With Spring dropping in recordings from R.E.M., Elvis Costello and Alejandro Escovedo you’d think that would be enough to call it a good season for music. Throw in James McMurtry, Hayes Carll, Reckless Kelly, Old 97s, My Morning Jacket, Jackie Greene, Amos Lee and Matthew Ryan and now you’ve got a whopper of a season. Jakob Dylan launched his first solo album and Teddy Thompson keeps making a name for himself proving that apples do not fall far from the tree. If that’s not enough check out emerging artists like Griffin House, Mason Jennings, The Band of Heathens, The Mother Truckers, Honeybrowne, Crooked Still, The Weepies, Danielia Cotton and Eli “Paperboy” Reed to hear some of Twangville’s new favorites.

As always, this mix is available for preview on iTunes.

Best of Spring 2008, Tom’s Mixtape

What artists impressed you in Spring ‘08?

BUDDY GUY, Skin Deep (Silvertone)
Official Site | MySpace | Samples (Amazon)

Living blues legend Buddy Guy cuts a record with a little help from some other big hitters including Eric Clapton, Robert Randolph, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks. A warm welcome in a year where we still mourn the passing of Bo Diddley and emerging blues artist Sean Costello. File under: Blues

Noteworthy

• AVETT BROTHERS, The Second Gleam EP (Ramseur)
  Official Site | MySpace
  New six song EP from North Carolina’s Avett Brothers
• BENJI HUGHES, A Love Extreme (New West)
  MySpace | Samples (Amazon)
  A former house painter, NC based singer songwriter Benji Hughes debuts a 25 song, two disc set of noteworthy tracks with New West Records.
• PAUL WELLER, 22 Dreams (Yep Roc)
  Official Site | MySpace | Samples (Amazon)
  The ninth solo album from Weller a former member of The Jam. 22 dreams is a collection of 21 tracks (is there a hold out dream?) and features collaborations with Noel Gallagher (Oasis) and Graham Coxon (Blur).

More Highlights

AMY RAY, ARCHIE FISHER, CSS, DR. DOG, MUGISON, SAMANTHA CRAIN, SAMMY WALKER, SUGARLAND and more. See our Release Calendar for more new releases like these.

Bonus Material

Noteworthy articles from Twangville and our friendly neighbors:

• William Bell, Stax and Soul [Twangville]
• Country with Muscle - John D. Hale Band & Back Porch Mary [Twangville / Gobblers Knob]
• It Burns When I Pee Episode #0017 “Even God Needs the Devil” [Section 86]
• Mellencamp Reflects On Our Country [Hickory Wind]
• The New New Soul [Twangville]
• Wynton Marsalis & Willie Nelson - Two Men With the Blues [Twangville / Amber Waves of Twang]
• The Duhks: Fast Paced World [Fiddlefreak]
• Twangville Picks the Best So Far in ‘08 [Twangville]

Grab Bag

• FREE GIVEAWAY! I’m giving away a free mystery (bluegrass) disc this week to one lucky winner as a way of saying thanks for being a part of Twangville. Simply comment on this post to be eligible. The winner will be contacted the following week. NOTE: You must have a US mailing address to win.

July 19th - Waiting for William Bell at an Amsterdam hotel, I was sipping on some coffee while all the classic Soul hits played in the background. The records from Stax and Motown, that once shook the world, struck me as the perfect background to interview the man who was a big part of the Soul genre’s birth. What at one point, as William would put it, was the Devil’s music, now was enough part of our collective musical memory to soothe us over a hotel breakfast. Sitting down for coffee with a man I consider to be a legend, I was truck with how accessible mister Bell was. Pushing 70 years of age, Bell looked like a man in his late forties. A youth he would radiate later that evening on stage in the Hague while delivering his classic hits such as “You Don’t Miss Your Water (till the well runs dry) and “Private Number.”

