Doug Warren & The Rays, "If the World Don't End Tomorrow (I'm Comin' After You)" c/w "After Midnight" (Image 1011, rel. 7/1960)

 

Doug Warren made two singles for National Recording Company’s Image imprint, which, based in Atlanta, Georgia, would infer he and his band The Rays are from that region. The name of Billy Sherrill suggests that a future major figure in Nashville country music was a member of Warren’s band. Sherrill didn’t go to Nashville until 1962, when he was hired to run Sam Phillips’ studio there. The songwriter, arranger and producer would soon become a major force in country music; he worked with Charlie Rich, Tammy Wynette, David Houston and George Jones. Sherrill created a lavish production style influenced by Phil Spector’s work—and as easy to spot when one hears country music of this period.

All this was in the future when Warren and his group made this pair of Nashville-styled pop-country items. Some might call them rockabilly; it’s a “lite” version of that more earthy, relaxed-yet-intense style. The beguiling B-side far outshines the A, so we’ll save the best for last.

With its coarse-voiced, living-dead vocal choir, tinkly piano and a song that sounds 100% country to these ears, "If the World Don't End Tomorrow (I'm Comin' After You)" has an undeniable force. It’s a curious blend of styles that suffers from being too smooth and polished. Song and performance would be stronger if everyone didn’t sound so stifled and rehearsed. But it enjoyed some national success; it reached #107 on the Billboard charts and helped Billy Sherrill’s career along a few inches.

Hear it >>>>> HERE. <<<<<

Much better is “After Midnight,” a solid, moody rocker that delivers everything the over-wrought A-side wouldn’t. Warren’s lead vocal, unencumbered by the choral style of the A, is spirited and engaging. Two solid guitar breaks increase the recording’s appeal as it continues. The song has something to hang onto in its first-person account of a man who’s got it bad for a woman he can’t be with at the moment. Roaming the streets, feeling anxious with desire, he’s in quite a state and, with no resolution to this plight, he takes his leave onto them there mean streets.

This side is as natural-sounding and interesting as the A seems overwrought and lumbering. Had the powers-that-were realized this was the better side, and pushed it, teens might have responded. This was pop-rock, to be sure, but a far earthier and more compelling brand than Rick Nelson’s or Johnny Burnette’s (the 1960 iterations; the Johnny of 1956 would have lit this song up like a beacon).

Hear it >>>>> HERE. <<<<<

Warren and his lot made a second single for Image, which continued the approach of this one: living-dead-zombie-chorale sound for the A, looser rock for the B. That was it for this lot.

Tomorrow: Clarence “Frog Man” Henry’s seldom-heard follow-up to his 1956 hit “Ain’t Got No Home”—two stellar New Orleans-recorded items from Chess’ Argo imprint.