Rockabilly

493. Shakin’ Stevens – Oh Julie (1982)

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The Intro

1981 had been a banner year for Shakin’ Stevens, with two number 1 cover versions of rock’n’roll classics This Ole House and Green Door. Shaky was back a year later and he topped the charts for the third time with a song of his own – the jaunty, Cajun-flavoured Oh Julie.

Before

The album Shaky had made Stevens one of the most popular singers of the previous year. With two number 1s under his belt, Epic Records milked the LP for one more hit. However, his cover of the vintage ballad It’s Raining proved it was time to make more music, when it peaked at 10.

Recording on the follow-up began at the end of a whirlwind year. Give Me Your Heart Tonight. As it wasn’t released until October 1982, it’s most likely that the album was still being worked on when Oh Julie was released, but Epic were understandably hoping to try and keep Stevens very much in the public eye.

Oh Julie was penned by Stevens and arranged by his guitarist Mickey Gee, who had previously worked with Tom Jones (when he was known as Tommy Scott), Joe Cocker and Dave Edmunds. He had also played in Shaky’s old backing band, The Sunsets.

It’s also worth talking about – on a song that there isn’t really much worth saying – Steven’s guitarist and producer, Stuart Colman, who played a large part in the singer’s success. In 1976, Colman organised a march to the BBC, complaining about the lack of rock’n’roll on Radio 1. Despite the fact the station, as always, was supposed to be playing chart music, Colman was awarded his own show, and that is why Epic gave him the fateful call to ask him to produce Stevens.

Also in the line-up for Oh Julie was the accordionist Geraint Thomas, who had recorded the album Geraint Thomas & the Dominators, produced by Andy Fairweather Low, in 1979. Thomas’s input adds some much needed colour to Stevens’ least-remembered chart-topper, giving it that authentic rockabilly feel.

Review

Before Shaky fans shake their fists at me, let me say, fair play to Stevens for Oh Julie. It’s a decent stab at songwriting, and a rather brave attempt to move away from only recording classic material. Anyone would have potentially come up short against rock’n’roll standards in that situation. But it’s middling at best – and Shaky doesn’t cover himself with glory by admitting later that he only called it Oh Julie because it rhymes with ‘truly’.

Actually… I’ve just scanned the lyrics. Bloody hell Shaky, I’ve changed my mind. They’re beyond lazy. Let’s face it, Colman deserves credit here for having polished a bit of a turd. There’s no excuse for this when you compare it to some of the amazing number 1s yet to come in 1982.

What is worth mentioning, however, is the unhinged video. Stevens can always be relied on for amusingly camp videos, and this is no exception.

Shaky is out in the cold, singing by a lamppost while an accordionist (Thomas himself?) plays on. Suddenly, our hero spies the sexy, glamorous Julie, who gives a sly look and goes inside, leaving her door open (ahem). Taking this as a red rag to a bull, Shaky goes in, and we then see that there’s CCTV cameras watching him. He starts singing to photos of Julie on the wall, which start coming to life, and then we see Julie sat in a control room casually watching him busting his moves. All totally normal. Once he’s had enough, Stevens just fucks off and Thomas carries on playing. Mental.

After

Although Give Me Your Heart Tonight was a top 10 album and spawned several hits, 1981-82 were the peak years for Stevens. However, there was one last number 1 to come – but that has to wait until we get to the 1985 Christmas number 1, Merry Christmas Everyone.

The Outro

There’s not a lot to say here, so I’m just going to use the chance to post once again the fantastic sight of a pre-fame Jim Moir before he became known as Vic Reeves, dancing in the video to his 1987 number five hit What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For? which had been the final number 1 of the 50s for Emile Ford and The Checkmates.

The Info

Written by

Shakin’ Stevens

Producer

Stuart Colman

Weeks at number 1

1 (30 January-5 February)

Trivia

Births

31 January: Footballer Allan McGregor

Deaths

30 January: Actor Stanley Holloway
1 February: Conservative MP Sir John Foster
4 February: Scottish blues-rock frontman Alex Harvey
5 February: Folklorist Peter Opie/Welsh novelist Ronald Welch

Meanwhile…

5 February: The collapse of Laker Airways leads to 6,000 passengers stranded.

70. Marvin Rainwater – Whole Lotta Woman (1958)

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The Info

Enjoying a three-week stint at number 1, Marvin Rainwater’s Whole Lotta Woman was a self-penned primitive rockabilly tune.

Before

Born in Wichita, Kansas on 2 July 1925, Marvin Karlton Rainwater had studied classical piano as a child, but he lost part of his right thumb in an accident as a teenager. He trained to be a vet, but after his stint in the Navy during World War Two, he decided to try the guitar.

Claiming to be 25 percent Cherokee, he cut a unique figure when he began wearing his trademark buckskin jacket and headband on stage, and writing his own songs. He won the TV talent show Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts in 1955, and from there a recording contract with MGM swiftly followed.

