Topic: Bad hair day

[uncle bud]

Dr G mentioned Bald-Headed Lena...

It was covered rather successfully in the 60s by the Lovin' Spoonful, whose version included a gargled water solo.

I wonder what the B&GR abbreviation for gargled water might be...

[Bunker Hill]

Dr G mentioned Bald-Headed Lena while I was composing this post.  But since he didn't quote any lyrics, I'll go ahead and post this...

Speaking of Speckled Red, his brother Piano Red (William Perryman) recorded Bald-Headed Lena in the 1950s (as Dr. Feelgood), but the song sounds like it's been around much longer.

This takes me back to my "mod" days and The Scene Club in London where this number was a favourite.

The song was recorded in Nashville, 3rd April 1962 and included on a Columbia EP entitled R&B With Dr Feelgood. The composer credit is to W. Perryman & C. Smith (Curtis Smith, a Nashville session guitarist) but it's the "of its time" anonymous blurb on that reverse that's the killer:

"To look back upon the spring and early summer of 1962 is to review incidents of world-shaking significance. First of all, a 225-pound child was born to Belle, elephant in residence at the Portland Zoo. Jayne Mansfield was briefly lost at sea in the Bahamas. Elizabeth Taylor was busily bringing Cleopatra up to date, and as a Caesar teaser shared the spotlight with a certain Burton person.

No less important, early in 1962, was the appearance on American best selling lists of Dr. Feel Good, performed by Dr. Feelgood and the Interns.

Who is Dr. Feelgood? That cry echoes down high school halls, is taken up at ball games and soda fountains and was recently heard echoing across a moonlit lake. But now it can be told. It is with great pleasure that we reveal that Dr. Feelgood id none other than...Piano Red!

For the residents of Atlanta, Georgia, that name alone clears up the mystery. For the rest, let it be known that Piano Red (Willie Perryman) is practically a permanent fixture in Atlanta's night life, playing virtually every small club and bar in the area. Atlantans are further treated to Piano Red's style every day from three to four through the facilities of Radio Station WAOK. He also tours dozens of southern colleges, singing and playing the kind of old-time boogie piano he learned from his father when he was a child. Occasionally, Piano Red makes trips up north to play such renowned spots as Yale, Harvard, Princetown and the Apollo Theatre.

Piano Red has assembled some great twisting tunes for this EP. He can get pretty funny too, as in Bald-Headed Lena. Of course, the record's highlights are Dr.Feel-Good and its sequel, What's Up, Doc. For no matter what kind of attention is given to the good Doctors Kildare and Ben Casey, the most entertaining (though unofficial) member of the medical profession is still Dr. Feelgood."

They don't write 'em like that anymore, thankfully.

[Rivers]

Thanks everyone for some classic posts!

Local celeb Pinetop Perkins has this great number about Eddie Cleanhead Vinson. It changes from set to set, sometimes it's about Sunnyland Slim, as it is on his solo album Down In Mississippi.

We shook hands, have you noticed how all the best musicians have such a cool soft handshake, and chatted outside the Broken Spoke here in Austin, where you can do the Texas Two Step til dawn or at least 11:30, a couple of months back. Pinetop was jamming with local accordian maestress Deborah Peters, with whom Cheryl is having lessons. I digress.

Things were going well until I casually asked him about being in Chicago in the Muddy / Wolf era, and particularly when I asked about Howlin' Wolf. At that point he started on that Mississippi jive talk which I just plain can't understand and I dunno what the hell he was saying.

Anyway the lyric, that night, went: "I know a man called Eddie Vinson, they call him the baldy man...". It was really funny but for the life of me I don't know why.

Pinetop is a very cool dude, absolutely fantastic piano player and y'all should buy his record. We play our copy (autographed naturally) all the time.

[Richard]

BH was a "mod"   

[Bunker Hill]

BH was a "mod"   

'fraid so and somewhere have photos to prove it - wearing Parker coat, tab collar paisley shirt, Cuban heel boots, sitting astride a Lambretta GT, looking a bit like an escapee from the Dave Clarke Five....

