Premiers (re-re-re)post

It's been three years since the blog started! Here's another repost of the very first thing I put up. I still don't know anything more about this great record. Somebody out there has got to know something more!

A couple days before Christmas, I went to Sunburst Records to pick up some Dusty Springfield CDs for my wife. Jay had a 3 huge stacks of 45's that he was giving away. Somebody brought them in to sell and Jay didn't offer them enough money so they left all of the records at the store cause they didn't feel like carrying the box back home. This was one of the first records I looked at and I knew it was gonna be a good stack of records. It was a nice clean 45 with a bright pink label. It just looked good.

I don't know anything about this record other than the information that's on the label. Big Top records was based in New York City but The Premiers don't sound like a New York band. I think the A-side was "Oogsy-Moo" which is a cover of a Jessie Hill song. Naturally enough, this sounds like a New Orleans R&B band. But the other side of the record is a rockabilly instrumental called "Locomotive". This song was written by somebody named Dale Kahrr. I can't find any information about him either. What's going on? Does anybody know anything about this record?

I checked the Rockin' Country Style website and it looks like the Premiers record came out sometime between April of '62 and March of '63. Nothing about The Premiers or Dale Kahrr though.

Paralyzed

Imagine a rawer, less-inhibited Hasil Adkins with a hit record. That’s the Legendary Stardust Cowboy. All that and he plays trumpet too.

The Legendary Stardust Cowboy was born Norman Carl Odam in Lubbock Texas in 1947. Starting at age 14, Odam started teaching himself how to sing and play music. In 1968, the Odom left his home and started driving to New York City. His intention was to try and get on the Tonight Show just like Tiny Tim. He had gotten as far as Ft. Worth where a vacuum cleaner salesman and a club owner talked him in to making a record. They took Odam to a local studio where Odom recorded one of the most unhinged records to ever make the Billboard charts. Just when you think “Paralyzed” can’t get any worse/better, there’s a trumpet solo. I smile every time I hear it.

The drummer on the record is T-Bone Burnett, who’s gone on to make some pretty good records on his own. You can hear the Ledge giving him instructions on how to play at the beginning of “Who’s Knocking On My Door”.

The record’s success didn’t get Odam on the Tonight Show. He did perform on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In though. He also got a contract with Mercury Records.

The second single is a bit more restrained but not any less weird. The words can be understood this time around. “Down In The Wrecking Yard” is a free associating love song to a wrecked car. I think. THere is a trumpet. “I Took A Trip On A Gemini Spaceship” is a love song to a woman back on earth. I think. David Bowie covered the song on his 2002 HEATHEN album. Bowie has always been a big supporter of the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, going as far as borrowing part of the Ledge’s name for a while in the early Seventies.

The last single on Mercury is almost normal sounding. The lyrics make sense, there’s strings instead of a trumpet, everybody starts & stops at the same time, no trumpet solos. The piano just might be Floyd Cramer. It wasn’t a hit. Unfortunately, my copy of the b-side “Kiss & Run” skips* so I can’t put it up here. Sorry.

The Ledge didn’t make another record until 1984. He’s still out playing.


* Yeah I know that’s never stopped me before. This skip is more like a hop, the record really is literally unplayable.

Down with

the old canoe

Look for the good in others

and they'll see the good in you

Locked inside

a photograph

Crazy arms

Now, blue ain't the word for the way that I feel,
There's a storm brewin' in this heart of mine.
This ain't no crazy dream, I know that it's real.
You're someone else's love now, you're not mine.

Crazy arms that seek to hold somebody new,
But my burnin' heart keeps sayin' you're not mine!
My troubled mind knows soon to another you'll be wed,
And that's why I'm lonely all the time.

Please take these treasured dreams I had for you and me,
And take all the love I thought was mine,
This ain't no crazy dream, I know that it's real,
And that's why I'm lonely all the time.

Crazy arms that seek to hold somebody new,
But my burnin' heart keeps sayin' you're not mine!
My troubled mind knows soon to another you'll be wed,
And that's why I'm lonely all the time.
-- Ralph Mooney/Charles Seals

King,

where are your people now?

