Music and sidetracks of the 50s, 60s and 70s, more or less related, or not, to my Australian song history site "WHERE DID THEY GET THAT SONG?" at POPARCHIVES.COM.AU
• Karl Hammel Jr - Summer Souvenirs(Paul Evans - Jimmy Krondes)1961, #68Bb, #60CB, USA,
Karl was previously heard on: •The Nomads - Bounty Hunter (Jimmy Krondes) 1961 B-side, #116 [Billboard Bubbling Under]
Bounty Hunter was covered by: •Al Caiola - Bounty Hunter (Jimmy Krondes)1961 (B-side of Bonaza #19 USA),
It is strongly reminiscent of: •Duane Eddy - Rebel-'Rouser(Duane Eddy - Lee Hazlewood) 1958 #6 USA.
aka as ... Cash Box, 8 Jul 61
I never forgot Karl Hammel Jr's Summer Souvenirs from hearingit on
the radio as an 11-year-old, but it wasn't a hit in Australia and it seemed to disappear
without trace.
In the 70s and 80s I bought many second-hand or
reissued 45s by mail order, catching up with tracks I had
missed out on buying as a kid and a teenager. Summer Souvenirs was near the top
of my wants list, and I scored it at a reasonable price through a mail-in record
auction.
I later realised that the Paul Evans in the writer credits was already known to me from his records (Seven Little Girls) Sitting In The Back Seat and Show Folk, but I still knew nothing about Karl Hammel Jr (See my previous post, Bigger in Oz: Paul Evans - Show Folk).
Along came the Internet and music industry figures started to launch their own websites, often with contact details. So it was that I could emailPaul Evans to express my
regard for the Summer Souvenirs and to find out anything at all about Karl Hammel Jr. I had a prompt and friendly reply: Paul said he remembered Karl - nice guy - but they had lost touch and he couldn't give me much background..
I now find (via Discogs.com) that Paul Evans's co-writer on Summer Souvenirs,Jimmy Kronde, was the manager of a New Rochelle NY band called The Nomads, and Karl Hammel Jr was a member.
The Nomads released one single, with both sides written by Jimmy Kronde.
The B-side, Bounty Hunter (February 1961), was released as an A-side in Australia in June 1961. This is a guitar instrumental that prominently features Karl Hammel Jr whistling in counterpoint to the main guitar line. A cover version was released on a B-side by guitarist Al Caiola (March 1961) but without any whistling.
Whenever I've come across Bounty Hunter over the years I've absently thought, "Oh yeah, that's sounds a lot like Duane Eddy."
In fact (and it shouldn't have taken so long) I only recently realised that the melodies of Bounty Hunter andDwayne Eddy's 1958 hit Rebel-'Rouser are almost identical. Rebel-'Rouser repeats the verse several times, without a chorus or bridge, but Bounty Hunter adds that embellishment.
Karl Hammel Jr- Summer Souvenirs (1960)
The Nomads - Bounty Hunter (1993)
Duane Eddy - Rebel-'Rouser (1958)
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Bonus track
Al Caiola - Bounty Hunter (covering The Nomads, 1961)
Australian charts: #23 Perth | #67 Australia NZ charts: #17
*Another case of Bigger in Oz and NZ.
New York singer and guitarist Paul Evans(b, 1938) has put in many decades as a prolific and versatile composer and performer.
He is probably most recalled for his first and biggest US hit(Seven Little Girls) Sitting In The Back Seat, from 1959.The rest of his chart history is respectable, if unspectacular, but it is just the conspicuous part of a large and varied catalogue of songs that includes co-compositions recorded by other artists, as well as TV or film music and advertising jingles. Roses Are Red (My Love), a #1 US hit for Bobby Vinton, is often cited as an example of his successful co-compositions.
Show Folk is typical of Evans's light-hearted touch. Australians were fond of records with a spot of comedy or novelty. Two other amusing American records of the era come to mind: Oliver Cool by Oliver Cool (1959) charted #17 Australia, but did not chart in the US (a clear case of Bigger in Oz), and Ambrose byLinda Laurie (1969) charted #52 USA, #33 Australia.
