The Barbarians formed in 1964 and were based out of Cape Cod. There's no denying their roots - listen to one of their tunes and the accent is heavy and unmistakable. "Hey Little Bird" was their first tune, and it flopped badly. I think it's a pretty rocking little number and a heavy guitar drone/gong at the end of each verse really makes the song for me.
The Barbarians' big hit was "Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?", which peaked at around #55 on the charts. Also, I'd recommend checking out "Moulty" - a silly ballad about how the drummer lost his hand, that was later included on the infamous "Nuggets" compilation. The Barbarians split by '68 but I'm glad they left us with a few gems. Here a clip of them performing today's 45 on the TAMI show.
Joy Records was active between 1958 and 1965. Based in New York, it was run by Hal and Mariam Weiss. I also know that the producer of this tune, Al Ham, was the A&R chief at Joy. That's really all I've got on Joy.
And the clip:
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