William Bell was born William Yarbourgh in Memphis Tennesee 1939. William started his singing career in the Baptist church at a very young age. “I was six or seven when I started singing in church,” William remembers. At the age of 14 William entered a talent contest at the Mid-South Fair, “I won first price and that brought me to the attention of Phineas Newborn who had a big 14 piece orchestra, kind of like a Count Basie type orchestra”. Looking back William really feels his stint with the orchestra, including top talent like Fathead Newman and Hank Crawford, was like going to the university that would prepare him for the rest of his career. “Some of the things I learned back then I can still apply today, how to read an audience, how to time your shows”. Phineas also taught him all William needed to know about chord progression and taught him the basics on the piano. The most important lessons William remember however was to “always leave your audience wanting more” with a laugh he adds, “when you see you’ve got them at a fever pitch…..exit!” A lesson William still applies today.

Coming from a working class background Williams parents weren’t very supportive at first. “Mom was in the choir” William explains “this was what they called Devil’s music” he adds with a chuckle, “they had much rather that I had gone the gospel route, but since old man Phineas’ sons were in his band and he had asked my mum about joining the orchestra, she reluctantly agreed as long as I was back in time on Sunday for church.” Added to his parents reluctance was the fact that both his parents worked hard to make ends meet, “so we weren’t super poor” Williams remembers. But that didn’t take away from the fact that his parents had hoped William would go off to college as the first in the family and become a doctor, “but at that time I had the music in my head.” Music and writing was important to William, “I was always a poet, even as a ten to twelve year old. That was like an escapism, I was always writing lyrics.” Over time the support of his parents grew so when he formed the Del-Rios, a doo-wop group, with some class mates, they were allowed to practice in the house.

The Del-Rios saw William shifting from Jazz to modern music. Like so many performers of his generation it was radio that had first introduced him to R&B. In William’s case it was WDIA that played a key role. As the first black radio station in the country it was through them he got acquainted with the sounds of Little Richard, the Clovers, Hank Ballard & the Midnighters and B.B. King. WDIA also organized teen talent contests, which Bell would use to further hone his performing skills. “They had B.B. King with a fifteen minute show where he would play and sing and then they had the teen talent singers where we would play three songs or so” he remembers. With the Del-Rios he would start to play his first matinees in Memphis and get his first recording experience when they cut “Alone on a Rainy Night” for Meteor records with Rufus Thomas’ band the Bear Cats backing them up. Bell fondly remembers Rufus, “I knew him both as a comedian and a DJ, he kind of was a surrogate father to all of us.” With Thomas being a jack of all trades William picked up a lot of how to become an all round performer.

William remembers Memphis as a melting pot where you’d hear all the different music styles coming through the radio and having Sun records right across town where Elvis Presley and Rufus Thomas had cut their first records. As he explains that melting pot was key in the Stax sound, which married Country and R&B. Steve Cropper and Duck Dunn came from a Rockabilly background, William remembers and explained how that sound mixed with Booker T’s church background, creating a sound that was as unique as it was revolutionary at the time. When William was growing up, Memphis was still segregated. William still clearly remembers the white only signs and the blatant racism, although he does admit he was more or less sheltered from the worst part of it. “It was weird, my neighborhood was like the dividing line between black and white” William explains. Right across the street of him lived a white family, Bell remembers that “early in the morning my mother would have coffee at the kitchen table and exchange recipes with the white lady across the street, so I grew up with more of an open mind. When I got with Stax, having the camaraderie with black and white, it was a mixture there, once we closed those doors, we locked the world outside.” The only tension William remembers amongst his fellow musicians was over how to play the chord changes. Inside they only argued about the important stuff, “it didn’t matter if you were black or white, it was all in terms of what you could bring to the table in terms of your musical abilities.” Stax was the first integrated company in the country Bell remembers, “it was like a family, we opened a lot of avenues by being mixed.”

