The Rooftop Singers: "Walk Right In"

January 21, 1963 (2 weeks)

It takes up only about thirty seconds but the dual 12-string acoustic guitar opener play by Erik Darling and Bill Svanoe to open "Walk Right In" is easily its brightest feature. The mind has a number of reactions to it during that half minute: "oh, this is unique" and "damn, these stick-in-the-mud folkies can play!" and "I don't think many people have tried to imitate this" and, finally, "wait, what are The Rooftop Singers, of all people, doing playing an instrumental?" It is only then that the singing starts — and it's all downhill from there.

Well, slightly downhill. "Walk Right In" is harmless and pleasant but there's no doubt that its most thrilling moment has already been done and dusted in those first few seconds. The trio of Darling, Svanoe and former jazz vocalist Lynne Taylor sound like evangelical Christians, albeit more on the cheery, Ned Flanders-style rather than the terrifying fire and brimstone kind.

Bob Dylan was about to emerge as a force in 1963. His protest song masterpiece The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan would come out that May but the bulk of it — including future standards "Blowin' in the Wind", "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" and "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" — had already been recorded prior to "Walk Right In" making it to number one. Now, it seems as though this ultra white-bred trio (who must have been in their late twenties at the very least) would not have been prepared for the coming folk boom that would ultimately render groups acts like them redundant but the altered lyrics of "Walk Right In" suggest otherwise.

Originally written by blues singer Gus Cannon for his act Cannon's Jug Stompers, the 1929 recording of "Walk Right In" is similarly accomplished musically with some terrific banjo playing and a sweet little kazoo solo. It's also sung with more humour than The Rooftop Singers would bring to it but the subject matter is also more menacing, with references to an "evil way of walking" which could be a reference to a popular dance craze of the time or goosestepping Nazis or to something I'm not aware of. The Rooftop Singers had this changed to a "new way of walkin'" which is equally oblique to my modern ears. But they also put in a line inviting people to "let their hair hang down". (They weren't to know just how long everyone's hair would get by decade's end) Cannon's composition invites guests in but then quickly points out that they "can't stay too long"; this Rooftop remake is only concerned with making them feel at home.

The result is a welcoming singalong, one that almost seems aware that the times were a-changin'. I can imagine entering a crowded and smokey folk club in New York or Toronto and being greeted by this. Clean cut groups like The Kingston Trio and The Rooftop Singers may have commandeered the stage but they would have made room for younger musicians as well. Few genres have a sense of community the way folk does and "Walk Right In" might as well its theme song. (Rather objecting to his decision to turn away from topical material or his embrace of rock music, perhaps the real reason folkies objected to Dylan by the mid-sixties was because they felt he had turned his back on them)

I have my problems with folk music at times — and not just because my parents subjected me and my sister to so much of it on childhood camping trips. "Walk Right In" may indeed be cheesy, overly cheerful and square but it's also catchy and charming. True, a little of it goes a long way and I certainly wouldn't recommend playing it on a loop for almost an entire afternoon (and I should know) but it's a perfectly fine single, even if its last two minutes can't possibly measure up to those first thirty magnificent seconds.

Score: 6