WOW. Fantastic! Very impressive.
seconding that!
Epic post.
Thanks for reminding everyone that Jackie Brenston/Ike Turner's Rocket 88 isn't the first Rock & Roll song, that always drives me nuts. The LA Times recently had an article about John DeLorean where they mentioned he commissioned Ronny and the Daytonas' G.T.O. I'm glad to learn keeping a shell account with AOL was worth it - AOL Radio has Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour, can't wait to hear it.
Wonderful post, as usual.
"Theme Time Radio Hour" is a national treasure.
DeLorean commissioned "GTO"? That's fantastic. Someone should do a DeLorean mix--you could use stuff from "Back to the Future," plus isn't there a reference to him in "White Lines"?
thanks for the kind words, all. This will likely be the longest entry of this insanely elaborate series--the last two should be a bit more manageable. well, the last one, maybe.
Fantastic post!
Thank you for putting all this wonderful music together.
I was looking for information to corroborate the LA Times story I'm not able to trace back and find. From Google Book Search, another account:
Rockin' Down the Highway: The Cars and People that Made Rock Roll By Paul Grushkin
Scorched Earth
It was, said Jim Wangers, the inventor of the Pontiac GTO (and thereby the father of all mass-produced and mass-marketed muscle cars) the Age Of Idolization, an age when "we made absolute Gods out of our young people." Wangers was an advertising man, not an engineer, and therefore perhaps better able to see something out there moving in the market before anyone else.
Pontiac was building cars that ran steadily and delivered comfortable family transportation for Dick, Jane, dad, and mom. But Wangers knew the streetboys had been fooling with hot cars for years, slapping big engines in Fords and Chevys. In a memo to John DeLorean, then of Pontiac, he outlined plans for a car that would be "the fastest thing you can get your hands on."
"We wanted to make certain it was faster than a Corvette," Wangers recalled. Pontiac's biggest engine was plunked into Pontiac's light Tempest body. Technically, it was illegal under company guidelines to build a street racer, so the first GTO came out in November 1963 as a 1964 Tempest with a GTO option, not as a model in itself.
But the option was incredible. Wanger's boys created an entirely new machine. It went from 0 to 60 MPH in a preposterous 4.6 seconds and it radically altered access to the road and the marketing of autos in America for the next 10 years.
According to Wangers, he next thought to contact an emerging Nashville-based group called Ronny & The Daytonas about a Beach Boys-like song he heard there were working on, about a GTO. Centered around singer-guitarist-songwriter John "Bucky" Wilkin, The Daytonas were birthed by Nashville producer Bill Justis who instructed Bucky to take on a stage name (Ronny Dayton) and come up with a group name (The Daytonas) to best advance the record. Wilkin seems to have cared little about playing live and after a short time fronting a thrown-together combo for a few select dates, simply put together a phantom group to go out and honor tour commitments.
Wangers says he actually helped tinker with the song, helping rewrite the lyrics and afterwards "thought the time would be well spent if it got played somewhere, by anyone." He and the Daytonas lucked out like the car. "G.T.O." was an instant success. It stayed on the charts for 31 weeks, selling 1.2 million copies. Between June 1964 and the end of 1968, the song was played 7 million times on the radio.
- Bob Frump
Philadelphia Inquirer, 1981
John "Bucky" Wilkin had quite a life:
Ronny and the Daytonas: Where are they Now
John (aka Ronny) Wilkin, vocalist, songwriter, guitarist
John "Bucky" Wilkin was the "brains" behind Ronny & the Daytonas; the group was comprised of mainly Bucky, but with input from Bergen White, who went on to become an extremely sought after arranger in Nashville; Buzz Cason, who filled in for Jerry Naylor as a Cricket, as well as having a hit under the name Garry Miles on "Look For a Star," and finally Bobby Russell, who composed hits such as "Sure Gonna Miss Her" (Gary Lewis & the Playboys), "Popsicle" (Jan & Dean), "The Joker Went Wild" (Brian Hyland), "The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia" (Vicki Lawrence --his former wife), "Honey" (Bobby Goldsboro) and "Little Green Apples" (O.C. Smith). Regrettably, Bobby Russell passed away from heart and liver disease a few years ago.