Combining country and western with the emerging rockabilly sound, and with an imposing physique and unique, craggy good looks, Rainwater had natural star quality, and scored a hit with Gonna Find Me a Bluebird in the US in 1957, the same year he released The Majesty of Love, a duet with future number 1 artist Connie Francis.

Review

Whole Lotta Woman is a simple rocker with sexually-charged lyrics that only just made it past censorship (the BBC let it go, but some of the US broadcasters wouldn’t touch it). The most interesting aspect of the recording is probably Rainwater’s raucous, double-tracked vocals, and the duelling electric guitar and piano instrumental break. Not bad, but it suffers coming after a run of interesting, more famous chart-toppers.

After

Rainwater’s follow-up, I Dig You Baby, made the top 20, but he failed to repeat his early flourish of success. He began recording material with his younger sister, Patty, but around this time he developed ongoing throat problems. His voice suffered, and MGM let him go. He went into semi-retirement to rest his voice, recording sporadically for other labels. Changing tastes and lack of momentum caused his career to stall, and eventually he was diagnosed with throat cancer. He recovered from this, but his career didn’t.

Sadly, his final recording sessions remain unissued due to the dire state of his voice, and by then he was living in a caravan with his family on wasteland in Minnesota. He died of heart failure on 17 September 2013, aged 88.

The Outro

His guitar-playing had inspired many however – back in Rainwater’s glory days, a teenage guitarist called Brian Rankin was waiting in the shadows to make his mark on rock’n’roll, and he was quite the fan. He even changed his name in tribute, to Hank Marvin.

The Info

Written by

Marvin Rainwater

Producer

Jim Vinneau

Weeks at number 1

3 (25 April-15 May)

Trivia

Births

25 April: Marillion Singer Fish
3 May  Presenter Sandi Toksvig

Deaths

3 May: Cricketer Frank Foster

Meanwhile…

30 April: The Life Peerages Act allowed the creation of life peers who could sit in the House of Lords. As women could become life peers, the act made it possible for women to sit in the House of Lords for the first time. On the same day, the musical My Fair Lady opened at Drury Lane Theatre in London, starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews.

3 May: Bolton Wanderers won the FA Cup for the fourth time with a 2-0 victory over Manchester United, a club still reeling from the Munich Air Disaster.

58. Guy Mitchell with Jimmy Carroll – Rock-a-Billy (1957)

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The Intro

Following such an influential and exciting number 1 as Lonnie Donegan’s Cumberland Gap, I guess the only way was down. It had only been a few months since easy listening and novelty record star Guy Mitchell had hit the top spot for the third time with Singing the Blues, and here he was again for the last time with Woody Harris and Eddie V Deane’s Rock-a-Billy.

Before

Rockabilly, an offshoot of rock’n’roll, began to creep into the vocabulary of press releases and reviews in 1956. It derived from a blurring of the genres of rockn’roll and bluegrass, or, to put it more insultingly, ‘hillbilly’ music, as it was often called at the time. Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Bill Haley were all producing rockabilly music, and rising rapidly at the time, so why not spoof the genre? Why indeed…

Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j65eWlKY5s4

Singing the Blues had, whether intentionally or not, been a successful bridge of genres by Mitchell, covering both his familiar easy listening style and the new rock’n’roll sound. Despite Tommy Steele being considered the more authentic rocker of the two, Steele wound up sounding way too much like Elvis to take seriously, and so Mitchell’s version holds up better. Rock-a-Billy was a bad choice as a follow-up. Well, it wasn’t at the time, it got to number 1, obviously, but the years haven’t been kind to it. It comes across as mean-spirited and the lyrics to the chorus are as unimaginative as it gets. Get a load of this…

‘Rock-a-billy, rock-a-billy, rock-a-billy, rock
Rock-a-billy, rock-a-billy, rock, rock, rock
Rock-a-billy, rock-a-billy, rock-a-billy, rock
Rock-a-billy, rock-a-billy, rock, rock’

There was a little more lyrical dexterity in your average rockabilly song at the time. Later on, Mitchell urges the listener to ‘wriggle like a trout’ and then spitefully exclaims:

‘Ya know you’re gonna act like a crazy fool,
Who cares? It’s cool’.

After

Unfortunately for Mitchell and others of his ilk, lots of people were interested in acting like crazy fools, and following this fourth chart-topper (which made him equal with Frankie Laine for most UK number 1s at that point), his career waned, bar his 1959 cover of Ray Price’s Heartaches by the Number, which despite missing the top spot became perhaps his best-known tune.

The Outro

Mitchell retired in the 70s, but recorded material sporadically after that and occasionally joined the nostalgia circuit. He died of complications from cancer surgery on 1 July 1999, aged 72.

The Info

Written by

Woody Harris & Eddie V. Deane

Producer

Mitch Miller

Weeks at number 1

1 (17-23 May)