesting guy being an acclaimed aviator, a businessman and a guitarist.  He formed The Dead Daisies in 2013 and they have been more of a collective of moving parts revolving around Lowy.  The currently listed band is Doug Aldrich (guitar), Deen Castronovo (drums), Glenn Hughes (bass, vocals) and Lowy.  The original song was on the flip of the #1 Stones single “Brown Sugar” and both were taken from their 1971 classic Sticky Fingers.

15.The Who – The Last Time

When Mick and Keith were put in prison in 1967 on drug charges, The Who recorded “The Last Time” and “Under My Thumb” to release as a single in support of their friends.  The record was only on a U.K. single and charted there at #44 in June ’67.  Reportedly bass is handled by Pete Townshend as John Entwistle was not available.  The 1965 U.S. #9 Stones 45 is far superior and is one of my fave Stones songs.  Brian Jones played the main riff with Keith taking the solo.

16.Julian Lennon – Ruby Tuesday

There are several excellent covers of this Stones record that hinges so much on the recorder played by Brian Jones.  Rod Stewart did it as did The Rotary Connection.  Nazareth released a fine version on The Catch (1984) and Scorpions had a harder guitar take on Comeblack (2011).  For sentimental reasons gonna go with John Lennon’s son Julian and his cover from the 1989 soundtrack to the TV show The Wonder Years.  A #1 in 1966, this is mostly written by Keith and supposedly Brian Jones who wasn’t given credit.

17.Rod Stewart – Street Fighting Man

This controversial Stones single was the U.S. release between “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Honky Tonk Women” when they were really on their game putting out potent 45s.  That it would only get to #48 in ’68 had less to do with the quality of the song and more to do with the lyrics causing radio to shy away from playing it.  This was the lead track from the excellent Beggars Banquet album and strangely wasn’t released as a British single till 1971 at which time as old news it still made it to #21.  Rod included this on his first solo album (titled in the U.S. as The Rod Stewart Album), perhaps his best ever.  His take includes Ron Wood on bass and slide guitar several years before joining The Stones.

18.Gov’t Mule – Brown Sugar

Well here is a Stones cover likely not heard by any but the biggest fans of Warren Haynes’ band away from The Allman Brothers – Gov’t Mule.  This was taken from the April 2015 set Stoned Side Of The Mule Vol. 1&2 which is a vinyl set that comes from a live Halloween show in 2009.  The original record is the next single in line after “Honky Tonk Women” and was from Sticky Fingers (1971), their first for their own label.    For a #1 single, the lyrics were pretty controversial about slavery, whipping and sex.

19.Quireboys – Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)

Quireboys are a throwback to the days of guitar-based hard rock and are still going with only leader Spike left from their mid-80s original line-up (long serving guitarist Guy Griffin is still a member too).  Produced by Jim Cregan who played with Rod Stewart, this live track was also overseen by Ron Nevison who also worked with Led Zeppelin and Bad Company.  This song appeared first on the Goats Head Soup record and was lifted as a single which got to #15 early in 1971.  Billy Preston who had recorded with The Beatles played clavinet for The Stones.

20.Linda Ronstadt – Tumbling Dice

Your Dentist admits to running hot and cold on Linda Ronstadt simply because she build her career covering songs I preferred by the original artists plus I like harder rock and roll.  At this point in her career (Simple Dreams 1977) she was starting to finally rock a bit and covered this 1972 Exile On Main Street #7 hit.  Ronstadt charted at #32.  It is said that the Stones version took forever to record with as many as 150 takes.  On that track Mick Taylor played bass while Mick and Keith played guitar.

Imitation Hollys – Covering Buddy Holly & The Crickets

Had Buddy Holly’s plane not crashed in an field in Iowa Feb. 3, 1959, Charles Harden “Buddy” Holley (Holly) of Lubbock, TX would have been 84 on Sept. 7th.  ‘What if’ is a stupid game, but you do have to wonder what songs we were deprived of with Buddy’s early passing (or John Lennon’s or Jimi Hendrix’s or…).  Buddy and his band signed with Decca early in 1956 and recorded a couple of unsuccessful singles using studio players chosen by Owen Bradley (released under the name Buddy Holly).   Buddy didn’t like the results and next  took his band to Clovis, NM to Norman Petty’s studios to record.  He was released from Decca in Jan. 1957, but to avoid conflict, “That’ll Be The Day” was released as by The Crickets on Brunswick and it became his first big success in the summer of that year.  He also signed with Coral for records under his own name so till his last year of releases when the releases were all labelled as by Buddy Holly, his records were under two names.  In just a short career, he amassed a large catalog of memorable songs that have stood the test of time.  What follows are some of your RNR Dentist’s fave Buddy Holly covers – feel free to respond with your own list.  An attempt was made to only include songs he wrote till the last three on my list which he performed but didn’t compose.  For most of us younger boomers with no older siblings (I was only 6 when he died) it was via cover versions that we first heard most of these songs.  It is a bit sad to realize how much more successful his music has been since he died.  By the way, in the early days of rock and roll, many producers added their names (or even the names of friends) as co-writers to songs they had no part of writing.  This blogger has no clue if Norman Petty wrote with Buddy or not, but his name is on many of the songs and certainly he did help Buddy shape the sound of his records.

1.The Beatles – Words Of Love

Knowing your blogger’s love of all-things Beatles, you likely are not surprised to see this gorgeous three-part harmony Holly cover that appeared on the U.S. LP VI (or Beatles For Sale for you Brits).  Recorded in Oct. 1964, it came out in Britain in December but not till June 1965 in America.  As a Beatles fanatic, by the way, it is interesting that Holly’s widow says his favorite number was 9 which was also John Lennon’s.  Buddy’s original was recorded in April 1957 and was his first single release under his own name on Coral but didn’t chart (Buddy harmonized with himself on tape).  The Diamonds also charted with it at #13 in 1957 as a doowop.

2.The Rogues – Everyday

This nifty rocker on Columbia could only hit #101 nationally early in 1965 so how my astute drummer buddy DC grabbed a copy as a kid was pure kismet.  Mr. D then hipped me to the record and the young GK went ga-ga for it.  The artist is a pseudonym of Bruce Johnston and Terry Melcher who recorded under their own names as well as The Rogues and The Rip Chords (don’t believe the pictures of the band on the LP covers).  Melcher sings the lead here, but is better known as a producer for Paul Revere & The Raiders, The Byrds, etc. (as well as being Doris Day’s son).  Johnston joined The Beach Boys and wrote the huge Barry Manilow hit “I Write The Songs”.   Buddy originally released his version on the B-side of the #3 Coral hit “Peggy Sue”.  His version was not a stompin’ rocker like The Rogues’ version, but featured a gentle vocal over celeste (played by Vi Petty – Norman’s wife) and knee-slapping.

