Friday, September 16, 2016

THE 27 CLUB? THOSE OLD FARTS?

Years ago a friend of mine worked for as a rep for a record company that specialized in reissues. When she'd come down from L.A. to call on San Diego record stores, we'd hang out and occasionally she'd turm me on to a promo or two. I don't remember any of the records that I picked up, with one exception. A Richie Valens LP. For some reason, I gravitated to it, specifically "Hurry Up", a tame rocker that anyone who's had to wait for someone taking an inordinate amount of time "getting ready" to go out will relate too. I don't know why I liked that particular song so much, maybe because Valens was only seventeen when he recorded it but mature enough to recognize the aggravation that that type of scenario produces.

After looking for the song online for the last few years I just found it, along with a couple dozen other songs by Valens, pretty much his entire recorded output. He only put out a couple albums before he died in 1959, in the same plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper. Before being written into Don McLean's "American Pie" as "the day the music died", Eddie Cochran recorded a solemn cover of Joey Dee's song about the incident, "Three Stars". Where Dee's original is rather hokey, Cochran's take is personal, you can hear him getting choked up while singing it, possibly the reason it wasn't released until 1966 (half a dozen years after Cochran died in a car crash). He actually changed the original lyrics to make it even more personal "Ritchie, you were just starting to realize your dreams, Everyone calls me a kid, but you were only seventeen." Get out the hankies.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Listen:
Ritchie Valens - Hurry Up mp3
at Internet Archive
Ritchie Valens - Fast Freight mp3
at Internet Archive
Ritchie Valens - Boney Maroney mp3
at Internet Archive
Ritchie Valens - 24 more cuts
at Internet Archive
NOTE: Once there scroll down to "Download Options" on the right side of your screen click on that, then select "VBR MP3"
Eddie Cochran - Three Stars
(streaming) at YouTube

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