The Pedigree of PETER GUNN

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This Music Player contains 5 hours of covers, clones, and cousins of "Peter Gunn",
from 1958 to today in chronological order, spanning all musical genres.

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The Pedigree of PETER GUNN

"Louie Louie" is a riff that underlines the whole history of Rock'n'Roll, and "Peter Gunn" shadows it on the same trail.

It was created by unusual supsects who would become the world's most wanted. Writer/director Blake Edwards created the 1958 TV show, bringing in Henry Mancini to compose the themes, who cloaked the worldly detective in a jazz-noir score of torrid sax and motor engine riffs. (They went on to make their fame with the Pink Panther films.) The pianist on the sessions was future film composer John Williams.>

It was a surprisingly sophisticated and yet street-lethal score for the fresh new world of television. In fact, with its liberal use of West Coast free jazz, it opened the door for using Jazz in movies and television from then on. The bestselling soundtrack became a hinge into modern jazz for mainstream audiences. And its fusion of dramatic intrigue and brashly sensual bop created the Crime/Spy Jazz sound, paving the grooves for the soundtracks of James Bond and all his clones.

More immediately, it captured the dangerous allure of the modern city in the fantasies of young people nationwide.

Craig Stevens (r), starring as Private Eye "Peter Gunn".

Most of all, it was the power of that striding strain that arrested their attention. "Peter Gunn Theme" was the sound of walking cocky, punching felons, chasing roadsters, talking cool, and entangling hot. It was steamy and unseemly, a grinding prowl, a hungry stare, a hip-grinding dance. It was the entirety of the forbidden side of adulthood that teenagers ached to have. "The Peter Gunn title theme actually derives more from rock and roll than from jazz," Mancini clarified.

Rock'n'Roll guitarist Duane Eddy snuck his way into the club first. His twang-bar style, with its extra heavy reverb, amped the walking bassline into a tougher strut on his 1959 cover version. While Mancini's was sassy horns swinging in a hot nightspot, Eddy's was horny young nightowls on the prowl down midnight tarmac. At least in teen fantasies, it was a sidedoor into the sleazy twilight underworld they longed to slink into. The hard clang instrumentals of Duane Eddy and Link Wray ushered in Dick Dale and Surf guitar, which kept the edgy heart of Rock'n'Roll alive into the British Invasion.

Duane Eddy; Sarah Vaughan; Dick Dale.

Beyond simply the riff, the moody sound evoked by Eddy mutated into a shroud of instant atmosphere. For instance, the mid-60's English bands The Lost Souls ("This Life Of Mine") and The Syndicats ("Crawdaddy Simone") aren't playing "Gunn" specifically, but their songs are clearly rewrites of its chords and sound. Same thing for instrumentals by Freddie King ("Hide Away") and James Brown ("The Scratch"). When The Monkees broke free of their producer to play on their own records, the first thing they tried was a shambling pastiche called "Peter Gunn's Gun". Its status as a standard in any upstarts' repertoire carried it through the rehearsal holes of the world. Somebody somewhere would always don its instant cool, no matter whether honest or bootleg. Jazz queen Sarah Vaughn sang a lyrical version called "Bye, Bye" in '64. Dick Dale, Jimi Hendrix, and myriad garage bands donned its trenchcoat for some midnight rambling.

In the 70's, as rock began rebelling against its overblown indulgences, the tight riff became crucial. It was like cutting to the chase with a switchblade. Boston's Jonathan Richman had admired the lethal lyrics and blunt buzz of the Velvet Underground; he and the Modern Lovers trawled the city's dusky deadends in Peter Gunn's roadster in 1974's "Pablo Picasso". (This song is most remembered for its immortal lines, "Pablo Picasso was never called an a$$hole/ not like you.") His terse hum would soon transport punks.

X-Ray Spex; The Cramps; The B-52's.

For punkers, this edgy sordid nightscape was their reality. It became a theme song where the usual suspects were now the heroes. You can detect it in the surging buzz of X-Ray Spex's "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo" in '78. The Cramps crimped that stalking stocatto for their mix of pychobilly, garage, and horror movies by mutating it into 1979's "Human Fly". Duane's rival, the original psychobilly Link Wray, sprungload it with new edge in his "Switchblade", with punkabillies nodding in approval. The B-52's relay that riff into an alien signal via throbbing satellite with 1979's "Planet Claire", cut through with the stabbing clang of silver surfer Ricky Wilson.

The Blues Brothers; Nina Hagen; REPO MAN soundtrack.

