The Semi-Colons? – Beachcomber

Rudy and the Boys (above), Bobby (below)

Listen/Download – The Semi-Colons? – Beachcomber

Greetings all.

How about something a little crazy to flip thy wig?

A long-ass time ago (I can’t even remember when or where) I grabbed the 45 you see before you today.

I can’t even remember why I picked it up, other than maybe it looked interesting and was cheap (like so many other records in my vinyl cave).

That said, when I gave it a spin I was gassed, on account of ‘Beachcomber’ is a very groovy, fast-moving instrumental, and, when I gave the label a closer look I saw that it was credited to Bobby Darin.

My interest piqued, I started digging around a little and discovered – cue up wig flip number two – that the band on the disc, labeled as the Semi-Colons? Was in fact Question Mark and the Mysterians!

Whoa…

What was the deal?

That question remains largely unanswered to this day.

The record dates from 1967, and was a cover of an even more obscure piano instrumental that Darin recorded and released in 1960 (itself quite cool, if taken at a much more relaxed pace).

The flipside, ‘Set Aside’ is less interesting, but credited to members of the Mysterians, it does provide a direct link to the band.

Now, as I mentioned, Question Mark et al take the original Darin instro and cook it up into something much, much faster, dancier and all around cooler.

Where Darin’s OG has Mancini-esque pretensions, the Semi-Colons? tear into it in a Jerry Lee Lucid stylee.

Oddly (or maybe not) ‘Beachcomber’was left off the Cameo/Parkway Question Mark & the Mysterians comp that came out a few years ago and as far as I can tell is not currently in print in any form.

I would love the opportunity to whip this one on a room full of dancers.

I hope you dig it and I’ll be back next week with some more coolness.

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Sandy Nelson – Boss Beat

Sandy Nelson (above), Jim Messina and the Jesters (below)

Listen/Download – Sandy Nelson – Boss Beat

Greetings all.

I hope you all had a chance to dig into the sonic buffet that was last week’s episode of the Iron Leg Radio Show. There was a veritable borgas-smord of groovy delights, with which to stuff your ears.

The tune I bring you today was a delightful little surprise when my man Haim dropped a stack of jukebox EPs into my crates from his perch out on the coast.

There was all kinds of cool stuff, but the record I gravitated to first was this little gem by Sandy Nelson.

A hitmaking drummer, Nelson released a grip of albums during the 60s, which – like most cool instro discs – I generally grab when I’m out digging because the song selection is often very cool and execution is as well.

I had never heard the tune ‘Boss Beat’ before, but as soon as I saw the ‘Jim Messina’ writing credit, my interest was piqued and I knew I had to give it a spin.

Though he is best known for his years alongside Kenny Loggins and his time before than in the Buffalo Springfield, fans of twangy guitars will be hip to the fact that he spent some of his early years making excellent surf records with his band the Jesters.

If you haven’t heard the Jesters, check out tracks like ‘The Jester’ and ‘High Voltage’ on Youtube.

I don’t know how Messina hooked up with Sandy Nelson (or who his co-writer Kay Classey was), but ‘Boss Beat’ is a treat.

There’s a certain magic around the music in Southern California in 1965 where all of the previous musical threads, surf, R&B, rockabilly and pure rock’n’roll started to get mixed up with all the new sounds coming into shape, including garage, British beat and various and sundry au-go-go styles.

‘Boss Beat’ is a great example of a transitional record, in which the old and the new are both present, wrestling for dominance and managing to produce something very groovy in the process.

You get plenty of hard hitting drums from Nelson, twangy guitar (rumored to Messina himself), which all sound pretty run of the mill until the combo organ comes in and starts to work it out, at which point things start to take on a garage-cum-spy soundtrack edge that no doubt had the go-go girls shaking it in their cages.

It’s a crazy little track, and I hope you dig it as much as I do.

See you next week.

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Iron Leg: 2012 The Year In Vintage Pop

Why, yes dear! I’d love some fuzz!

