HUEY 'PIANO' SMITH & THE CLOWNS, "DON'T YOU KNOW YOCKOMO" C/W "WELL, I'LL BE JOHN BROWN" (ACE 553, 10/1958)

 

Huey “Piano” Smith and His Clowns kept a sense of goofy humor vibrant in roots music with a series of off-the-wall-yet-rockin’ records that define the joy of human existence. Since we need all the joy we can get this miserable year, here’s a classic platter by these party-hardy players from 1958.

“Don’t You Know Yockomo” was a follow-up to the group’s major pop hit “Don’t You Just Know It?” That record got into the pop Top 10 and is one of the easiest Ace Records 45s to find (not counting Jimmy Clanton’s ubiquitous platters). This sequel, which dives further into the glories of nonsense language, just eased into the Top 60 in late 1958. I love them both, but the unique linguistic vibe of “Yockomo” has stayed with me over the years. The phrase “Two-way Pockaway,” e.g. as invoked in the infectious chorus…many times I’ve imagined what this might be. Obscure kitchen gadget? Ancient thoroughfare? Minor religious sect?

With a delightful racket that includes a femme vocal group doing a call-and-response routine, Smith’s rolling, glib piano and a nasty guitar-sax opening riff, “Yockomo” is an expression of nonsensical glee that reminds me what wonderful creatures us human beings can be, if we embrace the loving, playful side of ourselves. Monsters may be hard at work destroying democracy, violating all that is lawful and peaceable and alienating our country from the rest of the world with despicable gangster tactics, but they can’t erase the good feelings we get from music. Those miserable, cowardly creeps don’t deserve music, laughter or joy. Amidst my contempt for them I also feel pity. They’re such broken, fallen and damaged people. They’re too proud to get help and too full of hatred to have compassion. Never forget that they’re out there doing their worst to make life horrible for you and I. One way to fight them is to find happiness wherever it exists for you. Music is, for me, the best way to find this joy amidst the gathering darkness.

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

"Billboard" loved today's single; "Cash Box" didn't mention it.

“Well I’ll Be John Brown” is a more typical New Orleans rocker that pays homage to the 19^th-century American abolitionist (I think). Or perhaps Huey Smith knew a disreputable cat with that common name. Whatever the source, the song is a lively, wacky variant on the classic you-dirty-dog-you-done-me-wrong blues scenario.

As with much of the Smith/Clowns discog, it doesn’t matter really what they sing; it’s how they sing it, and the energy the band imparts to each recording, that counts. No other Black music group—even in New Orleans—had the same wild abandon and playful looseness as Huey Smith’s Clowns. The world’s a better place for their having existed.

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

Tomorrow: a song you probably know via the much more successful cover version by The Rolling Stones, coupled with an arguably better B-side penned by one of the icons of soul music. Killer classic from 1964!