3.Bobby Fuller Four – Love’s Made A Fool Of You

Bobby Fuller died under mysterious circumstances (supposedly he committed suicide by drinking gasoline) in October 1966 at age 23. Before that he made some excellent pop records including this #26 charter a few months before he passed.  Buddy wrote the song with Bob Montgomery in 1954 but didn’t record it for four years at which time he did a simple version as a demo for The Everly Brothers.  Posthumously it came out with overdubbed instruments (by The Fireballs) in 1964 on the Showcase LP.  The Crickets did record it after Holly died and had a U.K. hit with it in 1959 with lead vocals by Earl Sinks (imitating Buddy).  Several Buddy Holly compilations have mistakenly included that version.

4.Matchbox – Tell Me How

Matchbox is a British rockabilly revival outfit that started in 1971 and had success in Europe but are unknown in the U.S.  This song was from their 1979 self-titled Magnet records album.  They recorded some nifty Holly covers including “You’re The One” from their album Flying Colours that included their excellent U.K. #30 single version of Holly’s “Love’s Made A Fool Of You”.

5.The Hollies – Take Your Time

Graham Nash says his band with lead singer Allan Clarke took their name from Buddy Holly (disputed by others who say it was after the holly plant).  Late in their recording career with Clarke (long after Nash left) they recorded an entire album of covers (1980’s Buddy Holly).  This song comes from the Nash era and was on the 1966 U.S. LP Beat Group! (U.K. Would You Believe).  Holly wrote it (with producer Norman Petty also given credit on the label).  It was released as the B-side to his #37 1958 single “Rave On”.  His version has a prominent (and cheesy, to these ears) organ.

6.The Rolling Stones – Not Fade Away

As the first song the Dentist ever learned how to play on the old Harmony acoustic guitar, this song has special meaning for yours truly.  Mick and the lads pushed the Bo Diddley beat on their version in 1964 with Brian Jones adding tasty harmonica fills.  It was one of their early U.S. chart records at #48 and opened their first American LP (England’s Newest Hitmakers).  The Crickets’ version was more basic and was recorded the same day as “Everyday” in Clovis.  It was the B-side to The Crickets’ 1957 #10 hit “Oh Boy!” and can be found on their LP The “Chirping” Crickets.  Songwriters on the label are Norman Petty and Charles Hardin (Buddy’s real first and middle names).

7.The Astronauts – It’s So Easy

While Linda Ronstadt had the big hit, make mine Boulder’s own frat rockers The Astronauts for this song.  Pretty ballsy to follow your surf hit “Baja” (1963) with a live album of rock to drink 3.2 beer by recorded at their own Club Baja – Everything Is A-OK!.  Lead vocals are handled by bassist Jon “Stormy” Patterson (and my former Dental supply rep with Smart Practice!).  They were never as big nationally as here in Colorado (except in Japan where for a time they were huge).  While The Crickets couldn’t crack the charts with their 1958 single, Ronstadt had the big hit with it in 1977 at #5.  If you get bored, check out my definitive Astronauts history in my March 2015 post.  https://rocknrolldentist.wordpress.com/2015/03/26/the-astronauts-surfin-the-rockies/

8.Foghat – That’ll Be The Day

It would be hard to top Buddy’s #1 hit recording from 1957, but Foghat gave it a go with a rocked up version on their 1974 Energized album (their third for Bearsville records).  The late Lonesome Dave Peverett sings lead.  Linda Ronstadt had a cover hit at #11 late in 1976 from Hasten Down The Wind.   Holly and drummer Jerry Allison are the writers and recorded it originally for Decca in July of 1956 with Sonny Curtis (guitar) and Don Guess (bass).  Decca hated the song and didn’t release it at the time, but since they held the rights to it, the name The Crickets was used the next year when Brunswick released a new version (instead of Buddy Holly).

9.Peter & Gordon – True Love Ways

Showing a more mature style, Holly recorded this ballad in New York with the Dick Jacobs Orchestra four months before his passing at his last recording session.  It wasn’t released on single till June of the following year and became a #25 U.K. hit (no chart in the U.S.).  You could also find this on the Coral LP The Buddy Holly Story, Vol. II (1960).  British Invasion duo Peter (Asher) & Gordon (Waller) had a far lusher version (dumping the mellow sax) make the U.S. charts (#14) as their second hit single of 1965 (the first was “I Go To Pieces”).

10.Bobby Vee – Down The Line

Before The Crickets there was the country bop of Buddy & Bob (Montgomery) with his Junior High pal.  The 18 year old Buddy saw Elvis and suddenly the Heavens opened and he immediately plunged in to rockabilly with “Down The Line”.  He and Bob wrote and recorded this in June of ’55 in Wichita Falls, TX with no real eye to release it.  Years later it was dug up in the search for anything worth adding to vinyl after Buddy’s death.  Overdubs of The Fireballs were added and it came out on the 1965 album Holly In The Hills with an added songwriter in producer Norman Petty before he and Buddy ever met – odd.  Not even 16 when Buddy’s plane went down, Robert Velline of Fargo, ND fashioned his sound after Holly with his first single “Suzie Baby”.  His career started when he and some of his friends volunteered to fill in at the show Buddy was supposed to play after Iowa – Moorhead, MN (they called themselves The Shadows).  Vee never forgot his break and recorded an album on Liberty in 1962 called Bobby Vee Meets The Crickets.  The following year he had the LP I Remember Buddy Holly and in 1999 he recorded the hot rockin’ album Down The Line: A Tribute To Buddy Holly.

11.The Beach Boys – Peggy Sue

This was a minor hit for the former Pendeltones (#59 1978) from the disparaged M.I.U. Album.  Brian Wilson had originally recorded it in ’76 for 15 Big Ones and Al Jardine spruced it for release.  This version is driving rock and roll with a straight drum beat as opposed to the continuous para-diddles performed by co-writer Jerry Allison on Buddy’s take.  Norman Petty was listed as the only other writer when it came out as a Buddy Holly single in 1957 (#3 chart), but after Holly’s death his name too was also to the credits.

12.Santana – Well All Right

From the 1978 Inner Secrets, this arrangement owes a debt to the fine version done by the short-lived Eric Clapton/Steve Winwood band Blind Faith (1969) which added a minor key Russian-feel riff to the original.  Carlos amps it up with some burning guitar and Latin percussion that drives it throughout.  This version was a minor hit in The Netherlands while Buddy’s original was the B-side to his #82 Nov. 1958 chart record “Heartbeat”.

13.The Hullaballoos – Learning The Game

After Holly’s death, a tape he recorded of 14 songs (some in multiple versions) in his apartment with an acoustic guitar was found and subsequently overdubbed a couple of different times for release.  This song was found on the 1960 album The Buddy Holly Story, Vol. II.  With everything British being scooped up in 1964 for the U.S., Ricky Knight & The Crusaders dyed their long hair blonde and were renamed The Hullaballoos.  They did appear many times on the Hullabaloo TV show (note 1 less ‘L’ in the name), but only found minor U.S. success with their biggest hit being another Holly cover “I’m Gonna Love You Too” (#56).  “Learning The Game” was on their second Roulette album The Hullaballoos On Hullabaloo (1965).