The BLUES BROTHERS movie (1980) may have done more to expose the song to a new generation that any other source; their version is fueled by the guitar of Steve Cropper and bass of Duck Dunn, of the legendary Booker T And The MG's. Conversely, out in some bleak no man's land, Bruce Springsteen hears it on his dashboard as "Mr. State Trooper", burning through the ebon byways with some bad menace in his heart. His stripped down acoustic seethes like a harrowing confession before something terrible happens. Also in 1982, German alien Nina Hagen germinated the riff with Captain Beefheart's rasp, quotes of Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust", and cascades of cosmic clang and shrill in "Iki Maska".

The title theme of the 1984 REPO MAN film, by Iggy Pop, has definite treadmarks of Peter's ride. To underscore the point, fellow acolytes Burning Sensations repo-ed Richman's carriage, putting a Duane Eddy kit on it in their "Pablo Picasso" cover for the same movie. This version is so popular that many thought it was the original.

The shamus haunts the darks of Bauhaus' "Hair Of The Dog", Front 242's "Body To Body", and L7's "Uncle Bob". Grandmaster Flash and Tthe Furious 5 flipped fresh spin on the theme with "Style (Peter Gunn's Theme)", where Flash honed back in on the horn riffs. The British Art Of Noise chopped that HipHop with some orchestral flourish, congas, and the hard twanging strut of the actual Duane Eddy himself in their "Peter Gunn", an alternative dance smash in 1986. Aussie rebels Midnight Oil called in the lawman's ghost to bust its country's guilty conscience over issues of Aboriginal land-rights with "Beds Are Burning", with the riff's phantom flickering through their 1988 breakthrough hit. (There's also brief chops of Chuck Berry's "Little Queenie" in there, too.)

The TWIN PEAKS soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti.

Much of Mancini's original score haunted Angelo Badalamenti's brilliant music for the TWIN PEAKS TV series (1990); the clanging reverb takes possession of the title theme, while the fingersnapping hipster jazz tunes take their cues from Mancini tracks like "Brief and Breezy". Poison Ivy, the axe-slinging dominatrix of The Cramps, claims to own about every cover of "Peter Gunn" ever made; she puts her stiletto all the way through the floorboards in her ultimate version. Covertly, Peter dogs the footsteps of '90s era songs by Living Colour, Diamanda Galas, and The A-Bones.

England's vastly underrated Elastica, known for their chop shop tricks, trysted Peter with The Beatles' "And I Love Her" for a scintillating twist in their fuzzy stomp, "Love Like Ours" (2000). Iggy & the Stooges refueled their reunion in 2003 cruising Peter's night haunts with "Skull Ring", skewering the mugging partystars and glampires who have gentrified his beat. It's the propulsive bassline of The Strokes' "Juicebox" (2005). On the eternal trail, the flatfoot still pounds the beat of The Come Ons, Los Explosibvos (Mexico), and Django Django.

Have riff, will travel. That memorable hook and the atmosphere that surrounds it always resonate beyond the moment, transporting anyone who ever hears it, and forging new paths into the future.



© Tym Stevens

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See Also:

-The Legacy of LOUIE LOUIE

-Shock Waves: How SURF MUSIC Saved Rock'n'Roll!

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The Legacy of LOUIE LOUIE

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This Music Player contains 11 hours of covers, clones, and cousins of "Louie Louie",
from 1957 to today in chronological order, spanning all musical genres.

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The Legacy of LOUIE LOUIE

Sometimes a single song is the refrain. You can group music by genres or eras, but one song can tie all of them together. Or even one riff.

In 1957, Richard Berry created one of those. His ode to Jamaican love was inspired by a few surprising sources: a variant of a Cuban Mambo song called "Cha Cha Chá Loco", and Chuck Berry's "Havana Moon" (which had in turn responded to the brief Calypso boom after "Day-O" broke big). It was a regional hit around San Francisco and made its way into many West Coast 45" collections and jukeboxes. It had a lurching stairstep riff that kids had gone crazy for, one that stuck to your brain and feet.

Richard Berry; The Kingsmen.

Up in Seattle, where cold and rain made the emerging early '60s rock'n'roll courser, bands battled each other for supremacy in frats, bars, and proms. Someone latched onto "Louie Louie" and then everybody had to. But The Kingsmen stumbled into the studio first, one day before their rivals Paul Revere And The Raiders. In their haste, they didn't know it well enough. The singer slurred the words to hide it and his false starts after the bridge got left in. The riff lost a beat and became the classic 1-2-3/ 1-2, 1-2-3/ 1-2 that made it The Riff. That arresting combo of jang-ing riff and sloppy attitude built the Garage of the future. It also got them investigated by the FBI on suspicion of slipping obscenities into the unintelligle lyrics.

Great riff + Attitude + Controversy = cultural phenomenon.

