It's A Rock & Roll Halloween!
"Werewolves of London" is a song recorded by American singer-songwriter Warren Zevon, written by Zevon, LeRoy Marinell and Waddy Wachtel. It first appeared on Excitable Boy (1978), Zevon's third studio album, then it was released as a single by Asylum Records in March 1978, becoming a Top 40 US hit, the only one of Zevon's career, reaching No. 21 on the US Billboard Hot 100 in May. Inspired by Zevon's band leader Phil Everly, it includes Fleetwood Mac's Mick Fleetwood on drums and John McVie on bass.
The song began as a joke by Phil Everly (of the Everly Brothers) to Zevon in 1975, over two years before the recording sessions for Excitable Boy.
Everly had watched a television broadcast of the 1935 film Werewolf of London and “suggested to Zevon that he adapt the title for a song and dance craze.” Zevon played with the idea with his band members LeRoy P. Marinell and Waddy Wachtel, who wrote the song together in about 15 minutes, all contributing lyrics that were transcribed by Zevon's wife Crystal. However, none of them took the song seriously.
Way Out West is a rock and roll album recorded and released in June 1966 by film star Mae West. The LP consisted mainly of covers of popular songs of the day. Teen rock band Somebody's Chyldren provided instrumental accompaniment. The album was released by Tower Records, a subsidiary of Capitol Records, and on Stateside Records in the UK.
The album was a surprise success, peaking at #116 on Billboard's Hot 200 LP chart although there were no original hit singles from the collection.
West was 72 at the time, making her the oldest woman to ever have a solo album on the Hot 200 chart.
Way Out West was never released on CD, but in 2009 the album was made available in digital format.
Bo meets the monster: How Max and Bo Diddley turned into monsters and ate a city!
“Bo Meets the Monster” was clearly inspired by the success of Sheb Wooley’s 1958 hit “Flying Purple People Eater” — the monsters voices are identical in both songs, created by speeding up the recording.
When Bo Diddley recorded his version, he initially titled it Purple People, and the monster in Bo’s song is actually referred to as a Purple People Eater. The early days of rock and roll were filled with these sorts of answer songs, in which characters from a hit song appeared in other songs by other artists, and Bo Diddley, whose famous riff had been stolen a thousand times, probably had more right to borrow from another songwriter as anyone. It’s hard to imagine such a thing happening nowadays, though, without record company lawyers calling foul and instantly retiring to a back room with a hundred lawyers to prepare a lawsuit.
And that’s a shame, because “Bo Meets the Monster” is “Purple People Eater” as seen through Bo Diddley’s huge lenses, and the results are hysterical. Sheb Woolley’s sees the monster and reacts with abject terror, but Bo responds in the manner a legend should — he leaps into a private airplane and takes off flying after it. It ends badly for Bo, as, when there is a monster loose, you shouldn’t leave your girlfriend alone in a house, even one made of rattlesnake hide. But nonetheless, the song leaves us with an excellent image, and it is the way I like to imagine Bo Diddley going. He might actually have died in bed in his hometown of Archer, Fla., but I like to image Bo Diddley leaping out of bed, grabbing his square metal guitar, tossing his black cowboy hat on, and running to his airplane to take to the skies after a rock and roll monster.
Southern Culture on the Skids, also sometimes known as SCOTS, is an American rock band from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Without a label, SCOTS toured steadily for a few years. Zombified (1998) was a limited, independent release themed around horror movies from drive-ins and late-night TV. SCOTS' next widely released album appeared in 2000, Liquored Up and Lacquered Down, on TVT Records. The multiple alcohol-themed songs reflected the band's energetic songs.
Barrence Whitfield (born Barry White, June 13, 1955) is an American soul and R&B vocalist, best known as the frontman for Barrence Whitfield & the Savages.
White was born in Jacksonville, Florida. When he was a child, his family moved to East Orange, New Jersey, where he began singing in a gospel choir. While attending West Side High School he sang and played drums in rock, prog-rock, and funk bands.
Barrence Whitfield & the Savages garnered a strong reputation for explosive stage performances, described as “raucous and rough, in high gear from the moment they hit the stage.”
Whitfield himself was described as “a soul screamer in the spirit of Little Richard, Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke, and early Don Covay.”
In 1984, the band released their self-titled debut album, mostly comprising cover versions of obscure soul and R&B songs. It received good critical reviews. The following year, they released a second album, Dig Yourself, on Rounder Records. Their music was heard by English radio DJ Andy Kershaw, who taped a Boston performance for airplay in Britain, and brought them to the UK for a tour.
The Swingin' Neckbreakers only seemed to burst out of nowhere (although Trenton, New Jersey may be pretty damn close to Trentonnowhere). Brothers Tom and John Jorgensen had been champing at the bit to go out and do some rock 'n' roll damage for years. However, the odds on finding like-minded rabble rousers in their neck of the woods were against them. The duo recorded some home demos, and played a couple of obscure gigs here and there with different names and band members, until they adopted Don "Shaggy" Snook.
John Jorgensen moved from guitar to drums, handing the six-string seat to Shaggy, while Tom continued to play bass and scream. In the spring of 1992 the trio recorded some demos, which they passed on to Maxwell's booking impressario and Telstar Records chief Todd Abramson at a Lyres/A-Bones gig at the Hoboken, New Jersey, club in the hopes of securing a gig there. Abramson liked what he heard so much that they not only got a gig, but an offer to go into the studio and record for Telstar.
"Psycho Killer" is a song by American rock band Talking Heads, released on their debut studio album Talking Heads: 77 (1977). The group first performed it as the Artistics in 1974.
The band also recorded an acoustic version of the song featuring Arthur Russell on cello. In the liner notes for Once in a Lifetime: The Best of Talking Heads (1992), Jerry Harrison wrote of the B-side of the single, "I'm glad we persuaded Tony [Bongiovi] and Lance [Quinn] that the version with the cellos shouldn't be the only one."
The band's “signature debut hit” features lyrics which seem to represent the thoughts of a serial killer. Originally written and performed as a ballad, "Psycho Killer" became what AllMusic calls a "deceptively funky new wave/no wave song" with “an insistent rhythm, and one of the most memorable, driving basslines in rock & roll.”
"Psycho Killer" was the only song from the album to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at number 92. It reached number 32 on the Triple J Hottest 100 in 1989, and peaked at number 11 on the Dutch singles chart in 1977. The song is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
Ghost Train was composed by The Swanks (Jack Revelle, lead guitar (age 17), Otha Libby (age 19) rhythm guitar and Bobby Jones (age 18) drums) in 1964 at Riposo Studios in Syracuse, New York.
They had been rehearsing at the Jones’ family home in Brewerton, NY on a Saturday morning in preparation for a recording session at Riposo that afternoon. About an hour and a half before they were scheduled to leave for Syracuse, they realized they had no material for the flip side of the 45 rpm record they would be recording. They began to jam and trade ideas back and forth, and the result of their effort over the span of that hour and a half, and three takes at Riposo Studios, was Ghost Train.
Ghost Train was originally released on Charm Records but has since been reissued as a bootlegged on at least two dozen 1960’s instrumental compilations. It has also been used on the soundtrack of a French film, “Violent Days” & the original Frankenstein movie.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN
TO ONE & ALL!