SHG: Chubby Checker: "Limbo Rock"

Chubby Checker: “Limbo Rock”
Entered the chart on: 9/29/62
Peaked on: 12/22/62
Weeks at #2: 2
Song at #1: “Telstar” by the Tornadoes

*sigh*

I was going to try a stalling tactic for this review, but there’s no way around it. Let’s just jump in with both feet and get it over with.

Mind you, Chubby Checker, despite his derivative name (and the fact that he’s of average girth), is not a man without talent. He had a strong voice and an uncanny talent for mimicry; listen to his now-forgotten debut hit, “The Class.” Cameo-Parkway used that talent for...um...ripping off Hank Ballard (the original singer of “The Twist,” whose rendition Mr. Checker’s twice #1 version blatantly carbon-copies). Checker blames Cameo-Parkway for ruining his career, making him a laughingstock. I’ll side with the man here, as I’ve heard some of his post C-P singles where it’s revealed, in his heart of hearts, he really wanted to be...Jimi Hendrix? And damn if he didn’t almost pull it off!

In other words, they took a man with scads of potential, and squandered his talents on faddish dance-craze records. I feel no regret for what I’m about to do.



I’ll be perfectly honest: this doesn’t even feel like a “real” song. This is what I call “functional” music. It’s like the Hokey Pokey, or the Chicken Dance. Something a wedding DJ puts on to get kids and grandparents alike out on the dance floor. Chubby tries to enliven this with the laughter, the spoken word breaks (“How low can you go?” Oh, the irony!), but I’m having none of it. The handclaps almost got me into it. Almost. But not quite.

The faux-calypso style, apparently inspired by half an hour of listening to a Harry Belafonte record, feels phoned in. It’s just so repetitive! And the unison sax/whistle repeat of that melody one more time certainly isn’t helping.

I can’t imagine anyone listening to this one on purpose. Obnoxious.

Rating: 1

SHG: The Orlons: "The Wah-Watusi"

The Orlons: “The Wah-Watusi”
Entered the chart on: 6/23/62
Peaked on: 7/21/62
Weeks at #2: 2
Song at #1: “Roses Are Red” by Bobby Vinton

Well, I expected I’d need to go back to the Cameo-Parkway dance-craze well eventually, but so soon? And from a group named for a synthetic fabric, no less! The Orlons are actually historically important, not for this song, but for a 1963 follow-up single called “South Street,” which was the first chart hit to use the term “hippies.”

As I’ve already made abundantly clear in my Dee Dee Sharp review, these 60s dance fads are an utter cipher to me. How is the Watusi any different from the Frug? This is all cultural knowledge that hasn’t been passed on to my generation, and has been swept away like thistledown in the wind. I think all this would have been utterly forgotten if there weren’t people like me to chronicle such things.



And again, I’m focusing on the instrumental track. I love the way the piano part bounces around and ties the whole thing together. And whoever the drummer is that played on this is amazing! Some of the fills he lays down here are just too tasty to be believed. Simon Phillips, eat your heart out.

The male Orlon, Stephen Caldwell, gets some cute little solo interjections, but really this is all about lead singer Rosetta Hightower. As much as I liked Dee Dee Sharp’s voice in the last edition, I love Rosetta’s here! She’s both clear and oh so full of soul. Even more than the good things I already mentioned, she makes this worth listening to.

The lyrics? Bah! Your usual dance fad inanity. It doesn’t warrant deep analysis. Nor should it. This should be enjoyed in the spirit it was intended: ephemeral fun.

Rating: 4

SHG: Dee Dee Sharp: "Mashed Potato Time"

Dee Dee Sharp: “Mashed Potato Time”
Entered the chart on: 3/17/62
Peaked on: 5/5/62
Weeks at #2: 2
Song at #1: “Soldier Boy” by the Shirelles

Waiting for the other shoe to drop and someone to complain about my rating system; i.e.: how could I give a 5 to “Midnight in Moscow” and only 2 to an Elvis “classic.” Hey, it’s my blog, my rules! Deal with it!

