Record #0860: Fever / Listen to the Rockin’ Bird – PEGGY LEE

Capitol F 3998 (original), Finland, 1958
Words & Music by:  Side A – John Davenport (Otis Blackwell), Eddie Cooley; Side B – Hal Levy, Alice Hawthorne
Musicians:  Peggy Lee (lead vocals, finger snapping on side A), Joe Mondragon (upright bass on side A) Shelly Manne (drums on side A), Howard Roberts (finger snapping on side A), Dave Cavanaugh (finger snapping on side A), an orchestra led by Nelson Riddle on side B
Recording sessions:  Produced by Dave Cavanaugh at Capitol Studios, Hollywood, CA; Side A - 19. May 1958; Side B – 30. August 1957
Highest chart positions:  Side A – US #8, US R&B #5, Canada #11, UK #5, Australia #2, Netherlands #8; Side B - none

The iconic, sultry sound of "Fever" was completely improvised in the studio. Peggy Lee felt the original big band arrangement was too cluttered, so she threw it out. Instead, the final track relies entirely on just three elements: Lee's voice, a hypnotic double bass played by Joe Mondragon, and drum maestro Shelly Manne playing minimalist rhythms using only his fingers and hands directly on the drum skins.

The original version of "Fever" was recorded by Little Willie John in 1956 as a blues track. When Peggy Lee covered it in 1958, she personally rewrote the lyrics to add the famous historical verses about Romeo and Juliet and Captain Smith and Pocahontas. Because she didn't officially claim the copyright changes at the time, she never received formal songwriting credits or royalties for those timeless lines.

Elvis recorded his cover of “Fever” in April 1960, and it was released on his album “Elvis is back!” later that month. Other artists and groups to cover the song include Helen Shapiro, James Brown, Suzi Quatro, the Cramps and Anne Murray.

On the original US release, “You Don’t Know” appeared on the B-side, as it did in most other countries.

List price: Discogs.com shows a median price of €2. I didn’t find any copies of this sold in eBay.

 

Record #0859: Twistin’ Patricia / Perfidia – THE CLIFFTERS

Philips 355 266 PF (original), Denmark, 10. October 1962
Words & Music by:  Side A – Ray Maxwell (René Jan Van Hoogten); Side B – Albero Dominguez, Xavier Cugat, William Heagney
Musicians:  Johnny Reimar (lead guitar, lead vocals on side A), Ole “Hansi” Hansen (rhythm guitar), Lars Kåre (bass guitar), Jan “Esso” Petersen (drums)
Recording sessions:  Produced by Steen Hansen in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1962
Highest chart positions:  Side A – Denmark #4, Sweden #11 (?), Finland #15; Side B - none

The choice to record "Twistin' Patricia" was a bold move. The song had just been released a few months prior (in June 1962) by Sweden's own rock 'n' roll king, Jerry Williams & The Violents. By covering it almost immediately, the Cliffters openly challenged Sweden's top rock act on their own turf.

This single stands as one of the final major achievements of the band's original lineup. Only a few months after the record's release, internal creative tensions peaked. By 1963, the original members went their separate ways. Johnny Reimar kept the rights to the name and formed a brand-new iteration of The Cliffters, eventually transitioning into one of the most successful pop producers, TV hosts, and entertainment moguls in Danish history.

List price: Discogs.com shows a median price of €3,50. I found one copy sold in eBay in 2019 for €22 (with picture sleeve)

 

Record #0858: Buick 59 / The Letter – THE MEDALLIONS

Dootone 347 (original), USA, July 1954
Words & Music by:  Side A - Vernon Green (a bit of a debate); Side B – Vernon Green
Musicians:  Vernon Green (lead), Randolph Bryant (tenor), Willie Graham (2^nd tenor), Rudolph Brown (baritone), Ira Foley (bass vocals), Ted Brinson (upright bass), Andrew Blue (piano), any others unknown
Recording sessions:  Ted Brinson’s garage (a real garage), Los Angeles, CA, May/June 1954
Highest chart positions:  this was a double-sided regional (West Coast) hit, but didn’t hit any national charts.

I have posted the original 45 pressing here.

This upbeat A-side was put together almost on the fly. The Medallions borrowed the melody from Todd Rhodes' older R&B hit "Rocket 69". Since the teenagers could not afford actual cars, they improvised by creating vocal car-engine sound effects with their mouths to fill out the instrumentation.

The session's most iconic moment occurred during “The Letter”, when 16-year-old lead singer Vernon Green forgot the lyrics mid-take. Instead of stopping, he began to ad-lib a spoken-word recitation over the music. During this improvisation, Green accidentally coined nonsensical, romantic phrases like "pismotality" and "puppetutes of love". The latter phrase was later famously misheard and popularized by the Steve Miller Band as "the pompatus of love" in their 1973 hit “The Joker”.

List price: Les Docks lists this at $15-$25. 45cat.com Price Guide sets this at €14. Discogs.com shows a median price of $10,68. I found 16 copies sold in eBay ranging from €18 to €80. The highest price was paid in Germany.