Clyde McPhatter, "Deep Sea Ball" c/w "Let The Boogie Woogie Roll," Atlantic 45-2060 (rel. 4/1960)

In 1960, Clyde McPhatter was over-represented in the music market. Atlantic, M-G-M and Mercury Records had singles and LPs in competition. This did no one any favors. Too many releases confused the public and caused many of them to tank.

It didn’t help that Atlantic used McPhatter’s singles (which they had the right to release) as a dumpster for earlier unissued or little-known material. At a time when a consistent sound was key to an artist’s success, poor Clyde had past versions of himself vying for space on store shelves. Today we’ll spin his penultimate release on Atlantic, which comprises a boppin’ 1958 side and one of his very first recordings from 1953—a track issued on a various-artists EP in 1956 with an iconic cover design, seen here.

“Deep Sea Ball” was penned by Winfield Scott, Black songwriter who teamed with Otis Blackwell in the 1960s for several songs that, while pleasant, fell below the high standards of Blackwell’s earlier solo compositions. It stresses the early rock notion of various members of a society united by their love of rock ‘n’ roll.

Recorded on February 26, 1958 with The Howie Bigg All-Stars in support, this cartoony, playful song—the only rock ‘n’ roll ditty I know of that mentions the salmon fish—has a lively vocal chorus. King Curtis’ always-superb saxophone and Clyde’s expressive, chipper performance atop it all.

Such broad-based rock ‘n’ roll songs were soon to depart the mortal coil of youth music, and rock lost some of its naïve charm without items like “Deep Sea Ball,” which failed to chart in 1960. It’s one of McPhatter’s harder-to-find late Atlantic 45s but this side has become a fan favorite over the years.

Cash Box had no idea the B-side was almost a decade old.

“Let the Boogie-Woogie Roll” was taped on August 9, 1953 with the first version of The Drifters (Andrew and Gerhart Thrasher and Willie Ferbee) and an all-star cast of sidemen: pianist Jesse Stone, guitarist Mickey Baker and Sam “The Man” Taylor on tenor sax.

The song, co-penned by Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler, is the composition of a pair of white jazz and blues students who considered themselves hep to the jive. Their songs are idealized rhythm and blues, with barrelhouse 12-bar blues tempo and lyrics like the come-on lines seen on movie posters of the era.

Clyde is at his early best here: fearless, assured and full of fire and smoke. The gospel-steeped Thrasher brothers bring a church feeling to this gospel of secular pleasures. Theme-wise, it’s an apt pairing with “Deep Sea Ball—” two bacchanals-in-song that exhort the joys of gettin’ down with anyone or thing who can feel the rhythm and get lost in the music. This is one of Clyde McPhatter’s great performances and it deserved far better than it got in his lifetime.

McPhatter’s pop sides for Mercury, with rare exceptions, are trifles. His M-G-M material was better, but neither label let this gifted vocalist be himself. He continued to have hits, such as the two-chord country-pop song “Lover Please,” which went Top 5 in 1962, but the roaring, brave voice heard on today’s B-side was lost to time.

Clyde was his own worst enemy in his later career; he let hubris overcome opportunity and burned more bridges than he built. The 20 sides he recorded with The Drifters remain a canonical body of work and retain their original impact seven decades later. Not every performer can achieve that permanence.

Tomorrow: crowd-pleaser Friday with an early Warren Zevon single for White Whale Records; a 1966 duet with a classic folk-rock song on the A-side. 

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