PopArchives: The Blog: Karl Hammel Jr (1961): Summer Souvenirs and Bounty Hunter

26 July 2026

Karl Hammel Jr (1961): Summer Souvenirs and Bounty Hunter

This follows on from my previous post Bigger in Oz (24): Paul Evans - Show Folk (1960)

• Karl Hammel Jr - Summer Souvenirs (Paul Evans - Jimmy Krondes) 1961, #68 Bb, #60 CB, 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.

Rebel-'Rouser was inspired by
• Tennessee Ernie Ford - Who Will Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet (Traditional, from The Lass of Roch Royal) 1955.

aka as ... Cash Box, 8 Jul 61

I never forgot Karl Hammel Jr's Summer Souvenirs from hearing it 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 old or reissued 45s by mail order, catching up with tracks I had missed out on buying as a youngster. Summer Souvenirs was near the top of my wants list, and I scored it at a reasonable price through a mail-in record auction.

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 post, Bigger in Oz: Paul Evans - Show Folk).

Along came the Internet, and people from the music industry started to launch their own websites, often with contact details. So it was that I could email Paul Evans to express my regard for 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.

Karl Hammel Jr - Summer Souvenirs (1960)

I now find (via Discogs.com) that Paul Evans's co-writer on Summer Souvenirs, Jimmy Krondes, 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 Krondes. (This was not a band manager dabbling in songwriting: Krondes was a successful songwriter, known especially for Earl Grant's hit The End [1958, #7 USA], co-written with Sid Jacobson.)

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. At the start of the track he whistles the main theme or melody once before he is joined by the guitar which then takes over the main theme, with Karl whistling in counterpoint. (See notes by Fred Clemens at 45cat.com.)

A cover version was released on a B-side by guitarist Al Caiola (March 1961) but without any whistling.

Whenever I came across Bounty Hunter over the years I absently thought, "Oh yeah, that's the one that sounds a lot like Duane Eddy."

In fact (I later realised) the main melodies of Bounty Hunter and Dwayne Eddy's 1958 hit Rebel-'Rouser are almost the same.

Bounty Hunter has a bridge after two runs of the main theme, repeated later, but Rebel-'Rouser simply repeats the melody several times. As Duane Eddy told Guitar Player, "I couldn’t think of any way to get into a bridge, so I modulated it – I moved each subsequent pass through it up by a half step."

In confirmation of the derivative nature of pop, Eddy's inspiration for Rebel-'Rouser was Tennessee Ernie Ford's Who Will Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet (1955), a version of a much-recorded American folk song that in turn goes back to a British song called The Lass of Roch Royal.

Disambiguation
See discogs.com for details on Karl Hammel Jr and The Nomads. I'm almost certain this is not the drummer Karl Himmel, seen in Neil Young album credits, known by several aliases including Karl Hammel. I believe these are two different Karls.

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Clips: main themes only

Duane Eddy - Rebel-'Rouser (1958)