ALBUM REVIEWS : G,H,I

Note: Due to regular updating these reviews are not in strict alphabetical order

Quite what inspired this weird and wacky collection to see the light of day remains unclear, although one suspects that the 1960’s craze for tacky teen-horror flicks, and the recent successes of Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett’s “Monster Mash”, planted the initial seed of inspiration into the furtive mind of Capitol producer Jim Economides, who once again turned to Gary Usher and his ever reliable team to produce the goods.

A number of the tracks are clearly take-offs on more familiar releases, with Jan & Dean, The Beach Boys and Chuck Berry all being the recipient of reworked versions of their songs, whilst five of the twelve offerings are the standard album-filling instrumentals, mostly from the pick of Richie Podolor, with the grave-diggin’, surf-styled “Voo-Doo Juice” (featuring the fretwork of Glen Campbell) being the standout cut from these. Hondells touring leader Dick Burns steps up to the microphone to handle the lead on all of the vocal tracks, with his hilarious Pickett-styled delivery (that’s Bobby ‘Boris’ – not Wilson !) bringing a unique touch to each number, ably accompanied on two of the songs by the tender tones of Darlene Love and Jackie Ward. Chuck Girard also makes his regular appearance at an Usher session by contributing alongside Burns to “Bela B Goode” – which Usher recalled as an ‘interesting moment’ due to the increasing rivalry between the two, brought on by Girard proving all of the lead vocals to the Hondells studio recordings (note: refer to Stephen McParland’s 4-volume biography on Gary Usher for full details on the story of the Usher/Hondells sessions). One further noteworthy moment came about during the session when the line-up also attempted a Beatles rewrite, wonderfully entitled “I Want To Hold Your Neck”, but sadly that idea never saw completion …

An interesting, if non-essential addition to the ‘hot-rod’ culture, with the overall ‘feel’ of the release very much in line with Usher’s more recognisable work with the Hondells, Superstocks et al – but this one can always raise a smile each time the needle touches down into the first groove …

This album remains historic for one particular event – and sadly it doesn’t really relate to the quality of the music within – for this was the first time that future Beach Boy Bruce Johnston and Terry Melcher, the son of actress Doris Day, collaborated in the recording studio. This new partnership would evolve from this rather questionable debut outing to provide some of the very best surf and hot-rod related material to appear during the early 1960’s – the Rip Chords, Bruce & Terry, The Rogues, The Sidewalk Surfers … all quality material, and yet this album, the very first, sadly doesn’t hold up as well after four decades of listening.

Bruce contributes his vocal talents to the four non-instrumental offerings on the record, and whilst three are extraordinary weak cover versions of some of the Beach Boys ‘surf’ hits, most notably the then-recent top 3 “Surfin’ USA”, the fourth cut "Peppermint Man" is actually one of the album highlights. Surprisingly, despite his proven abilities in the studio, Bruce appears to find immense difficulty with some of the lyrical phrasings on the Beach Boys cuts, whilst the bass ‘bops’ on “Surfin’” are particularly badly performed. Clearly this was a swift attempt to cash in on the new music-fad, and whilst the instrumental tracks themselves are fairly adequately performed, the cover of Dick Dale’s “Misirlou” being a fine example, they lack the raw edge that the originals had going for them.

Still, everyone had to start somewhere …

If you had to name two of the many groups that Gary Usher remained faithful to during his hot-rod heyday – it would almost certainly have to be The Superstocks and The Hondells. With the Superstocks he pioneered much of the auto/hot-rod sound that was prevalent during 1963 and 1964, and yet received very little acclaim for it. Then in 1964, he took a motorcycle tune that Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys had recently released as an album track, recorded a version himself, using his stellar supply of studio musicians, issued it under the name of The Hondells, and BANG … went top 10 nationally ! For the next two years Gary continuously returned to his ‘Hondells’ pseudonym, although sadly failing to reclaim the dizzy Billboard heights of the debut release, and yet despite his desire to record under the name the ‘group’ only issued two complete albums – both released within a few months of the initial chart success …

The “Go Little Honda” LP rates as one of the finest examples of the early 60’s California-pop sound, albeit classified as neither ‘surf’ nor ‘hot-rod’. Gary had kick-started the latest fad for motorcycle tunes, initially back at the start of the year, when he recorded and released a bunch of two-wheeled anthems for a Jim Economides-produced album credited to The Kickstands (see elsewhere). Following on from this he latched onto the commercial potential of the Beach Boys tune and the Hondells were born.

