PAUL: TALL PAUL

Another rabbit warren of antique archaicism to fall down today, as we grasp at the few straws offered by Tin Pan Alley to the Pauls of this world. Johns, and Johnnys are, of course, two a penny, and even Williams get more action, if more frequently foreshortened to Billy. So, then, pop pickers, who remembers “Tall Paul”? Don’t worry, I don’t either, but it was 1959 when Annette Funicello took it to the Billboard chart, where it reached number 7. 

There’s a nice tale about the song, suggesting it was written for Paul Anka, not least as he and Funicello were briefly an item. Anka responded vigorously to deny this, citing he was not remotely tall, an inescapable truth. Funicello was an erstwhile Mousketeer for the Mickey Mouse club, long before, I should add, any more recent incumbent, and the song was written by the Sherman brothers, Robert B. and Richard M., who specialised in writing for Disney, and penned most of the soundtrack for Mary Poppins. The song? Well. It ain’t up to much, typical fare for the times, but it did provoke a response. 

The tradition of a song producing a response, unrelated, from another group or singer is long and celebrated. Possibly the best example would be the songs traded between the star crossed squeezes, Neil Sedaka and Carole King. “Oh, Carol” was a massive hit for the former, and “Oh Neil”, her reply, was not, perhaps explained by her, in the interim, having married Gerry Goffin. More recently there was the somewhat more nuanced bromance between Morrissey and Billy MacKenzie. The Smiths brought out “William, It Was Really Nothing”, the seemingly somewhat a little infatuated Associates singer, with the explosive H bomb of a voice, riposted with “Stephen, You’re Really Something.” Probably more a little bit of celebrity one-upmanship, it makes for a great tale, if largely and likely apocryphal. 

Anyway, “Tall Paul” too garnished a reply, from a songwriter, Ray Hildebrand, who elected to give it a duet status, enrolling the niece of his landlord, Jill Jackson, to help him sing it. Picked up by showbiz mogul and producer, Major Bill Smith, who, despite outranking Colonel Tom Parker, was in an entirely different league. He gave Ray and Jill the name Paul and Paula, and a hit was born, hitting the number 1 spot in 1962. I was confident that was that, but it appears they went on to have a career of sorts, with further hits and a few albums, ahead of Hildebrand quitting the glitz, returning to college and embracing the Church. A later “Dear Paula” did not chart. 

Coming soon, in a future theme entitled Bernard, will be more enticing tales of derring do, but, until then, grab ‘em while you can…… 

Tall Paul 

Hey Paula

WHAT IF: BIG DADDY

Woah, such a tough project, this one, trying to come up with a theme with teeth, thinking my way through what if electricity had yet to be invented, what if Elvis were a vegetarian or what if Lynyrd Skynyrd went everywhere by train, all these imponderables begging to be answered, with nothing to write in response. And then I remembered that there were already a whole group of projects out there, who had already done their own spin on the question. These would often thinly drawn plots about lost valleys, of remote communities, adrift from the modern world, catching a glimpse of the outside world, and applying their own template thereto, with whatsoever was to hand. So we get Hayseed Dixie, supposedly Appalachian farmhands, who, having chanced upon a car crashed in their home hamlet (of Deer Lick Holler), and which contained a stack AC/DC records, they scrupulously set to absorbing and replicating the music thereof, albeit with the only instrumentation to hand. But ahead of them came Big Daddy.

The back story is that the band, whilst touring U.S. army bases in 'Nam, were kidnapped by Laotian guerrillas and kept in captivity until their rescue, in 1983. Thus, bypassing all the trends and tropes of musical styles for the two decades before. So, by the time they were able to restart their career, as a covers band, they only had the chops to play in the styles of the 1950's through early 60's. In truth, this meant splicing more modern material into the distinctive manifestations of much older songs. A studio trick in the first instance, ultimately they became a performing act, with any number of members passing through their ranks, most gainfully otherwise employed as voiceover artists, and capable of any amount of mimicry. 

The Safety Dance/Big Daddy (Meanwhile, Back in the States)

To all intents and purposes their first album, in 1985, was the (well titled) 'Meanwhile, Back In The United States', with a stack of 80s songs, encompassing any number of genres, all put through a 50's filter and regurgitated with some skill and attention to detail. Sure, as a novelty act, maybe not something you would find yourself returning to time and time again, but a good album to have by, and to chuck the odd song from onto mixtapes and playlists. 'What Really Happened to the Band of 59', three years later, took the conceit a step further and ran a little more knowingly with some of the juxtapositioning. By 'Cutting Their Own Groove', another three years later, it was becoming a little shaky, with sometimes the original 1980s source material lost in action, as the grooves of some arcane 1958 rockabilly hit were faultlessly recreated. The way around this developing diminishment of return was a masterstroke, by applying their brilliantine and bobbysocks to a single album, namely 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This really was their flash in the pan, arguably opening up the market for similar projects, which have since become accepted twists of the route to steering yourself a novelty hit album. The Easy Star All-Stars have taken this to heart, with their dub-reggae tributes, also to Sgt Pepper, but also to Dark Side of the Moon and Radiohead.

