SHG: The Village Stompers: "Washington Square"

Village Stompers: “Washington Square”
Entered the chart on: 10/5/63
Peaked on: 11/23/63
Weeks at #2: 1
Song at #1: “I’m Leaving It Up to You” by Dale & Grace

So...it seems that we here in the States weren’t completely barren of Dixieland jazz in the 60s. Here we have a homegrown group; though as you can tell from their name and the title of their one big hit, they hail from New York and not N’awlins. They’re considered to be adjacent to the folk boom we’ve already been examining with some earlier hits this year, and called their style “folk jazz.”

There’s a check-mark next to this entry in my copy of Joel Whitburn’s Top 40 Hits, but I can’t say I remember what this sounds like. Time to give myself a little reminder...



Starting with a ragged, almost out-of-tune electric guitar part, we get the lead played on a banjo. This is not what I expected at all! It’s almost like something out of an Ennio Morricone western soundtrack! It doesn’t really start sounding Dixieland until two-thirds of the way through, when the piano and drums finally join in, and the horns, which had been softly crescendoing in the background for a while, finally start blasting fortissimo notes.

I don’t know what it is about these 60s instrumentals, but they have something that really appeals to me. I get the feeling that if I was alive in 1963, I would have owned this record. Simple, yet highly appealing.

Rating: 5

SHG: The Surfaris: "Wipe Out"

The Surfaris: “Wipe Out”
Entered the chart on: 7/6/63
Peaked on: 8/10/63
Weeks at #2: 1
Song at #1: “Fingertips—Pt. 2” by Little Stevie Wonder

All right! We’re really in the 60s now! Well, maybe it isn’t the “Summer of Love” 60s that people are getting their undies damp for (I’ll say it now: these are songs from the AM dial. Prepare to be disappointed.) but, hey! Folk-revival followed by surf-rock! The detritus of the 50s this ain’t!

Now, I’m sure people are going to point out that “we’ve already had surf-rock” with the Ventures. I’d argue that, like the “proto-folk-revival” of the Brothers Four, the Ventures were “proto-surf-rock.” This is the real deal. I mean, the title references surfing and they have “surf” in their name! How much more surf-y can you get?

Mind you, despite being born and raised in California, and even spending summer vacations on the beach at Santa Cruz, I was never part of the surf culture. I think the closest I come to it is owning the Beach Boys Pet Sounds, and there aren’t even any songs about surfing on that one!

That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy surf-rock. I mean, come on, I’m not Mexican, but I love me a good enchilada. So let’s dig into this enchilada:



We haven’t even started yet and I already have to laugh. This was released on Dot Records. Ah, they’ve come a long way since throwing hideous whitewashed remakes of R&B classics from the likes of Pat Boone and Gale Storm! Speaking of laughing, how about that iconic, yet creepy, spoken intro to this?

Wow, did they put everything through the spring reverb on this? The intro, the guitar, the bass, the drums, it sounds like they did! This won’t win any prizes for complexity, the up-down guitar melody seems to be playing in solid eighth notes. Really, the drummer is the star of the show here, getting some spotlight fills, though I think he’s at his most interesting when the rest of the band comes back in, getting all cymbal-splashy on us.

Though really, I think simplicity is this song’s strength. At a mere two minutes and fifteen seconds, this song would wear out its welcome if it were any longer. As it is, it sticks in the mind in an appealing way. Toe-tapping fun.

Rating: 5

SHG: Kenny Ball: "Midnight in Moscow"

Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen: “Midnight in Moscow”
Entered the chart on: 2/17/62
Peaked on: 3/17/62
Weeks at #2: 1
Song at #1: “Hey! Baby” by Bruce Channel

Oh, honestly! Were we really so starved for talent over here that we had to import our Dixieland jazz from across the Atlantic Ocean? Actually, I do believe Kenny is in fact the first British act we’ve covered here at Second Hand Goods (at least directly, there was David Rose conducting the orchestra for Connie Francis on “My Happiness”).

This is another record from my parents’ collection. I was obsessed by this song as a kid, though I can’t say particularly why. Something about it intrigued and fascinated the junior version of me. Let’s see if it holds up.



