Clarence “Bad Boy” Palmer and the Jive Bombers—Bad Boy

My record shelves are peppered with them: if you’re a charity-shopping, jumble-sale-haunting vinyl fan like me, yours will probably also have a few. I’m talking about those records with fabulous covers you’re willing to gamble a few pennies on. You don’t know the artist: you don’t know the label: you can’t tell the genre. But the cover demands to be yours.

Of course they usually turn out to be musical mince when you get around to playing them, but every once in a while, every now and then, you’ve found a gem.

Here is such a gem, courtesy of my pal Cat (Hey Catherine!) who found this album Surprise Party Rive Gauche in a Barnardo’s Charity Shop, so many years ago she’s forgotten exactly when. There are a few pleasant numbers on this seemingly arbitrary French compilation, but the big standout track has to be “Bad Boy”: a fairly standard jazzy doo-wop arrangement, it’s the lead vocalists extraordinary ability to sound like a muted trumpet which makes it fab.

That LP itself is difficult to place; not least because of the bizarre arrangement of information: tracks titles are listed in one place (with a dance category: cha-cha-cha, charleston fox, etc.), while artists are listed elsewhere. I initially assumed that this was a cheap knock-off for tourists: local cabaret artists covering big international hits. But when I consulted the TCP/IP soothsayer, I found that The Jive Bombers were a New York band, and “Bad Boy” was a big US hit for them in 1957.

And the Song? Written by Lil Armstrong (neé Hardin), Louis’ second wife, it was originally titled “Brown Gal” in her version. The Jive Bombers recorded it first as “Brown Boy” in 1952, then the hit version here, now racially defused as “Bad Boy”, in 1957.

Download Clarence “Bad Boy” Palmer and the Jive Bombers—Bad Boy from Rapidshare

Here’s Lil’s original “Brown Gal” on YouTube, complete with lyric captions:

Washing All Their Troubles away

We start with a track from Lee Scratch Perry's great Battle of Armagideon (Millionaire Liquidator) from 1986. A cassette tape of this album was always by my kitchen machine back then, and "Show Me That River" always seemed to come on when I was doing the washing up. It always seemed appropriate, with it's "Wash all my troubles away" line. But like a lot of Lee lyrics, it was just slightly crazy:

Listen:

Download it from Rapidshare:Show Me That River.

Show My that river, Take me Icarus, And wash all my troubles away. Like that lucky old sun, I've nothing to do, But rolling in heaven all day.

Sounds to me like Perry's magpie, gadfly, creative mind has morphed "across" into "Icarus" here, under the influence of the sun mentioned in the next bit.

Then I found this Prince Buster Tutti Frutti LP in the 50p bin at my local second hand record shop; and the song "Wash Wash" seemed familiar.

Show My that river, Take me across, And wash all my troubles away...

Listen:

Download it from rapidshare: Wash Wash.

Aha! "Across" here! Of course the music industry in general, and the Jamaican music industry in particular, have never been that fastidious about nicking bits of songs from each other. And before you Prince Buster fans out there start looking down on the Scratch fans, wait: Mr Bustamente nicked it himself.

That Lucky Old Sun was a big hit for Frankie Laine in 1949. It was written by Beasley Smith and Haven Gillespie, and was covered many times, by the likes of Vaughn Monroe, Ol' Frankie, Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles. Here's Louis Armstrong's version.

Listen:

Download it from rapidshare: That Lucky Old Sun.

This version, with its sacred, gospelly overtones, is clearly implying that the river being shown is the Jordan, and the point where the troubles are washed away is death. Or maybe the Styx, I suppose, but nobody ever got washed in the Styx, unless they got thrown overboard by the ferryman, maybe.

The Mighty Terror – Women Police in England

The best known story about the Mighty Terror is probably too good to be true: how, when he arrived in from Trinidad in London in 1953, he asked the taxi driver to take him to the home of Lord Kitchener. The terror was obviously (to us) referring to the Great Calypsonian, but the confused taxi driver at first thought he was referring to the long-dead British Imperialist War Hero. Hilarious consequences ensued. Right.