Kicking off with the hit single the debut album offers 12 great bikin’ numbers, naturally including the obligatory (and space filling) four instrumentals, although it is around the vocal talents of Chuck Girard that the definitive sound of the Hondells sound revolves. His superb timing and pronunciation lifts these vocal tracks head and shoulders above much stiff competition from fellow studio bikers and hot-rodders, and the full harmony and background vocals – whilst perhaps not in the class of fellow Californians, the Wilson brothers – fills out the sound around him, and although it may be unrealistic to compare many of the tracks with other versions, simply because more often than not they featured the same vocalists AND musicians, the production was often the deciding factor and the Hondells cuts win out each time. Four of the tracks from this debut album had appeared on The Kickstands offering, whilst “Hot-Rod High” would reappear shortly afterwards (again featuring Girard on vocals) on The Knights album, and so purchasers of these genre albums were certainly not getting value for money, and it HAD to come down to quality – and a credible Billboard album chart placing of #119 showed that this album did supply plenty of that …

The Hondells eponymous second album, issued just three months later, sadly doesn’t flow as smoothly as the first, partly due to the inclusion of four seemingly unrelated instrumentals, produced by Mike Curb and Nick Venet, that don’t really fit in alongside the Usher-productions, thus interrupting the overall ‘feel’ that the Usher crew achieved. Nevertheless, it still included a number of great vocal contributions from Chuck Girard, most notably on the Gary Usher and Brian Wilson composition “My Buddy Seat”. This upbeat tune not only achieved the classic sound previously heard on the debut album, but also featured the guest backing vocals of Wilson himself, alongside Terry Melcher and Bruce Johnston. However, despite a number of other strong recordings featured throughout the record (notably “My Little Bike” and “Black Denim”) the album failed to achieve any major chart success, and Usher was forced to revisit these compositions once again, the following year, with The Surfaris in order to reach that wider audience …

Note:

For those wishing to search out the Hondells albums then you can do no better than locating the

4-CD import set on ATM Records … both albums, plus outtakes, sessions and so much more !

Another one of those albums churned out by the record companies in the heat of the hot-rod momentum, ever-keen to grab that last chance of success on the track before the gas runs out of the craze. Sadly, for Crown Records, it appeared with this release that it had already run out - although this was, in fact, the first in a series of five drag influenced offerings the label was to issue - and they actually got better as the time went on !

As with the majority, if not all, of the Crown offerings the man behind these was session vocalist and guitarist, and former Champs front-man, Jerry Cole (albeit uncredited on the sleeve), and with this release the main focus is on the duelling guitars and saxophone that strongly dominate most of the tracks. Even the five vocal cuts are interspersed with the honking great sax wailing away throughout, and after two or three numbers like this it starts to get mildly irritating! The five songs themselves are not too bad as individual compositions (believed to be mostly the works of Cole himself), but the production is poor, and the harmony overdubs on the lead vocals are badly out of synch at times. Noticeably, there is also a distinct lack of any backing vocals, which leaves the lead even more apparent to flaws. All told, it is clearly a case of crank 'em out as fast possible to make the $$$ whilst the tank is still full ...

The opening track on side two, “Red Hot-Rod”, is a decent enough tune but the quality of the recording takes any edge it had going for it away … whilst “Spirit Of America” (not the Beach Boys tune of the same name) is nothing more than a sub-standard take-off on Hot-Rod Rog’s spoken narration releases. There is some nice guitar work underneath it all, as would be expected from someone in the calibre of Cole, and the incredible bass runs, especially on the instrumental "Wild Willy's", certainly made me sit up and take note - and just listen to those engines prowl on the "The Screamer" - but the overbearing saxophone, in constant competition with the drag sound-effects, blows it all away …

Note: Five of the instrumental tracks were later re-issued as bonus cuts, with full songwriting and production credits, on the limited edition remastered "Jerry Cole & His Spacemen - Surf Age" CD (Sundazed /Kustom Shop Records : 2002)