In comes imitation and mutation, the catalyst of all culture. There's a moment in music where a riff becomes a general rhythm, and a bedrock for new songs.

It sure stuck in its originator's mind, because Richard Berry did one of the first clones of his own song with 1960's "Have Love Will Travel". His original was a splice, and now that the chords have now become standard chops in any band's repertoire, the re-splicing by his followers begins. East L.A. Mexican rockers The Premiers used the riff under their cover of a different song, "Farmer John". The Trashmen combined both songs openly as "Farmer Louie". The Bobby Fuller 4 medley-ed the two together right into their own clone, "Jenny Lee". Wayne Fontana And The Mindbenders' "The Game Of Love" trysted the Bo Diddley beat into the middle.

Meanwhile, Surf naturally caught the wave, such as "Surfin' Louie" by The Shockwaves and The Surfaris' "Go Go Go For Louie's Place". Fresh from "My Boyfriend's Back", the girl group The Angels went tough chick with it, even preserving the false start in harmony! The Wailers, The Raiders and The Who wrote sequels to it (The Raiders also got 'revenge' on their friends for the lost hit with "Just Like Me"). David Bowie's first recording was a cover of The Raiders' sequel, as Davie Jones And The King Bees (1964). Meanwhile, the Seattle scene was still on fire with the song in every band's repertoire; The Kingsmen's rivals, The Sonics, virtually invent garage rock and punk with a 1965 take so brutal, even the Sex Pistols would wince in admiration.

The Sonics; The Troggs; The Rolling Stones.

Now the covers have turned into clones and cousins.

The riff has now become so common that everyone went from a cover into new creations. The Drifers usher in a new standard with "Sweets For My Sweet". The Castaways pull a cover-up with "Liar Liar"; the Soul group The Vibrations scooped a baldfaced substitute as "My Girl Sloopy", and The Real McCoys inserted irony by covering the clone as "Hang On Sloopy".

In Boston patois, The Barbarians' drummer plied his hand with the hook in his autobiographical "Moulty". The Kinks tried to cover it and instead found "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All Of the Night", two new standards. As garage and pop started colluding on radio hits, The Rare Breed ("Beg, Borrow, and Steal"), The Troggs ("Wild Thing", another new standard), The Rolling Stones ("Get Off of My Cloud", another), The Remains ("Why Do I Cry"), and The Eyes ("I'm Rowed Out") heisted the Jamaican ship for new ports.

Culture is typically cyclical based on response, and a song that was first inspired by Mambo cha-cha-cha rhythms was in turn covered extensively in Spanish-speaking countries (including its clones) by acts like Los Loud Jets, Sonia, and The Sandpipers.

Julie London; Bob Dylan;
Toots And The Maytals.

From covers, to clones, to cousins, and finally to culture. At this point it became a free-for-all. An idea has become universal, and every response transforms it with new perspectives. It's everybody's party, and everybody has a part in it.

Quincy Jones did a jazz cover of a clone with "Hang On Sloopy". Conga god Mongo Santamaria sailed back to Cuba in his take on "Louie Louie". Torch damsel Julie London gave it a sultry shoreleave it will never forget. Ike & Tina Turner gave it an soulful shakedown at the Apollo while Otis Redding cruised it through Memphis.

It lazes under the bridge of "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" by The Righteous Brothers. A twist on it rolls through Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone". It twined through Frank Zappa's work continously, including firing a guitarist when they couldn't play it. Quietly, the sing-song riff sways under The Rascals' "Good Lovin'", Erma Franklin's "Piece Of My Heart", and Tommy Roe's "Dizzy".

It was wham-bammed by Glam bands in the early '70s, of course. The funk-pop band Hot Chocolate familiarized it into their hit "Brother Louie". Toots & the Maytals brought it home to Jamaica in reggae stylee. It grooves under "Summer Days, Summer Nights" from the movie musical GREASE. Barry White got up close and personal with it. Stanley Clarke and George Duke funked around with it.

The Stooges; Lou Reed; Motorhead.

But the song never forgot its edge. The song had become less a riff and more of a shorthand writ of young swagger and rebel sneer. In the '70s and '80s it often took on a seedy and dangerous allure, continuing to kick against the pricks.

Garage rock had spat out the crazed stepchild, The Stooges. On a bootleg of their last gig in '74, Iggy Pop uses "Louie" as a frame to taunt his audience out of boozy complacency. One patron purportedly beans him with a beer bottle, which is the thump and buzzing mike heard at the end. Lou Reed's "Vicious" helped inspire Sid's name. The Clash lashed it and The Fall sneered it in concert in '77. Johnny Thunders stumbled through it on his way to the glass table.

