Get Involved blog

Jimmy McCracklin - Everybody Rock

Jimmy McCracklin is best known for The Walk which Checker released in 1958 and which went to number 5 in the Billboard R&B chart and number 7 in the pop chart. I’m pretty sure no other Jimmy McCracklin record was such a success - although I’ve got a few records of his that I love and play just as much - including this one: Everybody Rock, released on Checker only months after The Walk.

In fact, the flipside to this record, Get Tough is a pretty thinly disguised re-working of The Walk - I guess the idea was that it would also be a big hit. Well, it wasn’t. I guess people were far happier doing “the walk” than disciplining their good ladies - which is what the lyrics of Get Tough seem to be all about…

ANYhoo - Everybody Rock also has a lot in common with The Walk but it’s just a little more upbeat, more rollicking AND (this is the best bit) the song is structured so that instead of having a chorus, the lyrics of each verse sets up a break by one of the band members, culminating in the drummer’s break on which the track ends. Great idea, perfectly executed: Everybody rock!

Johnny Cash - All Over Again

I got engaged to my wonderful girlfriend Ravi last week (whoop!) and so this week’s record is dedicated to that rather special news!

Released in 1958, All Over Again was Johnny Cash’s first single for Columbia Records - he’d left Sun Records because they wouldn’t let him record the gospel album he wanted to make or increase his royalties - despite the fact that his first few singles had been monstrously successful. It’s one of my favourite Johnny Cash tunes ever and, well… Ravi, this one’s for you, darlin’! x

Oh, and this is the b-side - also another song about love:

Johnny Cash - What Do I Care

FYI - Ravi and I will be having a few celebratory drinks at Shing-A-Ling this Friday 18th September where Dean Chalkley and Si Cheeba will be spinning the records. Bring your dancing shoes!

Alvin Robinson - Fever

I was up in Leeds this week and I managed to make time to pick up some choice records from Pat Brady - long time soul collector, dealer and enthusiast. Got some great bits including this Alvin Robinson record that I can hardly believe I’d never heard before! Robinson hails from New Orleans and his Down Home Girl (the A-side of this very record - from 1964) is an absolutely excellent slice of gritty proto funk. But it’s his cover of Little Willie John’s Fever that I wanted to post up here just because I’m finding it hard to stop playing it again and again. Robinson’s voice is incredible and the arrangement is genius.

If anyone’s out and about in Shoreditch / Dalston tonight - I’ll be spinning some discs tonight as a guest at Diddy Wah’s regular night at The Haggerston, 438 Kingsland Road from about 9.30 through to about 2am x x

Oh - and check out Pat Brady’s record-selling website: www.northernsoul45s.co.uk/