How much of a family Stax actually was becomes tangible when William reminisces on Estelle Axton, the sister of Jim Steward. Jim was the St of Stax, she was the Ax. “She was like a mother to us, she was nutritious, she kept us on the straight and narrow a lot of times, because we would be teenagers back than, it didn’t matter to her if you were black or white, if you’d do something wrong, she’d be all over us” he remembers with a warm smile. Estelle also ran the record shop, Satellite Records, that was an instrumental part of the Stax operation. As a small independent operation, Stax didn’t have the financial buffer to take too many risks on their records. So before a record was pressed Estelle would play the record in the record store and see of it commanded a response from the kids who were visiting. If they started to dance, Estelle would know they had another hit.

William claims today he was the first male singer to be signed to Stax, encouraged by Chips Moman, an influential Memphis based guitar player and record producer. William was reluctant at first. His memories of recording for Meteor had left him with a bitter taste in his mouth for the recording industry since he never got paid for that. Bell wasn’t sure he wanted a career as a signed singer for himself. He rather went out on the road with Phinaes which provided him a stable income at the time. However, during a long stand in New York, William started to get homesick and penned “You Don’t Miss Your Water (till the well runs dry)” to give expression to those emotions. Back in Memphis Bell first recorded with the Del-Rios again for Stax, soon however the army stepped in and drafted about half of the group, “So I wound up being a solo” Bell laughs remembering. He cut his song and building regionally it would become his first hit for the company. The simply philosophy that made the song stand out would later become Bell’s trade mark. “As a kid I was always surrounded by grown-ups” Bell explains “So I got a lot of that home spun wisdom from my grandparents and my parents and everything”. These wisdoms would later find their way into other signature songs such as “Everybody Loves a Winner” or “I Forgot to be Your Lover,” making them easy to connect to.

Ironically Bell was drafted himself soon after he had his first hit. When he came back out of the army, Stax had signed Otis Redding who became their first bona fide super star. Almost by default William is compared to Otis these days, even though their vocal styles are strikingly different. “His background was Gospel too, his father was a minister” Bell says explaining the similarities between them. “But of course he was more of an up-tempo singer, wham! wham! ” Bell relates, “and I was more of a hopeless romantic” he says laughing. Explaining further Bell relates that their respective regions were key in how their vocal styles formed. Being from Macon Georgia, Otis was more influenced by Little Richard according to Bell. While William himself was more influenced by Bobby Bland and B.B. King, “Coming from Memphis I got a little bit of everything” he adds, again stressing the melting pot Memphis was.

Despite their differences William and Otis hit it off and started touring together for about a year and a half in 1966. Touring in cramped cars, becoming road buddies was almost a necessity, “we used to flip coins to see who had to sit in the middle portion” Bell laughs. The touring schedule was frantic, “I think in one year we did almost 300 one-nighters.” Bell remembers a specific incident where they came from a show in Washington and had little time to catch the plane after that. Unfortunately the car stalled about a mile away from the airport. Otis and William had to jump the fence and run across the runway to be able to catch the plane, which as about to embark. Luckily the purser, while they were already taking away the ladder from the plane, was a fan who recognized the duo and stalled the plane so they could catch it. “We were lucky we weren’t ran over by a plane” Bell laughs, “these days you probably couldn’t do that without being shot,” he adds.

William cut a couple of albums for Stax. The first one, “The Soul of a Bell,” he produced with his youth buddy Book T, whom he knew from church and high school, at the Stax studios. “Bound to Happen” was produced by All Bell, the company’s president at the time, at Muscle Shoals. Explaining the differences between the two William relates that “Booker was more musical inclined, All was more of a feel person, he approached it almost from a religious point of view, Booker wanted it all to be structured musical correctly. He was such a great musician, really a multi-instrumentalist long before it was fashionable.” He admits that writing with Booker T came easy to him, they could almost read each other’s minds. William explains how he would often come into the studio with just the skeleton of a song, “but then he came in and would take it to another level.” Though sometimes, Bell added, “it was the music that almost dictated the subject matter”.

