“River Deep, Mountain High” is a song that has an impact on music as much for the background as well as the music itself. Written by the husband-and-wife team Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich and the producer Phil Spector in 1965, each brought ideas to the table. Spector played guitar, Greenwich pounded the piano and Barry smacked percussion. Greenwich said:

The three of us were like maniacs, singing away. All of a sudden we hit on something.

Considered by producer Phil Spector to be his best work, the original Tina Turner single was successful in Europe, peaking at number 3 in the United Kingdom, and peaking at number 16 in Australia though it flopped on its original release in the United States. Spector claimed to be pleased with the response from the critics and his peers, but he then withdrew from the music industry for two years, beginning his personal decline. Reportedly, co-writer Ellie Greenwich was displeased enough with the effort that, upon hearing the finished acetate, she ripped it from the turntable and hurled it across the room. Over the years reception and recognition did treat it with some respect as in 1999 it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and ranked at number 33 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time by Rolling Stone. George Harrison praised the record, declaring it:

a perfect record from start to finish. You couldn’t improve on it.

The track was recorded using Spector’s “Wall of Sound” production technique, cost a then-unheard-of $22,000, and required 21 session musicians and 21 background vocalists. Along with some members of the famous Wrecking Crew (a group of renowned session musicians that played on many hit records of the 1960’s), some others who played on this recording included Leon Russell (keyboards) and Glen Campbell (guitar).

Due to Spector’s perfectionism in the studio, he made Tina Turner sing the song over and over for several hours until he felt he had the perfect vocal take for the song. She recalled:

I must have sung that 500,000 times. I was drenched with sweat. I had to take my shirt off and stand there in my bra to sing.

Spector was well aware of Ike Turner’s controlling attitude in the studio, and therefore he drafted an unusual contract: the “River Deep – Mountain High” album and single would be credited to “Ike & Tina Turner”, but Ike was paid $20,000 to stay away from the studio, and only Tina Turner’s vocals would be used on the record.

Owing to the lush arrangement of Jack Nitzsche (musician, arranger, songwriter, record producer, and film score composer) and the “Wall Of Sound” production of Phil Spector, the song has lent itself to extended versions by the subsequent groups that have covered this song. Jack Nitzsche went on to work with the Rolling Stones and Neil Young, among others.

A ten-minute version was recorded by Deep Purple for their 1968 album, “The Book of Taliesyn”. An edited version was released as a single in the United States and reached number 53 in early 1969. It had a progressive rock sound to it, as Deep Purple had not yet adopted the hard rock sound for which they are most famous.

Another extended version was done by Eric Burdon & The Animals on their last album released before The Animals‘ second dissolution in 1968.

Hits: 32

This was composed by Mort Garson with lyrics by Bob Hilliard. It was recorded by Ruby & the Romantics in early December 1962, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The personnel on the original recording were: Leroy Glover on organ; Vinnie Bell, Al Gorgoni and Kenny Burrell on guitars; Russ Savakus on bass; Gary Chester on drums; and George Devens on percussion. They cut two versions of “Our Day Will Come” with one as a mid-tempo arrangement and the other in a bossa nova style; the latter version, featuring a classic Hammond organ solo, was selected for release as a single. While they were taking a break, the drummer started fooling around with a beat based on Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd’s recent hit, “Desafinado” (the Brazilian bossa nova was first making itself heard in the U.S.). Everyone seemed to like it and the Romantics nailed the song in the next take.

Garson and Hilliard were hoping to place “Our Day Will Come” with an established easy listening act and only agreed to let the new R&B group Ruby And the Romantics record the song after Kapp Records’ A&R director Al Stanton promised that, if the Ruby & the Romantics’ single failed, Kapp would record the song with Jack Jones, an easy-listening hitmaker.

Dionne Warwick recorded the original demo of the song:

It was written during that period of time when I met Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Bob Hilliard wrote the song also and he said: ‘I’ve got a good little song here and there’s a new group called ‘Ruby and the Romantics’ and will you do the demonstration record?’ I said: ‘Of course. I’d love to. And I did. And I told him then that it was a really pretty song.