All right, for those following along at home and wondering why this is called “Midnight in Moscow,” it’s adapted from an old Russian folk song. And I was absolutely not kidding about the Dixieland jazz thing. The accompaniment is drums and a freaking banjo! The rest is horns, horns, horns! Kenny and his trumpet lead the charge but we also get a muted trombone (which gets a solo and a raunchy glissando in the final head repeat, which has someone in the band yelling with delight!) and some wailing clarinet.

I have to say, for whatever reason, this still does it for me. It sounds utterly bizarre amidst all the R&B, early rock and dance craze records that surrounded it, and maybe that’s what appeals to me so much. Whatever, it’s fun, and I make no apologies for my enjoyment.

Rating: 5

SHG: Jørgen Ingmann: "Apache"

Jørgen Ingmann & His Guitar: “Apache”
Entered the chart on: 2/20/61
Peaked on: 3/3/61
Weeks at #2: 2
Song at #1: “Pony Time” by Chubby Checker

Here’s the last of the instrumentals I promised you. We shan’t get another until ’62, so we better savor it.

Jørgen Ingmann was part of a miniature explosion of Danish instrumentalists on the pop charts in the early 60s, along pianist Bent Fabric (“Alley Cat”) and trombonist Kai Winding (“More*”). Ingmann is better known abroad for “Dansevise,” the Eurovision-winning tune from 1963 featuring his wife Grethe playing the Mary Ford to his Les Paul.

While this song is heavily linked with Ingmann, especially in Scandinavia, it’s actually a cover. Burt Weedon did the original. The Shadows, roughly the UK answer to the Ventures and Cliff Richard’s backing band, did the second version, a UK chart-topper in the summer of 1960. Having only heard Ingmann’s version (and the cheesy 70s cover by Danish keyboardist Tommy Seebach), I shall duly preface my review with a listen to Weedon’s and the Shadows’ versions.



OK, the Shadows’ version is excellent, but very much in the Ventures mould. Not so fond of Weedon’s show-offy version, which seems to lose the melody in lots of showboating. As for Ingmann’s version, they’re not kidding with the “and his guitar” business. I wasn’t far off the mark with the Les Paul comparison earlier, this is just multiple tracks of Ingmann’s guitar and nothing else.

Not just because it’s the one I’m most familiar with, but this version is winning out for me. I’m a huge fan of the echo effects on this one, a touch of outer-space as befits the astronaut craze of the times. There’s something utterly enigmatic about the stark “layers of guitar only” arrangement of this that draws me into the melody.

A stunner, and by far the best instrumental I have reviewed thus far.

Rating: 5

*This was the theme to the controversial Italian documentary Mondo Cane, from the brief American craze for European cinema, on account of the more permissive values (read: more prurient content) compared to Hollywood, which was still clinging to the tattered remains of the Hays Code.

SHG: Ferrante & Teicher: "Exodus"

Ferrante & Teicher: “Exodus”
Entered the chart on: 11/28/1960
Peaked on: 1/23/1961
Weeks at #2: 1
Song at #1: “Wonderland by Night” by Bert Kämpfert

Here’s proof that instrumentals were the flavor of the month: both of the top 2 are instrumentals! I’m pretty sure I’ve never actually heard “Wonderland by Night” and if I have, I wouldn’t know it by name. I suppose that’s the peril of instrumental songs; how do you know what you’re listening to without the DJ to tell you what it is? Nowadays, with Shazam and its ilk, we’re pretty spoiled in that regard.

When I was very wee, I was actually a Ferrante & Teicher fan, thrilling to their extravagant twin-piano pyrotechnics on TV appearances and listening to their Greatest Hits on albums my parents owned. Even at the age of eight, I rather knew there was something deeply un-cool about liking them, and hid my fandom from my friends.

Little did I know they’d receive a hipster re-appraisal during the “lounge-core” era of the 1990s. Mind you, that was for their very early sides at Westminster, when they were doing Space Age prepared piano music, such fans considered them to have “jumped the shark” once they became Liberace-esque superstars at United Artists. Though even with the very early “prepared piano” stuff, we’re not exactly talking John Cage and David Tudor here. Even there, they were offering up renditions of the likes of “Tico Tico” and “Tea for Two.”