"Louie Louie" was now being unfurled like a Jolly Roger. L.A. punks X flash glimmers of its sway within "We're Desperate". Some of its ghost can be traced in the swaying buzz of The Dickies' "You Drive Me Ape (You Big Gorilla)". It was Motorhead's first single. Black Flag refuses surrender with it in 1981. "Love Sinks", by The J. Geils Band, is a revamp of it via "Wild Thing". Acts as diverse as D.R.I., Joan Jett, The Pretenders, The Fat Boys, The Ultra Magnetic MCs, Sisters of Mercy, and more shanghaied its course through the '80s. For Russian emigres Red Square it was a very real rejection of repression and a charter to deliverance.

Nirvana.

Then it came full circle. From the hinterlands near Seattle, Kurt Cobain corrupted the chords into a splice with Boston's "More Than a Feeling" in 1991. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a perfect summation of everything that made "Louie Louie" great in the first place: a kicking riff, a sloppy attitude, mysterious lyrics, and a combustible audience. Again, it had become the rallying cry for fun and foment, which is Rock'n'Roll incarnate. Perfect.

From culture into community. Ultimately, a riff becomes a communal experience, a rallying cry, a Morse-code beacon, a universal bond like the heartbeat; this is Us, this is home.

In 1993 Iggy Pop revolted from style back into sting, using the song to navigate modern protests and soul-searching. He said the song always steadies him when he goes off course. Likewise, the insanely prolific punk Billy Childish keelhauled it for a sequel with his garage band Thee Headcoats in '95: "Louie Louie (Where Did She Roam)" sets course for new shores in pursuit of that elusive island love. Which, beyond the riff and its attitude, may be the secret refrain of the song that haunts the memory; ache at the landlocked present and longing for an open future.

Great idea + varied response + shared experience = culture.

Culture is formed and maintained by the interchange of community; like the ocean, every current, crosscurrent, ebb, flow, swell, and wave remolds it while holding it together. "Louie Louie" is an undercurrent of raw Rock'n'Roll spirit driving the tides across time. It is ever-current, from Jane's Addiction, The A-Bones, and Blur, to The Black Keys, Boonaraas, Foxygen, and The Love Me Nots. Set course. Said we gotta go now.

"Okay, let's give it to 'em, right now!"
A-A-A, D-D, Em-Em-Em, D-D...


© Tym Stevens

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See also:

-The Pedigree of PETER GUNN

-Shock Waves: How SURF MUSIC Saved Rock'n'Roll!

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BO DIDDLEY: The Rhythm King and His Disciples

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Music Players!

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Today, the romp-bompin' Bo Diddley, the baron of the beat!
Hear 2 massive music players, one of Bo and one of all his disciples from the 1950s to today!

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𝟮 Bo Diddley's disciples: 1950s-Today

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𝟭
The Rhythm King
of Rock'n'Roll

BO DIDDLEY
by Tym Stevens
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It's that rhythm.

It had been around before in variations. "Shave-and-a-haircut, two-bits." His band says it came from a song called "The Hambone" (based on a rhythm and dance descended from the Juba dance of Haiti). Bo Diddley says it actually came out of his love of the insistent cadence of Country & Western star Gene Autry's "I Got Spurs That Jingle Jangle Jingle" (1942). Anything comes from anywhere, it's all in how you use it.

Chess Records in 1955 Chicago was the home of the electric blues gods; Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, their writer and bassist Willie Dixon, harpist Little Walter. Mature men from hard lives in the sharecropper South. When that gave out they migrated among millions to the Rust Belt states around the Great Lakes for factory jobs and record deals. Muddy's was the first all-electric Blues band, plugging Rock'n'Roll in in 1948. Wolf was the leer of the forbidden, crackling through the night airwaves. With the edgy John Lee Hooker, they stoked the souls of rambunctious young listeners, squirming to bust out.

You can hear it on those first singles by the new upstarts at Chess; when Chuck Berry> and Bo crashed the party, it was like someone had flung writhing livewires onto the dance floor crowd. There is a jolting rush and breakneck intensity to those songs that had never been there before. Suddenly the Blues seemed plodding by comparison. It is alive, rude, both mean and joyful. So fast and so fuzzed out it made everything else trip over itself tepidly. What the hell was this? That hard stomping snarl of "Maybelline", that thundrous gallop and phasing tremolo of "Bo Diddley".

BOOM-da-boom-boom, Da-BOOM-Boom. Dag!

Little Walter, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry (1986)

Bo's sound was the past and the future. The crossroads.

