Get Involved blog

The Shadows - Rhythm & Greens

Hold on to your hat - this one’s a cracker! This 1964 instrumental corker is by The Shadows - yes, the very same Shadows that formed initially to be Cliff Richard’s backing band in 1958… No matter what you might think of Sir Cliff, The Shadows are one of the most important bands in the development of rock music in the UK - they’re the third most successful UK charted hit singles act, behind Cliff Richard (2nd) and Elvis Presley (1st).

This particular release on Atlantic came at a time when Atlantic sought to market the band in The USA and Canada as a surf group to compete with the likes of The Surfaris and The Ventures. Atlantic released two compilations in the US of Shadows tracks, Surfing With The Shadows, Atlantic LP 8089 (1963) and The Shadows Know!, Atlantic LP 8097 (1964) although this track wasn’t on either…

Actually Rhythm & Greens was the title of a short film directed by Christopher Miles in 1964 that featured The Shadows and their music. Not a lot of people know that… EMI released a five-track Rhythm & Greens EP in the UK with the music from the film and, stateside, Atlantic released this single.

There’s maraca-shaking a-plenty not to mention lots of vocal “woo-ha”s too. Get involved!

Holy shit-balls this post should have gone up about 8 months ago! Where, in the name of glorious vinyl, has this year gone!? OK, so back in January this year I heard that Camden’s specialist 50s and 60s rhythm’n'blues and rockabilly record shop, Sounds That Swing, was going to move premises. So I called up Get Involved collaborator and chum, not to mention ace photographer, Dean Chalkley to tell him… We agreed straight away that taking some shots of Sounds That Swing’s incredible, cave-like shop on Inverness street for posterity was a must as, well, we don’t know any shop quite like it.

Dean took these shots in er, February this year I think. Massive thanks to Dean for taking them and for allowing me to show them here (and apologies for taking so long to actually stick them online!). Thanks also to the staff at Sounds That Swing for walking the walk and for letting us hang out and take shots that afternoon!

Oh, nearly forgot to add that the shop has now moved to new premises (er, they’re not that new anymore - they moved months ago!) on Parkway in Camden round the corner - to which I have yet to visit. But anyway, here’s what the old place used to look like…

Sounds That Swing is now at the following address:

Sounds That Swing
88 Parkway
Camden
London NW1 7AN
Nearest Tube: Camden Town
+44 (0)207 267 4682
http://www.nohitrecords.co.uk

All photography in this post copyright Dean Chalkley

Rosco Gordon - Let’s Get High

I’m not going to lie, I bought this record because the title is so awesome. How could this record be bad? At the time I bought it about four years ago I’d only heard one other track by Rosco Gordon - a tune called No More Doggin’ which appears on a great compilation I’ve got on Action Records…

Rosco Gordon was born in Memphis on April 10, 1928. His twin sister, Ella Mae, took piano lessons and practiced at home. Rosco taught himself to play by copying her.

One Wednesday night in 1949, Rosco and a couple of friends were sitting upstairs in the Palace Theatre on Beale Street, watching Rufus Thomas emcee an amateur night. “They coaxed me to go onstage to make the wine money so I go up and sing a song…”. He won first prize. Following that win, he was interviewed on station WDIA. Rosco proved so popular that he was invited back. With a drummer and alto player he became a regular. It wasn’t long before a certain Sam Phillips (later to found Sun Records) heard him and made him an offer…

Phillips had opened his Memphis Recording Service in 1950. A year on, it was still something of a shoestring operation, but he had a deal with RPM Records for sessions recorded between February and July 1951, and it was RPM that issued Rosco’s Boogie and Saddled The Cow (And Milked The Horse) in June and August.

There’s a great double CD compilation on the JSP label of his recordings between 1951 and 1965 called, fittingly, Let’s Get High. Actually, most of this info is grabbed from this page on Venerable Records’ website where you can peruse / purchase said comp.

What the info on that page doesn’t mention is how Rosco Gordon was hugely popular in Jamaica and actually his lollopping (is that a word?) style of piano playing contributed to the rise of Ska. This guy’s a legend.