So, here we have a movie theme, which is what all their chart hits were (this is the follow-up to their two-pianos version of the theme from The Apartment). Exodus was a film by Otto Preminger, back when he was still a respected filmmaker, before the likes of Hurry Sundown, Skidoo and [shudder] Rosebud turned him into a laughingstock. So it pays to check out the original Ernest Gold orchestration before I listen to the Ferrante & Teicher arrangement. Which I shall now do.



Hmm...sounds like Ferrante & Teicher cloned Ernest Gold’s original arrangement of the intro, all big brass and strings, then shook things up in the rest of the track to spotlight their flashy piano playing. The original was bombastic movie music, spirited and very loud. Ferrante & Teicher’s rendition captures the feel of the original, just alters the arrangement to fit their pianos in and make it front and center. Hands down, this is the loudest orchestration we’ve had since “Don’t You Know.” Of course, for the big finale, they do that tinkly, descending semi-glissando thing (well, what would you call it?) which was their trademark.

People will argue until they’re blue in the face over which version is better, but it’s “push” as far as I’m concerned. As with Floyd Cramer’s tune, this one is just fine.

Rating: 4

SHG: Floyd Cramer: "Last Date"

Floyd Cramer: “Last Date”
Entered the chart on: 10/24/1960
Peaked on: 11/28/1960
Weeks at #2: 4
Song at #1: “Are You Lonesome To-Night” by Elvis Presley

A little warning, this is the first of a big chunk of instrumental songs that hit the charts in 1961. Actually, I gave you a heads-up on that during the Ventures review. Here’s the first one and it’s from pianist Floyd Cramer, who’s been on hundreds of country hits. In fact, he played on the Johnny Tillotson song I just reviewed. Is that the first time that’s happened on Second Hand Goods, where a session musician on one hit winds up as the soloist on the next one?

Anyway, Cramer earned a reputation for a technique he called “slide piano,” using a lot of grace notes to make it sound as though the notes are gliding into one another. Oh, you’ll hear what I mean when you listen to it.



It’s hard to explain the appeal of this one. Floyd Cramer has had more exciting tunes than this one (listen to the follow-up, “On the Rebound”), but there’s something about the lazy afternoon feel of this one. It’s a slow tempo but it doesn’t drag. I suppose you could call this a “ballad” if it had words to it. It’s rather “sitting on a porch swing sipping a mint julep” music to my ears.

It’s not drowning in the string arrangement, which is a relief. The strings come in and enhance the melody without swamping it, which they totally could if left to their own devices. Unsurprisingly, this is, like “He’ll Have to Go,” another “Countrypolitan” Chet Atkins production.

Obviously, this tune resonated with lots of people, since cover versions of it proliferated, including one by SHG veterans the Ventures*. Another SHG veteran, Joni James, did a vocal interpretation saddled with the cumbersome alternate title “(My) Last Date (With You).” It was her last entry into the Billboard Top 40.

For an easy-listening instrumental, it’s actually pretty easy to listen to. Sometimes, that’s all I ask.

Rating: 4

*my parents owned the album that had their cover on it, Another Smash! I’ve always wondered what silent movie the cover still came from. For some reason, I remembered it as being from a Three Stooges short, but it seems I was mistaken.

SHG: The Ventures: "Walk—Don't Run"

The Ventures: “Walk—Don’t Run”
Entered the chart on: 7/25/1960
Peaked on: 8/29/1960
Weeks at #2: 1
Song at #1: “It’s Now or Never” by Elvis Presley

It’s funny, this is the first instrumental I’ve reviewed since “Raunchy” all the way back in 1957. “Funny” because I’m looking ahead, and I see three instrumentals (more or less) in quick succession in my near future. Funny because I’m looking at the plentitude of instrumentals that charted in 1961. But more on that later.

It’s also funny that the Ventures, the most successful and influential of instrumental rock bands possibly of all-time, are hardly ever talked about these days. Imitators like Dick Dale receive gushing praise from hipster lips all the time, but hardly anyone mentions the originators of the surf-guitar sound anymore. And I have to wonder why that is?

