Yakety Yak!

Yakety Yak was a musical show featuring the songs of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.

It's London run lasted a little over four months starting at The Half Moon Theatre on 15th Novemember 1982 and transferred to the Astoria Theatre on 15th January 1983.

Produced by Robert Walker and starring Darts and the McGann Brothers.

The Story.

Danny (Paul McGann) comes out of prison to find out that his younger brother is dating his gal, and his middle brother is training to be a priest! 

Add to that the normal rights of passage (college or travel) this show has has very little of a story to it.

But that doesn't matter because the music shines through.

I saw this show at the Astoria in 1983 and was surprised it run was so short, but it did move onto a shorter run on Broadway, also in 1983.

All members of the band Darts (post Den Haggerty) sang and acted very well, but the winners for me were the McGann Brothers, they really looked the part.

For high resolution scans of the pictures above and full scanned program download here

Info on Leiber and Stoller

Tony and the Tennessee Rebels

Red Hot REP 1004 (1980)

TEN LITTLE WOMEN

SLAP THAT BASS

ROCK THE BARN

ROLL ON BABY

Clint A Bradley -  vocals and guitar

Mitch Caws- upright bass

Bruce Hobbs - lead guitar

Danny Kelly - drums

Clint A Bradley and Mitch Caws from Tony and the Tennessee Rebels joined forces with Carlo and Stefan Edwards from the Blue Cat Trio. The Blue Cats were born.
This E.P was released on Tony Martin's Red Hot label in 1980 (I spent a lot of money buying records from  Tony's Tonal Records in the late 70's and early 80's) .
One year prior to this he released an E.P by the Blue Cat Trio.  Both releases blow my cotton socks off. After Dave Phillips left the Trio the major players from both bands joined forces...and the rest is history.

Clint A Bradley's Website

Two country strollers from Ray O'Daniel

BLH 0001 (B for British?)

British release of the Dallas, Texas based Longhorn Records 1961 recording.

This has been a favourite of mine since I first came across it way back in 1978. 

I suppose today they would line dance to it!

Ray Lee O'Daniel was born in Waxachachie, Texas in 1925 he died in 2009.

YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE FOR ME 

b/w 

WHAT GOES UP ALWAYS COMES DOWN  

This bio on Ray came with the 45 

Danny McVey

I was checking up on a youtube video I was sent by my brother-in-law and one time Skitzo manager Owen. He thought the sound might be my kind of thing...he was spot on!

Danny McVey sings up a storm on these recordings doing my kind of rockabilly...wild and raw. 

On lead guitar is Tony McVey (Danny's dad) who was the original lead guitarist with 1980's psychobilly band Skitzo (but he is back to his roots on these demos).

They are London based and are currently on the lookout for a double bass player with similar music tastes. Danny covers some great rockin' numbers such as Andy Anderson's 'Johnny Valentine' and the excellent 'Dateless Night' originally by Alan Page on the Moon record label in Memphis.  

I can't wait to hear him with a slappin' bass in his backing band, with drums or without.

DATELESS NIGHT - DANNY McVEY

** Danny McVey - vocal & rhythm guitar with Tony McVey lead guitar.

* Danny McVey - vocal & rhythm guitar.

Johnny Valentine **

Dateless Night **

Crazy to the Bone **

Sinful Woman *

Hello Heartache *

All You Gotta Do **

One Way Ticket **

Poor Little Fool **

Clicketty Clack *

Beggin' Time *

Cassette Tape Demos

Tony & Danny McVey

Rockin' Sammy Masters

I could not find much information on the Internet about this 6 track extended play 45 rpm record I picked up at a record fair in the early 1980's. That generally puts it in the bootleg category. 5 tracks recorded in the mid 1950's and the excellent saxophone lead rocker 'Rockin' Redwing' from 1960.

ROCKIN' SAMMY E.P

Side 1

Whop-T-Bop

Pink Cadillac

2-Rocka-4

Side 2

Rockin' Redwing

Flat Feet

Some Like it Hot

The text below is from the RHOF fame website 

In 1956 Sammy Masters and his Rocking Rhythm, comprising Ralph Roe (lead guitar), Jerry Miller (steel) and Jimmy Randal (drums) cut at least five rockabilly tracks for Four Star. At this time, Sammy had a day job working as a used car salesman in Los Angeles, and he wrote Pink Cadillac about one of his customers. This was a primitive piece of rockabilly with sparse backing and a driving beat. Coupled with the equally good Some Like It Hot, Pink Cadillac became Sammy's first release on Four Star.