It was tribal drumming under an eerie richochet of distorted guitar. In your midnight bedroom, preening your ear covertly to the alien voices sparking out of the radio static, it transported you to some beyonder badlands where mad hooves cascaded like hailstones. BOOM-da-boom-boom, Da-BOOM-Boom. Above this thunderground shimmered an aurora of electronic reverb. Through this nether void Bo would ride hard on sheer pride. He was ego ("I walked 47 miles of barbed wire/ Wear a cobra snake for a necktie"), identity ("I'm a man/ I spell M-A-N"), insane ("You shoulda heard just what I seen"), and hilarious ("I came into this world playing a gold guitar!").

Surging sidesaddle was maraca man Jerome Green, comedic foil and timekeeper. And whiplashing with him lick for lick was Peggy "Little Bo" Jones, her guitar striding beside on "Roadrunner", "Pills", and "Hush Your Mouth". After her came Norma-Jean "The Duchess" Wofford to kick more ruckus. And Bo, a cracked inventer and inverter of sound with his square-box guitar he cobbled from stray junk. These incomparable compadres carried him through more classics than you can shake a drumstick at.

L: Peggy "Lady Bo" Jones;
R: Norma-Jean "The Duchess" Wofford

To reiterate, the M-A-N was adult enough to respect the women. Female guitarists of the era often got spotlight specifically as the singing front, but weren't routine band members. While Bo Diddley could have hogged the light, he instead had a woman in his band as his equal sparring partner, not once but twice. Bo knew that well-rounded inclusion was the right way to go.

That persona. That rhythm. That attack. That fusion of the earthy and the eerie. That booming voice on "I Can Tell", that delirious giggle on "The Story of Bo Diddley", that gutteral sneer on "Oh Yea", those mournful highs on "Mona". What kid wouldn't fall in love with that? And around the world many did and would for years and years. The story of Bo Diddley would amplify every time a new movement plugged in a guitar.

When someone recently mentioned him in relation to the Blues, Bo calmly but clearly set them straight. "I'm not a Blues artist. I'm a Rock'n'Roller."

You're the Man. M-A-N.

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2
Diddley Daddy:
The Disciples of Bo Diddley

Bo Diddley and The Clash


BO DIDDLEY
by Tym Stevens
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All songs in order from the 1950s to today.

40 hours and seven decades of music
influenced by Bo Diddley, including:
Buddy Holly • Muddy Waters • Etta James
Chuck Berry • The Coasters • Gene Vincent

Dick Dale • The Beatles • Booker T + The MGs
Lonnie Mack • The Crystals • The Byrds
The Yardbirds • The Animals • The Small Faces
The Supremes • Marvin Gaye • The Miracles
The Who • Bob Dylan • The Sonics
Stevie Wonder • James Brown • Cream
Sly And The Family Stone • The Meters • CCR

Led Zeppelin • Funkadelic • T.Rex
Capt. Beefheart • The Band • Al Green
David Bowie • The Stooges • The Stooges
ZZ Top • Roxy Music • Eno • Pointer Sisters
Elton John • Fleetwood Mac • Queen
The Clash • The Police • Iggy Pop
The B-52's • Cheap Trick • Motorhead
Blondie • Chic • The Slits • Gang Of Four

Pretenders • Talking Heads • John Lennon
The Kinks • The Go-Go's • Elvis Costello
Girlschool • Bruce Springsteen • Minutemen
The Cure • Los Lobos • Echo + The Bunnymen
The Smiths • Love And Rockets • Wire
Crowded House • Beastie Boys • U2
Happy Mondays • Stevie Ray Vaughan • Prince
Billy Bragg • Jane's Addiction• fireHOSE

The Gories • Lush • Thee Headcoats
Public Enemy • Throwing Muses • PJ Harvey
Meat Beat Manifesto • Cowboy Junkies
Consolidated • Tori Amos
Cocteau Twins • Living Colour • Lenny Kravitz

The White Stripes • Gorillaz • The Roots
Outkast • Fatboy Slim • Rihanna
Gogol Bordello • Tune-Yards
Thee Oh Sees • Amadou And Mariam

Ty Segall • Lykke Li • Las Pistolas
Summer Twins • Django Django • Bleached
Pond• Foxygen • Nicole Atkins
Whitehorse • Thee Tsunamis • The Coral
Dustaphonics • Los Mambo Jambo
Black Joe Lewis • Janelle Monae • Habibi
Holly Golightly • Bananagun • Larkin Poe
and many, many more!


The Riff that will not fade away.

Bo's 1950s friends were the first to jibe handily with the hand jive. Buddy Holly>, like Bo from South America ("south Texas"), was among the first to give Bo the thumbs up weaving his rhythm into "Not Fade Away". Johnny Otis, famed Jump Jive bandleader, bumps it lively with his "Willie And The Hand Jive", Elvis Presley with "His Latest Flame", and Mac Rebbenack (a.k.a., Dr. John) with "Storm Warning".