14.Mike Berry – Think It Over

Buddy and drummer Jerry Allison wrote this song (the single shows Norman Petty as well) in 1958 and it was a hit for The Crickets at #27.  Vi Petty played the piano on his record as well.  English singer Mike Berry (nee Bourne) recorded two different versions of the Geoff Goddard song “Tribute To Buddy Holly”.  The original Joe Meek production (1961) was banned by the BBC as being morbid but hitting #24 in the U.K. with backing by The Outlaws.  Berry redid it in 1975 and included it on a ’76 Sire records LP here in the U.S. (Rocks In My Head) with this driving version of the old Crickets tune also appearing.

15.Jimmy Gilmer & The Fireballs – Little Baby

Guitarist George Tomsco and his band The Fireballs started in Raton, NM in 1957 and were mainly known for their instrumentals like “Torquay” and “Quite A Party”.  Recording at the same Clovis, NM studio as The Crickets, when producer Norman Petty wanted to overdub more instrumentation to Buddy’s demos and such he turned to The Fireballs in the early ’60s.  When vocalist Jimmy Gilmer joined the band, they changed their name and scored several hits including the #1 1963 “Sugar Shack” and “Bottle Of Wine” (#9 in 1967 again as just The Fireballs).  Buddy recorded “Little Baby” a few days before Christmas in 1957 with co-writer C.W. Kendall on piano.  It was the final song on his 1958 self-titled Coral LP.  While Petty again was added to Kendall’s name as a writer, the LP doesn’t list Holly, but compilations do list him as a writer as well.  Sadly this isn’t available currently on youtube.

16.The Searchers – Listen To Me

With writing credits on the single by Charles Hardin (Holly) and Petty, this was the B-side to Buddy’s single “I’m Gonna Love You Too” in Sept. 1957.  It also appears on his self-titled 1958 LP.  Buddy recorded it at the same July 1, 1957 session that produced “Peggy Sue”.   The Liverpool band The Searchers included this on their second U.K. LP Sugar & Spice in 1963.  In the U.S. they would not become successful till “Needles & Pins” (#8) the following year.  The band took their name from the 1956 John Ford movie The Searchers (1956) in which John Wayne says the line “That’ll Be The Day” which inspired Buddy’s song.

17.Imelda May – I’m Looking For Someone To Love

The three Buddy Holly various artists tribute albums in my collection all seem pretty un-inspired compared to the originals.  That’s not the case with the hot rockabilly of this song by May on the 2011 album Listen To Me: Buddy Holly.  The album was produced by Peter Asher (Peter & Gordon) and also features Ringo Starr and Brian Wilson.  Born Imelda Mary Clabby in Dublin, Ireland, she has been recording since 2003.  With writing credits by Holly and Petty, this was the B-side on the 1957 #1 single for The Crickets “That’ll Be The Day”.  Buddy recorded the two the night of Feb. 24, 1957 (stretching to the next morning) with Jerry Allison on drums and Larry Welborn on bass.

18.The Crickets – Peggy Sue Got Married

The story of Holly sound-alike singer David Box has the same sad ending as Holly’s.  Only 15 when Buddy’s plane crashed, Lubbock resident Box had recorded there with his band The Ravens.  Earl Sinks was the new Crickets lead singer after Buddy, but when guitarist Sonny Curtis was drafted they brought in Box to sing in Buddy’s hiccup style.  He recorded their last Coral single with his (and Ernie Hall’s) song “Don’t Cha Know” as the top side and “Peggy Sue Got Married” as the B-side.   The arrangement sounds just like “Peggy Sue” with Allison’s drum para-diddles.   After leaving The Crickets, Box cut some excellent non-chart Holly-inspired records (i.e. “Little Lonely Summer Girl”).  Box was killed with three others Oct. 23, 1964 when the small plane they were riding in crashed in a Houston field.  Sole writer Buddy included this song on the tape of demos found in his apartment after he died.  Two different attempts were made to overdub it afterwards – on June 30, 1959 (producer Jack Hansen) and a few years later with The Fireballs (producer Norman Petty).  To confuse things, Coral released the Buddy Holly version as single 9-62134 in July of 1959 while The Crickets version was released the next year as 9-62238.

19.Marshall Crenshaw – Crying, Waiting, Hoping

This was the B-side of the posthumous Buddy Holly single “Peggy Sue Got Married” which was taken from the apartment demos and overdubbed to try to cash in by Coral records after his 1959 plane-crash.  Detroit-born pop-singer Marshall Crenshaw (“Someday, Someway”, “Whenever You’re On My Mind”) portrayed Buddy in the 1987 La Bamba movie about Richie Valens who was killed in the same Feb. 3, 1959 crash.   In the movie, Crenshaw as Buddy performs this song at the final concert in the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, IA which was nonsense.  By the way, the last song in Buddy’s set-list that night was “Brown Eyed Handsome Man”.

20.Billy Swan – You’re The One

The story goes that when Buddy went home to Lubbock for Christmas in 1958, he dropped by radio station KLLL where someone bet him he couldn’t write a song in 30 minutes.  This song was the result and he recorded it with just his acoustic guitar while at the studio.  It was posthumously overdubbed and appears on the B-side of his last single of ‘new’ material (A-side was “Love Is Strange”).  It was on the 1969 LP Giant as well.  Missouri-born Swan’s first success was as the songwriter of the #7 1962 hit for Clyde McPhatter “Lover Please”.  He was successful mostly as a country music writer plus he also produced Tony Joe White’s “Polk Salad Annie” (#8 1969).   His first hit as a performer was the #1 (pop and country) “I Can Help” in 1974 that had an retro feel due to the Farfisa organ.  His LPs included many covers of oldies including this Holly tune on his self-titled 1976 Monument records release.

21.Paul McCartney – Maybe Baby

This is a little-known Paul McCartney-Jeff Lynne (ELO) collaboration produced for the 2000 film Maybe Baby.  The Crickets’ version made it to #17 on Brunswick early in 1958 with a Holly and Petty writing credit on the label.  It has a rockabilly feel.  The band was  Buddy Holly on vocals and lead guitar with Jerry Allison on drums, Joe B. Mauldin on bass and Niki Sullivan on rhythm guitar.

22.Lee Rocker – Lonesome Tears

Stray Cats bassist Lee Rocker (nee Drucker) has put out some excellent rockabilly albums on his own and frankly your Dentist prefers his vocals to Brian Setzer’s in The Cats.  Lee recorded this on his 2012 album Night Train To Memphis.  The original was the B-side to The Crickets’ Sept. 1958 single “It’s So Easy” that didn’t chart here and sports a Holly and Petty writing credit.