Playlist

Woolies – Who Do You Love (Dunhill)
Beauregard and the Tuffs – Ramblin’ Rose (Decca)
Brenda Lee – Is It True (Decca)
Evie Sands – I Can’t Let Go (BlueCat)
The Knack – Time Waits For No One (Capitol)
Monkees – Star Collector (Colgems)
Nat Stuckey – Listen To the Band (RCA)
Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart – Smilin’ (Aquarian)
Royal Guardsmen – Leaving Me (Laurie)
WC Fields Memorial Electric String Band – Hippy Elevator Operator (HBR)
Morning Glories – Love-In (WB)
Liberace – Suite Judy Blue Eyes (WB)
Mike Stoller and the Stoller System – Silver Sea Horse (Amy)
Nobody’s Children – I Can’t Let Go (Bullet)
Kitchen Cinq – Codine (LHI)
Spotlights – Batman and Robin (Smash)
Wayne Logiudice – Come On (Let’s Get Some Action On) (Philips)
What-Knots – I Ain’t Dead Yet (Dial)
Bougalieu – Let’s Do Wrong (Roulette)
Connie Francis – Fallin’ (MGM)
The Gosdin Brothers – The Sounds of Goodbye (Bakersfield Intl)

Listen/Download -Iron Leg 2012: The Year In Vintage Pop – 99MB/256kbps

Greetings all.

What you see before you is the annual gathering of the ‘Best of’ Iron Leg for the year 2012.

Every year about this time I go back and comb the year’s posts looking for what I consider to be the finest tracks.

As the track listing above indicates, this has been an exceptional year, both for my record collection and for your MP3 delivery/storage device.

There are hot garage punk tracks, psychedelia, power pop, sunshine pop and all kinds of other goodies for you to soak yourselves in as the new year approaches.

As always, I hope you dig it, and that you join me in 2013 for more of the same.

Until then, stay cool, and I’ll see you when I see you.

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners

The Spotlights – Batman and Robin b/w Dayflower

The Caped Crusaders

Lou Courtney, Leon Russell and Snuff Garrett

Listen/Download – The Spotlights – Batman and Robin

Listen/Download – The Spotlights – Dayflower

Greetings all.

Welcome back to the Iron Leg experience.

I hope you all had a chance to download and listen to last week’s edition of the Iron Leg Radio Show. If not, pull down the ones and zeros and give it a listen. I think you’ll dig it.

The tune I have for you today is not only very groovy on its own sonic merits, but carries with it the traces of a very interesting back story.

When I was digging at the Allentown all-45 show a while back, I pulled ‘Batman and Robin’ out ofa box of mixed genre 45s, and due to my own fascination with 1966-era, pop art Batman and any musical manifestation thereof, I grabbed it.

It was only when I got home and took a closer look at the label that I realized that the disc might have a more interesting pedigree than I figured.

The writing of the song is credited to Leon Russell and Snuff Garrett (who were working together frequently in the mid-60s, most prominently on Gary Lewis and the Playboys stuff), but also to a certain ‘L. Pegues’.

Now, to most people that name will mean little to nothing, but to dedicated soul collectors like myself, it rings an especially interesting bell.

That is on account of the fact that Louis Pegues was the given name of soul giant Lou Courtney, who in addition to making a grip of amazing records under his assumed name, also worked extensively as a songwriter and producer.

He wrote songs (first with his composing partner Dennis Lambert) for acts like Freddie and the Dreamers, Leslie Gore and the Nashville Teens, and later (with Bob Bateman) wrote for soul artists like Mary Wells, Lorraine Ellison, the Webs and Henry Lumpkin (among many others).

Though I don’t know the specific circumstances of his artistic intersection with Leon Russell, my first instinct is to attribute it to Leon’s ubiquity in the studios of Los Angeles in the 1960s.

The tune, ‘Batman and Robin’ (released in 1966) is a first rate slice of garagey novelty with pounding piano and organ, comic-book specific lyrics and Leon (I’m pretty sure) on lead vocals.

The flipside is a very cool and extremely unusual instrumental called ‘Dayflower’, in which the band performs a mash-up of the Beatles ‘Day Tripper’ and the old bluegrass standard ‘Wildwood Flower’.

There was also a full LP by the Spotlights (all comic-related titles) which I’ve never seen, and one other 45 with tracks from the LP (‘Dayflower’ was 45-only).