Rhythm Bomb Records

RHYTHM BOMB RECORDS

Home of today's real rock n roll stars

I have loved the CD's that have come from this label over the years, and now they are releasing vinyl too.

WHERE THE VINYL (and CD's) CAN BE FOUND

Rhythm Bomb Records

WHERE THE SOUND IS CAPTURED

Lightning Recorders

The Lightning Recording Service in Berlin use vintage RCA, Western Electric or Reslo ribbon broadcast microphones and Electro-Voice dynamic microphones on most of their recording sessions*. They also use 'MAGNASYNC' tube mixing console and a 'ALTEC 1567-A' mixer coupled with 'BERLANT' concerttone tube pre-amps. For recording and mastering the sessions they use a 'TELEFUNKEN M10'. 
That's the technical bit over with. The sound they create is amazing, which is probably the reason why original artists, such as Huelyn Duvall, Glenn Honeycutt, Charlie Gracie, and Rayburn Anthony as well as many of today's best rock 'n' roll, and rockabilly bands choose to record there. So if you have a band or are just plain interested, check out their website at IRS-BERLIN

* Ribbon microphones give a very warm and natural sound and are especially useful when recording vocals, claps, bass fiddles and electric guitars. Modern microphones provide a much bigger range but they fail to reproduce the natural input.

ALSO

Black Shack Recordings

VIDEO PROMO

Bobby Lee Trammell

Bobby Lee Trammell - Shirley Lee b/w I Sure Do Love You Baby

 The wild over the top rock n roller that ended up going into politics!

Bobby got hooked on rock n roll after seeing a Carl Perkins concert in 1955. He even talked Carl into letting him sing a song on stage with him.

His singing impressed Carl so much that he arranged for Bobby to audition for Sam Phillips at Sun Studios in Memphis.  Sam was busy at the time (with Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins to name a few) so he told Bobby to come back in two weeks with some of his songs he had written! But Bobby was an inpatient soul, so he left 706 Union Ave and headed to California to try his luck there.

He was discovered singing at the Jubilee Ballroom in Baldwin Park, by country music promoter Fabor Robinson.  His first single Shirley Lee b/w I Sure Do Love You Baby was released on the Fabor label. Bobby borrowed two of Bob Luman's band members; James Burton on lead guitar and James Kirkland on bass, Bobby played rhythm guitar.  This resulted in a fine 45 that was leased to ABC-Paramount because Fabor did not have the finances to push the record.  It eventually sold 250,000 copies, number that, at the time did not make it a chart success.

Shirley Lee b/w I Sure Do Love You Baby

His live shows where a little (actually a lot) on the wild side. Several of his shows ended up in riots. Tillman Franks described him as "Downright vulgar, ten times worse than Elvis Presley". He did have a little run on the Louisiana Hayride, but his hip swinging antics didn't endear him to the audiences at the Hayride. This was also the reason he did get on the Grand Old Opry.

He was also considered too wild to appear on the Ozzie & Harriet TV show, but was asked by Ozzie if he could write songs for Ricky Nelson's 3rd album. Tommy just said he was too busy so Johnny and Dorsey Burnette took up the reins and made a bit of money for themselves along the way, because of their association with the Nelson’s.

Bobby's second single and maybe his best was You Mostest Girl b/w Uh Oh; surprisingly this didn't sell either.

He released several singles during the 60's and had two minor country hits in the early 70's.

In 1977 he finally recorded for Sun (International) 21 years after walking away from Sam Phillips.

In 1997 he was Democratic politician and was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives.

He was a singer songwriter that made some wrong choices

Born 31 January 1934, Jonesboro, Arkansas

Died 20 February 2008, Jonesboro, Arkansas

Bobby Lee Trammell 1950’s 45rpm releases
1958/Jan.	Fabor 4038-45	Shirley Lee
		Sure Do Love You Baby
1958/Jan	ABC-Paramount (N.Y.) 45-9890	Shirley Lee
		I Sure Do Love You Baby
1958/Mar	Radio (Calif.) 102-45	You Mostest Girl
		Uh Oh
1958/Sept	Radio (Calif.) 114-45	My Susie J, My Susie Jane
		Should I Make Amends
1959/May	Warrior (Calif.) W-1554	Open Up Your Heart ?

 Check out Rockin' Country Style for a fuller Bobby Lee Trammell discograhy.

Footsoldiers and Kings Volume 2

No2 and I believe the last in this very mini series, from Wayne Russell.
A BIG Thank You to Jani over in Finland for the JPEG scans of this great little booklet.

Volume 2