Today's budget twist-ploitation offering is a surprisingly entertaining Grand Prix (Pickwick) LP by Tubby Chess and His Candy Stripe Twisters.
Or, if you'd prefer, Tyler King and the Twisters; Robby Robber and His Hi-Jackers; Big Bill Twister and His Minters; Tiny Doolittle and the Twisters; Barry Norman and the Toppers; Beep Bottomley and His Twisters; Ray Gunn and His Blasters (my favorite!); Mickey Mocassin; Jerry Long and the Teen Twisters; or The Five Diamonds. Take your pick: all or some of these tracks were also issued across the budget spectrum under these fake group names.
There's a common link here: Record producer and exec Ed Chalpin, who penned every one of today's selections (save for The Twist) under the nom de plume Ed Dantes. The fine folks at the excellent Facebook page Brand "X" Records helped me in tracking down the alternate band names, though the priceless Ed Chalpin/Ed Dantes info is courtesy of my friend Brian McFadden, a journalist and pop culture expert whose books Rock Rarities for a Song and Rare Rhythm and Blues on Budget LPs I've plugged before at this blog--and I'm plugging them again. They're great, highly informative reads, and both manage to provide a very useful budget-label overview.
So... Ed Dantes; real name: Ed Chalpin. (Be sure to read the terrifying story of Chalpin and Jimi Hendrix at the Wikipedia link.) A very busy provider of sound-alike hits to a variety of jobber-rack record labels during the early 1960s, but were his own compositions any good? Well, in this case, they're highly derivative, and they display every sign of having been churned out in a hurry, but they genuinely rock. (Or, rather, twist.) And, whoever these anonymous singers and musicians happened to be, they're more than adequate. Decent, even. When it comes to faux twist material, we could do a lot worse. While that may sound like a lukewarm pass, I did enjoy this group of songs very much. The only trouble, however...
Time for a paragraph break. The main issue was a technical one, as this LP was engineered in a pretend type of "stereo"--the type accomplished by the engineer panning back and forth between the left and right channels. The result, after I "summed" the channels for mono, was a series of volume surges that I had to carefully edit in sections. This took a little while, but I achieved a level dynamic level (a level level?) throughout. And it was kind of a fun challenge. Now, at first, I was sure I'd thrifted this LP myself, but the high quality paper inner sleeve strongly suggests a Diane gift. So... thanks, Diane! Since I'm past the point of remembering what I have in my overflowing vinyl collection, I'll have to check and see if any more budget twist gems are waiting for a day at the blog. Maybe even one of the other editions of this baby. By the way, in typical cheap-label fashion, the front cover carries the promise of "Full Frequency Stereo" while featuring the mono catalog number (K-187). Way to go, Pickwick.
Note: Since this particular album included no composer credits, I didn't put any on the mp3 tags. But just remember: the responsible party was Ed Chalpin (as "Ed Dantes"), save for The Twist (written by Hank Ballard and the Moonlighters in 1958).
If you're in the mood to budget-twist, you've come to the right blog! Enjoy...
DOWNLOAD: Tubby Chess and His Candy Stripe Twisters (Grand Prix KS-187; 1961)
The Twist
Oh This Is Love
Swinging Papa
Yes, She Knows
My Baby Couldn't Dance
I Need Your Love
I Just Couldn't Take It
Hey, Little Girl
Take a Chance
Loving You
(Selections 2-10 by Ed Chalpin, as "Ed Dantes")
Lee
14 comments:
I can't imagine where they got the name "Tubby Chess" from. I much prefer "Beep Bottomley."
It's certainly more original!
I'll be twisting the night away now for sure! Thanks, Lee.
My stylus seems to have reached it's end-of-life yesterday or the day before. One channel seems to be quite muted compared to the other, often showing no signal at all between tracks on that side, not even the usual noise. I thought maybe it was just dirty, but cleaning it only worked for one record. Can't imagine what may be going on, perhaps there's a piece chipped off the diamond, or something stuck hard to it that's reducing movement on just that one side. So I've ordered a new one for the first time in way too long. How do you decide when it's time to get a new needle? Just based on how long it's been, or is there something you listen or look for?
Ernie,
I go by the age of the stylus, though I'm not great at remembering when (or from where) I bought a given needle. And when a stylus starts to sound wonky, I retire it right away! As for the channel loss, that's never happened to me unless something is faulty in the wiring (either to the cartridge or between the turntable and my external sound card).
Ernie - My experience is the same as Lee’s. I have had headshell wire problems as recently as a few months ago.
Buster--Pickwick probably got the idea to make up the name of Tubby Chess from Chubby Checker, whom Dick Clark named Fats Domino when he decided that his given name of Ernest Evans would probably not sell as many records!
Swinging Papa sounds like a re-write of the Twist. A tune that Chubby Checker probably would have loved to have got his hands on to legimately record and score another hit for Chubby and Cameo/Parkway Records.
So far, this is a really good record! More on this later. Have a great weekend. Good Sax solo on "Yes She Knows."
I am really liking "So This Is Love." This is one of the very few budget label cuts that could have an authentic shot at being a Billbord Hot 100 hit. If The Drifters had cut a Twist record, this is probably what it would have sounded like.
Thanks for your thanks, Lee. I think I may have a couple of other cheapie Twist LPs around -- will take a look, since this one has been so much fun.
Taking a look at the Ray Gunn and his Blasters Parade LP on E-Bay issued on Parade, yet was manufactured by Premier Albums, Inc.NINE of the songs on this album are Reprised on the Parade Come On Let's Do the Twist LP, plus they even went to the trouble to put an "About the group" blurb on the back of the LP's liner notes:
"As a group, the boys have been together for nearly two years, and have backed such artists as Ben E. King (misspelled "Benny King" here), Rosemarie and Bo, Pete and Ernest, Tony Middleton, etc. on such labels as Atlantic, United Artists, King, etc. The goal of the boys is to make a hit LP on their own, and with this waxing of the TWIST we think they have it made."
From Robby Robber and his Hi-Jackers do the Twist:
"'Robby' Robber (guitar) and leader of the Hi-Jackers is 20 years old and formerly with the Scot Brothers."
Bob Gibson (bass guitar) is 24 years old and from Detroit. He is formerly with the Diabloes."
"Steve Barnes (1st tenor) 23 years old. Has appeared with the rest of the group on the Mill Grant TV show."
"Joey Grant (2nd tenor), 21 years old. Was formerly with Harvey and the New Moonglows,& also was featured in a Rock and Roll movie."
That's very interesting--I'll have to pass that on to the junk-label expert who made me aware of Ed Chalpin, alias "Ed Dantes." Maybe there's some truth to the blurb--or maybe it's pure fiction.
As I noted, these tracks jumped "jobber rack" labels like crazy, though in the case of Parade and Premier, the complicated connection is that 1) Parade had been absorbed by SPC, and 2) Premier ended up with a lot of SPC material, a fact which has confused junk-label collectors for years. To the point, even, of assuming that Premier and SPC are related, when it's simply that some material showed up in both label groups. Thanks for the info.
Just now reading your Robby Robber info. If either of the blurbs are true, it would explain the professional sound of these hastily-penned twist-ploitation tracks!
If I do find ANY version of this record in my record hunts; I am picking it up--there is some great stuff on this!!
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