LARRY LEE, "STOOD UP" C/W "LITTLE LANA," TAMARAC TTM 601 [CANADA] (REL. 5/1963)

Larry Lee Broderick was a Toronto, Ontario-based country-rock artist who was a popular live draw with his band The Leesures. Some of their fanbase spilled over the border into the upper Northwest of the US (back before we had a demented monster who threatened and punished, without warrant, our kindly neighbors in Canada. (If you’re in Canada and reading this, please know that this mentally ill, violent, ignorant spray-tanned mobster is someone we all wish would choke on a Big Mac and depart this mortal coil.)

It was possible that a Canadian artist with some following might break in America, and many tried without success. For every Guess Who, there were 500 Larry Lees. This cast no aspersions on their recordings, which were, often, more fervent and fresher than the US equivalent. My proximity to Canada has given me entrée to its musical output, and I’ve developed an appreciation for that country’s music.

The Billboard squib shown above reveals the setting for today’s single. Lee traveled solo to Nashville and, surrounded by its famous cats, laid down a pair of solid pop-rockers in the hope of at last getting on the American charts. Today we’ll hear the Canadian release of this 1963 45; it did get a US issue on Genius, a label run by producer Bob Crewe, who gave himself production credit on that styrene platter. (He did this with other imports in this era; perhaps he felt it was due for his trouble in his efforts to get a stateside release for these artistes.)

Ain’t no Bob Crewe on either side of this impressive effort. “Stood Up,” which is not the early hit by Ricky Nelson. It’s the result of a collaboration of two female Nashville scribes, Dottie West and Joyce Grey. I hear “Boots” Randolph, Floyd Cramer and Hank Garland in the band, and that’s The Anita Kerr Singers (held in welcome check) on vocal backup behind Lee’s sincere performance as a guy who can’t abide no-shows and steps on a soapbox to speak about his issues.

The Nashville A-team could deliver a sinister groove on cue, even if a song didn’t warrant this bias. Here, it works well, and helps Lee’s Caucasian tones find a rootsier place. There don’t seem to be any other covers of this song—a surprise, since Ms. West, who became a country star a few years later, had a high success rate with her material. This was up to par with any American efforts in its general vein, and it was a success in Canada but passed by unnoticed here. Aside from the Billboard piece, it got zero coverage.

>>> Hear it HERE! <<<

If you were a teen-centric artist in Nashville, you recorded a song by Robert S. Riley and Bucky Wilkin. The Black alumnus of Sun Records and his white teenage partner penned dozens of youth-oriented songs in Music City. This Buddy Holly-ish, kinda-sorta rocker has a sinus-piercing electric organ that reminds of UK producer Joe Meek’s sound. The multi-tempo ‘50s-style song deserves a more expressive vocal performance than Lee can muster, but the girl chorus (either another ensemble or a quartet extracted from the Kerr corral) lends some energy to the proceedings.

That organ, though…its high-pitched scree is a bit grating. If you don’t have tinnitus, as I do, that sound is what tinnitus is like. Electric organs were big in ’63; they fit the optimistic outlook of the Space Age and modernity.

>>> Hear it HERE! <<<

Lee had five US singles, nine Canadian releases (including a highly valued cover version of Robert Parker’s hit “Barefootin’) and one UK release; he also had a few Canadian LPs. He seems to have done well enough for himself without breaking in America. He passed on sometime in the mid-1990s as yet another local hero who was, it appears, fine with that outcome.

Tomorrow: Sonny Til and The Orioles deliver a hypnotic version of a Cole Porter classic, coupled with a funkier dance-craze song, via a 1960 Jubilee release.