Find Me A Golden Street - question

[GoldenStreet]

I believe it was originally a Crickets tune (whether instrumental or vocal I don't know). To think the Shads were slated in later years for covering tunes. Their version of Find Me a Golden Street is a classic, and it's a cover!
J

You have a point, Justin, but to be accurate, any "slating" in later years (especially from my direction) was not for the mere recording of songs already recorded by other artistes. It was rather for the recording of utter rubbish simply on the basis that it had been a hit for someone else, without any regard to whether it might be suitable for translation into an instrumental.

Indeed! The wisdom, experience and guiding influence of Norrie Paramor were the key missing ingredients in the post-EMI period.

Bill

[Dance with Shadows]

Or the rest of group missed John Rostill's or Jet Harris's influence!

Michael

[Graham C. Marshall]

The Fireballs' version dates from 1962 and is available both on YouTube and cd. The cd you need is THE BEST OF THE FIREBALLS The Original Norman Petty Masters. It's on ACE CDCHD 418. Mainly mono with some stereo.

[rollercoaster]

I had always assumed that The Shadows picked up "Find Me A Golden Street" in the US. Bruce and Hank proudly told me (at the Poll Winners concert in 1961) that they had met Buddy's parents during a visit to Lubbock. I had also thought they mentioned meeting Norman Petty in Clovis, but that was not so. Apparently the UK publisher, Alan Crawford, played them a demo (Fireballs?) of the tune and they liked it, only later discovering it was written by Buddy Holly's manager and co-writer.

[hubcaps]

[quote="JimN] I still believe that the correct meaning of "cover" is overlooked. It does not mean playing [i]Apache at a Shadows club. It means issuing a quick copy recording to try to cash in. In the 1850s (er... make that the 1950s), it wasn't even uncommon for the same song to be in the charts in three different versions (this before the industry had ceased to regard a new pop song as the property of everyone - including the vocalists with numerous Palais bands up and down the country).

I have both versions of [i]Bobby's Girl and I'm inclined to agree with you that the UK version is better than the original. Similar things can be said about The Beatles' [i]Twist And Shout and the Swinging Blue Jeans' Hippy Hippy Shake. Both records are era-defining tour-de-force performances (though I am sure that the SBJ's record features at least one session-man), whereas the Isley Brothers and Chan Romero originals .........JN[/quote][/i][/i][/i]

I agree with your definition of a "cover" version - in the days of racially segregated music in the USA, if a song rose up the "Race" or "R&B" charts then usually a white singer or group would quickly record a version to challenge the main (white) charts. Tragic examples of this are Pat Boone's limp versions of Little Richard's Tutti Frutti and Long Tall Sally in 1956/7.
By the way, the original recording of Twst And Shout was in 1961 by a group called the Top Notes - it's on YouTube
I'm out with my band tonight and will include our versions (NOT covers) of Flingel Bunt, Apache, FBI and Albatross !
Ian