Dee Dee Sharp is another Cameo-Parkway artist, something like the distaff version of Chubby Checker. Her main task was to get the kids jazzed about new dance crazes, like a large portion of the Cameo-Parkway artist roster.

All these dance crazes seem like arcane knowledge these days, but they were clearly big business at the time. In addition to the Mashed Potato and the Twist, there was the Watusi (wait for it...), the Monkey, the Swim, the Cinnamon Cinder (“It’s a ver-uh nahss day-uns!”) and, perhaps most notoriously of all, the Frug.

The Frug was frequently the subject of hack comedians back in the day, largely on the basis of “frug” being an Inherently Funny Word. Was there even a song to go along with it? But I digress...



Dee Dee is giving me Little Eva vibes. But the song is extremely familiar to me. It basically sounds like a re-write of “Please, Mr. Postman.” Which they actually have the nerve to name-drop two-thirds of the way through. Complete with reiterating the “Wait a minute, wait a minute” hook. Were they basically acknowledging how formulaic all this is? Give me a break!

That said, Dee Dee is sassy and good, and I like her backing vocalists (“It’s the latest, it’s the greatest...Mashed Potatooooooooo!”). And we get the requisite sax solo in the middle eight. So it does everything you want it to.

But I really can’t imagine having a burning need to hear this these days when “Please, Mr. Postman” is right there.

Rating: 3

SHG: The Dovells: "The Bristol Stomp"

The Dovells: “Bristol Stomp”
Entered the chart on: 9/18/1961
Peaked on: 10/23/1961
Weeks at #2: 2
Song at #1: “Runaround Sue” by Dion

Not to obsess, but after listening to “Crying,” I went ahead and re-familiarized myself with Don McLean’s version and k. d. lang’s also for good measure*. And you know what? Both versions are very, very good! Neither is quite as spectacular as the original, at first, but both are performed by first-rate singers with reverence to the source material, yet who make the song their own. Isn’t that what good cover songs do?

Something tells me I’ll be referring back to this text in the near future.

Anyway, the Dovells. Is this the first “dance craze” record we’ve covered at Second Hand Goods? Was there really a dance to go with this song? Or did they just want to get their home-town some air-time on national, public radio. No idea if it’s actually true, but I understand the BBC banned this tune**, considering its lyric too salacious. “Bristols,” you see, is a slang term for women’s breasts.

Methinks someone at the BBC has a dirtier mind than any of us. What did they think this song was about? The mind boggles...



Oh yes, this is a Cameo-Parkway joint, so I think that’s a big, fat “yes” on the “is this a dance craze song or not?” Cameo-Parkway were the crassest of the early “youth-oriented” labels; they had no shame in jumping on any trend that came down the pike and exploiting it with ruthless abandon.

The thing that sticks in my mind about this, more than the insistent “The kids in Bristol are sharp as a pistol, etc.” backing vocal litany, is that jaunty guitar strumming accompaniment. Trust me to notice something about the instrumental track!

I guess we’re in “white people trying to sound black” territory again, which explains Len Barry’s wailing lead vocal on this. I don’t dislike it, but he’s kind of all over the place, missing notes right and left. Is it just me? Maybe it is, because obviously a lot of people bought this record.

I don’t know, maybe I’d like it better if they used a different take, but I bet Cameo-Parkway wanted to rush-release this and get it out the door as quick as possible to exploit the ever-fickle teenage taste. Because that’s the Cameo-Parkway way.

Rating: 3

*Still haven’t worked up the nerve to check out the rendition by Dutch Schlager singer Gerard Joling. I’m still burned by the time I heard what Wayne Newton did to “In Dreams.”
**It did become a hit, albeit belatedly, for the UK nostalgia group the Late Show in 1979.