The T-Bones: "No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In)"

January 17, 1966 (1 week)

Eww, you like The T-Bones?!? You know they don't write their own songs.

They do so!

They don't even play their own instruments.

No. No!!!

That's not even Joe Frank Corollo's own V-neck sweater!

Ahhh!

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As just about everyone knows, a pop sensation emerged in 1966 that took the charts by storm. It later came out that the public face of this band didn't play the instruments on their recordings which forever tarnished their reputation. Fortunately, they would seek a degree of creative freedom and would find a bit of redemption, even if shaking the image of them as frauds would never quite wear off.

This is The T-Bones, a five-piece act that had been put together in order to "perform" and promote the single "No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In)" since the actual musicians on it were members of Los Angeles studio group The Wrecking Crew who were preoccupied with more pressing matters and who, presumably, weren't terribly photogenic.

What's funny about this now is that a pop hit credited to The Wrecking Crew would be something would please music geeks today — especially if it had been something that had just slipped through the cracks and had only been unearthed decades later. But to hell with obscurity! Even a big hit single would've been regarded as a feather in the cap of a hardworking and talented but largely overlooked group of musicians. They were invaluable in the fame and fortune of countless stars and they deserved a taste of it themselves.

The idea of taking advertising jingles and turning them into releasable pop music is an inspired one — not to mention alien when you consider that TV ads normally get their tunes from existing recordings rather than the other way around. (I always think of the Canadian ads for butter from the late eighties that used Donovan's "Mellow Yellow" with the whispered bits altered to "just butter it") While Brian Wilson was working on his magnum opus Pet Sounds with a lyricist who'd come from the world of copyrighting, at least one record company was using the compositional skills of people in the advertising industry to supply them with potential hits.

The problem is, the Wrecking Crew are far too much the polished pros to have much fun with the theme song from an Alka-Seltzer commercial. Working under the direction of a Brian Wilson or a Phil Spector might get them to push out creatively; similarly, their deft all-around abilities displayed on singles such as The Byrds' "Mr Tambourine Man" and Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" marked them out as being able to mimic the sound of just about any band out there. Nothing of either sort is going on with "No Matter What Shape". It's easy to imagine Booker T and the MG's playing around with it, gifting listeners with some typically sublime organ and guitar solos and just making it so much more than a lightweight TV jingle but that's not what the finest crew of LA session cats did with it. ("Feelin' Fine", the B-side, is surprisingly spirited, sounding far less like they were simply phoning it in)

The public face of The T-Bones went out and did the promo work. While it must've been exciting to have been on national TV, it couldn't have been very fulfilling to be a professional musician miming along to a record they didn't have any involvement in. Luckily, this didn't hold them back in the long run. Three of the fake Bones went on to a successful recording career in their own right and they'll even be appearing in this blog in a while. Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds did their own singing and playing and even wrote some of their own material. I imagine they'd outgrown the V-neck sweaters by then though.

Score: 5

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Can Con

I suppose back in the mid-sixties the idea of a Dylan parody must've seemed fresh rather than hackneyed. As for it being funny? Uh, not with this dreadful mess. Of course, it just has to be the product of a DJ who likes the sound of his own voice. (Ed.: That's every DJ that has ever lived) I previously blogged about CHUM legend Gerry Ferrier and his novelty single "The President's Canada Congress" — which I still haven't had the chance to hear; YouTube still comes up short when it comes to shitty Canadian comedy discs from decades past — but the man just wouldn't take a hint and get lost so there was lots more from him. This time, he actually made the Top 10 with "Like a Dribbling Fram" under the name Race Marbles. If you're going to make a bad Dylan-esque copy then you might as well do it as poorly as possible and in this respect Ferrier couldn't have done better. He sounds a lot more like Gordon Lightfoot than the Bard himself and that's probably the best thing I can even bring myself to say about it. I don't make many worthwhile comments in this space but I have to say I stand by what I wrote the last time his nibs came up: "Say what you will about old pop and rock stars hosting their own radio shows but they tend to be better suited to spinning records and yammering about nothing than DJ's do when it comes to cutting quality music". Quite.