23.Fleetwood Mac – Buddy’s Song

The talented Jeremy Spencer of the early Fleetwood Mac seemed to love ’50s rock as much as he loved the blues.  Here he adopts a perfectly hiccuped Holly delivery from the fine 1970 Kiln House album (yes, there was some great Mac music before Buckingham and Nicks!).  This song is interesting in that the lyrics weave in many titles of Buddy Holly songs.  The tune is an amalgam of “Peggy Sue Got Married” with the middle from “Maybe Baby” and “Rave On”.  Many online sites ascribe the song as a Spencer original which is ridiculous as it actually appeared much earlier on the 1963 Bobby Vee album I Remember Buddy Holly.  The story goes that Waylon Jennings (bassist on Buddy’s last tour) wrote the song and gave Holly’s mom Ella Holley the writing credit to help her out financially.  Whatever the story, it is a fun song.

24.Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – Rave On

“Rave On” was a rocker recorded by Buddy after the co-writer Sonny West had recorded it earlier in 1958.  Holly had previously recorded and had a hit with another West song “Oh Boy” (West’s original was titled “All My Love”).  On both songs Petty added his name as a writer.  West says that he took the title of this song from a line in Carl Perkins’ “Dixie Fried”.  While only a minor summer hit in the U.S. at #37 in ’58, it did hit #5 in the U.K. where Buddy was much more successful.  The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 1970 version was on their best album Uncle Charlie & His Dog Teddy (“Mr. Bojangles”, “Some Of Shelly’s Blues”, etc.).  It was sung by Jimmy Ibbotson.

25.Freddie & The Dreamers – It Doesn’t Matter Anymore

There are so many other great covers of songs that Holly recorded but didn’t write like “Raining In My Heart” (Dave Clark 5), “Rock Around With Ollie Vee” (Gary Busey), “Heartbeat” (The Knack), “I’m Gonna Love You Too” (The Hullaballoos) and “Oh Boy” (The Stray Cats).  Let’s end this thing with the single Buddy had out at the time of his passing which he did perform at his last concert.  The single climbed to #13 in the wake of his death while in the U.K. it hit #1.  Paul Anka wrote the song for Holly and is said to have donated the royalties to his widow Maria Elena.  Freddie & The Dreamers were one of the first music acts the young Dentist became a fan of (long before falling under the sway of The Beatles).  It must have been the choreography and indeed they headlined the first concert I attended (thanks to old pal Rick Steele and his dad who drove us).  The late Freddie Garrity’s band hit #36 in early ’65 here in the U.S. with this cover version.  Linda Ronstadt also charted with it at #47 as the B-side to her 1975 single “When Will I Be Loved”.

25 ARCANE INSTRUMENTS OF ROCK ‘N ROLL

This is an update of an article your’s truly wrote for Goldmine back in 2006.  My how things have changed as my first sentence talks about a standard rock band setup.   Kids don’t need musical instruments anymore as in the world of hip-hop its all about beats.  If you’re an old guy like me you can still remember playing music and not sampling it.  I originally thought of this as a bit of a tribute to my old band teacher from Broomfield High School who recently passed away – Richard Hays.  Mr. Hays believed in my musical talents and made high school worthwhile for the young Rock ‘N Roll Dentist (oboe in concert band, piano in dance band, sax in stage band  and bass drum in marching band – and of course guitar/vocals with my drummer pal Mr. D driving his neighbors the Watkins family crazy with the noise).  We already did one blog devoted to Bagpipes (Sept. 2019) so here are 25 more unusual instruments used on a rock record.

When you first start following bands, you’re aware that there is a guy beating on a set of drums behind a few other guys playing guitars hooked up to amps.  As you get old enough to tell the differences, you may figure out that one guy is playing a guitar with only 4 (or 5) strings and that they are alot fatter (the strings – not the players) – bassists.  Delving a bit deeper, you may have seen combos with sax squawkers, piano diddlers and organ tamers.  That’s generally it for the instruments of rock – right? How wrong you are maraca-breath!  Rock instrumentation often got pretty weird back in the day (especially during the psychedelic ’60s) and that is the thrust of this article.

1.OBOE/BASSOON (the double reeds)

As a kid, this oboe player was plenty excited that there were guys also playing the double reed in rock bands like The New York Rock Ensemble – Juilliard trained Michael Kamen and Martin Fulterman (a.k.a. Mark Snow who composes themes for shows like The X-Files).  Heck, what made Sonny & Cher’s “I Got You Babe” a memorable song was the oboe riff.  Look for it at the beginning of my fave Everly Brothers song “Bowling Green”.  The bigger and deeper double reed instrument, the bassoon, also gave a distinctive sound to “The Tears Of A Clown” by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles and “Winchester Cathedral” by The New Vaudeville Band.  There is a nice interplay between the two instruments on Donovan’s “Jennifer Juniper”.

2.RECORDER

While we are on the subject of “Fool On The Hill” – over top of the bass harmonica, Paul played a recorder.  This instrument is familiar to every elementary school kid and has been around since the Middle Ages.  It is a straight flute-like instrument that you blow in to as opposed to the flute which has a hole you blow across (Hilary is using one while Brenna is using a smaller whistle-like ocarina in the picture).  Brian Jones of the Stones also played a notable part on “Ruby Tuesday” as did Terry Kirkman of The Association on “Along Comes Mary”.  Yes used it in the song “I’ve Seen All Good People” while Led Zeppelin used it in the quiet earlier part of “Stairway To Heaven”.

3.OCARINA

This is a small oddly-shaped simple instrument that has between 4 to 12 holes and has been around for centuries.  The Transverse (also called the sweet potato) is the best-known style of ocarina.  Although it hasn’t been used much in rock, its biggest moments were during the solo on The Troggs’ “Wild Thing”, “R.O.C.K. In The USA” (John Mellencamp) and the main riff to “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly” by Hugo Montenegro.  Apparently many video games have used it as well such as several The Legend Of Zelda games and Angry Birds Evolution.  This video shows just how old and out of touch your’s truly is as many people love it while I think it is just plain creepy.

4.COWBELL

Thanks to Christopher Walken’s requesting “MORE COWBELL!” on the spoof of The Blue Oyster Cult’s recording “Don’t Fear The Reaper” from Saturday Night Live in 2000, everybody knows this instrument.  Years ago, somebody figured out that if you take the large bell from old bossy’s neck and remove the clapper in the middle, you can pound the heck out of it and get a pretty cool tick tock sound that drives a band.  Check out “I Call You Name” – The Beatles, “Time Has Come Today” – The Chambers Brothers, “Mississippi Queen” – Mountain, “Honky Tonk Woman” – The Rolling Stones, etc.  Thanks bossy!  This topic is good enough that later on we will likely devote and entire post to it.

5.AUTOHARP

Anyone who saw The Lovin’ Spoonful on TV in their early days doing “Do You Believe In Magic”remembers seeing a smiling John Sebastian hugging an autoharp by his chin in contrast to Zal Yanovsky on guitar.  Sebastian played it on several songs and even guested on the Randy VanWarmer hit “Just When I Needed You Most” in 1979.  Sebastian used another odd instrument on the hit “Rain On The Roof” – an Irish Harp.  The autoharp was more used in country and folk styles as played by people like Mother Maybelle Carter, Dolly Parton and Bryan Bowers (The Dillards).  More recently Corinne Bailey Rae has played it.