So guess what? It’s Friday and I’ve got a brilliant idea: Honey, let’s get high - we’re gonna have a real good time!

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NB: I’m not really sure when this record was pressed but I’m fairly confident it wasn’t in the 50s - even though i’d guess the recording is from about 1955. Let’s Get High doesn’t appear as a single in any Rosco Gordon discographies I can find online and the catalogue number 801 for a Sun Records release doesn’t make much sense as number 407 Back In My Arms Again / I’m A Lover by Load of Mischief (1968) is generally accepted to be the last official Sun release. So this record is a bootleg I guess. But who cares? It’s awesome!

Taking a stroll in Stoke Newington at the weekend I got to have a look round the shop that used to be Ocean Books at 127 Stoke Newington Church Street – which is now under new management and called Lucky Seven. Encouragingly, the back room is still full of second hand records, although it has been tidied up considerably and the central record bins have been moved out of the back and into the front of the shop. This means more room for browsing records but means less room for books. Which is fine by me: there are plenty of bookshops in Stokey, both new and second hand, but no other record shops. Hooray for Lucky Seven!

The other great news is that the place is run by two super-friendly guys, one of which is a dab hand at fixing audio equipment - which he’s happy to do in the shop. Nice!

OK - so I didn’t spend longer than about ten minutes in the place - but I still managed to buy one record - a best-of Louis Jordan LP from 1975 on MCA - for £3. It’s mint so I thought I’d share it with y’all as, well… if you don’t got no Louis Jordan, you’ve been missing out!

Highlights include Choo Choo Ch’Boogie, Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens, Barnyard Boogie, Saturday Night Fish Fry and the calypso ditty called Run Joe which, for me, totally justifies buying this old LP (I’d never heard it before). The 20 tracks collected here were all recorded for Decca between 1938 and 1955.

You can grab side one and side two by clicking on the links below. I’ve ripped the LP at 320kps, separated the tracks, and included photos the sleeve artwork - the front of which, as you can see, isn’t particularly interesting - BUT the shot of the back cover is at a suitable resolution so you can read the sleeve notes by Mike Head. Enjoy!

The Best of Louis Jordan
MCA LP: MCFM 2715 (1975)

Side one DOWNLOAD IT(70.4Mb)

1. Choo Choo Ch’Boogie
2. Let The Good Times Roll
3. Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens
4. Saturday Night Fish Fry
5. Beware Brother Beware
6. Caldonia
7. Knock Me A Kiss
8. Run Joe (with The Calypso Boys)
9. School Days
10. Blue Light Boogie (with Trio)

Side two DOWNLOAD IT(65.7Mb)

1. Five Guys Named Moe
2. What’s The Use Of Getting Sober
(When You Gonna Get Drunk Again)
3. Buzz Me
4. Beans and Corn Bread
5. Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Cryin’
6. Somebody Done Changed The Lock On My Door
7. Barnyard Boogie
8. Early In The Mornin’
9. I Want You To Be My Baby
10. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out

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Check out Lucky Seven’s second hand vinyl wares next time you’re in Stokey. All tastes catered for - they’ve got techno, drum’n'bass, hip hop, trip hop, flip flop, and - if you’re very lucky - greasy doo wop!

Lucky Seven
127 Stoke Newington Church Street
Stoke Newington
London
N16 0UH
+44 (0)20 7502 6319 (not sure if this still works - it used to be Ocean Books number
Jason: 07990 558 062
Kane: 07592 878 199

Open 7 days a week, 10am-7pm

Here in the UK, some enterprising young music lovers (Factory Road) have designed their own 45 record adapter (dink) and put them into production in a range of five off-the-shelf colours…

Off the shelf you can buy packs of 10 for the princely sum of £3. Choose from Redcurrant, Lemon Curd, Mint, Blackcurrant - or buy a Mixed Fruit bag where you get two of each colour. Nice!

AND, because they’re manufacturing them, Factory Road can also offer bespoke versions with your logo on and stuff too. So you could get a batch of your own, personalised dinks made up. Super-nice!

More details about the products at www.factoryroad.bigcartel.com