I used the music
I had in iTunes as the starting point for my favorite 100 songs. This one wasn’t
there, because at that point I hadn’t been able to find the original version,
only some crappy re-recordings. On September 4, 2014, to my great joy, I
checked again, found the original in the iTunes store and promptly purchased
it. Had it been there earlier, it almost certainly would have made my initial
list of favorites.
The two
versions of this often-recorded composition by John D. Loudermilk that I now
have in my music library are both great, but couldn’t be more different. The
Lou Rawls recording runs almost 8 minutes; it’s slow and jazzy, with a long
spoken introduction similar to that on his hit “Dead End Street”. The Nashville
Teens, however, take care of business in a mere 2:29. Despite their name, they were
a British band, and this was their only hit in America. (They had slightly more
success on their side of the pond.) For sheer kick-ass rock and roll, however,
this compares to anything the Who, the Stones or the Kinks ever came up with.
Having Jimmy Page on guitar certainly doesn’t hurt.
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