For the record, this originated as a 1956 jazz guitar tune by Johnny Smith. It had also previously been done by country guitarist and musical arranger Chet Atkins (the man behind the memorably subtle orchestration of Jim Reeves’ “He’ll Have to Go”), on whom the Ventures apparently based their version.



I have to say, there’s a certain something about the Ventures’ rendition of this that just clicks with me the way the Johnny Smith and Chet Atkins versions don’t. The melody is there and present in all three versions, but why does the Ventures version seem so much better to me? I guess the other two are competent, but rather typical. The Johnny Smith version follows a steady “head-solos-head” form that was typical of 1950s jazz, while the Chet Atkins tune could be any instrumental track off of a “guitarist plays popular songs” album of the day.

The Ventures version has a certain je ne sais quoi about it. Maybe it’s that drum fill that opens the tune, making you stand at attention. Maybe it’s that spiky guitar tone that’s present on both lead and rhythm guitars. For whatever reason, it really works for this song and it’s memorable melody. Bob Bogle’s handling of the melody is very fluid, and he knows just when to bend a note and how to do so to make the most of it.

Apparently this song influenced a ton of young, budding musicians to pick up guitars and form bands of their own. And you know, I can hear that. Timeless stuff.

Rating: 5

SHG: Bill Justis: "Raunchy"

Bill Justis: “Raunchy”
Entered the chart on: 11/18/1957
Peaked on: 12/16/1957
Weeks at #2: 1 week
Song at #1: “April Love” by Pat Boone

Man, there sure were a lot more instrumentals on the charts back in the 50s. I have to wonder what changed between now and then to wipe the instrumental almost completely off the face of the pop music charts. My hypothesis is that it’s another victim of the change to music being a visual medium in the wake of MTV and the rise of music video. Unless you have a group of sexy bikini babes playing, nobody’s interested in instrumental music these days. And that’s a shame.

Here we have what I assume is another rockabilly number, considering sax player Bill Justis was the musical director for Sun Records. Also featuring Sid Manker on guitar, so Joel Whitburn informs me. I expect this to actually be raunchy, so don’t let me down guys:



Some of that rubber-band-y guitar I associate with Duane Eddy on this. I get the feeling he probably listened to this. The sax seems to be an alto, as it’s a really trebly and high-pitched melody line. Sid Manker’s guitar is the highlight of this for me, he has a nice chord-heavy guitar solo in the middle. I wonder if Robert Fripp was inspired by this for his guitar solo on King Crimson’s “A Sailor’s Tale.”

It’s all right. I’m not in love with this tune, it’s a tad repetitive, but the excellent guitar work keeps it chugging along, and there’s an unexpected piano solo about two-thirds of the way through that’s rather nice.

Oh, and I see that Billy Vaughn covered this. [covers mouth and snorts with derisive laughter]

Rating: 3

SHG: Jimmy Dorsey: "So Rare"

Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra & Chorus: “So Rare”
Entered the chart on: 4/13/1957
Peaked on: 6/24/1957
Weeks at #2: 4 weeks
Songs at #1: “Love Letters in the Sand” by Pat Boone and “Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear” by Elvis Presley

Checking out the pop charts of the late fifties can be a bit like catching falling stars. On the one hand we have artists like Elvis Presley, Fats Domino and the Everly Brothers, whose stars were on the rise. On the other hand, we have the likes of Joni James, Doris Day and Johnnie Ray, who were making inroads to the Top 40 for the last time, and by the turn of the decade wouldn’t trouble the pop charts again.

Here we have Jimmy Dorsey, who, along with his brother Tommy, was one of the architects of the big band sound of the 30s and 40s. And this would be his only hit in the rock & roll era. I thought, looking at that title, that this wasn’t a new song and indeed, it wasn’t: it had already been a big hit for Guy Lombardo twenty years before. It was only new to Jimmy, who was then slumming it at Cincinnati-based Fraternity Records, home to SHG alum Cathy Carr. Let’s see how he fares with it:



I’m really torn by this one. On the one hand, good God! Jimmy’s saxophone just kills it! I mean, man, that man could blow! And I mean that in the nicest way possible! Really, the horn charts overall, not just his sax lead, just absolutely slay throughout this whole thing. The whole instrumental track is arranged to perfection on this tune.

