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.

 

Record #0857: Night and Day / Just One of Those Things – BING CROSBY

Decca 18887 (original) USA, June 1946
Words & Music by:  Side A – Cole Porter; Side B – Cole Porter
Musicians: Bing Crosby (lead baritone vocals), John Scott Trotter and his orchestra
Recording sessions: Produced by Jack Kapp at Decca Studios, Los Angeles, CA; Side A on 11. February 1944; Side B on 15. January 1945
Highest chart positions:  Side A –US #21; Side B – none

The release achieved only modest success for Bing Crosby, especially compared with his broader record in the 1940s, when he scored 14 US number-one hits.

Cole Porter was notoriously strict about his sophisticated lyrics. He hated it when singers changed even a single syllable of his poetry. Yet, on this February 1944 recording, Crosby audibly rebelled against one of the song's most famous lines. Cole Porter originally wrote the climax of the verse as: "Like the drip, drip, drip of the raindrops / When the summer shower is through...". Crosby reportedly felt that singing the word "drip, drip, drip" sounded clunky and unromantic for his smooth crooner style. Without asking Porter for permission, Crosby stepped up to the microphone and sang: "Like the plash, plash, plash of the raindrops..."

When Porter found out that the biggest recording star in the world had replaced his rhythmic "drip" with "plash," he was allegedly furious. However, because this record was directly tied to the studio promotion of Warner Bros.' upcoming Cole Porter biopic, “Night and Day”, Porter ultimately chose not to block the record's release.

List price: Les Docks lists this at $4-$7. 45cat.com Price Guide sets this at €9. Discogs.com shows a median price of $5,54.