THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,911) The Rolling Stones — “Cops and Robbers”
Here is the Stones’ (see #382, 298, 537, 579, 1,098, 1,403) inspired live March 19, 1964, performance at London’s Camden Theatre (broadcast on the BBC program on May 9) of a ’56 R&B comic classic by Kent Harris (Boogaloo and His Galant Crew) (that was covered within a month by Bo Diddley (see #1,326)). It got released on a famous ’73 bootleg (https://www.45cat.com/record/tmqmaxi9001#google_vignette), but wasn’t officially released until the 21st Century.
Marcelo Sonaglioni writes that:
[It] captured a band still raw, still hungry . . . . Brian Jones’s harmonica cut through the arrangement with sharp, expressive lines, while Mick Jagger delivered the lyrics with a mixture of swagger and unease . . . . Jagger . . . sounded less like an imitator and more like a translator of mood.
Jagger said in ’17 that “American music is what we loved. ‘Cops and Robbers’, ‘Down the Road Apiece’, they were staples of our Richmond club days, blues but sped up.” (https://www.timeisonourside.com/SOCops.html)
Bayard says:
“Cops and Robbers” . . . written by . . . Harris[] is an excellent novelty song with piano and brushed drums, slow to midtempo on the spoken verses and mid to uptempo with fine rolling piano on the sung choruses, as Boogaloo tells his humorous tale of his carjacking encounter with an inept robber. . . . [It] appeared on The Billboard’s Most Played R&B in Juke Boxes rhythm & blues chart at #9 for the solitary week of 10 November 1956.
Cashbox wrote: “Boogaloo delivers the novelty lyrics, telling the story of a comedy hold-up with good timing, milking every line for the most it contains. This deck could be the next novelty craze.” (https://www.45cat.com/record/nc443739us)
Bill Dahl writes:
[It is] a hip, hilarious musical playlet . . . . [F]riendly Kent’s the victim of a carjacking by a would-be bank robber. Despite the edgy subject matter, it’s hilarious. “That’s just another one of those, just playin’ around as a kid, writing funny stuff with my friends and cracking up laughing at it,” he says. Immediate competition came from a cover by one of Chicago’s finest young bluesmen. “Next thing I know, Bo Diddley had got hold to it,” says Harris.
https://blog.ponderosastomp.com/2013/10/kent-harris-rhythm-blues-boogaloo-gallant-crew/
As to Kent Harris and his alterego Boogaloo*, Dahl writes:
The Coasters latched onto his slice-of-inner city-life vignette “Clothes Line (Wrap It Up),” which they retitled “Shoppin’ For Clothes.” Bo Diddley dug the boisterous “Cops And Robbers.” Veteran orchestra leader Les Brown and budding country star Roy Clark both romped through his rollicking “Talk About A Party.” In actuality, Kent wrote and waxed the original versions of all three . . . [as] Boogaloo and His Gallant Crew. . . . Though his handful of vocal efforts were truly inspired, Harris eventually gravitated to a behind-the-scenes role as a songwriter, producer, and label owner. . . . [His sister] Dimples made her first platter for Savoy’s Regent subsidiary in 1951, and her brother took the plunge . . . after he returned stateside [from the Air Force]. “She got a deal recording for a company called Trend Records . . . . [S]he wanted me to sign with ‘em too.” . . . Out during the spring of ‘54, the first [single] split the vocals evenly between Dimples (“Hey, Mr. Jelly”) and Ducky Drake, the first of Kent’s whimsical performing sobriquets, singing “1992.” . . . Dimples helped her big brother get started in the songwriting field as well. “She got me a contract with a publishing company.[“] . . . Harris really found his niche at Sylvester Cross’ American Music. . . . Cross [also] operated Crest Records . . . . Someone at Crest thought as much of Kent’s singing as they did his songwriting. . . . [“]They said, ‘Well, we’d rather for you to sing ‘em,’ than the people who I was writing for. So I wound up singing ‘em.” . . . [“]After I was a writer. I said, ‘Matter of fact, as producer I can make more money,’” he reasons. “So when I got to the producing, I said, ‘Maybe I could make more money if I had a record company too.’ So I said, ‘Well, I’ll start a little record company.’ . . . It was just a way to get things started with my singers, because by then I was signing other singers.” . . . Harris played a part in the discovery of future Motown diva Brenda Holloway [see #1,313], in her mid-teens when he came across her in ‘62. . . . [“]I got her a recording contract with a company called Del-Fi Records, and we cut about three or four records with them.” . . . Kent founded his Romark label in 1960, named after his son.
https://blog.ponderosastomp.com/2013/10/kent-harris-rhythm-blues-boogaloo-gallant-crew/
* “As kids, we used to call each other different funny names, you know. And they were calling me that. So that one stuck to me. . . . That was another name that I used to put on those songs because I didn’t really like or want to use my name, Kent Harris.” (https://blog.ponderosastomp.com/2013/10/kent-harris-rhythm-blues-boogaloo-gallant-crew/)
Here is Boogaloo and His Galant Crew:
Here is Bo Diddley:
Here is the Downliners Sect:
Here are Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders:
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