The group that was to become The Romantics began in Akron, Ohio around 1958. The real beginnings of The Romantics go back to the Skarlettones, a group that formed in Akron in late 1958. After a few personnel changes, they were known as the Embers but by the time they decided to go to New York to record, they were calling themselves the Supremes (not associated with Diana Ross and The Supremes). They then reorganised some members and renamed themselves again, this time as The Feilos (pronounced FAY-LOWS).

Up to this point, Ruby Nash was not in any of those earlier groups. She originally sang with a group, consisting of her sister and three friends. They sang at record hops, mixers, talent shows and clubs in Akron and surrounding areas. Leroy Fann, a member of The Feilos, was at a performance of Ruby’s group singing in a talent show at the Akron Community Center. The Feilos had decided that they weren’t going anywhere and needed a different kind of sound. Leroy was impressed with Ruby’s singing and asked her to audition for the group.

After auditioning, the group was signed to New York-based Kapp Records; Kapp Records artist and repertoire chief Allen Stanton changed their name to Ruby And The Romantics. He told them two things: first, he wanted Ruby to front the group from then on, and second, The Feilos were history. The Romantics were:

Ruby Nash (lead singer) -- As of 2017, Ruby is the only surviving original member of the Romantics.

Ed Roberts (second tenor) – worked as a bank teller and died of cancer on August 15, 1993.

George Lee (first tenor) – died of cancer in 1994.

Ronald Mosely (baritone) – died on December 3, 2011. He was 72.

Leroy Fann (bass) – died of an apparent heart attack in New York in November 1973.

They had remained intact, with all five original members, throughout their entire 10-year recording career (1961–1971). Ruby And The Romantics were known throughout the music industry for their smooth, rich, full-range harmonies -- from high tenor, to deep, abyssal bass. In a 2011 interview with Ruby she said that David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks of The Temptations claimed the background harmonies of Ruby And The Romantics on “Our Day Will Come”, actually served as the original model for The Temptations’ background harmonies in 1963. The group was also very influential on the music of The Carpenters, who recorded three of their tunes, and Donny and Marie Osmond, who also covered several of their songs.

“Our Day Will Come” has had over 60 recorded cover versions by other artists, including Frankie Valli, Cher, Donny and Marie Osmond, Bobby Darin, Patti Page, Dee Dee Sharp, Pat Boone, Amy Winehouse, Nancy Wilson, Trini Lopez, The Supremes, Cliff Richard, James Brown, The Slackers and numerous others.

In 1964, Ruby & The Romantics received a Grammy Award Nomination from The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for Best Rock and Roll Recording for “Our Day Will Come”. In 1997, they received The Rhythm & Blues Foundation’s Pioneer Award and were inducted into The Vocal Group Hall of Fame. In 2013, Ruby & The Romantics were honored by their hometown, Akron, Ohio, for their accomplishments and international impact, and in August 2013  Ruby & The Romantics were inductees into the very first class of the R&B Music Hall of Fame.

Hits: 46

“Take Good Care of My Baby” is a song written by a young Carole King and Gerry Goffin. While searching for material for Bobby Vee to record, Vee’s producer Snuff Garrett heard a demo of Carole King singing “Take Good Care of My Baby”. Garrett told publisher Don Kirshner that he wanted the song for Vee, but he believed the song needed an introductory verse. Garrett met with Carole King, and the introductory verse of Vee’s version was written.

Among the musicians on the record were Barney Kessel, Tommy Allsup, and Howard Roberts on guitar, Clifford Hills on bass, Robert Florence on piano, and Earl Palmer on drums, while Sid Sharp did the string arrangements. The Johnny Mann Singers sang backup.

Early in Vee’s career, a musician calling himself Elston Gunnn briefly toured with the band. This was Robert Allen Zimmerman, who later went on to fame as Bob Dylan. Dylan’s autobiography mentions Vee and provides complimentary details about their friendship, both professional and personal.