If any of you has any more specific info on the Spotlights, please add on in the comments.

I hop you dig it and I’ll see you next week.

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Two Tastes of Moog from the Electronic Concept Orchestra

Moog and his monster.

Listen/Download – Electronic Concept Orchestra – Rock Me

Listen/Download – Electronic Concept Orchestra – Grazing In the Grass

Greetings all.

I hope all is well in your part of the world, and that you all had a chance to pull down the ones and zeros on last week’s edition of the Iron Leg Radio Show. It has – as the previous three episodes – been moved to the ILRS Archive (see tab in blog header…).

The tune I bring you today is something unusual and cool that I grabbed recently.

While I’m always on the lookout for easy/kitsch stuff, especially when it treads (warily or not) into what we record people might describe as ‘legitimate’ territory, i.e. rock, psyche or even soul and funk.

I’ve found Enoch Light and his various and sundry offshoots to be a rich source of extra groovy sounds, from unusual takes on 60s rock to serviceably funky versions of James Brown tracks.

One segment of the easy/kitsch/exploit world that I’ve never been a huge fan of is Moog records.

Though I dig the Moog when used as an accent on rock (or other) records, I’ve always thought that as a featured instrument it lacked a certain musicality. It’s novelty in the space age 60s made it a favorite addition to soundtracks, but with rare exception (like Dick Hyman’s epic take on James Brown’s ‘Give It Up or Turn It Loose’) was it ever used to create anything I’d want to listen to more than once in an irony-free environment.

That said, when I do find Moog albums in the field, I grab them because first and foremost I am an inveterate vinyl junkie, and on the off chance that they might turn out to be worth a couple of bucks and could be flipped.

When I ‘Moog Groove’ by the Electronic Concept Orchestra I recognized it right away as something I’d seen listed in crate diggers ‘finds’ posts on a soul/funk board I frequent, and since the price was right I grabbed it, tossed it on the keeper stack and took it home.

Good thing too, since once I dropped the needle on the record (and took a look at the back cover) I realized that this was no ordinary Moog set.

First off, ‘Moog Groove’ was pleasing to the ears in a way that a lot of Moog albums aren’t, i.e. it was clearly recorded by musicians with a modicum of taste and enough skill with the synthesizer to apply it fairly tastefully, i.e. it never ended up sounding like a 23rd century robot orgy.

Secondly, while perusing the back cover I was very pleased indeed to discover that the drummer on the session was one of my favorites, that being Morris Jennings Jr., a longtime member of Ramsey Lewis’s band and a fixture on Cadet Records sessions in the 60s and 70s. Why he was practically the only musician mentioned on the album is a mystery. He wasn’t particularly well known, nor – though it has a couple of nice breaks on it – is the album a drummers tour de force.

I have found a reference that seems to indicate that there were other Cadet sessioners involved in the sessions, including keyboardist Eddie Higgins (who plays the Moog on the ECO’s records) and guitarist Phil Upchurch. This may indicate that these albums were recorded in Chicago, but I can’t say for sure.

What it does have going for it is a nice amalgamation of late 60s pop with the synthesizer worked into the mix as organically as possible.

The selection of covers is both appropriate (i.e. no country Moogification) and interesting.

The two tracks I bring you today are my favorites from the album.

You get to hear a nice take on Hugh Masekela’s ‘Grazing in the Grass’, with the Moog applied with an organists touch, as well as a cool take on Steppenwolf’s ‘Rock Me’. Both tunes also give you a taste of Jennings’ talents as a percussionist.

The Electronic Concept Orchestra released at least two other albums between 1969 and 1973.

I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll be back next week.

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Iron Leg Radio Episode #4!!

Beep beep beep beep…..