It is easy to find out about Evans.
His website includes well curated discographies, something not always
found at artists' websites. More than that, he is accessible. When I
emailed him, he replied promptly and cordially, and he has been available for online interviews, for example at ClassicBands.com and SongFacts.
So, follow the links to explore Paul Evans's career, and here are some of the highlights in digestible form.
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Some notable singles by Paul Evans
• (Seven Little Girls) Sitting In The Back Seat (Bob Hilliard - Lee Pockniss)1959 #9 USA) as Paul Evans & The Curls,
• Midnite Special(Traditional, attributed here to Milton Schnapf)1960, #16 USA) • Happy-Go-Lucky-Me(Paul Evans - Al Byron)1960, #10 USA, #9 Australia, #6 NZ • The Brigade Of Broken Hearts(Clint Ballard - Fred Tobias)1960, #81 USA
• Hello, This Is Joannie (The Telephone Answering Machine Song)(Paul Evans - Fred Tobias) 1978, #6 UK, #22 Australia, #21 NZ
• The Kalin Twins - When(Paul Evans - Jack Reardon)1958, #5 USA, #1 UK, #1 Australia)
• Elvis Presley - I Gotta Know(Paul Evans - Matt Williams)1960, #20 USA, #1 Australia)
• Bobby Vinton - Roses Are Red (My Love) (Paul Evans - Al Byron) 1962, #1 USA, #15 UK, #1 Australia #1 NZ)
• Pat Boone- Johnny Will (Paul Evans - Fred Tobias)1961, #35 USA, #4 UK, #20 Australia, #5 NZ
In the collaborations, Evans's main role seems to have been as composer. For example, he tells Gary James at ClassicBands.com that he wrote the music for Roses Are Red in a couple of minutes: Al Byron ... said, "Paul, I got this lyric." I made a joke. I said to the musicians "Take five. I'm gonna write a hit song now." And I took his lyric, which by the way was complete, the way you hear it on the Vinton record, I wrote the entire melody in one pass... I tried for a couple of weeks to top the melody, but I couldn't do it.... So, I can tell you my biggest hit song was written in 2 minutes.
• Paul Evans - Happy-Go-Lucky-Me(Paul Evans - Al Byron)1960, #10 USA, #9 Australia, #6 NZ)
• George Formby - Happy Go Lucky Me (1960, #40 UK)
Comic ukulele-playing singer Formby (1906-1961) was a huge star in British films and on records in the 1930s-40s. It is remarkable not only that he covered this track by Paul Evans, but also that the had some chart success with it, however modest. I'm sure that many British listeners, accustomed to Formby's original recordings, would have been unaware of the song's origin.
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Happiness is ... a Kent cigarette?
Ray Conniff And The Singers - Happiness Is(Paul Evans - Paul Parnes) 1965
Joe Sherman And The Arena Brass - Happiness Is1966Billboard Breakout (local hit), Milwaukee
The composition was used in ads for Kent cigarettes and thus became maddeningly familiar.
Willie Nelson re-releases a Paul Evans song about Willie Nelson not singing with Paul Evans
Paul Evans - Willie's Sung With Everyone (But Me) (Paul Evans) 1993
Evans explains that this is a song about the 84 artists that Willie Nelson had recorded with and the one artist he hadn't (and still hasn't) sung with - me.
It later appeared as a bonus Track 23 on Willie Nelson's22 Legendary Duets (1996), not a duet but Paul Evans's unaltered solo. If that makes sense.
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A fondly remembered obscurity
Karl Hammel Jr - Summer Souvenirs(Paul Evans - Jimmy Krondes)1961, #68Bb, #60CB USA
This did not chart in Australia, but it was a favourite of mine as an 11-year-old after I heard it on the radio in Victoria.