By 1959, Elvis Presley was in the army, Chuck Berry was in jail, Little Richard had got religion, and Buddy Holly had perished in a plane crash. In most versions of pop music history, the resulting vacuum was filled by “the Bobbys”, younger performers whose looks were more important than their singing. Foremost among these, but with better songs and musicianship than most, was Bobby Vee.

Vee was a literal replacement for Holly in February 1959. He and his brother, Bill, were set to attend a concert in Moorhead, Minnesota, by the Winter Dance Party package show when Bobby heard the news that its stars, his idol Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, had died in a plane crash. The brothers and their group, Bobby Vee (born Robert Thomas Velline) then 15 years old, and a hastily assembled band of Fargo schoolboys calling themselves The Shadows, rushed to offer their services, stopping only to buy angora sweaters for their stage outfits. They duly performed as The Shadows, appearing immediately after a spoken tribute to Buddy Holly from his bass player, the future country music star Waylon Jennings.

After their big break at the Winter Dance Party in 1959, a local music promoter was impressed enough to find the group further engagements in the region. Bobby Vee and The Shadows were soon signed to Liberty Records, where he came under the supervision of the producer Snuff Garrett, who would mastermind his sequence of hit singles. Next came the first of many songs directed squarely at a teenage audience. With its “bouncy bouncy” refrain chorused by the female backing vocalists, the infuriatingly catchy “Rubber Ball” was Vee’s first British hit, peaking at No 4 at the beginning of 1961.

With just a hint of late 1950’s rock n roll, he headed his music into the new popular genre of pop songs, silly little tunes that were aimed at the younger,  female audience of record buyers. The next year, he followed that with “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes”.

By the end of the 60s, Vee’s style was out of fashion although he unsuccessfully tried to join the singer-songwriter trend in 1972 by releasing an album using his real name, in an attempt to claim authenticity.

In 1982, he moved his family from Los Angeles to St Cloud, Minnesota, where he and his wife, Karen, organised annual fundraising concerts to provide music and arts facilities for local children. He also recorded occasionally with his three sons and continued to perform his hits to fans in North America and Europe until a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in 2011.

Karen died in 2015. Vee is survived by their children, Jeffrey, Thomas, Robert and Jennifer. On April 29, 2012, Vee announced publicly that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and consequently would withdraw from the music business. He had been in memory care for 13 months in a long-term care facility in Rogers, Minnesota, just outside of Minneapolis, and eventually received hospice care in the weeks prior to his death. On October 24, 2016, Vee died from complications of the disease at the age of 73.

In 2011, he became the 235th inductee into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, and In 2014 he was inducted into the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame (due to his Norwegian and Finnish heritage). According to Billboard magazine, he had thirty-eight Hot 100 chart hits, ten of which reached the Top 20. He had six gold singles in his career.

Hits: 23

This is an artist whose talent as a performer and songwriter is legendary. It would be beyond the scope of this article to fully examine the life and music of her. There is much written about her and I would encourage everyone to search out the story of her life and music, as it is truly worth the interest.

Let’s look at a small glimpse into the remarkable lady. One of her first songs that brought her to the larger public’s attention was “Both Sides Now”. She had recorded her first album a year earlier, known either as “Joni Mitchell” or “Song to a Seagull”, which was well received but only whetted the appetite for what was to come.

Written in March 1967, but not released by Joni until 1969 on her “Clouds” album, it was inspired by a passage in “Henderson the Rain King”, a 1959 novel by Saul Bellow.

I was reading Saul Bellow’s Henderson the Rain King on a plane and early in the book Henderson the Rain King is also up in a plane. He’s on his way to Africa and he looks down and sees these clouds. I put down the book, looked out the window and saw clouds too, and I immediately started writing the song. I had no idea that the song would become as popular as it did.

However, shortly after Mitchell wrote the song, Judy Collins recorded the first commercially released version for her 1967 “Wildflowers” album. Mitchell disliked Collins’ recording of the song, despite the publicity that its success generated for Mitchell’s own career. However, they do remain friends to this day.