Playlist

Opening – Action Scene – Hawkshaw/Mansfield (KPM)

Jacques Dutronc – Et Moi Et Moi Et Moi (Vogue)
Ian and the Zodiacs – Na Na Na Na Na (Philips)
Rotary Connection – Burning of the Midnight Lamp (Cadet Concept)
Living Strings – Somebody To Love (Camden)
Litter – My Little Red Book (Probe)
Jethro Tull – Fat Man (Reprise)
Clear Light – Think Again (Elektra)
American Breed Alone Phone Spot

Glenn Campbell – Guess I’m Dumb (Capitol)
Brenda Lee – The Crying Game (Decca)
Colin Blunstone – Caroline Goodbye (Epic)
Enoch Light and the Glittering Guitars – You Showed Me (Project 3)
Linda Ronstadt – She’s a Very Lovely Woman (Capitol)
Love – The Red Telephone (Elektra)
Monkees – Porpoise Song -  45 edit (Colgems)
Pearls Before Swine – I Saw the World  – 45 edit (ESP Disk)
7-UP Commercial

Ascots – Sookie Sookie (Super)
Barbarians – Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl (Laurie)
Changing Times – How Is the Air Up There (Philips)
Music Machine – Trouble (Original Sound)
Peanut Gallery – Out of Breath (Canterbury)
Kingsmen – Trouble (Wand)
Kitchen Cinq – Determination (LHI)
Wayne Logiudice – Come On Lets Get a Little Action On (Philips)
Lindy Blaskey and the Lavells – You Ain’t Tuff (Space)
Guilloteens – Hey You (HBR)
Vanilla Fudge Coke Commercial

Listen/Download -Iron Leg Radio Show Episode 4 – 149MB/256kbps

Greetings all.

The middle of August is here, and that means it’s time again for the Iron Leg Radio Show.

This time out we have even more of the groovy stuff that you’ve come to expect from Iron Leg, with the garage, and the Euro punk, and the sunshine pop, kitsch, freaks (beaten well), sophisticated musical musings, pa-sike-o-modelica and of course anything else that pops.

So, pull out your ears, prepare them for liftoff and pull down the ones and zeros.
See you next week.

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners

Iron Leg Radio Episode #3

Beep beep beep beep…..

Playlist

Opening Theme – Alan Hawkshaw/Keith Mansfield – Action Scene (KPM)

Brenda Patterson – This Wheel’s On Fire (Epic)
Gas Co – Your Times Up (Mirwood)
Plasticland – Rattail Comb (Scadillac)
The Knack – Time Waits For No One (Capitol)
The Bougalieu – Let’s Do Wrong (Roulette)
Crip Guerney – Understanding Each Other (Hi)
The Spats – Bonie Moronie (ABC)
Del Shannon – Sweet Mary Lou (Dunhill)
Modern Folk Quartet – If All You Think (WB)
Small Faces Radio Spot

Electronic Concept Orchestra – Rock me (Limelight)
Quinteto Violado – Acaua (Philips Brazil)
Free Design – 2002 a Hit Song (Project 3)
Beverley – Where the Good Times Are (Deram)
Moody Blues – This is My House (London)
Underdogs – Love’s Gone Bad (VIP)
Orpheus – Lesley’s World (MGM)
PJ Proby – Don’t Forget About Me (Imperial)
PJ Proby Radio Spot

Apple – Buffalo Billycan (Page One)
1910 Fruitgum Co – Blue Eyes and Orange Skies (Buddah)
The Association – Come On In (WB)
The Millennium – I Just Want To be Your Friend (Columbia)
Mighty Baby – Egyptian Tomb (Head)
The Neats – Six (Ace of Hearts)
New Vaudeville Band – There’s a Kind of Hush (Fontana)
Richie Havens – Strawberry Fields Forever (Stormy Forest)
Easybeats Coke Commercial

Listen/Download -Iron Leg Radio Show Episode 3 – 153MB/256kbps

Greetings all.

As hard as it may be to believe, it’s already time for the third installment of the Iron Leg Radio Show.

This time out there’s all kinds of groovy ish, from the psyche, to the garage, to vaguely almost kinda prog, to cool stuff from Brazil, freakbeat, Moog and the cusp of heavyosity, all delivered with the kind of sub-Wolfman Jack-ery that you’ve come to expect during the three months that this has been going on.

If you dig what I’m doing here (or not, heaven forfend…) , take a moment to drop me a line.

Requests are welcomed (as long as I have it I’ll play it) and while we’re on the subject, should you also dig the sounds of soul, you might want to skip over to the mothership, aka the Funky16Corners blog and click on the F16C Radio Show tab to pull down the ones and zeros on episodes of the long-running show of the same name that airs every Friday night at 9PM on Viva Radio.