Karl was in a New Rochelle NY band called The Nomads. They were managed by Paul Evans's co-writer on Summer Souvenirs,Jimmy Kronde,who also wrote both sides of their only single.
The Nomads' B-side, Bounty Hunter (February 1961), was released as an A-side in Australia in June 1961. This is a guitar instrumental that features the whistling of Karl Hammel Jr.A cover version on a B-side by Al Caiola (March 1961) dispenses with the whistling.
See my separate post on Karl Hammel Jr's Summer Souvenirs and The Nomads' Bounty Hunter
Chart sources for this post: Australian capital cities: Gavin Ryan's chart books. Australia: Grant Dawe's Top 100 Singles site. New Zealand: Warwick Freeman's New Zealand Top 20 Singles of the Sixties USA: Billboard Hot 100 (Joel Whitburn) by default; Cash Box: Frank W. Hoffmann's chart book. UK: The Guinness book of British hit singles [archived here]
Paul Evans - Show Folk (1960)
Paul Evans - Happy-Go-Lucky-Me (1960)
George Formby - Happy Go Lucky Me (1960)
Karl Hammel Jr- Summer Souvenirs (1960)
Ray Conniff And Singers - Happiness Is (1965)
Paul Evans - Hello, This Is Joannie (The Telephone Answering Machine Song) (1978)
Paul Evans - Willie's Sung with Everyone (But Me) (1993)
The latest from my website's front page series about lesser known artists who performed the original versions of Australian or NZ records.
See also: the full collection of over 40 Obscure Originators features.
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Love - Hate - Revenge (1968, #2 NZ) was the highest charting of five Top 10 singles for The Avengers. They could be confused with numerous other Avengersall over the world,
but this was a Wellington band, another of those popular New Zealand
bands that were unknown to most Australians. Our loss, clearly.
The original version, Love, Hate, Revenge (If I Want You To Cry) (1967), was by The Del Satins, a New York doo wop group who were heard by millions but not so well-known by name.
Anyone familiar with Dion'srun of successful solo records in the early 60s has heard The Del Satins. They were his regular backing singers, uncredited on songs like The Wanderer or Ruby Baby.
That's The Del Satins you hear behind Dion, repeating the doo wop line that is essential to his #1 hit Runaround Sue (1961). There are varying transcriptions, but this sheet music shows Hayp, hayp, bum-da hady hady ...
Doo Wop Biographies & Discographies pointedly states that The Del Satins received no credit on any of their 13 hit records. That reliable source also rates them as one of the finest white male doo wop groups of all time.
None of The Del Satins' own ten singles 1961-67 charted Top 100 USA, although Feelin' No Pain (1963) made Billboard's
Breakout chart as a regional hit in New York. They would later become
regulars on Cole Clay's weekly TV music show, aired locally in New York.
In 1968, with two original members and recent recruitJohnny Maestroin the line-up, The Del Satins merged with Rhythm Method to form a new band called Brooklyn Bridge, led by Maestro. They had a hit with Worst That Could Happen (1968 #3 USA), written by Jimmy Webb.
Bigger in Oz: tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin. See also: Only in Melbourne.
These are two different songs called Hawaii,
both recorded by popular American artists.1 They charted Top 10 in Australia within a few months of each other in 1964 but did not chart in the USA.
22. The Beach Boys - Hawaii (Brian Wilson) USA 1963 Capitol album Surfer Girl (USA) ST-1981September 1963 Columbia single (Australia only) CP-1551January 1964
Australian charts: #2 Sydney, #5 Melbourne, #1 Brisbane, #7 Adelaide | #9 Australia US charts: Not released as a single
23. Gene Pitney - Hawaii (Al Kooper - Bob Brass - Irwin Levine) USA 1964 Musicor single#MU 1040July 1964 United Artists single (Australia) UA 1059August 1964 (entered charts)
Australian charts: #8 Sydney, #5 Brisbane, #7 Adelaide | #6 Australia. Co-charted with the A-side It Hurts To Be In Love which was a hit in all capital cities. US charts: The A-side was a Top 10 hit but Hawaii did not chart in its own right.