Joni Mitchell was born Roberta Joan Anderson on November 7, 1943 in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada. As her father was a Royal Canadian Air Force flight lieutenant, she moved frequently around Canada as a child. At school Mitchell struggled; her main interest was painting. During this time she briefly studied classical piano. While some of Mitchell’s most popular songs were written on piano, almost every song she composed on the guitar uses an open, or non-standard, tuning; she has written songs in some 50 tunings, playing what she has called “Joni’s weird chords”.

At age nine, Mitchell contracted polio in an epidemic, and was hospitalised for weeks. Due to the illness, Mitchell played guitar in different tunings to compensate for the fact her left hand had been weakened by her childhood bout with polio. As a result, her chord shapes, combined with the meandering meters of her more fanciful compositions, tend to resemble jazz more than standard folk or rock. She became heavily involved and recorded several albums with some of the best known Jazz artists throughout her extensive career.

In 1970 she followed up “Clouds” by releasing “Ladies of the Canyon”. That album went platinum and included “Big Yellow Taxi,” an “anti-progress” ditty that stands as one of Mitchell’s signature tunes.

Her fourth album, 1971’s “Blue”, was a stunning suite of songs about romantic disillusionment that stands as a classic in the confessional singer/songwriter mode. It included the songs “Carey,” “My Old Man” and “The Last Time I Saw Richard,” and “River” (reported to reflect the breakup of her relationship with Graham Nash). Nash had written the hit “Our House”, recorded by Crosby, Stills, and Nash, which told the story of a day he and Joni had shared. The album “Blue” featured guest appearances by James Taylor, another artist she had a relationship with, and other artists.

Her most confessional album, Mitchell later said of Blue

I have, on occasion, sacrificed myself and my own emotional makeup, … singing ‘I’m selfish and I’m sad’, for instance. We all suffer for our loneliness, but at the time of Blue, our pop stars never admitted these things… At that period of my life, I had no personal defenses. I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes. I felt like I had absolutely no secrets from the world and I couldn’t pretend in my life to be strong.

Starting in 1974 with the release of her next album “Court and Spark”, Mitchell begin the flirtation with jazz and jazz fusion that marked her experimental period ahead and tried to make a clean break with her earlier folk sound. She recorded several albums in this newer style until around 1980.

Joni then started on a new direction to include her previous pop and jazz work and adding an electronic flavor. Mitchell continued experimenting with synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers for the recordings of her next few albums. This phase of her work continued through several albums and collaborations with artists such as Willie Nelson, Billy Idol, Wendy & Lisa, Tom Petty, Don Henley, Peter Gabriel, and Benjamin Orr of the Cars. In 1990, Mitchell, who by then rarely performed live anymore, participated in Roger Waters’ “The Wall Concert” in Berlin.

To wider audiences, the real “return to form” for Mitchell came with 1994’s Grammy-winning “Turbulent Indigo”. That was followed by the release of several “Best Of” and “Greatest Hits” collections and some new material. This coincided with a much-publicized resurgence in interest in Mitchell’s work by a younger generation of singer-songwriters. She continued to record up to 2007.

In 2009, she began to have health problems. Mitchell said that she has Morgellons syndrome, the informal name given to a self-diagnosed skin condition that is generally believed to be delusional infestation, according to a study conducted by the CDC as well as consensus within the medical community. Some feared mental issues were becoming apparent.

I have this weird, incurable disease that seems like it’s from outer space, but my health’s the best it’s been in a while.

She said at that time that she planned to leave the music industry to work toward giving more credibility to people diagnosed with Morgellons.

On March 31, 2015, Mitchell was found unconscious in her Los Angeles home. She regained consciousness in an ambulance on her way to hospital, but was taken to intensive care for tests. Since then, there have been conflicting reports about her condition. On April 28, 2015, an official statement was made through JoniMitchell.com:

Contrary to rumors circulating on the Internet today, Joni is not in a coma. Joni is still in the hospital – but she comprehends, she’s alert, and she has her full senses. A full recovery is expected. The document obtained by a certain media outlet simply gives her longtime friend Leslie Morris the authority – in the absence of 24-hour doctor care – to make care decisions for Joni once she leaves the hospital. As we all know, Joni is a strong-willed woman and is nowhere near giving up the fight. Please continue to keep Joni in your thoughts.