That said, I hope you dig the show, and I’ll be back next week with something cool.

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners

Iron Leg Radio Is On The Air!

Beep beep beep beep…..

Playlist

Opening Theme – Alan Hawkshaw/Keith Mansfield – Action Scene (KPM)

Baker Knight & the Knightmares – Hallucinations (Reprise)
Apparitions – She’s So Satisfying (Caped Crusader)
Andre Brasseur – Pow Pow (Palette)
101 Strings – Spinning Wheel (Alshire)
World of Oz – Peters Birthday (Deram)
Turtles – She’s My Girl (White Whale)
Radio London – Pussycat

Standells – Little Sally Tease (Tower)
Tino & the Revelons – I’m Coming Home (Dearborn)
Thee Muffins – Surprise Surprise
The Lime – Love a Go Go (Westwood)
Strangeloves – In the Night Time (Bang)
Sonics – Lost Love (Picadilly)
Sonny and Cher – It’s Gonna Rain (Atlantic)
Boyce and Hart – Coke Spot

Softmachine – Love Makes Sweet Music
Soft Machine – A Certain Kind (probe)
13th Floor Elevators – Livin On (45 Edit) (IA)
Blue Things – Orange Rooftop of Your Mind (RCA)
Buffalo Springfield – Expecting To Fly (Atco)
Yes – Everydays (Atlantic)
Upbeat radio Spot

Millennium – Prelude / To Claudia On Thursday (Columbia)
Neon Philharmonic – Brilliant Colors (WB)
Mark Eric – California Home (Revue)
Love Generation – The Love In Me (Imperial)
Lee Mallory – Take My Hand (Valiant)
Hondells – Just One More Chance (Columbia)
Neon Philharmonic Radio Spot

Insomniacs – My Favorite Story (Umbrella)
Mod Fun – I Am With You (New)
Lord John – Westminiature Abbey (Bomp)
Smithereens – Just Got Me A Girl (Dirt)
Biff Bang Pow – There Must Be a Better Place (Creation)
Game Theory – 24 (Alias)
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions – Rattlesnakes (Capitol)
Ravi Shankar Anti-Drug PSA

Montanas – That’s When Happiness Began (Pye)
Lovin’ Spoonful – Six O’Clock (Kama Sutra)
Animals – I’m Gonna Change the World (MGM)
Motifs – If I Gave You Love (Selsom)
Biff Rose – What’s Gnawing At Me (Tetragrammaton)
Billy J Kramer – 1941 (Epic)

Listen/Download -Iron Leg Radio Show Episode 1 – 266MB/256kbps

Greetings all, and welcome to something very special.

As mentioned in today’s post over at Funky16Corners, my experience creating the Funky16Corners Radio Show – which airs on Viva Radio and is then archived for download over at the blog – had me thinking about expanding the whole radio show bag.

Initially I considered doing a second Funky16Corners show, but eventually my thinking came around to the idea of doing something similar with the vibe here at Iron Leg, i.e. 60s pop (and sometimes beyond) of all varieties, with the garage punk, and the sunshine pop, and the psychedelic and whatever else happens to fall into that particular bag.

I’ve been doing Iron Leg, with both individual tracks and mixes for four years now, and I figured it was time for something new and (hopefully) interesting.

The Iron Leg Radio Show (you can tell I sweated over that name, huh?) will be posted on a monthly (for now) basis, and is likely to run in the vicinity of 90 minutes, though this first show breaks the two-hour mark.

You’ll be getting all of the groovy stuff you’ve come to expect here at Iron Leg, but the bouillabaisse is going to be stewed together in what will hopefully be new and interesting ways, with both music and information together, which in the words of Abraham Simpson, is the “style of the time”.

Right now, the Iron Leg blog will be home base for the radio show until I find somewhere else to host it as well, which is fine by me with the MP3s as good at my link as someone else’s.

That of course may never happen, since the internet and podcasts (and MP3 playback devices) have really replaced radio. My ipod (and I’m sure a lot of other people use theirs the same way) is a de facto radio, delivering everything my radio used to do, more efficiently and with much more personal entertainment value than the old wireless set, wherever, whenever, and for however long I want it to.