6.JUG

For a time in the ’60s Jug bands were all the rage (“Jug Band Music” by The Lovin’ Spoonful on the Daydream LP paid tribute).  The best known would have been Jim Kweskin & The Jug Band with Fritz Richmond on the jug.  “In The Summertime” and the rest of the music by Mungo Jerry had the sound of Paul King blowing over the hole in a deep (presumably brown) jug.  This instrument didn’t really catch on in rock as musicians would likely rather drink from the jug than play one, but the psychedelic ’60s band The 13th Floor Elevators actually did have an electric jug player in Tommy Hall.

7.WOBBLEBOARD/DIDGERIDOO

Hard to believe but there was a short-lived craze that was sparked by Rolf Harris’ hit “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport” in 1963.  Kids wanted a flexible piece of Masonite board to wobble up and down to make a woopa-woopa noise (I kid you not).  While it fit perfectly with some of his ‘abo’ songs, there weren’t too many other uses which is probably why we gave our wobbleboards to dad to make birdcages from.  Amazingly he had a U.K. #7 hit with that instrument again in 1993 doing Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven”.  Harris also played the Australian Aboriginal wind instrument the didgeridoo guesting on Kate Bush’s LP The Dreaming. In 2014, Harris went to jail for 3 years for allegedly playing with under-aged girls.  Didgeridon’t, Rolf!

8.CLAVIOLINE/MUSITRON

These are 2 primitive synthesizers that sound similar to an organ with a wheezing head cold.  The most famous use of the clavioline would be on the #1 1962 song “Telstar” by The Tornadoes (played by non-member Geoff Goddard).  John Lennon also played this keyboard on “Baby You’re A Rich Man”.  The musitron was Max Crook’s modification which he played on Del Shannon’s records like “Runaway” in 1961.  The song “More” by Kai Winding (1963 #2) features a similar sounding instrument – the French ondioline.  Artie Butler played this as well on several Tommy James & The Shondells records including “Mirage”.

9.MARIMBA

While there are other famous examples of songs using this hammered-block instrument, the best remembered has to be “Under My Thumb” by The Rolling Stones.  Brian Jones brought this and other interesting instruments to the band.  Julius Wechter (a member of The Wrecking Crew backing musicians) is the most famous marimba player from the ’60s.  With his Baja Marimba Band, he recorded songs like “Comin’ In The Back Door” and “Ghost Riders In The Sky”.  Benny Andersson played the marimba on “Mamma Mia” by his group ABBA while Joe Porcaro played it on Toto’s “Africa” and Ray Cooper on “Island Girl” (Elton John).  Artie Tripp III was known as Ed Marimba when he exited The Mothers Of Invention to play with Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, by the way.

10.STEEL DRUMS

Fun factoid for your next platter party, kids:  Standard drums are classed as membranophones while steel drums (a.k.a. pans) are idiophones – resonant solid material.  Producer Ron Richards of The Hollies knew a guy in a Caribbean steel drum band so he brought him into the studio to record the solo for the 1967 hit “Carrie Anne”.  Loggins and Messina also feature steel drums on the song “Vahevala”.  Island music uses this as well and the songs of Jimmy Buffett lend themselves well to steel drums.

11.SITAR

Of course Beatle fans all know that George Harrison brought back a sitar from India and sweated out a suitably Eastern part for John’s “Norwegian Wood”.  Brian Jones followed suit for the Stones on “Paint It Black” which was the first U.S. #1 (1966) record to feature sitar.  Dave Mason used it on the Traffic songs “Hole In My Shoe” and “Paper Sun”.  For Western music the sitar’s place always seems to be in psychedelia, but never really more than that perhaps due to the difficulty in playing it.  A simpler instrument to play is a modification of a guitar known as the electric sitar.  It was used on several hits including the 1968 records “Hooked On A Feeling” by B.J. Thomas (played by Reggie Young) and “Games People Play” by Joe South.

12.HOOTER/MELODICA

The hooter (a.k.a. the melodica) is not what you think, owl lovers.  Its a harmonica-like instrument that looks like a recorder with a keyboard attached instead of holes down the front.  It lends its name to the group that used it on many of their songs including “Satellite” (The Hooters).  Jan & Dean used it earlier on fun songs like “Skateboarding, Part 2” from the 1964 LP The Little Old Lady From Pasadena.  At one point in the 1964 movie A Hard Day’s Night, John Lennon plays the melodica in their hotel room and seems to find what would become the intro to “Strawberry Fields Forever” three years later.

13.KAZOO

This can either take the form of a comb and paper combo or a cheap colorful plastic piece you often would find as a prize at a local fair.  In both cases you kind of hum into one side and an obnoxious buzzing noise comes out the other side.  Paul McCartney was seemingly oblivious to the obnoxious quotient in 1973 when he played it on Ringo Starr’s hit “You’re Sixteen”.  He wasn’t the first to ruin a song with it, however, as Dion’s “Little Diane” also featured it in 1962.  The notes to the Ace CD Runaround Sue, The Best Of The Rest sums up most people’s feelings – “Hands up those who hated that kazoo on this song!”  There actually are some tolerable uses of kazoo:  The Mothers Of Invention (Frank Zappa) on the LP Freak Out, “Cross Town Traffic” by Jimi Hendrix, “Lovely Rita” by The Beatles, “When I’m Dead & Gone” by McGuiness Flint, etc.

14.MANDOCELLO

Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick used this guitar/mandolin cousin on the best song from their 1977 debut album which gave the song its name.  Patterson Hood of Drive-By Truckers plays one as does Jaco Pastorius of Weather Report and Richie Sambora (on the Bon Jovi song “Lay Your Hands on Me”).

15.GUIRO

This is pronounced wee-row and is a grooved fishy/bullet-shaped hollow wooden thingy with holes in it to hold on to that is scraped by a stick to produce a scratchy sound.  This Latin American percussion instrument turns up in The Rollins Stones’ song “Gimme Shelter” plus starts off the song “Combination Of The Two” by Big Brother & The Holding Company on their LP Cheap Thrills.  It is used in “Do It Again” by Steely Dan and Lowell George (Little Feat) played it on the Frank Zappa song “Chocolate Halvah” on the album You Can’t Do That On Stage, Vol. 5.  A weird Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band moment was when Artie Trip played the guiro on stage and called it The Mascara Snake after a former band member then someone else would grab it and call it The Mascara Fake.

16.CASTANETS & CLAVES

More Latin percussion here, kids.  Basically castanets are two hallow shells held by a strap that when banged together make a clicking noise.  The best use in rock was on the Roxy Music song “Dance Away” and much earlier (along with the claves) on “Little Darlin'” by The Diamonds (1957).  They also can be heard on “Under The Boardwalk” by the Drifters and “Be My Baby” by The Ronettes.  Claves are percussive instruments that are a set of two resonant sticks or dowels that are clicked together.  I stole this part from Wikipedia – “Traditionally, the striking clave is called el macho (‘the male’) and the resting clave is called la hembra (‘the female’).  Fascinating, huh?  At any rate you Who fans know this sound from 1968’s “Magic Bus” while Beatle fans know it from “And I Love Her”.   There is also a nice click throughout “All Right Now” by Free.  If you want a dose of both, check out Dawn’s “Knock Three Times”.