Argh. let's not take this any further...p-l-e-a-s-e

[Richard]

OMG     

Well I wasn't quite rocker (those were the days  ) but I did used to ride 500 BSA ... a scooter indeed.. phew 

[Rivers]

Aargh, Richard's a greaser... Bunker I have a hotted up Vespa PX200 in bits in my carport. I crashed it a couple of years ago during my scoot renaissance, aka mid life crisis. I was seriously mod until about 1968, at which time I discovered the Grateful Dead, cars with heaters, etc

Here it is before it bounced off a truck (I had already jumped off):


Anyway, Lemon's Dry Southern has some hair in it. Didn't Sonny Boy Williamson #1 have a whole song about a hairdresser, or was that beautician? Must investigate.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Marshcat]

Check out the Juke for the Kennet Sheiks' version of Washboard Sam's "I'm gonna keep my hair parted".

Parlor Picker

When the Sheiks recorded this number, our delightfully naive recording engineer thought it endearing that the singer appeared to be so intent on acquiring a particular, presumably fashionable, style of coiffure: "Hair parted in the middle is the only thing I crave".

His blushes were something to see when the less than innocent sub-text was explained to him...

The penultimate verse also conjures up some interesting acrobatic images:
"Me and my baby, we bought a Ford,
Now we shift the gears on the running board
Hair parted in the middle is the only thing I crave (x2)
Gonna keep my hair parted till it take me to my grave."

[blueshome]

The ultimate song in this vain - the great Hound Dog Taylor - "Give Me Back My Wig!".

[Bunker Hill]

OMG     
Well I wasn't quite rocker (those were the days  ) but I did used to ride 500 BSA ... a scooter indeed.. phew 

In the South London street where I grew up was a lad who owned a a bike called a Royal Enfield (which I though was a make of rifle). On day he took me for a pillion ride on that. My word, did it shift, scared the living ---t out of me. I was glad to get back on my namby panby Lambretta.

[Johnm]

Hi all,
What about Bobby Grant's "Nappy Head Blues"?
   "Your head is nappy, your feet so mamlish long, you look like a turkey comin' through the mamlish corn."
Helen Humes also recorded  a "Nappy Headed Blues", backed by Sylvester Weaver, devoted to this topic.
All best,
Johnm

[Bunker Hill]

Going postwar, there's Prof Longhair's 1949 She Ain?t Got No Hair which Crudup reworked in 1954 as She?s Got No Hair only to have Longhair respond in 1957 with Looka No Hair and to finish it off the Prof came up with Bald Head in 1963. Hair today, gone tomorrow - oh well isuit yourselves, 'tis an old joke anyway. Enough of this levity.

[Parlor Picker]

"When the Sheiks recorded this number, our delightfully naive recording engineer thought it endearing that the singer appeared to be so intent on acquiring a particular, presumably fashionable, style of coiffure: "Hair parted in the middle is the only thing I crave".

His blushes were something to see when the less than innocent sub-text was explained to him...

The penultimate verse also conjures up some interesting acrobatic images:
"Me and my baby, we bought a Ford,
Now we shift the gears on the running board
Hair parted in the middle is the only thing I crave (x2)
Gonna keep my hair parted till it take me to my grave."

[Above is quote from Marshcat's contribution - the "Quote" button malfunctioned, or maybe I pressed the wrong one...]

Given the tendencies of the genre, I can't believe there aren't more country blues "hair" songs of this ilk.  Can't think of any I know off hand.  Surely the encyclopaedic knowledge of Mr. Bunker Hill will throw up another example?  (There's a challenge for you, Alan!)

[Bunker Hill]

Given the tendencies of the genre, I can't believe there aren't more country blues "hair" songs of this ilk.  Can't think of any I know off hand.  Surely the encyclopaedic knowledge of Mr. Bunker Hill will throw up another example? 

Not this time I'm afraid.

You'll never believe this, but speak about what goes around comes around. In 1978 it fell to my lot to review a Stash LP entitled Straight and Gay which contained this song and in that asked of the readership much the same question. But, alas, it fell on deaf ears.

[uncle bud]

Re. Hair Parted in the Middle. This was also recorded by Jesse "Monkey Joe" Coleman.