In July 2015, Mitchell was back at home, undergoing physical therapy and “making progress”, according to her lawyer Rebecca J. Thyne. In October 2015, Mitchell’s friend, singer Judy Collins, reported that she was taking part in rehabilitation every day and was walking, talking and painting.

On November 7, 2018, she will be seventy-five years old. She doesn’t make public appearances any more.

Her influence cannot be understated. She has created, inspired, and played with some of the most notable artists of the last fifty years. The official recognition of awards has indicated that.

She was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1981 and received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, Canada’s highest honour in the performing arts, in 1996. Mitchell received a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2000. In 2002 she became only the third popular Canadian singer-songwriter (Gordon Lightfoot and Leonard Cohen being the other two), to be appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada’s highest civilian honour. She received an honorary doctorate in music from McGill University in 2004. In January 2007 she was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. In June 2007 Canada Post featured Mitchell on a postage stamp.

Mitchell has received nine Grammy Awards during her career (eight competitive, one honorary), the first in 1969 and the most recent in 2016. She received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002, with the citation describing her as “one of the most important female recording artists of the rock era” and “a powerful influence on all artists who embrace diversity, imagination and integrity”.

In 1995, Mitchell received Billboard’s Century Award. In 1996, she was awarded the Polar Music Prize. In 1997, Mitchell was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but did not attend the ceremony.

In 2008, Mitchell was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone’s “100 greatest singers” list and in 2015 she was ranked ninth on their list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. Due to health problems she could not attend the San Francisco gala in May 2015 to receive the SFJAZZ Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2018, Mitchell was honoured by the city of Saskatoon, when two plaques were erected to commemorate her musical beginnings in Saskatoon. As well, the walkway along Spadina Crescent between Second and Third Avenues was formally named the Joni Mitchell Promenade.

And as I said in the beginning, this is a shortened glimpse into this amazing artist. Her music and story is much more involved and worth the time to investigate, in my opinion.

Hits: 36

This was written in 1947 by the Country & Western guitarist and songwriter Merle Travis. It is based on the experiences of his coal-mining family. His brother, John Travis, wrote him a letter about the death of Ernie Pyle, a war correspondent who had just been killed covering combat. John likened Pyle’s job to that of a coal miner, writing: “It’s like working in the coal mines. You load 16 tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.” Merle incorporated his brother’s words into the chorus.

Merle also remembered something his father once said about the practice of paying miners in “scrip” credit vouchers that could only be used at the company-owned general store. He told a neighbor, “I can’t afford to die. I owe my soul to the general store,” inspiring the lyrics:

“Saint Peter don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store”

A reference to the truck system and to debt bondage. Under this scrip system, workers were not paid cash; rather they were paid with non-transferable credit vouchers which could be exchanged only for goods sold at the company store. This made it impossible for workers to store up cash savings. Workers also usually lived in company-owned dormitories or houses, the rent for which was automatically deducted from their pay. In the United States the truck system and associated debt bondage persisted until the strikes of the newly formed United Mine Workers and affiliated unions forced an end to such practices.

Released on Capitol’s 1947 LP “Folk Songs From The Hills”, the song almost immediately began to generate controversy, causing Travis himself, problems, in the anti-communist, Cold War hysteria of the late forties. Some in government saw songs dealing with workers’ woes, and folk music “activists” as potentially subversive. It made no difference that Travis was a true American patriot. Veteran Capitol producer, Ken Nelson, who worked at WJJD radio in Chicago in the late forties, recalled in a 1992 interview that FBI agents advised the station not to play Travis’ records, because they considered him a “communist sympathizer,” which was, of course, completely untrue.