17.MELLOTRON

This is your blogger’s fave instrument when played loudly in a progressive rock band and will show up in a blog post all by itself later.  It looks like a small organ but is a very different animal.  Developed in the U.K. in 1963, the mellotron plays whatever is recorded on a magnetic tape strip of about 7-8 seconds in length.  The cabinet holds a series of tapes that play one note and can be a flute, a violin or even a choral tone that is activated when you push a key like on an organ.  A spring pulls the tape back and over time it can develop flutter and variations giving the pure tone an otherworldly feel.  While Graham Bond and Manfred Mann used it early in a rock context, most people heard first on the intro to The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” and on the LP Days Of Future Passed by the Moody Blues.  The sound brings chills to the RNR Dentist on records by King Crimson, Marillion, Barclay James Harvest, etc. with a personal fave being the title track from Hero & Heroine by The Strawbs.  As synths became better, it fell out of favor as it is a finicky instrument due to the tapes and it is hard to take on the road.  Talking to Dave Bainbridge who played the great mellotron part on “We Have The Power” on the last LP by The Strawbs (The Ferryman’s Curse), he let on that the sound of the mellotron is now mostly recreated by a synth that samples it which is what he uses.  There are still some believers in old-school mellotrons like Steven Wilson and Opeth.  By the way, there were other samples on original mellotrons including the Spanish guitar flourish heard before “The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill” on The Beatles’ White Album.

18.BASS HARMONICA

We all know a harmonica (or harp) is a multi-holed instrument blown in to make reeds move harmonically.  The deeper, larger and less-known cousin to the classic mouth organ is the bass harmonica which shows up on the Beach Boys LP Pet Sounds as played by Tommy Morgan (“I Know There’s An Answer” a.k.a. “Hang On To Your Ego”).  The Beatles co-opted the sound for “Fool On The Hill” (ostensibly played by Lennon & Harrison).  Charlie McCoy played this on the Simon & Garfunkel song “The Boxer”.

19.ELECTRIC GARGLE/NOSE/CHEEK

These body instruments appear on songs by The Lovin’ Spoonful and The Jefferson Airplane respectively (if not respectfully).  Zal Yanovsky wasn’t sure what to do on the solo break for “Bald Headed Lena” (Daydream) so in keeping with the lighthearted sound he gargled it (pretty darn musically, too).  Not to be outdone (and a little farther up on the face), the song “Lather” (Crown Of Creation) features Gary Blackman on nose solo following the line “snorting the best licks in town”.  Daughter Brenna reminded me that you can’t forget the critical cheek pop sound you make in the song “Lollipop” by The Chordettes (#2 1958).  Sometimes the best instruments for a song are staring back in the mirror.

20.ASHTRAY & COKE BOTTLE

In 1965 The Beach Boys used these simple percussion instruments on the Party album but were actually trumped a few months earlier by The Dixie Cups using the same combo on the song “Iko Iko”.  By the way, Jimmy Ibbotson came close to this by playing a cardboard soda box on 2002’s Will The Circle Be Unbroken, Vol. 3.  

21.THEREMIN

While we are talking about The Beach Boys, let’s not forget this tremulous instrument from their tremendous record “Good Vibrations”.  Russian Physicist Leon Theremin invented this oscillating electronic instrument in the early 1900’s.  It involves the waving of hands around two metal rods to create weird otherworldly sounds.  We mainly remember it creating eerie effects for many ’50s sci-fi movies.  Paul Tanner plays a variation of this instrument (the electro-theremin) on the coda of “Good Vibrations”.  Paul Conly & John Emelin of the ’60s Colorado band Lothar & The Hand People played the theremin on 2 LPs for Capitol.  Tesla use it on “Edison’s Medicine” on the 1991 platinum album Psychotic Supper.  Brian Jones used it in 1967 on the LP Their Satanic Majesties Request while Jimmy Page often used it onstage with Led Zeppelin.

22.FRENCH HORN

This instrument is common in orchestras but not in rock bands.  Al Kooper played a memorable into for The Rolling Stones song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”.  The Who’s John Entwistle actually studied this in school and put it to good use on Tommy.  Alan Civil lent his horn to “For No One” by The Beatles while The Monkees used it on “Shades Of Gray” (Headquarters).   It is said that rapper and Flat Earther B.o.B. can also play the French Horn (who knew?).

23.CELESTE/GLOCKENSPIEL

The first is a tinkly-sounding keyboard instrument (also known as a celesta) and looks very much like a small piano.  The mallets of a piano strike strings while the mallets of a celeste strike metal plates giving a heavenly sound.  It dominates “Everyday” by Buddy Holly and features his producer Norman Petty’s wife Vi.  The Cascades used it on “Rhythm Of The Rain” while possibly the most ethereal use of all was on Nick Drake’s “Northern Sky”, his most beautiful song.  The non-keyboard version of a glockenspiel is a row (or rows) of metal plates or tubes that are struck by a mallet creating a ringing noise.   The Beatles use is on “Being Of The Benefit Of Mr. Kite”  and “Only A Northern Song”.  Rush has used it alot over the years, but the song “Born To Run” and “Hungry Heart” really show the tinkling sound as played by Danny Federici of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.  My favorite Beach Boys song benefits from it as well – “Sloop John B”.  The keyboard version is actually very similar to a celeste but louder (the group Gryphon used it on several records).  A strange 2 person version was played by Sailor that they referred to as the Nickelodeon.  Check out their 1976 record “The Old Nickelodeon Sound”.

24.DULCIMER

Let’s bring in The Strawbs again.  Dave Cousins (who had started them as a folk band) handled this old-timey instrument (played with a stick moving up and down the fretboard).  It has a drone-like sound similar in that respect to a stringed bagpipe.  Cousins used an electrified version for the song “Benedictus” on Grave New World (1972).  The type used here and also played by Brian Jones on “Lady Jane” by The Rolling Stones and Joni Mitchell on her 1971 album Blue is a fretted Appalachian dulcimer.  This is different than the similar named but unrelated hammered dulcimer that featured heavily in one of the best songs from 2019 “The Other Side” by Edenbridge from their Dynamind album.

25.GONG

Let’s end this thing with an appropriate bash on the gong, an instrument that likely goes back to 6th century China.  You see one on the top of the equipment van on the back cover of Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma (and you hear one on that LP too).  The most memorable use is at the beginning and end of The Moody Blues’ 1967 LP Days Of Future Passed but many other bands such as Queen and Van Halen couldn’t resist smashing ones at times either.  Progressive bands like Rush, Jade Warrior, Yes and Emerson, Lake & Palmer (to name a few) also made use of the gong.  No clue, however, if the spacey-jazz rock band Gong actually played one.

