From the Vaults

Graham Parker: Between You and Me (1975)

23 Apr 2013 | <1 min read | 5

It's all every well to ridicule Dick Rowe of Decca Records for turning the Beatles down after an audition in '62 ("Not to mince words, Mr Epstein, we don't like your boys' sound. Groups are out: four piece groups with guitars particularly are finished"). But if he had just addressed the music he was probably right. The Beatles' Decca audition was hardly promising, largely... > Read more

Lucille Bogan: Shave 'Em Dry II (1935)

17 Apr 2013 | <1 min read | 2

In these days of earnestly crotch-thrusting young women on video clips you long for something which has that long forgotten ingredient: wit. Old time blues is ripe with innuendo, downhome analogies and suggestive lyrics. When Lonnie Johnson sings of being the The Best Jockey in Town he doesn't mean he brings home the winners. Lil Johnson in the Thirties delivered a line of sexually... > Read more

Noel McKay: Sweater Girl (1963?)

16 Apr 2013 | <1 min read

Noel McKay had a drag act in New Zealand in the early Sixties (and lesserly so into the Seventies) but always walked both sides of the line. He released albums in covers with him in drag but also had a series of EPs on the Viking label entitled Party Songs; For Adults Only which were directed at the straight audience. These included mildly risque songs such as Loretta the Sweater Girl... > Read more

The Beatles: I Saw Her Standing There (1963)

3 Apr 2013 | 1 min read

Half a century ago the Beatles' debut album Please Please Me was released. Legend has it that it took only 16 hours to record, the final song being Twist and Shout, for which Lennon -- suffering from a cold and drinking sweet tea -- roared through in a searing performance. The album contained their earlier minor hit Love Me Do and chart topper Please Please Me alongside Arthur... > Read more

Gary US Bonds: Quarter to Three (1961)

27 Mar 2013 | 2 min read | 2

In the DVD doco accompanying the box set version of The Promise -- the songs recorded while waiting to start a new album after Born to Run -- Bruce Springsteen talks about how he was a product of Top 40 radio, those great three minute songs which set you free just for that moment in time. And E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt later says that Springsteen could have been one of the great... > Read more

Peter Cape: She'll Be Right (1959)

26 Mar 2013 | <1 min read | 1

Peter Cape was New Zealand's unofficial poet laureate in the days before television, when men were "jokers" and women were "sheilas" . . . and when you could afford to assume that "she'll be right". (ie no matter what happens, it'll be okay.) Cape wrote and sang of awkward young men and women at a rural dance (Down the Hall on Saturday Night), of train stops on... > Read more

Brute Force: The King of Fuh (1969)

25 Mar 2013 | 1 min read

The two hour-plus DVD doco Strange Fruit shone a spotlight on a fascinating period in the Beatles' career, that of their own production/recording and publishing company Apple whch McCartney described as "Western communism". The ethos of the label was to give artists freedom to record and as such the label openly touted for talent. Ironically not one of those who many hundreds who... > Read more

The Vapours: Turning Japanese (1980)

12 Mar 2013 | 1 min read

Ever wondered why the English New Wave band The Vapours were just a one-hit wonder with Turning Japanese? They don't. They know exactly why. A little background though: they were from Guildford and the mainman was singer/songwriter Dave Fenton who had a day job as a solicitor. Playing as the Vapours, the four-piece were spotted by Bruce Foxton of the Jam who was impressed. The Vapours... > Read more

Memphis Jug Band: Cocaine Habit Blues (1930)

1 Mar 2013 | <1 min read

The curious thing about cocaine in popular culture is the vast majority of users (as with most drugs) had a great time, but when it comes to writing songs about it those who came out the other side are pretty down on it. There's something honest about those who say, "Yeah I did this and it was terrific" -- but of course in the interests of minors we should naturally adopt the... > Read more

Big Daddy: A Day in the Life (1992)

28 Feb 2013 | 1 min read

Although it's not hard to find truly awful versions of Beatles' songs -- many are collected by Jim Phelan for his Exotic Beatles series of albums -- and a decent number of rather excellent treatments, there aren't that many which are just plain fun. Big Daddy are a retro group which made a reputation by taking contempoary songs and recasting them as doo-wop, Fifties rock'n'roll and so on.... > Read more

Del Shannon: Keep Searchin' (1964)