And that’s the problem with this recording. The “Orchestra & Chorus” in the credits. I get that it was the style at the time, and one had to compete with the Les Baxters and Billy Vaughns of the world but...my word, the Disney-soundtrack mixed-voice choir on this come close to murdering the song. Seriously, it’s that sucky choir that’s the only thing preventing me from awarding this the full five stars.

Couldn’t we have a remix that eliminates the choir entirely? Please? Because it’s the only thing that’s keeping me from 100% enjoyment of this song.

Rating: 4

SHG: Bill Doggett: "Honky Tonk"

Bill Doggett: “Honky Tonk (Parts 1 & 2)”
Entered the chart on: 8/25/1956
Peaked on: 10/6/1956
Weeks at #2: 3 weeks
Songs at #1: “Don’t Be Cruel” b/w “Hound Dog” by Elvis Presley

Why I prefer 1956 to 1955: diversity. Even that big chunk of female soloists we hit a couple of editions back had variety, from Cathy Carr’s traditional romantic ballad, Doris Day’s sprightly lullaby and Patti Page’s country-flavored mood piece. And now we have a second instrumental in a row, but I don’t expect it to be anything at all like “Canadian Sunset.” The reason? Keyboardist Bill Doggett was a jazz musician, sideman for Ella Fitzgerald and the like. And in two parts? I’m actually looking forward to this one! Don’t disappoint me, Bill!



I like how Bill gives a lot of space to his sidemen. His organ’s there, softly comping in the background, but the guitar plucks out that shuffle rhythm as the saxophones carry the head melody. Then the guitarist wails and we get a sax solo. Frustratingly, it fades out in the middle of it. “Parts 1 & 2” my ass! You’re ripping me off, King Records! I now need to seek out the extended album mix, as I’m sure Bill has an organ solo lurking there.

Crummy single edits aside, this is the closest thing to real rock & roll we’ve had since Carl Perkins’ tune. It’s structured like a jazz piece, though: head/solos/head. Only it fades out in the middle of the “solos” bit and we never get that head repeat. Which composer was it that would be irked if someone played an incomplete scale on the piano, and would need to get up from whatever he was doing, stroll over to the piano and finish it? Mendelssohn? Am I getting off topic now? In any case, the single edit reminds me of that.

All that aside, I enjoyed this immensely and would gladly listen to it again.

Rating: 4

SHG: Hugo Winterhalter (feat. Eddie Heywood): "Canadian Sunset"

Hugo Winterhalter: “Canadian Sunset”
Entered the chart on: 7/28/1956
Peaked on: 9/29/1956
Weeks at #2: 2 weeks
Song at #1: “Don’t Be Cruel” by Elvis Presley

Thus far, 1956 has been a vast improvement over 1955 on all fronts. Three superb female-sung tunes, an early rock & roll classic, and even the Four Lads tune was tolerable. I’m just waiting for someone to ruin it. This is an instrumental from RCA Victor’s musical director, written by pianist Eddie Heywood as a vehicle for a solo for himself, it looks like. Well, let’s see what we have here.



So...where in Canada is this? Banff? Algonquin Park? Mont-Tremblant? Canada’s a big place!

OK, I was expecting something a lot more unbearable, à la “Melody of Love,” but the softly swinging saxophones and the slight “cinematic” (more like “travelogue,” but it was the 50s) feel make this a lot more easy to take. The piano makes me think of Ferrante & Teicher (post-prepared piano period, alas) and the screeching strings that tend to be all over recordings like this threaten to ruin it.

I’m trying to put these dreamy, easy-listening instrumentals in some kind of context. I have this picture in my head of some grizzled Spanish-American War veteran hobbling over to the Wurlitzer, dropping a nickel in, selecting C1 on the hit parade, popping a Sen-Sen into his mouth, then holding out a hand to his beloved and asking her, “Care for a dance, m’dear?”