Gene Autry, Buddy Holly, Muddy Waters, Etta James

Bo had transmuted Gene Autry and now others were transfiguring him. This is that fluid moment in creativity when a unique riff or beat transcends to a consensual pattern -like the shuffle, the rhumba, the bossa nova, and the waltz- which pollinates laterally. Lawyers, accountants, and separatists aside, this is inevitable and natural. A creator does deserve credit for their efforts or innovations. But then every good idea takes on new lives in the responses of others.

Creativity is intrinsically cyclical and progressive, a crossroads relay of past and future. Muddy Waters's "Hoochie Coochie Man" (1954) had inspired Bo's "I'm A Man". Muddy then answered Bo's song with his "Mannish Boy" (1955), and later they did "I'm A Man" together with Little Walter (1967). And Etta James set them all straight with "W-O-M-A-N".

While Bo took great pains to distinguish himself as a Rocker instead of a Blues man in the press, his influence still reverberated through bluesers anyway. Straight away with peers like Howlin' Wolf, Junior Wells and Buddy Guy, Slim Harpo, and John Mayall And The Bluesbreakers. And across the decades with noted successors like Delbert McClinton, Koko Taylor, Roy Buchanan, Marcia Ball, and Joe Ely. Nurtured by the Blues, Bo in turn bolstered the Blues.

Blues and Country have always been intertwined, constantly trysting into new forms. Pulsing with Bo's beat were rural stalwarts like guitarist extraordinaire Chet Atkins, balladeer Tom Rush, and sassy Jeannie C. Riley. It throbbed in the pensive Folk of Simon And Garfunkel, and the devil-may-care Country Rock of The Flying Burrito Brothers. In time, Bo's surge coursed through notables like Jerry Reed, Jim Stafford, and songwriter Townes Van Zandt.

As the original big bang of Rock> surged into early-'60s Surf>, Bo's sense of rhythmic propulsion undergirded the rumbling attack of Surf and Hot Rod instrumentals. Rolling through the tidal roar were Dick Dale's "Surfin' Drums", The Imps "That'll Get It", and Lonnie Mack's "Memphis". Bo's crosscurrents lifted acts like guitar acts like The Sentinels, Surfers De Los Campeones, and The Bobby Fuller Four. Our man Bo even did a 1963 album responding back called "Surfin' With Bo Diddley". (Ax murderer Link Wray foreshadowed Punk in 1962, churning through a hyperspeed "Bo Diddley" like his sleeves were burning.) In covers, homages, or in sonic spirit, Bo's influence was now encoded in Pop's DNA.

For proof of that in unexpected places, listen to the Beat's cadence in Leonard Bernstein's score for WEST SIDE STORY (1960), in the song "Act 1: America".

Lonnie Mack, Marvin Gaye, Olivia Molina, The Pretty Things

It hipshakes through Soul> in hits like The Dixie Cups' "Iko Iko", The Shangri-Las' "Simon Speaks", and Shirley Ellis' "The Clapping Song" (and Olivia Molina's cover version, "Juego De Palabras"). BOOM-da-boom-boom, Da-BOOM-Boom. King Curtis, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Ben E. King, Doris Troy, Roy Head. And later in the '70s, still oscillating unexpected behind O.V. Wright, The Jackson 5, Lloyd Price, Betty Wright, The Spinners, and Willie Hutch.

It became the go-to beat at Motown for awhile, propelling classic songs like Smokey Robinson And The Miracles' "Mickey's Monkey", Marvin Gaye's "Baby, Don't You Do It", The Supremes' "When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes", and The Marvelettes' "He's A Good Guy (Yes, He Is)". It was used so much, they had to vary up and re-interpolated it as a new signature beat, starting with The Supreme's "You Can't Hurry Love", which launched hundreds more songs.

England always values our culture better than we do. From their perspective the Blues masters and the rocker rogues were gods raining from Olympus in sheaths of steam. The resultant mid-'60s British Invasion> was the second ring of the big bang, and Bo's beats pulsared through it as much as Chuck's comet flares. You can clearly hear Bo's influence on The Beatles' "I Want To Be Your Man", written for The Rolling Stones, who then had a big big breakthrough covering Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" with extra emphasis on Bo's beat. Their tougher older brothers, The Pretty Things, took their name from Bo's song and his rhythm for their classic "Rosalyn". (Then later, Bowie borrowed their name for three songs and covered "Rosalyn"!) The Animals made up a fake tale of meeting him in their homage to his mythos, "The Story of Bo Diddley". The Liverbirds' sent a father's day card covering "Diddley Daddy". Manfred Mann (covering The Exciters) practically name-check him with their hit, "Do Wah Diddy Diddy". The thump pumps up other songs by The Moody Blues, Donovan (Scotland), and Them (Ireland).

