I've been meaning to post these two together for a long time. "We Like Mambo" is actually the first recording by Huey Smith and The Clowns. It was meant to be a split single with Eddie Bo's "I'm So Tired" on the flip but the label was misprinted with Bo's name on both sides.
I forget where I read it, but there's an interview with Bo where he says how sorry he felt for Smith after the misprint, but that he sure got a lot of work out of the record because folks thought "We Like Mambo" was his. I assume that's why Bo and Edgar Blanchard worked up the mambo-esque instrumental "Hey Bo" for his next release. Blanchard in turn released a jazzy version of that tune re-titled "Bopsody In Blue" on an album a couple years later.
While "Free Single and Disengaged" is basically the same song as "We Like Mambo" it's by far the more realized of the two and undoubtedly the more influential. While I've never found an exact duplication, the horn part makes me of early ska tunes every time I hear it.
Hope ya'll enjoy....
Merci & thank you
ReplyDeleteafter 'we like mambo'
there was 'we like birdland'(Ace 548)
Anon...jeeze, you're absolutely right. I thought there was a third song I should post, but somehow I had it in my mind that it was "Everybody's Whalin" and when I listened to that tune before posting It didn't sound as related as remembered. Obviously I had the wrong song in mind.
ReplyDeleteThanks for jogging my stupid brain.
I like mambo too. Excellent two-fer. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteAnd for any who are interested, Johnny Q's "A New Kind of Mambo" compilations over at Twilight Zone are amazing.
Jem...those comps are totally fabulous, if somewhat scattershot in their approach. But ya know, I'd rather be swamped with examples than left wondering about the thesis as a whole, so that's not really meant as a complaint.
ReplyDeleteImho, the man is doing God's work.