Weds, September 8th, it's time for another Graveyard Rock at Trophy Bar!

Buddy Knox and The Rhythm Orchids - Party Doll - Roulette, 1957

Today's record is a classic bit of Rockabilly from Texas legend Buddy Knox. From his website: "Buddy Wayne Knox, born July 20, 1933 in Happy Texas; was the first artist of the rock era to write and perform his own number one hit song, "Party Doll". The song earned Knox a gold record in 1957 as well as a BMI million performance award. Knox was the very first Texas rockabilly artist to be awarded a gold record and he was one of the innovators of the southwestern style of rockabilly that became known as "Tex-Mex" music."

Buddy got the Rhythm Orchids together in college with a couple of fellow students, and they got noticed early on by Roy Orbison.  Interesting tidbit on the recording of "Party Doll": the recording studio was in a high traffic area and lacked good sound-proofing, so all the recording was done after midnight to avoid the sounds of traffic. "Party Doll" was a big hit and launched the carreer of the Rythym Orchids. After signing to Roulette, they released a few more hits like "Hula Girl" and "Rock Your Little Baby To Sleep", but after 1957 it proved to difficult to continue this string of successes.

On February 14th, 1999, Rockabilly Hall of Fame member and Rock ‘n Roll legend Buddy Knox, 65, died in Bremerton, Washington, after a battle with cancer.
Check out www.buddyknox.com, a great site maintained by Buddy's family to honor his memory.  They have a more in-depth biography and audio samples of all of his big hits.

Roulette Records was founded in late 1956 by George Goldner, Joe Kolsky, Morris Levy and Phil Khals, and was based in New York City. Here's a juicy label story gleaned from Wikipedia: "Goldner subsequently bowed out of his partnership interest in Roulette, and sold his labels Tico, Rama, End, Gone and Gee record labels to Morris Levy to cover his gambling debts." Lots of great music on these other labels which were rolled into Roulette. In 1986, Morris was exposed and convicted for extorting money from an FBI informant. Levy was tried and convicted on charges of extortion but died in Ghent, New York before serving any time in prison. Sounds like the "Roulette" name was appropriate, these dudes were gamblin' gansters! In 1989, Roulette Records was sold to a consortium of EMI and Rhino Records, which later were acquired by The WEA Group (Warner/Elektra/Atlantic).


And here's the clip! If ya like it, grab it off Amazon for a whopping $.99. 45s of this aren't that hard to come but either, I've got one for sale at the moment but it is in pretty rough shape.

Labor Day Sunday at Niagara!

Now you have another chance to catch me this Labor Day weekend - at NYC's Niagara Bar!

New residency alert! I'm doing first Fridays at The Charleston. Located right across the street from the Bedford L stop. Boom!

My new mix is up! This month, it's inspired by the legendary movie, "The Big Lebowski".  Hope ya enjoy!

The Crash Abides by djmikecrash

Wanda Jackson - Funnel Of Love - Capital, 1961

Wanda Jackson! A true legend. Her website dubs her "the First Lady of Rockabilly and America's first female Rock and Roll singer" - and it's true. Wanda, born October 20, 1937, has been rockin' since the 50's, and she's still going strong! In fact she's playing here in Williamsburg at the Knitting Factory soon (click here for details). I was lucky enough to catch her there this past winter and she was amazing, so I highly recommend you catch her if you can.

While on stage she shared some stories of touring with Elvis, who it is said encouraged her to take up the Rockabilly style. She also got to work with greats like pianist Big Al Downing and guitarists Roy Clark and Buck Owens. After going a more country route starting in the 60's, some European interest in Rockabilly got her touring the Rockabilly circuit again in the 80s.  (Side note: notice the Brits are way more into good older American music than Americans?) Wanda Jackson is a member of the Rock and Roll as well as the Rockabilly halls of fame.

Blurry iPhone pic of Wanda's Knitting Factory performance, Winter 2010

This is one of the first 45s I bought when I started getting 7" crazy. While it's not as upbeat as something like "Let's Have A Party" or "Fujiyama Mama" (a big hit in Japan despite concerns about it's references to the atomic bomb), Wanda's powerful voice and it's unique melancholy-weird vibe really makes this perhaps my favorite in her catalog. Maybe that's why it's been covered by Southern Culture on the Skids, Mike Ness, Demented Are Go, Meat Puppets and The Fall.
 Johnny Mercer first suggested the idea of starting Capital Records while he was golfing with Harold Arlen and Bobby Sherwood saying, "I think it would be fun." The rest is, as they say, history - Capital Records is now one of the big boys.
Here's a link to an MP3 download from the Amazon site.  Unfortunately, I think this might be an "album only" download: Funnel Of Love
And now, the clip!

Antique Acetate Love Letter

I found an antique acetate in a shop in Brooklyn about a month ago. For those that don't know, from the 1930s to the late 1950s, before the introduction of magnetic tape, recordings were often made directly to acetate discs. I finally got around to converting the audio to a digital format, and after some manipulation to get it to the proper speed (my turntable doesn't support 78RPM) and to remove a little of the noise I was surprised to uncover a love letter! Given the likely time period this technology was used was pre-50's, and the acetate was marked "Ft. Dix Gen Hospital", I'd like to imagine these are the words of a solider returned home from WWII, recovering in the hospital, missing his love.


Antique Audio Love Letter by djmikecrash

If the embedded audio isn't working, just go directly to my Soundcloud page here.
I tried my best to transcribe the full message, here it is:
"Hello baby darling, it's me. I may seem a little nervous, but that's because of the surroundings. Uh, I'll tell you about that later. It's been a long time, and I've travelled many long and weary miles, but you're still the sweetest thing on this Earth to me. I've seen mademoiselles in France, and fraulines in Germany, but you're still the one. There's still no one who can compare with you. I love you more than anything on this Earth, and I always will. On this Christmas and these holidays, I wish you the best of everything. You deserve the best of everything now. With all my love, *unintelligible* (aside) Now I'm done."