Merle Travis -- already celebrated as a guitar innovator and songwriter -- was immortalized by the song. In later years, when performing the song himself, he altered the final stanza to, “I owe my soul…to Tennessee Ernie Ford.” On July 29, 1956, he returned to his boyhood home of Ebeneezer, Kentucky, to unveil a granite monument the town built to immortalize his accomplishments, including Sixteen Tons. He died in 1983. In 1991, his ashes were buried under that monument, and remain there to this day.

Tennessee Ernie Ford (Ernest Jennings Ford) was born in 1919 in Bristol, Tennessee. Ford began his radio career as an announcer at WOPI-AM in Bristol. In 1939, the young bass-baritone left the station to study classical music and voice at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in Ohio. With the start of WWII, Ford entered  in the United States Army Air Corps, became a First Lieutenant, and served as a bombardier on a B-29 Superfortress flying missions over Japan. He was also a bombing instructor at George Air Force Base, in Victorville, California.

The war’s end found Ford in San Bernardino and then Pasadena, California, where he worked as a radio announcer. While working an early morning country music show, he created the character of “Tennessee Ernie,” a cartoonish hillbilly. When a talent scout from Capitol Records heard his shtick, Ford soon found himself with a recording contract. He continued his work in radio and television while his recording career blossomed. “The Ford Show”, hosted by Tennessee Ernie Ford, ran from 1956 until 1961 on NBC. Ford’s program was notable for the inclusion of a religious song at the end of every show; Ford insisted on this despite objections from network officials who feared it might provoke controversy. Network officials stepped back when the hymn became the most popular segment of his show.

He earned the nickname “The Ol’ Pea-Picker” because of his oft-used catch phrase “Bless your pea-pickin’ heart!” and his television show was later known as “Hello, Pea-pickers”.

While his wider fame was from this song, he was also well known for his Country (he released almost 50 country singles through the early 1950’s) and Gospel songs he loved. In 1956 he released “Hymns”, his first gospel music album, which remained on Billboard’s Top Album charts for 277 consecutive weeks; his album “Great Gospel Songs” won a Grammy Award in 1964.

Out of the public eye, Ford and wife Betty contended with serious alcohol problems; Betty had had the problem since the 1950s as well as emotional issues that complicated both their lives and the lives of their sons. Though his drinking began to worsen in the 60’s, he worked continuously, seemingly unaffected by his heavy intake of whiskey. By the 1970’s, however, it had begun to take an increasing toll on his health, appearance and ability to sing, though his problems were not known publicly. After Betty’s substance abuse-related death in 1989, Ernie’s liver problems, diagnosed years earlier, became more apparent, but he refused to reduce his drinking despite repeated doctors’ warnings.

On September 28, 1991, he fell into severe liver failure at Dulles Airport, shortly after leaving a state dinner at the White House hosted by then President George H. W. Bush. Ford died in H. C. A. Reston Hospital Center, in Reston, Virginia, on October 17 – exactly 36 years after “Sixteen Tons” was released, and one day shy of the first anniversary of his induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

On March 25, 2015, Ford’s version of the song was inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry, and was awarded a gold record. In 11 days following its release, 400,000 singles are sold. Demand for the song was so great, that Capitol geared all its pressing plants nationwide to meet the deluge of orders. In 24 days, over one million records were sold, and “Sixteen Tons” became the fastest-selling single in Capitol’s history. By November, it had captured the top spot on every major record chart in the country, and by December 15 (less than two months after it’s release) more than 2,000,000 copies were sold, making it the most successful single ever recorded. T. E. Ford was awarded three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; one for radio, one for records, and one for television. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1984 and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1990. Ford received posthumous recognition for his gospel music contributions by adding him to the Gospel Music Association’s Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1994.

The song has been recorded or performed in concert by a wide variety of musicians. The list is quite long but here’s just a few notable ones:

1955: Sung live by Elvis Presley in his early 1950s concerts, but never recorded.
1955: B.B. King & His Orchestra
1957: The Platters recorded the song
1960: Bo Diddley released a version on his album Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger
1966: Stevie Wonder recorded a version influenced by Motown and soul music
1973: Jerry Reed recorded a version
1987: Johnny Cash released a country version
1990: A rendition of the song by Eric Burdon
2014: ZZ Top performed the song on their tour with Jeff Beck.