Anyway, for us bleeding-heart liberal middle class muddle-headed do-gooder pinko types, the only time we can tolerate Sexism or Affection for the Police Force is when it comes out of the mouth of an Ethnic Minority Person. Here's The Terror fondly dreaming of being arrested by a nice “blondie one”.

Listen:

Download The Mighty Terror – Women Police in England MP3 (rapidshare)

The Lion – Trinidad, the Land of Calypso

Raphael de Leon, (1908–1999) AKA The Lion, or Roaring Lion, a leading figure in Calypso for over sixty years, was both a popular Calypsonian, with songs like Ugly Woman, Mary Ann and Netty, Netty, and a historian of the genré. In his book Calypso From France to Trinidad: 800 Years of History (1986) he argued against the prevailing idea that Calypso was based on African musical forms, and proposed medieval French troubadour origins.

He even disputed the origin of the name “Calypso”, usually said to be from the word kaicho, from language of the Huassa tribe in Nigeria. Roaring Lion argues that it's from Enrico Caruso. The name of Caruso, the opera superstar of the turn of the century, had in the Trinidad of his youth became a descriptive noun for any singer, or vocal performance. More information in an interview from Variant Magazine in 1991.

Anyway, here’s a recording made in London on the 16th of June 1954, where he teases those who assert that the source of Calypso is anywhere else but the “Land of the Trinity”.

Listen:

Download The Lion – Trinidad, the Land of Calypso MP3 (rapidshare)

From Caribbean Connections: Black Music in Britain in the early 1950s Volume 2. New Cross records (Charly) NC006 1987. My first vinyl-to-mp3 conversion.

Lord Melody – Mama Look a Booboo

If you’ve heard this song before, chances are it’s Harry Belafonte’s 1957 hit version: that’s the first version I ever heard, anyway. I knew Robert Mitchum had recorded some calypso, but it wasn’t till I managed to borrow a vinyl copy of “Calypso – is Like So…” that I realised he’d covered it too. But I finally chanced upon Lord Melody’s original while in the grip of mento* fever, a few years back. The huge international boom in calypso in the mid to late fifties (like Harry Belafonte’s hits) meant that just about all indigenous Caribbean music, including Jamaican mento, was being sold as “calypso”: so inevitably, in the hunt for mento gold, I necessarily had to listen to a fair bit of calypso pyrites: but no, I got to love calypso too, of course.

Shut you mouth! Go away!

Anyway, Lord Melody (born Fitzroy Alexander in 1928; died 1988) was one of the big Trinidadian stars of the fifties Calypso Boom, with this song being a hit in America: he had another international hit in 1962 with “Shame and Scandal” (a song with too complicated a story for this place: wikipedia covers it well).

Here’s Lord Melody’s original 1955 version.

Listen:

Download Lord Melody – Mama Look a Booboo MP3 (rapidshare)

...and here’s a live version from 1958 (I think):

Listen:

Download Lord Melody – Booboo Man MP3 (rapidshare)

Bob Mitchum’s Trini accent is a bit ropey here, but he has a pleasant voice, and the band are excellent enough to calm the Original Version Purist Demon that snarls within me.

Listen:

Download Robert Mitchum – Mama Looka Booboo MP3 (rapidshare)

...and if you wany to here Belafonte’s version, here he is dueting with Nat “King” Cole, via YouTube.

* I don’t have the mental energy for the long, complicated answer that a seemingly simple question like “What is mento?” deserves. Follow the link to Michael Garnice’s exhaustively researched page if you’re interested.

Carole King – Oh, Neil

Reading The NME Encyclopedia of Rock in the mid seventies, I first heard that Neil Sedaka's Oh, Carol referred to Carole King, and that Carole had recorded a reply record, Oh, Neil. More than thirty years later, I've finally tracked it down. Sounding suspiciously like she used a tweaked mix of the same backing track, Oh, Neil has some delicious lyrics, particularly when she rhymes "Mrs. Neil Sedaky" with "Chewing Tobaccy". A fabulous record, and well worth the wait.

Listen:

Download: Carole King - Oh, Neil MP3 (rapidshare)