The Chips, "Rubber Biscuit" c/w "Oh My Darlin'," Josie 45-803 (rel. 9/1956)

                                         

Here we have a masterpiece of utter nonsense. Created by five Black teenagers while they attended The Warwick New York State School for Delinquent Teenagers in Brooklyn, "Rubber Biscuit" reaches back to the collective memory of work songs, field hollers, tribal chants, folk music and other cultural arcana far-removed from the brick-and-mortar world of the New York music scene.
        The song, which was an East Coast sensation unknown to the rest of the country, appeared in Martin Scorcese's 1973 Mean Streets in a memorable bar-fight scene. Six years later, Saturday Night Live comedians John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd, in their crowd-pleasing guise of The Blues Brothers, revived it and had a Top 40 pop hit in 1979. (Don't worry: the royalty monies were sent to the original group, who were thrilled and briefly revived The Chips in 1980).
          In 2020, "Rubber Biscuit" infected a new generation via its use in a TV ad. John Waters cited it in his delirious 1990 comedy Cry-Baby. The song refuses to go into that good night. It's as if a demographic test was made, in 1956, to create a song that would confirm the worst fears of the squares from Squaresville who put up a major outcry against emergent youth culture of the mid-1950s. This was music to steal hubcaps by!
        Recorded August 3, 1956 at Belltone Studios in Manhattan, with the holy triumvirate of Mickey Baker (guitar), King Curtis (saxophone) and Panama Francis (drums), among others, "Rubber Biscuit" is a bullet train of percussive vocal syllables that are all doo-wop. With the rhythm of a faulty subway car during rush hour, it hurtles on a mad one-chord line; one of the Chips chimes in, from time to time, with surreal one-liners about inedible and inexplicable foodstuffs.
          While it's not much as a song, the performance is vigorous and its celebration of gibberish is a delight. I love the plummy tones of the narrator; his arch approach is something to savor. I wonder what the seasoned session cats made of this crude, bizarre song? We'll never know.

Cash Box celebrates (and criticizes) "Rubber Biscuit" in an October 20, 1956 write-up. Despite its unmusical bent, the record couldn't be ignored.

"Oh My Darlin'" plays it straight. This busy doo-wop ballad has all the prerequisites: dreamy sax intro, romantic lead vocal and busy falsetto counterpoint, set to the standard 12/8 fish-beat rhythm. Yet the results are a bit crazed, like a Frank Zappa allusion to doo-wop on a Mothers of Invention LP. That's fine; it enlivens the performance of a color-by-numbers ballad.
            I don't always agree with the Cash Box reviewers, but whomever wrote the capsule above got it right. I imagine a 1956 teenager, still dazed from "Rubber Biscuit," flipping the record over and being crestfallen. It's a fine example of a mid-decade doo-wop ballad...but there are many examples to choose from, and the distinctions are minimal.

The Chips broke up before they made another record. Its members didn't quit music: former Chips became O'Jays, Manhattans, Imperials, Fantastics and Platters, among other Black groups of note. And, when the windfall of Blues Brothers royalties were sent to the five members, they did the right thing: The Chips recorded and released their second, long-delayed 45 in 1980. It coupled covers of two doo-wop favorites: "Everyone's Laughing" by The Spaniels and "When I'm With You" by The Moonglows. It must have been meaningful for these men to reunite and celebrate the music of their youth. 
            As in 1956, The Chips were one and done with this release. 
            Extra credit reading: the story of Chip Sammy Strain, via a colorful, info-packed interview that I wish I'd seen before I began to write today's post. Well worth your time...
            https://classicurbanharmony.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Sammy-Strain-Story-Part-1-The-Chips.pdf

Tomorrow: super 1954 male-female duet by Claudia Swann and Buddy Griffin, via a Chess Records "silver-top" 45. The Moonglows guest-star on one side (uncredited, natch.)