Though producing records with Booker T at Stax, William wasn’t signed to them as such. That gave Bell the liberty to form his own record label in Atlanta, Peachtree, in 1969. Where talent just kind of floated into Stax through the record shop, in Atlanta however William had to hunt down his own talent. Bell worked together with his then manager Henry Wynn on this, who as a promoter did all the big black acts those days according to William. Wynn also had a few acts signed without any material out. So what Bell would cut those artists to wax, backed by his own road band, Johnny Jones and the King Casuals. As an independent it proved difficult to get their material plugged at radio stations, so Wynn would make sure to make courtesy stops at the local stations whenever the Peachtree acts, like Mitty Collier, would come to town, building a name for them regionally when this was still possible. But the times were changing. By the time Stax went bankrupt in 1975 the market left less room for little labels that could. The big companies had tightened their grip on the market, big FM radio stations with their formats were slowly pushing out the smaller regional stations and Disco started dominating popular tastes.

Ironically William Bell closed the era of what is now considered the golden age of Soul with a bang. After Stax went down William was signed to Mercury. Again his affiliation with this new label came with reluctance from Bell’s part. “After Stax filed bankruptcy I was so disillusioned, because as kids growing up we never thought that Stax would end” he muses today. This time after being motivated and chased down by Peachtree’s distributor Charles Fach, also vice-president of Mercury, Bell reluctantly gave in and agreed to cut four songs for Mercury to be used as 45rpm releases. “At that point I didn’t actually have any songs” Bell admitted with a laugh. By the time he had the songs written, amongst which “Trying to Love Two” which would become Bell’s first number one hit in 1976, the Rhythm section he had wanted to use was no longer available. Bell called upon New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint who set him up with a backing band, possibly Chocolate Milk, but William isn’t exactly sure. After “Trying to Love Two” hit Bell expanded the sessions into an album, aptly titled “Coming Back For More.”

“(C)2008 Jelmer de Haas”
Even though the first Mercury album hit big, Bell, like so many of his peers, got lost in the flood of the changing times. Because of a change in executives at Mercury interest in Bell waned within the company and Bell himself had difficulty to adapt to Disco. William can laugh about it today, “Disco was a 120 beats a minute and it was killing us.” Bell explains, “of course the producers became the stars then.” It wasn’t long before Saturday Night Fever hit after that and the DJ became King William reflects on it now, “even though a lot of artists are still around they never came back.” Reflecting on what the music business became Bell relates “it’s too much a melting pot these days, I like some of the modern stuff, but to me individuality is what makes and artist. All of the great artists, whether its B.B King, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix or Clapton, they all had a distinct sound you’d easily recognize.” Bell feels music is missing just that individuality these days. “A lot of it is lost in the generic music of today because they use the same instrumentation, the same chord structure, it just comes across as fast-food music.” Bell suspects a lot of the appreciation for the craft got lost when the small clubs started to close down, “artist don’t have a place to go and hone their craft” he clarifies, “you have to be able to look your audience in the eye-balls.”

Despite the musical and cultural musical changes, William Bell keeps producing music for his own production company Wilbe. It’s the love of it that keeps him going, “it keeps me young.” Something he would prove in spades on stage later that night. Showing to all the Amy Winehouses and Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reeds out there how the game is really played.

Live photos courtesy of Jelmer de Haas

Now that you understand the key process behind my thoughts of this extravagant and complicated labeling system, I present to you….“Country with Muscle”. Sounds simple enough, and it means exactly what it sounds like it means. Rockin’ Country where men talk about drinkin’, drivin’ (sometimes at the same time, sorry), hatin’, fightin’, cheatin’, and yes, even lovin’. The key difference here is when the bands that fall under this label sing about lovin’ (or any of the subjects mentioned above), they do it with drums that seem to pound a bit louder, voices that ring just a tad rougher, and lyrics that sound just a tad grittier than your typical “Country”. There have been great examples of “Country with Muscle” released recently. Bleu Edmondson’s Lost Boy, Rodney Parker & 50 Peso Reward’s The Lonesome Dirge, and most recently, Reckless Kelly’s phenomenal Bulletproof, are sterling works that showcase what I am explaining here. Two recent releases that showcase the swagger and sweat that a disc requires to join the ranks of the aforementioned releases are John D. Hale Band’s Lost and Back Porch Mary’s Time of the Broken Heart.