Ned Miller: "From a Jack to a King"

December 17, 1962 (5 weeks)

For about as long as I can remember I have enjoyed playing cards. At various points of my life I have been into Asshole, Bullshit, Cowboy Poker, Crazy 8's, Cribbage, FreeCell, Old Maid, Rummy, Solitaire, Speed and War. I never really got the whole Texas Hold 'em craze and I have generally been pretty disdainful of card games involving gambling. (Not, mind you, because of a moral distaste but because I don't find them to be all that much fun and, I'll be honest here, my appalling excuse for a poker face; yet, I still say someone should play poker with a giant grin on their face even though it has never worked for me) Otherwise, card games are fun — and it's been the most effective way of connecting with my Korean nieces and nephews over the last decade.

That said, I'm no expert or anything. But I do know the order of a deck of cards. It goes: A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K. Everyone knows this, right? So, is getting a promotion from Jack to King really such a step up? There is only one card separating them. In some games Jacks can even trump Kings. (We used to always play Asshole with the One-Eyed Jacks as trump cards presumably because we were all used to Jokers being automatically removed, never realizing they could occasionally be useful) In games like crib they're each worth ten points but Jacks do also sometimes give players a bonus point or two if you get 'Nibs' or 'Nobs'. I mean, I suppose the Jack is a knave and is probably not to be trusted but we're comparing him to the King for god's sake. Do you really think either of these people are particularly wonderful?

There are three reasons I chose to begin this review with a short discussion on cards. First, I couldn't think of any other way to get it started, second, the playing card analogy in "From a Jack to a King" is done to death so I might as well hammer the point home further and, finally, because the song in question is such a great, big bore.

In truth, I'm still not completely sure if "From a Jack to a King" is a bad song since it keeps losing my attention as I try to listen to it. I do know that the chorus is a load of dreck. Ned Miller has one of those irritating Country & Western voices you'd hear in that era, all quivering like a shrew in the middle of a blizzard. Hank Williams had tinges of it in his singing but it wasn't something he did to death either. Plus, the Hillbilly Shakespeare didn't make two minute singles feel like such a slog to get through. This one is just about the longest two minutes I've ever had to sit through.

What's amazing is the fact that Ned Miller managed to spent five weeks on top of the CHUM charts with it. A week or two would have been one thing: I can imagine a number of people playing it on jukeboxes, buying the 45 for a loved one for Christmas and/or requesting it over the radio for a time but shouldn't they have gotten sick of it by the New Year? I guess the competition wasn't terribly great as 1962 rolled over into '63 even if it had no business dethroning the mighty "Telstar". But Bobby Vee? The Rooftop Singers? Marcie Blane? Holding them off from the number one spot isn't such a great achievement. On the other hand, the Goffin-King penned "Chains" by The Cookies would've been a smashing chart topper to finish off a really strong year. Shame.

Score: 3

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Can Con

I could be wrong but I suspect that "The President's Canada Congress" has to be the unlikeliest name for a Top 30 hit in the history of pop music — and I mean anywhere. (Disagree? Post your candidates in the comments section below!) Gerry Ferrier was a CHUM personality which means (a) he must've been a conservative (I think it's a rule that DJ's are supposed to be die hard Tories) and (b) his records were intended to be comedic — though whether they actually were humourous is another matter. I wouldn't know, however, since there's currently no way to access this number twenty-eight hit. You think YouTube has everything but try looking up novelty songs by Toronto-area disc jockeys from the sixties and you may be out of luck. Same thing with old Al Bolishka, also a CHUM radio vet. Nevertheless, I'm not expecting much. Say what you will about old pop and rock stars hosting their own radio shows but they tend to be better suited to spinning records and yammering about nothing than DJ's do when it comes to cutting quality music.