Hits: 56

This was written in 1958 by guitarist/songwriter Sonny Curtis of The Crickets and popularized by a cover by the Bobby Fuller Four, which went on to become a top-ten hit for the band in 1966.

This was originally recorded by The Crickets in 1959. Many think of Buddy Holly and The Crickets as a group, though the record companies never referred to them by that name. Buddy Holly had been making demo recordings with local musician friends since 1954. Sonny Curtis, Jerry Allison, and Larry Welborn participated in these sessions. Two years later Buddy was recording then known informally as Buddy and the Two Tones (Holly with Sonny Curtis and Don Guess). By 1957 The Crickets had become Buddy Holly, drummer Jerry Allison, bassist Joe B. Mauldin, and rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan. Sullivan dropped out after a little more than one year to resume his education. The Crickets, now a trio, continued to make stage and TV appearances.

In 1958, Holly moved to New York to be more involved with the publishing and recording businesses. Allison and Mauldin chose not to move and returned to Lubbock, Tx. Holly now recorded under his own name with the studio musicians Tommy Allsup and Carl Bunch. Allison and Mauldin looked forward to rejoining Holly after he returned from a winter tour through the northern Midwest. In the meantime, Mauldin, Allison, and Sonny Curtis began recording new songs as The Crickets, with vocals by Earl Sinks. While they were recording, it was announced that Holly had died in a plane crash while on tour. This is one of the songs they recorded when that news came in.

The Bobby Fuller version is the most remembered and successful recording of the song, but has been covered live or in studio by classic rockers that include Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, the Grateful Dead and the Ramones, the Clash, Hank Williams Jr., Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and Green Day.

Bobby Fuller died at the age 23, and the cause behind his death remains unexplained for 50 years. He was found dead of asphyxiation in the front seat of his mother’s car on July 18, 1966. The debate still rages whether the rising star committed suicide, died accidentally or was murdered.

In the early hours of July 18, Fuller received a phone call and left his Hollywood apartment in his mother’s blue Oldsmobile. Later that day Fuller’s body was found sprawled on the front seat of the car, a gas can nearby. His body was doused with gasoline. The car had been in the parking lot outside the apartment for 30 minutes before his mother discovered the body.

Bruises covered Fuller’s arms and body, prompting speculation that he had been beaten or dragged. Early news reports attributed Fuller’s death to suicide by asphyxiation from the gas fumes. Los Angeles police apparently agreed; Fuller’s associates weren’t immediately questioned and cops on the scene disposed of the gas can without dusting for fingerprints.

The autopsy found no evidence that Fuller was beaten; the report stated that gas vapors and the summer heat probably caused hemorrhages on the body. The medical examiner checked both the “accidental” and “suicide” boxes on the report with a question mark next to each. But why would Fuller, at the cusp of stardom, kill himself?

Three months later the official cause of death was changed to “accidental asphyxiation.” But other questions were never fully answered. If the car had only been in the lot for 30 minutes before it was discovered, how had Fuller’s body reached an advanced state of rigor mortis? Had Fuller died somewhere else with his body then driven to the parking lot? A variety of wild theories followed: Fuller died accidentally after taking LSD at a party; Del-Fi Records owner Bob Keane had Fuller killed to cash in on a large insurance policy he had taken out on the singer; and even that Charles Manson had a hand in Fuller’s death. In 2015 a new theory was offered: Morris Levy, the Roulette Records owner known for his strong-arm tactics and Mafia ties, was involved in Fuller’s death. In 1966, Keane signed a deal with Roulette to distribute Fuller’s music. None of these theories has been proven.

Aside from his tragic end, whatever the cause, Bobby Fuller had started a promising career and has left us to wonder, as in all cases such as this, what more could he have produced?