John D. Hale Band, originating from Jackson, Missouri, plainly and simply bring it. Opening the album with “Heartbreaker”, Hale is asking a chick “why are you so cruel?” as he warns, “you’re gonna get whats’ coming to you”. Hale’s vocal possesses a nasally twang that almost seems as if he is straining to reach the full potential of the notes he looks to emphasize, this attempt is a great example of the “muscle” this album contains. As a rule, I don’t happen to think covering Lyle Lovett is a wise idea, but Hale and the boys make “L.A. County” their woman, as the opening notes recall Lovett’s original, but then Hale’s vocal takes a bouncing turn into a more countrified territory versus the folkier terrain that the original travelled. Perhaps the song that sums up my argument for this band to be included into the “Country with Muscle” genre is the heist-rocker, “Pistol in Each Hand”. This tale of guns, desperation and contraband, augmented by crashing cymbals with thunderous drum-beats in the chorus reminds me of the more memorable crime tales that have been documented in song over the last few years, Robert Earl Keen’s “Road Goes on Forever”, Charlie Robison’s “Desperate Times”, and sure, even “Copperhead Road”. Each of these tales focus on a guy that is experiencing some sort of panicked decision to alter his reality with actions that require guns and/or avoiding the law in a violent manner. More tales of life from a small town perspective help round out this album and provides us with a band from outside of the Lone-Star State that would fit ever-so nicely into the musical landscape here.

Back Porch Mary, coming from Austin, TX also adresses the same masculine subject matter, as Hale. The disc opens with “This Band”. I can’t tell if Mike, the lead singer, is lamenting his circumstances or celebrating them (probably the latter), as he sings that “no good girl will ever talk to me, ‘cuz all I got’s this band”. The songs on Time of the Broken Heart address love and the opposite sex, but again, not in a “I just gotta cry” kinda way. Tracks such as “Harsh Light of Day” and “I’m to Blame” show the side of the manly narrator in an apologetic mood, after suffering from loss. By retracing steps that shouldn’t have been made, we get a glimpse into many of the same mistakes that guys make all the time as relationships suffer. The disc picks back up when the train-track rhythm of the rockabilly song “I Won’t Look Back at You” reminds us that us guys like to end a relationship and move on as often as we like to sit and wonder what went wrong. When Mike sings, “it’s not for me to do“, we know that this is a dude that isn’t overly worried about how this girl has made him “cry and scream“. Word of BPM’s live show has traveled far and wide and it is the up-tempo tracks such as “That Song” and “Other End of the Road” that have given these guys a rep that is one of a rocking band that also represents “Country with Muscle”.

Just when I was starting to get a hangover (pun intended), two albums captivated my attention.

ROCKFERRY, by DUFFY
It’s been a real treat watching Duffy conquer the charts and airwaves, first in the UK and now in the US. Her Rockferry is a delightful breath of fresh air, lush and melodic, charming and intoxicating. as charming as it is and intoxicating. You’ve no doubt heard Mercy by now, the stirring groove the introduces her luxurious voice. Yet that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Rockferry is bursting with extravagant 1960’s-style pop arrangements, all constructed to showcase the angelic and silky

That’s a fine introduction to the treasures within. Rockferry is bursting with extravagant 1960’s-style pop arrangements, all constructed to showcase Duffy’s luxurious voice. “Warwick Avenue” starts as a quiet ballad but is builds into an opulent string-enriched conclusion as Duffy defiantly sings, “You think you’re loving but you don’t love me, I want to be free.” Album closer “Distant Dreamer” blends qualities reminiscent of the Drifter’s “There Goes My Baby” with an ornate string-laden chorus that channels ABBA. Syrup & Honey, a slow burning blues-based ballad, is perhaps the best showcase for her voice. Backed primarily by a restrained solo electric guitar, Duffy’s rich vibrato provides the extra burst of emotion as she pleads to her lover to “spend your time on me.”

