Tuesday, January 19, 2010

You Didn't Try to Call Me...

… why didn't you try, I was so lonely…On this day in rock history in 1954, Hank Ballard & the Midnighters hits #1 on the R&B chart and #22 on the pop chart with "Work With Me Annie", #2 on the R&B chart with "Sexy Ways and #1 on the R&B chart and #23 on the pop chart with "Annie Had A Baby". All were banned by the FCC from radio air play for being “too risque’” for the time. Hank Ballard, the poster boy for doo-wop music, was always a convenient target for Frank Zappa’s parodies of that genre, as seen here in “You Didn’t Try to Call Me,” a track on the Mothers’ 1967 album “Freak Out!," done here very nicely by Flo and Eddie and featuring the truly amazing Anysley Dunbar on drums. Where am I going with all this? Well, I’m not sure, but it just goes to show how things are related in rock music, and how one thing leads to another…plus, I'm always looking for an excuse to post about Frank and the Mothers’ music!

Thanks to www.rockhall.com and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Ballard for the info, and keep on rockin’!

1 comment:

Who Am Us Anyway? said...

For years, no matter how drop-dead funny their lyrics might be, the Mothers' musicianship was way beyond anything else happening. I mean, Freak Out! was 1966!!