This is not to say that the old formats of radio are, or should be extinct. In fact podcasting has freed these formats from illogical (at least in what’s left of a free-thinking, adult-level world) constraints having to do with advertising, time limits, freedom of speech issues etc.

It bears mentioning that radio-style programming via podcasting is in many ways (all positive) returning broadcasts to an expansiveness, whether with musical choice or conversation (much of what I listen to in the car, on the ipod, are spoken word podcasts on a variety of topics) that they once had, even if only on the fringes.

We’re in a boom period now where (as it was with blogging) everyone and their crazy uncle has a podcast of some kind, but these things tend to shake out in the end, with the truly fringy stuff finding its small audience, more popular stuff finding a bigger audience, and those things with no audience at all eventually disappearing as their creators become bored or move on to something else (thus the vast floating islands of abandoned web sites and blogs out there in the wilds of the interwebs).

Where the iron Leg Radio Show ends up on that spectrum remains to be seen. If a healthy percentage of the existing audience for this blog, and those from Funky16Corners whose tastes cross over like mine do take a listen and dig what they hear, that’ll be enough for me.

It’s fun creating these shows and I hope that comes through in the podcasts.

I hope you dig it, and I’d like to hear what you think, so drop me a line if you have the time to give it a listen.

Enjoy, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

The Dark, Weird Beginnings of Bruce Johnston…

Bruce Johnston – On a buoy, and a strange looking bus…

Listen/Download -Bruce Johnston – Jersey Channel Islands Part 7

Listen/Download -Bruce Johnston – Capetown

Greetings all.

I hope you’re all well as we settle in for another week.

The tunes I bring you today are some crazy shit from a very unlikely source.

I’ve certainly known of Bruce Johnston for years, first and foremost as a longtime member of the Beach Boys, and before that (with Terry Melcher) as part of Bruce and Terry.

That said, I had no idea that he had anything like the cuts I bring you today inside of him.

I first heard ‘Jersey Channel Islands Part 7’ last year, and when I did the experience was akin to opening a box of Cheerios and finding a pack of rattlesnakes singing four part harmony, i.e. the very spirit of incongruity.

Recorded in 1963 and released on the Columbia label, ‘Surfin’ ‘Round the World’ is proof positive that no matter how much you dig, no matter who you hobnob with, you will never know all the cool music there is to know.

This also has something to do with the old saw about leaving no stone unturned.

If I saw a Bruce Johnston album in a record store, I’d probably pass it by. While I dig surf music a lot, I am in neither an expert nor a connoisseur, happy to get by with a couple of compilation CDs and whatever interesting looking albums or 45s I manage to pick up on the cheap.

However, when I heard these tracks I knew I had to track down this record. My initial efforts met with little success because ‘Surfin’…’ is both obscure, and I would later discover, rare and costly.

Fortunately for me (always thankful for Ebay sellers who know not what they have), I got lucky and managed to pick up a lot with both mono and stereo copies of the record for about a third of what a single copy usually goes for.

Interestingly enough, alongside manic episodes like ‘Jersey Channel Islands Part 7’ and ‘Capetown’ (most of the albums tracks namecheck famous surfing locales) there are a couple of fairly run of the mill Beach Boys-y tracks, which were no doubt what Johnston turned over to the suits when they agreed to release this album. I suspect that had he whipped any of the crazy stuff on them they would have soiled their Brooks Brothers, spit out their 12 year old scotch and had him killed and buried in a shallow grave.

If you take a look at the pictures of Johnston on the cover of the album, looking all clean-cut and wholesome, you’d probably never match them up with this lunacy.

The best tracks on the album sound as if some mental case in a 1990s surf revival band, with a whole lot of grain alcohol and bad attitude under his belt had been set loose in a recording studio.

I don’t doubt that somewhere in 1963, someone was making music this unhinged, but that it made it onto a major label release is especially shocking.

The cuts are filled with insane, fuzzed out guitars and bass, electric piano (probably all Johnston) and wailing sax, packed with sounds that were years ahead of their time.