ROLL WITH YOU, by ELI “PAPERBOY” REED & THE TRUE LOVES
Imagine your glee upon finding a stack of old R&B 45s hidden in your attic or basement. Maybe Sam & Dave’s “Soul Man” is on top, along with Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World”/Smokey Robinson’s “Tracks of my Tears” and Otis Redding’s “Mr. Pitiful.” You’ll feel the same sensation when you hear Roll With You, the latest release from Eli “Paperboy” Reed & the True Loves.

All you have to do is see titles like “Doin’ the Boom Boom” and you know you’re in for something special/to know that these guys take their R&B seriously. Then when you hear the music you’ll know that these 20-somethings from Boston have captured the greatest of R&B sounds in a bottle.

“Take My Love With You” is about as potent a song as you’ll hear this year. The bobbing beat of the baritone sax and the interplay between the various horns and guitar is downright dazzling. The horns also light up “The Satisfier” with a smokin’ groove.

And that leads back to the Paperboy. Although he shines on ballads with a style reminiscent of Sam Cooke, you know that he really loves is to let loose with soul shouters in the vein of Otis Redding or any number of Mississippi juke joint legends.

The results of the evening are best described in technical terms, un-freakin’-believable! In fact, technically I should probably add two or three more freakin’s to aptly describe it. The album starts off with a Swing style rendition of “Bright Lights Big City.” Swing Jazz and Blues are the base of most of the songs but the Harmonica gives the album a bit of country soul as well. However, the harmonica sounds natural with Jazz quartet as if it belongs permanently. Not that I think that Harmonica will replace the trumpet or saxophone anytime soon but in this case it adds a cool vibe. Willie’s voice sounds great with these songs also. In fact, two of the songs “Stardust” and “Georgia on My Mind” were recorded by Willie on the above mentioned Stardust album. The album does have a bit of twang in it on the lighthearted cover of Hank Williams, “My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It.” The fact that these two Icons are able to be lighthearted and not tale themselves too seriously is one of the most endearing qualities about this project. For example, the vocal interplay between the two on “Ain’t Nobody’s Business” is classic. I am certainly glad they decided to release this project as a CD so I can get a feel for what the lucky few who were there got to experience. I suggest you do the same.

This Review also appears on Amber Waves of Twang

• Todd: Hayes Carll, Trouble in Mind (read more)
• Chip: Drive-By Truckers, Brighter Than Creation’s Dark (read more on this album and Chip’s full list)
• Tom: Old 97’s, Blame it on Gravity (read more)
• Alex: Neil Diamond, Home Before Dark (read more)
• Kelly: Reckless Kelly, Bulletproof (read more)
• Mayer: Matthew Ryan, Matthew Ryan vs. the Silver State (read more)

So what do you think? Post your favorite album so far this year and you’ll be eligible for a special give-away. The prize pack featuring the latest releases from Matthew Ryan (MRVSS) and Jon Dee Graham (Swept Away: Live in Austin) plus the dvd Jon Dee Graham: Swept Away, A Rock and Roll Documentary. A winner will be selected at random when the contest ends on Tuesday, 7/22/08 at midnight ET.**

HOLD STEADY, Stay Positive (Vagrant)
Official Site | MySpace | Samples (Amazon)

A highly anticipated follow up to 2006’s ‘Boys and Girls in America’. Craig Finn and crew continue to deliver madly brilliant songs and lyrics building on the style the E Street Band made so famous. This Florida boy can’t help but dig the Ybor City references in “Slapped Actress”. Long live Hold Steady. File under: Rock / Rock / Rock

Noteworthy

• JOHN MELLENCAMP, Life, Death, Love And Freedom (Hear)
  Official Site | MySpace | Samples (Amazon)
  T Bone Burnett aka King Midas hops in to help out the ‘Cougar’ by producing his new album.
• O.A.R., All Sides (Everfine)
  Official Site | MySpace | Samples (Amazon)
  Powerful pop, among the best the summer has yet to offer.

More Highlights

DREW EMMITT, GRASCALS, HOT CLUB OF DETROIT, BILLY JOEL, NATION BEAT, RANDY TRAVIS and more. See our Release Calendar for more new releases like these.

