Bigger in Oz (25): Oliver Cool - Oliver Cool (1960)

Bigger in Oz: tracks that were more popular in Australia than in their countries of origin.

See also: Only in Melbourne.

Oliver Cool - Oliver Cool
(Paul Vance - Lee Pockriss)
Roulette single (USA) #R-4292 September 1960
London single (Australia) #R-4292 November 1960

US charts: did not chart
Australian charts: #15 Sydney #24 Melbourne #24 Brisbane #16 Perth | #17 Australia

Co-charting Australian cover version:
Rock Martin - Oliver Cool
Rex single (Australia) RS-042 November 1960
Australian charts: #16 Perth

We are deep into novelty record territory here. 

Who's the most swingingest boy in school?
You are!
And what's my name?
Oliver Cool!
That's right!

To me and my circle as 10-year-olds this was hilarious. 

Australians had a soft spot for jokey, gimmicky records, and Lee Pockriss often appeared in the writer credits.  He and Bob Hilliard wrote Jo Ann Campbell's A Kookie Little Paradise (1960), with its Tarzan calls and ice cream loaded with bananas in the jungle. Another well-known Pockriss-Hilliard composition is Paul Evans's whimsical Seven Little Girls Sitting In The Back Seat (1959, also a hit in the UK by The Avons). 

Pockriss and his Oliver Cool co-writer Paul Vance wrote Bryan Hyland's Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini. (The 16-syllable title is the gimmick - pretty much the main event - just as it would be three years later in the 14 syllables of Little Pattie's He’s My Blonde-Headed Stompie-Wompie Real Gone Surfer Boy which I suspect it inspired.)

Unsurprisingly, Oliver Cool is a name adopted for the performance. You can find strong views online about whether this was dancer-choreographor-actor-director Tony Mordente (1935-2024) or singer and skater Lawrence Sarapochiello (1933-2024). It appears that each used the pseudonym Larry Ellis at some stage in their career, which could explain why there is confusion, but I don't feel confident in calling it either way.

I was surprised to discover an Australian cover version of Oliver Cool that co-charted in Perth with the original. Not only that, but there is no doubt that the artist, Rock Martin, was the famous West Australian-born stage hypnotist Martin St James (1924-2015) who had an early career as a cowboy singer in a circus. 

Chart positions for this post:
Australian capital cities: Gavin Ryan's chart books. 
Australia: Grant Dawe's Top 100 Singles site.

Oliver Cool - Oliver Cool (1960)

Rock Martin - Oliver Cool (1960)

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. 

 _________________________

Clips: main themes only

Duane Eddy - Rebel-'Rouser (1958)  

The Nomads - Bounty Hunter (1961)  

Al Caiola - Bounty Hunter (1961)  

The Nomads - Bounty Hunter (1961)

Duane Eddy - Rebel-'Rouser (1958)

Tennessee Ernie Ford - Who Will Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet (1955)

                                                            

Bonus track

Al Caiola - Bounty Hunter (1961, covering The Nomads)

▶︎ Teresa Brewer's quirky Aussie trifecta

Back in her hometown, April 1952

Singing star of the 50s
Teresa Brewer's voice was familiar on radio and records throughout the 1950s. From 1950 to 1957 she made the Top 40 twenty-five times, beginning with Music, Music, Music (1950, #1 USA), also known for its familiar opening words Put another nickel in, in the nickelodeon. 

Some of her songs, like Ricochet (1953, #2 USA), were in that perky post-WW2, pre-rock'n'roll vein of Music, Music, Music, but that did not confine her. 

A Tear Fell (1956 #5 USA) was on the pop charts while Ivory Joe Hunter's version was charting #15 R&B, and her cover of Sam Cooke's current hit You Send Me charted #8 USA for her in 1957. 

In the following years she proved her versatility by recording albums with jazz greats including Count Basie (The Songs Of Bessie Smith), Stephane Grappelli and Duke Ellington. On the 1973 album In London she recorded contemporary songs with Oily Rags, a younger band featuring Chas Hodges and Dave Peacock, soon to be stars as Chas And Dave.

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Teresa's versions of Australian hits
She clearly cast widely for material. Her cover versions even included three songs previously released by Australasian artists, songs that were familiar in Australia. 

There were Teresa Brewer versions of:

• Col Joye's Bye Bye Baby (1959, #1 Sydney #3 Melbourne #2 Brisbane #2 Adelaide #2 Perth; #3 Australia).
Covered on 1959 single using the alternative title Bye Bye Baby Goodbye.

• Patsy Ann Noble's Good Looking Boy (1961, #16 Sydney #6 Melbourne #13 Brisbane #8 Adelaide; #17 Australia).
Covered on 1961 single, song retitled Pretty Lookin’ Boy.

• Maria Dallas's Ambush (1967, #19 Sydney #12 Melbourne #4 Brisbane; #16 Australia).
Covered on album Unliberated Woman (1975)

All three of those songs had chart success only in Australia.

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How come? 
Teresa seems to have had no special connection with Australia or New Zealand, even though she covered these songs with clear Australasian credentials:  

• Good Looking Boy was an original version, recorded in Sydney by an Australian, Patsy Ann Noble. It was written by Johnny Devlin, a New Zealander residing in Australia, 

• Bye Bye Baby was previously recorded in Sydney by an Australian, Col Joye.

• Ambush was an original version, recorded by a New Zealander, Maria Dallas. The single did not chart in NZ, but NZers would have also known the song from the albums Maria Dallas In Nashville (1967) and Tumblin’ Down (1968).

However, two of the records have some American connections that might help to explain why they came to the attention of Teresa and her people.

• Ambush is an American composition, recorded in Nashville by Maria Dallas. RCA released it in the US as a single and as a track on Tumblin' Down (1968)

• Bye Bye Baby by Col Joye (c. May 1959) was itself a cover, the only charting version of a lesser-known American composition originally released by Sonny Williams (Sept 1958).* 

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*Col's single was also released in the US as Bye Bye Baby Goodbye in July 1959, but after Teresa Brewer's release in June.

Back at the website
• Song histories of Bye Bye Baby, (aka Bye Bye Baby Goodbye), Good Looking Boy and Ambush
• The Obscure Originators feature has articles about Sonny Williams who originally released Bye Bye Baby and about Bobbie & Dude, the sisters from Texas who wrote Ambush. 

Chart sources
Warwick Freeman (NZ), Dean Scapolo (NZ), Gavin Ryan (Australian cities) and Grant Dawe's site (Australia). US charts by Joel Whitburn: 1940-1955, 1955-2012 (via Internet Archive).

 
↑ Music, Music, Music (1950, #1), the first of many charting Teresa Brewer singles

↑ Known in Australia as a Col Joye song, this went back even further than that

↑ Good Looking Boy retitled Pretty Lookin’ Boy for Teresa's version

 ↑ Teresa covers an Australian hit for a NZ singer who recorded it in Nashville


↑ Teresa Brewer does Van Morrison with Oily Rag (1973)