Bo's strut further disordered borders worldwide with artists like Jacques Dutronic (France), Owe Thornqvist (Sweden), Les Chaussettes Noires (France), The Rattles (Germany), Moğollar (Turkey), Lone Star and Els Xocs (Spain), Los Rockin' Devils (Mexico), Roland Alphonso and Laurel Aitken and Dawn Penn (Jamaica), and The Brims (Indonesia). A rhythm is beyond limits, language, time, fashion, and expiration.

As the bluesy vamps of The Stones, The Yardbirds, The Animals, The Kinks, and The Pretty Things snarled their way into the emerging Garage Rock>, Bo's legacy blew cheap speakers in rehearsals worldwide. English bands like Stovepipe No. 4 ("Pretty Thing"), Rey Anton And The Peppermint Men ("You Can't Judge a Book"), and The Who (Jerome's maracas live in their "Magic Bus"). American bastards like The Juveniles ("Bo Diddley"), the garage gods The Sonics ("Diddy Wah Diddy"), and The Preachers (who throw some immortal 'twist-and-shreik!' into their "Who Do You Love" cover) all bomped the bomp.

If "Johnny B. Goode" was now the Rock in all solos, then Bo's beat was the Roll in all rhythm sections. Thee Midniters, Buffalo Springfield, The Strangeloves, The 13th Floor Elevators, The Remains, The Shadows Of Knight, El Xocs (Spain), and The Iguanas (with young Iggy Pop on drums).

Once a template becomes universal, it expands beyond its mandate. Besides covers and clones, the Beat was now splicing into interpolated cousins, the natural course of all creative response. Most famously, The Strangeloves stomped the streets with their beat repeat "I Want Candy", a hit that would keep on hitting in future cover versions. The Byrds married The Beatles' "I've Just Seen a Face" to Bo's beat with their "Don't Doubt Yourself, Babe". Bob Dylan brought it all back home to Jerome with "Maggie's Farm".

Bob Dylan, The Strangeloves, The Who, The Stooges

The roar and fuzz of Garage Rock splayed out into the multi-facets and flange of Psychedelic Rock>, and the Love-In for Bo's tremolo was abstracted into new songs by Jefferson Airplane, The Chocolate Watchband, The West Coast Experimental Band, and Traffic.

As the boisterous social revolution escalated in the late'60s, music got rougher and wilder and angrier with Hard Rock. In came insurgents like Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band, screaming Howlin' Wolf in Bo's clothing with their corrosive cover of "Who Do You Love". Soon enough The Doors expanded that song into a panting rant in panavision. Hard on their heels bristling with fury and ennui were the The Stooges with their homages "Little Doll" and "1969", stripping the excesses of Psychedelia down to a primal, throbbing buzz that would invent Punk. (In later years, Iggy wrote a loving essay about Bo for Rolling Stone magazine: "Bo's hands are about a foot long from the wrist to the tip of the finger. He really controls his guitar." It's all about concentrated chaos.)

If the Beat had been about dance or groove before, it was now about sex and triumph. It is the thunderous hooves of artists such as Cream, Steppenwolf, MC5, and Flower Travellin' Band, cresting over the ridge on stallions, screaming. Or cruising on a chopper, flipping you off.

As the revolution absorbed in to society to seed the future, a back-to-basics perspective took over the new decade. As early-'70s Glam vamped on '50s Rock>, David Bowie expressed that pulse as "Panic In Detroit", The New York Dolls spilled their ills with his "Pills" in 1973, and Bo footed the platform for songs by Fancy, Roxy Music, Brian Eno, and The Sweet. His pattern also pulsed laterally in unexpected parts, like Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" and Jethro Tull's "Aqualung", in the Funk-Rock of Mother's Finest and the Swamp Rock of Little Feat and the Prog-pomp of Queen.

David Bowie, Talking Heads, The Slits, Bow Wow Wow

Clearing out all excesses, Pub Rock stripped everything back to '50s Rock and '60s Soul basics. The English movement was spearheaded by dissenters like The Count Bishops, Dr. Feelgood, The 101ers (with Joe Strummer), and Kilburn And The High Roads (with Ian Dury), profiling like Teddy Boys and twisting like Northern Soul 45s. As it was endlessly reverbed, Bo's Beat became a signifier of furtile evolution, the metronomic verse of a griot telling the history of Rock and all of its turnovers.