Just about brought about

the disintigration of our civilization

I would be a duck for Al Green

Richard Hell released this reading of excerpts from his novel Go Now in 1995. Hell reads chapters one and two which were the best part of the book. It went downhill soon after. The best part of this though is Robert Quine's guitar playing. It's always good to hear Quine play.

Happy birthday!

Damo Suzuki!

Come and get it

TOO MUCH PORK FOR JUST ONE FORK wasn't really a comeback for Southern Culture On The Skids. The band's 1985 LP was recorded by an entirely different band. 6 years later, the only remaining original member was guitarist Rick Miller. The earlier quartet was a really good live act but they weren't known for banana pudding and throwing fried chicken out to the crowd. The new trio also had a soulful feel that the earlier quartet didn't. The first incarnation were Cramps fans, this new group sounds a lot like CCR.

Some of my favorite songs are here but this new LP wasn't a full on party record like some of S.C.O.T.S. later records. A few of the songs are just plain boring. It would have helped to cut a few songs and made the record shorter.

I did talk the new version into playing the great "Psycho Surfing" at a 1990 show at the Ivory Tusk in Tuscaloosa. What a great song, I wish they had kept it in the setlist.

This song is one of the strangest things the band ever recorded. I like it.

Right after TOO MUCH PORK FOR JUST ONE FORK was released, Moist Records went out of business. As popular as Southern Culture has gotten, the LP has never been re-released. A few of the songs did get re-recorded later on, mostly on DIRT TRACK DATE.

I've been left waiting

You just keep on going

They don't purr

When I found this LP in a junk store in Kentucky in 1987, I had completely forgotten about the original Cattanooga Cats cartoon. Thanks to Youtube, I remember seeing the show when I was a kid. I didn't remember the music either but I should. It's really good stuff.

Mike Curb - the guy that dropped the Velvet Underground & The Mothers of Invention from MGM - wrote the songs. This song wouldn't make it to kid's TV these days. Neither would this excellent bubblegum nugget. I'm surprised nobody has covered any of this stuff, these songs are great! And weird too - has any other singer ever worried about his band's dental hygiene?

The great Michael Lloyd sang the male leads, Peggy Clinger sings the female songs. The players are not credited unfortunately. The bass player is pretty good.

The whole LP is only 20 minutes long. That seems short noe but I'm pretty sure I would have had trouble sitting through the whole LP when I was 7.

There is a CD with 11 more songs available. And then there's this.

R.I.P.

Dave Day

One of the original punks.

Listen sister

you should wear a smile

Evening train

may be too late

That's where

my dreams are waiting

It's not easy

Oh yeah. Terry Lee was a rocker too. In 1966, Lee discovered/managed/was somehow involved with with the Swamp Rats and the Fantastic Dee-Jays.

The magic TL sound

Here's a comp of obscure doo-wop both of you loyal readers. I found MUSIC FOR LOVERS VOL. III at a WLRH record sale back in '93 or '94. I'd only heard one of the records on the LP and it was only a buck so I bought it. What a strange record. Terry Lee introduces the records just like a late night oldies DJ. There's six miles of echo on his voice. I guess Terry Lee also thinks echo is romantic. The songs themselves are mostly great with only a couple of stinkers. The Ordells "Sippin' A Cup Of Coffee" towards the end of side two is a great record. I keep looking for that one on 45 but I haven't found a copy yet.

Terry Lee did not seperate the songs so you're getting the two long files with 6 songs each.

Side 1:
The Sharades - Only A Tear
Scott English - High On A Hill
John Barfield - Mr. Starlight
The Demons - Take Me As I Am
The Brothers Of Soul - Guess That Don't Make Me A Loser
Barbara Mason - Yes, I'm Ready

Side 2:
Chuck Corby - Honey Let Me Stay
The Fascinators - Who Do You Think You Are
The Bob Knight Four - Two Friends
The Ordells - Sippin' A Cup Of Coffee
The Empires - Love You So Bad
Gary Glen - Good Night My Love

This is Volume III, I've never seen any others but I imagine that the used record shops in Pennsylvania have a few copies in stock.

Terry Lee really was a DJ on WMCK/WIXZ in Pittsburgh and had a syndicated oldies show in the eighties. I had never heard of him before I found this record though.

How can you tell me

you're lonely?