Can you think of a more plausible explanation?

Rating: 3

SHG: Johnny Maddox: "The Crazy Otto"

Johnny Maddox & the Rhythm Masters: “The Crazy Otto”
Entered the chart on: 2/5/1955
Peaked on: 3/19/1955
Weeks at #2: 1
Song at #1: “Sincerely” by the McGuire Sisters

“Sincerely” looks unstoppable. To date, this is the third song stalled by the McGuire Sisters’ long stay at #1. For all that, I had to go out of my way to refresh my memory of it. I’d never have heard it at all had I not seen Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, in which the song is a plot point.



I like to put songs I review into some kind of context, but this is just baffling. On the face of it, we have Maddox banging on a woefully out-of-tune upright piano backed by his combo, playing a medley of old saloon-type tunes popularized by Fritz “Crazy Otto” Schulz-Reichel. Why? Had Crazy Otto died recently? No, he was still very much alive and churning out popular albums (he had a #1 album on the charts when this was released).

As near as I can guess, they were just doing what the “whitewashers” were doing, capitalizing on someone else’s success by cashing in with a quickie sound-alike release.

I don’t know, if you’re not allergic to off-key piano playing, this is not bad. Kind of fun in a nostalgic kind of way. We’re looking through two layers of nostalgia with this, as they were already evoking another time and place with this recording. Sounds like something that would be played in an old Straw Hat Pizza, or the like.

I kind of want to put it on at one of those internet jukeboxes at a latter-day pizza place, just to see what peoples’ reactions would be.

Rating: 3

SHG: Billy Vaughn: "Melody of Love"

Billy Vaughn & His Orchestra: “Melody of Love”
Entered chart on: 12/11/1954
Peaked on: 3/19/1955
Weeks at #2: 1

Here we go! An artist I have a history with! After a visit to her parents, Mom came home with a box of their records, including the La Paloma LP and the follow-up to this: “The Shifting, Whispering Sands.”

I wish I was reviewing that instead; an epic six minutes in which stentorian narrator Ken Nordine describes skulls bleaching in the desert sun. Vaughn’s syrupy choir-fueled orchestrations somehow make the whole thing that much creepier. On account of Nordine’s unsettling “what to do in case of emergency” narration, you could easily interpret this as subtext for a post-nuclear end-of-world scenario, not literally about the Southwestern desert.

This was played on the radio? In 1955?

I understand La Paloma is a lot more typical of Vaughn’s style, white-bread renditions of traditional Latin folk and dance tunes featuring his distinctive close-formation alto saxophones. The title song from the album was a huge hit in Europe and extremely influential on the German Schlager scene, reason enough to dislike Vaughn. Apparently the arrangement to ABBA’s “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do” (one of their corniest and lamest early hits, in my opinion) was inspired by “La Paloma.”

Vaughn was, of course, the musical director of Dot Records, and responsible for the production and orchestration of its roster of artists, including all those cringeworthy Pat Boone records, more reason to dislike him. He was also responsible for the bizarre and inexplicable recording career of veteran actor Walter Brennan. If you ask me, “Old Rivers” is several measures creepier than “The Shifting, Whispering Sands,” and it isn’t even trying to be.

However, I will venture to keep an open mind while listening to “Melody of Love”...



This is a slow waltz. Really slow. Like really slow. Like “wading through syrup” slow. I don’t know if my ears are deceiving me, but it sounds like there’s a banjo playing the rhythm in the background. It could just be audio artifacts in the recording, it’s probably a piano. All those dreamy strings are drowning it out. That pinched-embouchure saxophone does cut through, so good call on that from an arrangement standpoint.

I’m guessing this is the sort of thing that Gramps used to slow-dance to. Fine, if that’s what you want, but I can think of better. There were a bunch of vocal covers (including one by Frank Sinatra, who we’ll discuss in a future installment) of this but it was Billy’s instrumental (his first single, fact fans) that charted highest.

But yeah, probably not going to listen to this again. I’ll go for “The Shifting, Whispering Sands (Parts 1 & 2)” if I need another Billy Vaughn fix.

Rating: 1