Bonus Material

Noteworthy articles from Twangville and our friendly neighbors:

• Mayer’s Playlist for May/June 2008, A Video Companion #2 [Twangville]
• Mayer’s Playlist for May/June 2008, Part 2 [Twangville]
• Anthony DaCosta-Abbie Gardner “Better Nights-Better Days” [Twangville]
• Mayer’s Playlist for May/June 2008, A Video Companion #1 [Twangville]
• Mayer’s Playlist for May/June 2008, Part 1 [Twangville]
• The Real Return of Matthew Sweet [Twangville]
• The Hold Steady / Stay Positive: “Let’s clutch and kiss and sing and shake, tonight let’s try to levitate” [Fuel/Friends]
• Saturday Twang: Grayson Capps, Live in Amsterdam [HearYa]
• HearYa Live Session 22: Langhorne Slim and The War Eagles [HearYa]
• Alejandro Escovedo :: The AD Interview [Aquarium Drunkard]

Grab Bag

• FREE GIVEAWAY! I’m giving away a free mystery (alt-country) disc this week to one lucky winner as a way of saying thanks for being a part of Twangville. Simply comment on this post to be eligible. The winner will be contacted the following week. NOTE: You must have a US mailing address to win.

The Medallions first formed in Greenwood South Carolina area, where they all met in college. With a thick and relaxed southern drawl John remembers today “None of us were rich, so we had to make a little money to support our schooling”. With that in mind the boys formed the Medallions, playing on the weekends, studying during the week. With eight members the band was pretty much self contained, “Believe it or not, “ John told me, “we had five horn players. I played key bass [on the organ] so we did away with the bass, we didn’t have a string base.” The R&R army of eight played all over area, taking the frat houses by storm. As John relates today, their main sources of inspiration were R&B acts like James Brown & the Famous Flames, Otis Redding and Sam & Dave. “As a matter of fact Double Shot didn’t even portray that,” John advises, “the recording didn’t have horns on it”.

Originally the single was a cheaply recorded affair the Medallions put out on their own label, For Sale, with only a thousand copies printed. John remembers that they intended to sell the 45 at shows, never expecting the recording would be a hit one day. But with the help of Dave Roddy of WFEN Radio, the 45 became a hit in the South in a matter of weeks. At that point Smash records stepped in and started courting the boys with a recording contract. With a sure hit all Smash had to do was print the copies of the master tape, or so they thought. Big as the record was down South, in the North it didn’t get any play on the radio because the band had the audacity to sing “Woke up this morning, my head hurt so bad, the worst hangover I ever had”, to make the single more radio friendly it had to be re-cut, dropping the hangover line. “You can imagine today they probably wouldn’t even have looked at that, “ John laughed at the other side of the line.

The record became a million seller after that. John responds amused when I suggest that at one point they were bigger than the Stones down South. Though he denies that level of popularity, he does have fond memories of touring the South from frat house to frat house. “Those were some of the best parties, ” he remembers, adding “we only toured nation wide in ’66, when Double Shot was big, after that it was back to school.” The band never got to cash in on the success on the single. Returning to school turned out to be a conscious decision on the part of the medallions. Their success had gotten them to play a gig for Frank Sinatra’s daughter Tina, on her wedding. After the show Frank showed interest in singing them on his Reprise records. The band declined, “You remember that was the Vietnam era,” John explains today, “Not going back to school would probably have split us up because of the draft”. One way of avoiding being drafted was to stay in college and keep your grades up. Who knows what might have happened if the times were different.

School or no school the Swinging Medallions still keep going today, even bringing all the original members back on stage for a reunion from time to time. The current live band still manages to thrill quite a few crowds with acrobatics by their horn section. Anybody who has paid attention to music these days can only conclude that the music on the Nugget box is alive and kicking though bands like the White Stripes. With modest pride John confesses today “I’m real pickle with the fact that the people still remember us.”

Double Shot (of my baby’s love), The Swingin’ Medallions

Available on Anthology on Amazon or through ebay