The Bobby Fuller Four version of this song was ranked No. 175 on the Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004, and the same year was named one of the 500 “Songs that Shaped Rock” by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Hits: 22

The first vinyl records, released around 1900, were 10-inch, 78 RPM records. This song is specifically about the Blues recordings found on those records, and yes, wink, wink, it is a double entendre. “Big Ten-Inch (Record Of The Blues)” was composed by Fred Weismantel and became a big hit on the R&B charts during 1952 for tenor-sax player and singer Bull Moose Jackson.

Benjamin Clarence Jackson, aka Bull Moose Jackson, was born in 1919 in Cleveland. A violin-playing child prodigy who favored the saxophone, Jackson joined the sax section of Lucky Millinders big band as a teenager. A bandmate famously said Jackson looked like a damn bull moose, and the nickname stuck. Shortly thereafter, Jackson stepped up to the microphone one night in Texas to sing after Wynonie Harris was a no-show. Jackson brought down the house.

Bull Moose Jackson was most successful in the late 1940s. He is sometimes considered a performer of dirty blues, because of the suggestive nature of some of his songs, such as “I Want a Bowlegged Woman”, “Nosey Joe,” “Get Off The Table Mable (The Two Dollars Is For The Beer)”, and of course this song. Soon, Bull Moose had a reputation for risque material. It drove crowds crazy, but not record buyers. Look at the top-selling singles of 1952 and you won’t find “Big Ten-Inch (Record Of The Blues)” anywhere. That’s because radio stations wouldn’t touch it.

In the early 1980’s the Flashcats, a blues band that performed in western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, regularly included “Big Ten Inch Record” in their performances. A local DJ reputedly told the Flashcats that he knew Bull Moose Jackson, and the band’s frontman, Carl Grefensette, found him catering at Howard University. Grefensette convinced Jackson to perform with them, and they quickly became a sensation in western Pennsylvania. Jackson then made the Flashcats his backing band and began a revival of his career. He also recorded a comeback album, Moosemania! (1985).

But Jackson cheerfully performed “Big Ten-Inch” every night on tour with his band, The Buffalo Bearcats, which he had been fronting from the late 1940s well into the 1950s.

During the 1980s, Jackson, then in his 60s, had an extremely successful run performing in the United States and internationally. But despite his growing fame and notoriety, Jackson grew tired of the travel grind and he retired. He fell ill with lung cancer in 1987 and retired from the touring circuit in the spring of 1988. An old girlfriend of his came back to care for him during his final illness. He died in Cleveland on July 31, 1989.

Most of us probably heard “Big Ten-Inch Record” (renamed slightly due to copyright concerns) performed for the first time by Aerosmith on the band’s third album, 1975’s “Toys In The Attic.”

It was Aerosmith‘s drug dealer Zunk Buker who introduced them to this song. He heard the Bull Moose Jackson version on the Dr. Demento radio show and sent the band a copy of the song. Steven Tyler was struggling to come up with lyrics for the album “Toys In The Attic” tracks, so adding a cover to the set took some pressure off of him.

Aerosmith used a horn section on this song, which included a bass saxophone played by Stan Bronstein. They also brought in Scott Cushnie to play the piano. Cushnie got the gig because he used to play in a band with Aerosmith‘s producer Jack Douglas. The band planned a more contemporary version of this song when they set out to record it, but that plan changed when they got in the studio. Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford:

We were basically just doing it as a two-guitar, rock and roll approach. We were up in the studio recording it, and we were listening very heavily to the original version of the song, which was very similar to what we ended up with when we ended up bringing the horn section in. We decided, ‘Let’s actually make it sound a little more period. Let’s have the horns on it and make it sound more like the original version that we heard.’ So that was quite a transformation, going from this straight-ahead guitar thing to almost a big band sound. And it really worked.

In 2001, they were the musical guest on Saturday Night Live and performed this song. A great rendition, with Tyler ‘honkin’ on bobo’, throwing in a little scat singing at the end, and Brad Whitford taking over most of the lead guitar duties.

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