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22. The Beach Boys - Hawaii
Written by The Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, Hawaii was an album track in the USA, but it became the A-side of a single in Australia and, as far as I can see, nowhere else.
That is not surprising. Hawaii is a surf song, and by January 1964,when the single was released here, Australia had a thriving surf music industry of its own. This is a country with a strong beach culture, and you didn't have to be a surfie to like the music.
It was also the summer of Beatlemania, and the British Invasion was under way. At Sydney radio station 2SM, Beatles records were at #1, #2 and #6, and there were already otherBritish Invasion bands on the chart. Teen idols were shampooing out their hair
oil, instrumental bands were recruiting singers, and the surf era was about to fade.
On the 17 January 1964 Top 100 chart from 2SM,2 the 50 highest charting records included: 7 British bands(9 records, 18%) 9 Australian singles (18%) all beach- or surf-themed 8 original Australian compositions.
Nine months later, on the chart for 16 October 1964, the surf craze had passed, leaving only Jan & Dean'sRide The Wild Surf along with The Hondels'Little Honda and Ronnie and the Daytonas' G.T.O. from a surf sub-genre about vehicles that had been around as long ago as The Beach Boys' 409 (1962).
16 October's highest 50 tracks at 2SM included: 11 British bands3 (15 records, 30%) 2Australian singles4 (4%) no surf 1 original Australian composition.
By October, even the Beach Boys had moved on from the sun, sand and surfing of Hawaii (and California). They appear at #57 on the 16 October chart with When I Grow Up (To Be A Man). Its reflective lyrics and innovative arrangement hinted at their further development. Far from being set back by the British Invasion, theiralbum Pet Sounds (1966), partly inspired by The Beatles'Rubber Soul (1965), would in turn be acknowledged as an influence on The Beatles'Sgt Peppers' Lonely Hearts Band (1967).
Footnotes 1. Hawaii by Jan & Dean (1967) is another different, non-charting song, written byJan Berry andJill Gibson. (Merci à Philippe.) 2. I have reservations about radio station surveys, but I use 2SM's chart as a reflection of what this prominent pop station would have been playing. And a good source of its Top 100 charts is available atrateyourmusic.com. 3. Even though they were not a British Invasion band, I counted The Shadows for being British. 4. There were two New Zealand records in the top 50: Ray Columbus & The Invaders - She's A Mod (#3) and Dinah Lee - Don't You Know Yockomo (#49)
23. Gene Pitney - Hawaii
This is not a surf song, rather a romantic picture postcard about an emotional parting under the moonlight on O'ahu Bay: Love is right here in Hawaii, Must it end with a tear in Hawaii?
Gene Pitney released so many excellent and varied records that the ones you remember might depend on where you lived. I have previously posted about Billy You're My Friend (1968), popular in Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, but not in Sydney, the US or Britain; and Mecca (1963), which charted #12 USA and #7 Australia but didn't make the Top 75 in Britain.
Hawaii was the B-side of Pitney'shit It Hurts To Be In Love. In Australia, both sides charted in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, but the A-side alone was a hit in Melbourne, Perth, the US, and Britain.
This happened with Who Needs It (1964), a B-side that charted Top 10 in Australia. It had been forgotten by Pitney when he noticed Australian audiences calling out, 'Who needs it?' and realised they weren't heckling him but were requesting the song.
For background on Hawaii, including its writers Al Kooper, Bob Brass and Irwin Levine, the best place is the detailed page on the song by Ray McGinnis at his Vancouver pop hitswebsite. Hawaii comes in at #9 Vancouver, and I am impressed by Ray's thoroughness in mentioning the song's #8 Sydney.
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Australian chart sources for this post: 2SM Top 100: Lists at rateyourmusic.com by Badgerdarkness and collaborators. Capital cities: Gavin Ryan's chart books. Australia: Grant Dawe's Top 100 Singles site.
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