26 Feb 2013 | 1 min read | 2

Del Shannon -- who died in 1990 age 55 -- is best and perhaps only remembered for the great chart-topping single Runaway of '61, even now a thrilling slice of energetic pop. But far from a one-hit wonder as classic hits radio would have you believe, he also did top 10 business with Hats off to Larry and Little Town Flirt -- and he was smart enough to feel the winds of change blowing in the... > Read more

The Mystery Trend: Johnny Was a Good Boy (1967)

18 Feb 2013 | 1 min read

Just as DJs like to discover rare grooves to enhance their cachet as being cutting edge, so too the internet is full of sites where people haul out the most obscure Sixties garageband and psychedelic rock tracks . . . not all of it any good, of course. That's not the point though. The point is along the lines of, "I've heard this and you haven't so . . ." The Mystery Trend... > Read more

Cilla Black: Liverpool Lullaby (1969)

15 Feb 2013 | 3 min read

Liverpool today is a very different place from the tough port city it was in the years after the war: a world perhaps only familiar from documentaries about the Beatles' early years where bomb-scarred buildings still littered the landscape. That lost world is celebrated in song and commemorated in film. Today, if nothing else, there are new architectural projects and civic... > Read more

The Off-Set: You're a Drag (1966)

14 Feb 2013 | <1 min read

When it came to forming groups in the Sixties, Don Sallah was a serial offender. Mostly studio-based, Sallah started the decade in Little Moose and the Hunters (he was the wee moose), recorded an all-instrumental album as The Pioneers and then formed the Emeralds, a vocal harmony group. With Hank Cardello from the Emeralds he then formed the Off-Set who hooked into the folk-rock thing for... > Read more

Ozzie Waters: A Rodeo Down in Tokyo and a Round-Up in Old Berlin (1943)

13 Feb 2013 | <1 min read

While we might agree that war brings out the best and worst in people, it undeniably brings out the utterly atrocious when it comes to patriotic songs. Most are sentimental, stridently nationalistic, simplistic to the point of insulting and largely forgettable other than for some unintentional humour in later years. At From the Vaults we have posted a few which fall into all of those... > Read more

Honeyboy: Bloodstains on the Wall (1953)

8 Feb 2013 | <1 min read

Not much is known about Honeyboy (Frank Patt) other than he was born in 1928 in Fostoria, Alabama -- and that this song, considered his finest outing on the Speciality label in the Fifties, sold around 50,000 copies. You can see why: Jimmy Liggins plays tense and moody guitar, Gus Jenkins offers similar low key piano . . . and the lyric about coming home to what must be a murder scene is... > Read more

Neil Young: Cocaine Eyes (1989)

5 Feb 2013 | 1 min read

Given his tendency to release as much music and as often as he can, it's increasingly hard to make the case for anything by Neil Young as being rare. His Archives Volume 1 scooped up vast tracts of early material, and when Vol 2 rolls around (no one would dare put a date on that, the first volume was spoken about for decades) then maybe songs like this one will be included. But for now... > Read more

Robin Zander: Fly Me to the Moon (2011)

4 Feb 2013 | <1 min read | 1

On the basis of recent evidence Robin Zander -- singer with the smarter-than-thou Cheap Trick -- has really lost it. Lost his cheekbones, his slim frame and, worst of all because those are forgivably inevitable with advancing years, his sense of taste. Perhaps it was having uber-brain Rick Nielsen helming Cheap Trick that allowed them to pull off three superb albums in a row -- and deliver... > Read more

Carl Perkins: Dixie Fried (1956)

31 Jan 2013 | 1 min read

Known mostly these days as the writer of Blue Suede Shoes (he sang it before Elvis' chart-topping cover), Carl Perkins was the man who was the most hillbilly cat of them all in the early rock'n'roll era. Looking like a cadaver with his sunken cheeks, and a heroic drinker, the married Carl was the Hank Williams of rockabilly . . . and Sam Phillips knew Perkins could be his next big star... > Read more

Dinah Washington: Big Long Slidin' Thing (1954)

30 Jan 2013 | <1 min read | 1

It's about a trombone player's instrument, of course. Well, of course it is . . . But the sexually voracious and seldom satisfied Washington (seven husbands, countless lovers) knows exactly what this is about and manages to milk the innuendo in her typically sassy way. Her real forte was torch songs and she crossed effortlessly between jazz, blues, pop and rhythm and blues -- and songs... > Read more