Everybody can do it.....

Often associated with New Orleans, Ironing Board Sam's only real ties to the city are that he lived here off and on for a number of years [possibly even still does]. By the same measure the city could claim Alex Chilton, who lived here half his life.

For the real scoop, Jeff Hannusch has written a nice piece about Ironing Board Sam for Blues Access. You can find it here.

And here's a superb clip of the man from back in the day. I'd post it except it's prefaced with an ad so obnoxious I don't even want it on the blog. So grit your teeth, click on over, and watch the thing. It's awesome. [I just tried the link and the ad was gone, so maybe you're in luck]

I'm not 100% sure how many Ironing Board Sam 45's there are. I only know of this one on his own Board label, another on Holiday Inn, and two on Styletone [one of which was picked up by Atlantic].

There's also a couple of albums, the exceedingly rare "The Ninth Wonder Of The World Of Music" [the cover of which features the self-built contraption used to tilt his keyboards so he could play them "guitar style"], and "Human Touch" recorded in the early 90's.

Now, given the title of these two songs you'd be forgiven for thinking this is pure disco cheese. And to be truthful, the record does have a slight touch of novelty about it, but no more so than any other slightly screwy dance craze 45 recorded by a noted eccentric and issued on a custom label.

Mostly what ya got here is non-screwy straight up funk, backed by an instrumental version of the same tune heavy on the mini moog???...or is it something he built???....I don't know enough about keyboards to say for sure. Regardless, it's a very cool sound.

Hope ya'll enjoy...

Let's Streak

Space Streaker