CHARLES McCULLOUGH & THE SILKS, "MY GIRL" C/W "ZORRO," DOOTO 462 (REL. 8/1961)
Charles McCullough was set to be
a pro football player. After a promising college career, he was under
consideration by the Washington Redskins in 1961 when the success of today’s
single changed course for him. It turned out to be not too great a success, and
after three singles, McCullough called it quits. There his trail runs cold.
Perhaps he went back to sports.
This
July 4th is the worst one I’ve seen in my six decades of life. Our
current administration has raped, pillaged and profited from the suffering and
anger of we, the people; white nationalism, racism, bigotry, cruelty and greed
threaten the well-bring of everyone except rich, arrogant white pricks. I
despise what America is today. It is not what most people want it to be. These
bastards will answer for their brutal, vile behavior in time. They have no
conscience, no scruples and no empathy; their hearts are cold and dead. They
are, in the words of Ed Wood, monsters to be despised. I spit upon them all. I’m
sure they’ll exploit today to their advantage; stir up the ignorant suckers who
have fallen for their snake-oil pitch (the people who will be the first to
suffer when and if their draconian cuts are realizes) and claim they’re doing
what they do for God and country. Bullshit. These MAGA jackasses are Nazis in
business suits. Their hateful, racist agenda is monstrous. They are not
America. They are anathema to America. I condemn them for exploiting our
country for their heartless agenda. Their deaths will be greeted with joy and
song and I hope we’ll see them happen soon.
These examples of, to quote Paul Giamatti's character in the 2023 film The Holdovers, "penis cancer in human form," just passed the so-called Big Beautiful Bill which condemns the poor to penury and death while making the pornographic wealth of plutocrats larger, make fascists look kind in comparison. We must oppose this tyranny in all ways.
Onto today’s record. Aside from
those football facts, I find zero information on the life of Charles
McCullough. I borrowed his name for a recurring character on a comedy improv
podcast I did in the 2010s with an ex-friend. That McCullough was a parody of
arrogant plutocrats; his persona forecast that of those now in power. The name
came to me in the moment, and in improv, those impulses become the reality of a
scene.
The real McCullough was an
expressive vocalist. “My Girl,” no relation to the big Motown hit, opens with
an arresting series of utterances set against an old acoustic upright piano. A
superb crawling lowrider r&b ballad results, with The Silks solid
background to McCullough’s moody, passionate vocal, decorated with gasps.
There’s just that piano, drums
and bass behind the four vocalists. This creates an intimacy that’s emotional dynamite.
This is the sound that Frank Zappa loved in his youth and re-created as part of
his antic, wide-ranging world of music. It really doesn’t matter what’s being sung; how it’s delivered is the joy of this earthy performance. This
music is what America is all about in my book.
Had this an actual arrangement, it might have made a potential pop hit. Perhaps it’s better as a B-side toss-off. Thanks to public interest in doo-wop in 1961, triggered by The Marcels’ major hit “Blue Moon,” these old-school sounds were once again au courant. Producer Dootsie Williams (pictured in the marquee) helmed many an LA doo-wop recording of the 1950s and still had an innate connection to that sound.
McCullough and The Silks had two
more Dooto releases into 1962. I hope to find them sometime soon.
Tomorrow: The man who inspired The Bobbettes’ 1958 pop hit “Mr. Lee” tries to cash in on his pop-culture fame. The results are...unusual. A 1960 item from the Addit label.
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