The late Bill Justis, who was known for his hit "Raunchy," helped set up a publishing company with Bucky's mother, songwriting legend Marijohn Wilkin ("Long Black Veil," "One Day At a Time"). The first songs in their company were those of her son. Justis independently recorded Bucky singing his own composition "GTO," which was sold to Mala Records. It became a number one hit for the New York based label and inspired an LP by the same name. The second hit, "SANDY," also demanded an album with almost all the songs on both albums written by the then 19 year old Wilkin!
In 1968 Ronny and the Daytonas switched to RCA Records and hit the charts again with "Dianne, Dianne." Not only was the hit side a well crafted romantic ballad, but the flip, "All American Girl," was a real Beach Boys type up-tempo with that distinctive Bucky Wilkin vocal. Most of the time, there was not really a group. Occasionally, Buzz Cason joined in for a vocal or two, but it was really Bucky's baby. Personally, I was 16 years old and a major fan, so I wrote Bucky a fan letter which evolved into a 32 year friendship.
The mid-eighties saw an interest in recruiting Ronny & the Daytonas for "live" appearances. Bucky decided to take his acoustic guitar and hit the road with Gary Lewis and the Playboys and several other '60s rock and roll groups. He even performed on Wolfman Jack's oldies television show. In 1995 I received a phone call. It was Bucky himself asking me if I'd like to be a Daytona for a July 4th concert in Upstate New York. I immediately accepted. We traveled there together in his car (no, not a GTO) and performed a successful concert. All I could think of while playing the keyboard behind him was how lucky I was to have gone from writing a fan letter in 1968 to actually playing with Bucky 27 years later.
-Brian Gari
New York City
There's a post in there somewhere, heh.
http://www.jetfm.asso.fr/spip/me...25-juillet-
Duel
...et bravo et merci!
You've outdone yourself. This is really superb. You've a great knack for bringing together all these disparate threads and weaving them into a wonderful whole. Thanks.
Great contribution to this topic
Some possible additions:
The Pretty Things: Freeway Madness LP with Country Road
Chuck Berry: Jaguar and Thunderbird
Chuck Berry, Rolling Stones: Down the road apiece
Rolling Stones/Chuck Berry: You can't catch me
Lsts of beach Boys songs, of course...
(Litte Honda, Little deuce coupe etc)
Yeah, the whole post could've been Chuck Berry and Beach Boys tracks.
btw, if anyone liked the Embarrassment track, I just realized (via Moistworks) that most of their best stuff is available on iTunes. All the songs that I mentioned are seriously great.
incredible...
* another amazing post.
Gary Numan and Herbie 'the Love Bug' missed the cut.
each different engine produces a unique sound, much like music, or a song.
incredible to believe the humanity would engineer a controlled 'fire' in this manner to travel.
and later to use the combustion engine to learn how to fly.
Have you heard the fabulous Twangbangers' version of "Hot Rod Lincoln"? It's like 10 minutes long and features impersonations of the signature riffs of like thirty rock, blues and country guitarists.
Right on about Chuck Berry and the BBs dominating the genre. And Michial, isn't that Bill Kirchen's band with the riffs added to HRL? I've seen him do that shtick, from Duane Eddy to the Sex Pistols, and it's a glory to behold.
Chris, I always love what you do and the post just keep getting better, deeper, etc.
No complaints, but I'll mention a few more (there's always more) I would include. (And what - no images from 'Death Proof'? 'Hot Rods to Hell'?)
Peter Case - Old Blue Car
Jens Lekman - Black Cab
Bruce Springsteen - The Promise, Open All Night, State Trooper, Born to Run (and at least a dozen others)
Johnny Cash - One Piece at a Time
(with the White Stripes - how many songs apart from early-20th-century novelties were about the industry itself?)
cheers. Safety fast.
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