Covered In (Chuck) Berrys

We lost some pretty significant rock and rollers in 2017.  How can we lose Tom Petty so soon – what a tragedy (plus he was only a couple of years older than me – yikes)?!  Luckily I got to meet him backstage at Fiddler’s Green and talk a bit back in the day – a good guy.  Fats Domino was a gentleman I regret I never saw in concert and really deserves to get more respect as a father of rock and roll music.  Just go back and listen to his first hit “The Fat Man” and realize it was recorded in December 1949!!!  Oh, and I was sorry to see Pat DiNizio the lead singer of the Smithereens passed at only 62 years old.  Having seen that band at the Soiled Dove Underground back in June, it was a shock what bad shape Pat’s nerve damage had left him in though he still put on a fine show without being able to use his arms.  “Top Of The Pops” is an example of some of the great music that his band created – he will be missed.  We also lost one of the greatest early rock and rollers in Chuck Berry who actually came out with a credible posthumous album in 2017 (Chuck) at age 90 – showing age doesn’t mean you can’t still rock.

If it wasn’t for Chuck Berry I honestly don’t know what all us wannabe rockers of the ’60s and ’70s would have warmed up to.  His songs have become such standards that you forget they haven’t always existed – someone actually wrote them once.  My drumming buddy Dan Campbell and I would always start off jamming to some old Berry tune like “Johnny B Goode” which makes me wonder what today’s kids in bands warm up with (if they still even play guitars and drums – but that’s another topic).  Reading about his life unfortunately proves that you don’t have to be a good person to be a good music star – he was in jail three different times and barely escaped a fourth trip later in life for some rather unsavory allegations.  Admittedly this was an era, however, where being a black man mixing with whites was seen as reason enough to be put in jail.  He may well have had a reason to be angry at the world, but he seemed to be pretty hard to work with it you hear the stories told by musicians like Keith Richards who idolized him.  His recording career started late for your usual rocker as he was nearly 29 when he had his first hit in “Maybellene” back in 1955 but he made up for lost time quickly and became a rarity for early rock in writing his own hits while playing the classic guitar licks that made the music move.  His songs always had two things going for them – the riff and the story.  It always seemed that if his songs were about love, that love was usually a car and it was generally a Cadillac.

I was a kid who discovered rock and roll during the ’60s British Invasion which meant early American rock fed back to us from across the Atlantic, it seemed fitting to do tribute via a list of my favorite Chuck Berry covers.  Note that Dave Edmunds’ “Run Run Rudolph” would have come in at #1 if I included Berry songs he didn’t write but merely performed, but since it was written by Johnny Marks and Marvin Brodie I chose to omit it.

1.No Money Down – Dave Edmunds

I am shocked that this track doesn’t exist on youtube or else I would supply a link.  This was a live performance that ended side one of Dave’s second solo album Subtle as a Flying Mallet (1975).  He was backed here by the band Brinsley Schwarz who featured bass player Nick Lowe who would later partner with Edmunds on some of their best music under their own names and as Rockpile.  The song was originally released in 1956 and is classic Berry in that it tells a story about a dude who trades from a beat up Ford to a Cadillac with no money down.

2.Rock & Roll Music – The Beatles

Once again there is no link to the studio version due to the legal power of the Fabs so go out and buy the record if you don’t already have it.  John Lennon’s vocal is one of his best owing to his having performed this stompin’ rocker hundreds of times in sweaty clubs.  The song appears on my fave Fabs U.S. LP Beatles ’65.  Berry’s original went to #8 in 1957 and was an ode to how much he loved the music.

3. School Day (Ring! Ring! Goes the Bell) – Gary Glitter

For someone already 30, Chuck managed to sum up what the kids were feeling at the time – surviving the day in class so they could go out and rock and roll with their friends.  His version titled simply “School Day” hit #5 in 1957.  Americans mostly know Gary Glitter from the ‘HEY’ song that many football teams have played after scoring a touchdown (“Rock & Roll, Part 2”). His debut 1972 album (Glitter) that featured that song also had this great Berry cover.  Glitter’s legal problems with pedophilia gives this a bit of an unsavory aspect, but there is no denying that producer Mike Leander’s rockin’ music is the real deal.

4.Reelin’ & Rockin’ – The Dave Clark Five

It wasn’t the Beatles, but rather the DC5 that won me over to the joys of rock and roll music back in 1965.  The pounding drums, the booming bass, the wailing sax and Mike Smith (who had the greatest rock voice of all the Brit invaders) turned this into a stompin’ #23 US hit in ’65.  Berry’s original was recorded in December 1957 and was the b-side to “Sweet Little Sixteen”.  A live version became his last chart single at #27 in 1972 four months after his surprise #1 with “My Ding-A-Ling”.  The song was about the unabashed joy of hour after hour of rockin’.

5.Carol – The Rolling Stones

Keith Richard is an unabashed Berry-phile even going so far as to organize a 60th birthday all-star concert in 1986 that was the centerpiece of the excellent ’87 movie Hail! Hail! Rock & Roll.  The first Rolling Stones album was known as England’s Newest Hit Makers and it finds a Stones group very different from the confident Glimmer Twins led outfit of just a few years later.  This band played mostly straight oldies and R&B covers.  I always say handclaps can make a good song great and the proof is here.  Berry’s single version went to #18 in 1958 and had a guy begging a girl named Carol to give him a chance to prove he could learn to dance.  Strong stuff, kids.

6.You Can’t Catch Me – Love Sculpture

Dave Edmunds first came to prominence in England with this trio playing a mix of blues, oldies and electrified classical music.  This crazed cover comes from their second album Forms & Feelings (1970) leading off side two.  While Chuck’s original single didn’t chart in 1956, it was recorded at the same session as “Maybellene” and “Wee Wee Hours” which are both name-checked in the lyrics.  The songs content is about cruising out on the New Jersey Turnpike and was used in the 1956 movie Rock, Rock, Rock with Berry lip-syncing to it.  It was John Lennon referencing the line “here come a flat-top, he was groovin’ up with me” in “Come Together” that got him into legal hot-water which is a pity as he was simply paying tribute to the man who wrote so many songs he loved.

7.Johnny B Goode – The Beach Boys

The Beach Boys first #1 album came in 1964 and was recorded live at the Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento, California.  The final song on that album was a ripping version of what may be the quintessential Chuck Berry song (and shows those So-Cal guys could really play).  Chuck’s single hit #8 on the charts in 1958 and may be one of the most ubiquitous songs every young band tried to play back in the day.  Berry pretty much took the intro from an old R&B song by Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five – “Aint That Just Like A Woman”.  The lyrics are about a young man from Louisiana who plays a mean guitar and dreams of seeing his name in lights as a star.  Johnny Winter did a pretty hot version as well on his 1970 live album.