Hotel California/Big Daddy (What Really Happened to the Band of '59)

I Want Your Sex/Big Daddy (Cutting Their Own Groove)

Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds/Big Daddy (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)

Whilst a version of Big Daddy nominally play on, the idea continues to attract attention. One could say the the UK a capella band, the Flying Pickets, operating at much the same time as Big Daddy, were hitting on the same sort of thing, if limited by the smaller mutability of doo-wop. Perhaps the most implicit acceptance of this as a valid art(?!) form came as Pat Boone, one of the archetypal 50's into 60's crooners, returned the favour, interpreting metal hits of the 70's and 80's for his 1997 album, 'In a Metal Mood: No More Mr Nice Guy', but in more his style. This idea, or similar, was replicated again by Paul Anka for his 'Rock Swings', in 2005. All of this proving, in a way, that you just can't keep a good song down. Or, indeed, many a bad one, either. If you dislike the style, or the genre, pick another and just do it again.

Go fer it!!

Afterword: Following the success of Big Daddy, the team behind the band attempted another slice of the pie, deciding on Gregorian Chant as being untapped for the covers market. What do you think?

Theme From the Monkees/The Benzedrine Monks of Santo Domonica (Chantmania)

Steel: A Steel Guitar and a Glass of Wine

Purchase Paul Anka's A Steel Guitar and a Glass of Wine

Back when I was in college, early to late 90s (I stuck around to take a few extra classes) there was a neo/retro-lounge music craze that kicked off. For me, the whole soft bubble keys and castanets movement started with Esquivel. Juan Garcia Esquivel was a Mexican bandleader, and his Esquivel! or Space-Age Bachelor Pad, re-released along with a lot of other music on Bar None, was the height of easy listening. Space age pop, exotica, lounge: it all meant the same thing.

The music goons and college DJs and bar band bums that made up my crew got into it, thought that sleazy lounge nostalgia pop made us sophisticates. We bought a bartender's book and learned how to mix fancy drinks. We hit up the Goodwill and bought the snazziest polyester duds we could and threw Lounge Lizard parties. Our first one was a smashing success. Some tools tried playing 80s music, nostalgia for the ‘80s becoming a real fad itself about that time. But, we insisted: lounge or nothing.

From there on it was Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Herb Alpert, Combustible Edison, Dezi Arnez, The Squirrel Nut Zippers, Southern Culture on the Skids, the very Reverend Horton Heat, Les Baxter, Elvis movie soundtracks, Ennio Morricone, Stereolab, Paul Anka, Canada’s crown prince of the languid orchestral swing. Understand, we were making our own definition of lounge. It didn’t matter if we were throwing in Big Band, Rockabilly, or Barry Manilow: sweet and easy listening meant being silly chic and suave in a way that let us push the furniture against the wall, put on our dancing socks and glide sliverswift across the floor with the few girls we had convinced to come to our one of a kind Odd Ball.

It didn’t matter that we were mixing in multiple genres—Tarantino was making great soundtracks with AM radio gems that would never have been any one single radio programmer’s play list. And we took our inspiration from him and the record bins at the local CD shops (Vinyl was making a big comeback as as fad about this time, too). We made up our own playlists and bought even  better records at those same thrift stores.  We were chasing a kooked up, weirded-out vibe, where sound was blatantly old, odd, but fun, without any pretension, full spectrum color that came from a time we didn’t really know, but wish we had.

This was the early ‘90s, right? I said that? Nirvana was magic, but the spell hadn’t quite taken full effect. So flannel and Doc Martens hadn’t taken up so much room that those natty, mis-matched suits bought at the thrift store were  out of our wardrobes quite yet. Eventually, those two sartorial elements would merge together, and velvet jackets, ratty, off-labeled t’s and thick soled suede wingtips would all somehow look good together. That, a superior hair.

I miss dressing like that. I also miss those parties, where our social existence was an un-ironic Halloween bash every weekend, while we swilled well-vodka martinis and cruised, strutted and cut a rug like we were some variation of George Lazenby James Bonds, full of the kind of exuberant camp, quirk and whimsical bliss that space-age pop music, with all those Batman and Robin zings and zangs and zooms and booma boom booms sound effect graphics, brought to glorious, techni-color life. 

So, Paul Anka—I dubbed him the crown prince of Lounge, with a capital “L”. Today, I ask you to pull out your snazziest duds, get dolled up and hit the dance floor with your very best gal, and ring a ding ding to the glorious sound of  “A Steel Guitar and a Glass of Wine.” Dig it  and dance on, space traveler...