What you get is a basic template of hardcore, Dick Dale-ish surf, frat rock, lots of studio experimentation and just a dash of psychosis.

Interestingly, one of the tracks from the LP (‘Maksha at Midnight’ which sounds like Hank Marvin on vacation in California) was released a year later on a Bruce and Terry 45.

In addition to his Beach Boys duties, Johnston also went on to write ‘I Write the Songs’ for Barry Manilow. Go figure…

Fortunately ‘Surfin’ ‘Round the World’ has been reissued on a CD two-fer for a much more reasonable price.

I hope you dig this madness, and I’ll be back next week.

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for a soulful cover of Question mark and the Mysterians.

John Barry RIP

NOTE: This week we got the sad news that the mighty John Barry, the dean of 1960s film composers passed away.

When you get a moment, see his Wikipedia entry for an idea of his vast catalog and influence.

I decided to mark his passing by reposting two very different tunes of his that have appeared at Iron Leg over the past few years.

I hope you dig them, and I’ll be back on Monday.

Peace

Larry

John Barry – A Man Alone (Jazz Version) – originally posted 5/2009

John Barry

Listen / Download John Barry – A Man Alone (Jazz Version)

Greetings all.

I hope all is well with you this fine Friday (or Thursday late depending what position you hold on the globe).
The tune I bring you today is something groovy with a dash of international intrigue.
A variation on the theme from the ‘Ipcress File’ (a different arrangement of the same number appears on the other side of the 45) ‘A Man Alone (Jazz Version)’ is one of my favorite John Barry selections. Barry, who has been featured here before (in his pre-soundtrack era) composed and performed the soundtracks to countless films and television shows from the early 60s on.
‘The Ipcress File’ was the very first ‘Harry Palmer’ film for the mighty Michael Caine and was adapted from the novel of the same name by Len Deighton. The 1965 espionage thriller is a primed example of a swinging 60s take on the ongoing cold war, and Caine is – as always – the very epitome of dry, limey cool.
‘A Man Alone (Jazz Version)’ swings along aggressively with a beatnik edged hi-hat and bongo pulse, before the main theme is stated by the unofficial spy theme instrument of record, the cymbalum (or some variation on the cymbalum/santoor dulcimer-esque hammered thingy), which carried in its tinny strings the very essence of mysterious international intrigue, with the fezzes, lugers, dark Eurasian back alleys and trench coats.
Barry does change things up a little (the “jazz version” one would assume) with a decidedly English-sounding horn chart, featuring a just-this-side-of-incongruous alto sax (maybe doubling a muted trumpet?) solo.
Sit back, close your eyes and visualize Caine speeding down a dark, rain-slicked street chasing (or being chased by) nemeses from behind the Iron Curtain.
Groovy indeed.
I haven’t seen the movie in a few years, and I can’t remember if this piece actually appears in the film. If you know (this means you Bill…), drop me a line.

The John Barry Seven – Monkey Feathers – originally posted 12/2008

John Barry Seven

Listen / Download – The John Barry Seven – Monkey Feathers

Greetings all.

The end of the week is upon us, and I have a special treat for you all.
One of the great bones of contention between my lovely wife and I is the movie ‘Zulu!’, the 1964 epic retelling of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift in South Africa. It’s one of the great war/action movies, Michael Caine’s first starring role, and as much as I love it, the wife hates it.
Some years back, my man Mr. Luther passed on a tape with a couple of tracks from the soundtrack, one of which I bring you today.
For some reason, I used to think that the John Barry leading the John Barry Seven was not the hugely successful soundtrack composer who wrote many of the most famous James Bond related themes, as well as the theme to ‘Midnight Cowboy’ (the famous instrumental, not Fred Neil’s ‘Everybody’s Talkin’).
As it turns out they are in fact the same guy. Barry got his start as a jazz arranger, moving on to composing for British teen idol Adam Faith, composing the soundtrack to the cult film ‘Beat Girl’.
He went on to work on the Bond films, and then on to ‘Zulu’.
While the theme to the movie – the a-side of this very 45 – is a cool Shadows-esque tune, ‘Monkey Feathers’ takes the whole reverb thing and runs with it, adding a surf-like feel over a martial beat.
Very cool.

Peace

Larry