8.Maybellene – Foghat

After the great Savoy Brown album Looking In, three of the members went off and formed Foghat which became a big success known primarily for their boogie stylings.  This version of Chuck Berry’s first hit rocks like a mother and comes from the ‘hat’s debut in 1972 (produced by Dave Edmunds).  The original was a #5 hit in 1955 and helped establish rock and roll as the music of the  youth of the era.  Berry adapted an old Western swing tune “Ida Red” and made it into a song about romance and cars – universal themes for the kids.  Recorded May 21, 1955 for Chess records in Chicago, the lineup was Chuck Berry – vocals, guitar, Johnnie Johnson – piano, Willie Dixon – bass, Jerome Green – maracas and Ebby Hardy – drums.

9.Sweet Little Sixteen – Ten Years After

Following their star turn in the movie about the Woodstock Festival, Ten Years After (and especially guitarist Alvin Lee) took the leap from cult status to stardom.  Their 1970 album Watt was an okay studio affair, but it was the final track recorded live at the Isle Of Wight Festival that leapt out of the speakers.  Lee tears through an amped up version of an oldie that really tore the place up.  The song was Berry’s a second biggest chart record climbing to #2 in 1958 and tells the story of a teenager obsessed with collecting autographs of her fave stars.

10.Come On – The Rolling Stones

Released June 7, 1963 in the UK, this was the first single by a new Decca Records band who were named after a Muddy Waters song.  The Stones’ version made it to #21 in the UK but never hit in the US.  The original recording by Berry in 1961 about how everything has gone to heck after losing his girl never charted in the US either as frankly music had changed from rock and roll to the greasy Frankies and Bobbys.

11.Dear Dad – Dave Edmunds

From my fave Edmunds LP D.E. 7  (1982) comes this spiffy rocker about a young man who wants to trade in his barely adequate Ford automobile and needs permission from daddy (who happens to be a Ford by birth).  Berry had a short resurgence after getting out of jail for the second time and this single came out at the tail end of that period – 1965.  The nearly 40-year-old Berry barely scraped the charts at #95 in the face of the British Invasion and folk-rock so kudos to Dave for digging up this lesser known gem.

12.Roll Over Beethoven – The Electric Light Orchestra

Jeff Lynne is no slouch when it comes to rock and roll with his group ELO’s music known by everybody of a certain age with over half of their 50 singles charting in the US (in the ’70s and ’80s mainly).  Roy Wood of the Move had the original idea to create a band akin to the “I Am The Walrus” Beatles with cellos alongside guitars.  When he brought Jeff Lynne on board they put out the first ELO album before Wood left to form Wizzard.  Edited from a lengthy rockin’ workout, this was their first chart single in the US (# 42 in 1973).  When Berry released the single in 1956 it went to # 29.  It is said that he wrote the lyrics as a swipe at his sister Lucy’s training classical music.

13.Bye Bye Johnny – Status Quo

Forever relegated to essentially one hit wonder status in the US (1968 – “Pictures Of Matchstick Men”), in the UK they have had more hits than any other rock band (something like 69).  Their style is no-nonsense boogie rock and roll and this cover of Berry’s non-charting 1960 single is classic Quo.  It comes as the last track on their eighth album On The Level (1975).  The lyrics update the saga of Johnny B Goode with him leaving Louisiana to head out west to stardom while making his mom sad.

14.Nadine – Juicy Lucy

This was an album track from the band’s self-titled 1969 debut which had more success in the UK than over here.  When Chuck came out of jail in 1963 his first release was “Nadine (Is That You)” in February of the following year.  Surprisingly it managed to chart at #23 in the face of maelstrom that was the initial frenzy of the British Invasion sweeping the US.  The lyrics are pretty clever in covering the saga of a man trying to catch his girl on foot and in a taxi.

15.30 Days – Shakin’ Stevens & The Sunsets

Talk about a huge star in the UK that nobody much knows in the US, Shaky tried for elusive stardom till he was 32 when his career suddenly skyrocketed tallying 33 top 40 singles over there in the process.  This cover of Chuck Berry’s “30 Days  (To Come Back Home)” via Ronnie Hawkins’ rework as “40 Days” was from his first album (the wishfully titled A Legend).  That this was produced by Mr. Dave Edmunds is no coincidence as it was straight out classic rock and roll – a style that Edmunds excels at.  Back in 1970, however, it was ten years before it’s time and the LP flopped.  Frankly the same could be said for Berry’s original single as inexplicably it too failed to chart coming as his followup single not long after the success of “Maybellene” which it sounds a lot like.  The lyrics talk about getting his woman back home in thirty days.

16.Memphis – Lonnie Mack

Johnny Rivers would take his vocal version to #2 the following year, but I prefer this instrumental attack on what was a fairly low-key Berry original.  Guitarist Lonnie McIntosh was born in Indiana to sharecroppers and dropped out of school at age thirteen.  He became a working musician scrambling for what he could get before landing as a session guitarist for Fraternity records.  His amped up instro went to #5 in 1963.  Berry’s song was released in 1959 as “Memphis, Tennessee” with no chart action (it did hit in 1963 in the UK at #6) and told the tale of a man trying to talk to his little girl Marie who he is no longer able to see due to a split with her mom.  Pretty adult stuff for the era.

17.Sweet Little Rock ‘N’ Roller – Rod Stewart

Berry tells the story of how rock and roll music has overtaken the little nine-year old daughter of a well-respected man becoming the only thing in life she cares about.  The single only managed a peak of #47 in late 1958.  It was the only real bright spot on Stewart’s 1974 album Smiler – his last for Mercury records.  It was straight ahead three chord rock and roll which Rod excelled at before he decided he was sexy, etc.

18.Tulane – Joan Jett & The Blackhearts

Straight ahead three chord rock and roll sounded mighty attractive coming out of this pint-sized leather demon (who was just as nice as could be to my friend G Brown and I backstage at Red Rocks years ago).  This was an album track from her sixth studio album after leaving the Runaways – Up Your Alley (1988).  The original non-charting 45 came from the Berry LP Back Home that referred to the fact that he was back on Chess records in 1970 after years on Mercury.  The subject matter was definitely a sign of the times as it seems to refer to Tulane and Johnny getting busted at their novelty shop for selling narcotics.

19.Talkin’ About You – The Redcaps

A totally unknown rarity in the US, this was a flat out stomper of a song and probably too raw for the British Invasion.  Singer Dave Walker later found success with the Street Corner Talkin’ era Savoy Brown while the guitarist on the track managed to do pretty well for himself too – Jimmy Page.  Berry was in some pretty tough legal straits when he released  “I’m Talking About You” as the b-side to his early 1961 single “Little Star” which didn’t even tickle the US charts.  The song is all about a girl he thinks is fine.

20.Promised Land – Elvis Presley

Quite a driving rock and roll song for the latter day Elvis, this single hit #14 late in 1974 and was for me the highlight of his ’70s career.  “Burning Love” from ’72 was good, but this track recalled classic rockin’ Elvis.  Chuck’s single in 1964 charted at #41 coming after his stint in jail for violating the Mann Act.  It was pretty much a rewrite of the old country classic “Wabash Cannonball” by Roy Acuff.  In his 1987 autobiography, Berry relates how he borrowed an atlas while in jail to write the lyrics about a young man traveling from Norfolk, VA to the promised land of Los Angeles.