When late-'70s Punk turned the basics into bombast, they were also aflame with the direct fury of '50s Rock. Chuck and Bo's riffs ricocheted through reverb in squalid alkie-holes planetwide all over again. On The Clash's first tour of America, they insisted that Bo Diddley be their opening act. "Every time I look at him, my jaw just drops," said Joe Strummer. It was a middle-finger salute to their coked-and-clueless record label and a laurel leaf to their Dionysus. Their songs "Hateful" and "Rudie Can't Fail" pound with the maestro's pulse. It quickens the blood of compatriots in subversion like Johnny Thunders, Generation X (with Billy Idol), Buzzcocks, The Fall, and Pretenders. That ferocious pound echoes again in Minutemen's "Case Closed", Husker Du's "Hare Krsna", and songs by X, Throwing Muses, and Jane's Addiction. In 1987 the Jesus And Mary Chain declared in wax their proclamation that "Bo Diddley Is Jesus".

The impulse of PostPunk bands to marry primal polyrhythms with sharp abrasive textures, such as The Slits, Talking Heads, Gang Of Four, Bush Tetras, Adam And The Ants, and Kleenex/LiliPUT, is Bo's crossroads recrossed again.

As the '80s went progressively slicker than oil wells, multiple creative undergrounds rejected it for the raw, the classic, the felt. The Beat animated Power Pop acts such as Nick Lowe, The Knack, 20/20, The Soft Boys (with Robyn Hitchcock), Cheap Trick, The Romantics, and The dB's. It kicked up new ground in Roots Rock by The Del Fuegos, Lone Justice, Buckwheat Zydeco, and Steve Earle. There it is stalking Rockabilly by new cats in the alleys like Sleepy LaBeef, Hank C. Burnette, The Bopcats, The Meteors, Big Daddy, and Chris Isaak. That's it spiking the Psychobilly of miscreants like Batmobile, Torment, and Furious, and the Trashabilly of Flat Duo Jets, Bodeco, Oblivians, and Dex Romweber. Colluding secretly with The Cure, The Smiths, and Billy Bragg. Electrifying the Go-Go with new Garage Rock from The Milkshakes, Thee Mighty Caesars, The Times, Hoodoo Gurus (Australia), and The Smithereens. It has become the underlying codex of cadence.

The mainstream wasn't safe either. Bow Wow Wow made it big on their cover version of a swipe, with The Strangeloves' "I Want Candy". '80s kids didn't know to judge a beat by its cover because it was too busy moving their backsides. And did so again with George Michael's "Faith". It strobes through Lyndsey Buckingham's swirling "Loving Cup" and The Smiths' amazing "How Soon Is Now" U2's heart bumpathumped with "Desire". Chris Isaak may have been Elvis Orbison, but he still brought it to Jerome with his take on "Diddley Daddy" in '89. Guns'n'Roses free-bass'ed it as "Mr. Brownstone".

In HipHop, Public Enemy's radical cocktail of hardbumping rhythms with sheets of flanging noise is the very spirit of Bo. (Chuck D is a deep fan of the pychedelic Chess albums of Wolf and Waters, and Bo in his SM fetish belts on 1970s "Black Gladiator" cover freaked him out). Deconstructing the past reconstructs the future, as proven by acolytes like 3rd Bass, Consolidated, and Fatboy Slim.

Public Enemy, The White Stripes, Janelle Monae, The Love Me Nots

As a pattern beat or polyrhythmic approach, Bo's hooves steadily galloped through the '90s and '00s. The beat was a pathway, of knowing where you came from to know where to go next. And to spite any currently popular trails you didn't want to go near. Whether Dick Dale, The Gories, Shonen Knife, The White Stripes, Gorillaz, 54 Nude Honeys, tUnE-yArDs, Ty Segall, Janelle Monae, Bleached, or The Love Me Nots, the original primal beat of Rock'n'Roll strode on and on...

It's that rhythm. The riff that will not fade away. BOOM-da-boom-boom, Da-BOOM-Boom. This is the continuing story of Bo Diddley...

"Bo Diddley", by Peter Blake (1963)


© Tym Stevens

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See Also:

• Revolution 1950s: The Big Damn Bang of Rock'n'Roll!

• 1950s PUNK: Sex, Thugs, and Rock'n'Roll!

• CHUCK BERRY: The Guitar God and His Disciples

• BUDDY HOLLY: Rock's Everyman and His Disciples

• LITTLE RICHARD: The Voice of Rock and His Disciples

• JIMMY REED: The Groover of Rock, From Motown To Sesame Street

_____________________

• 1950s Rock, A: The '60s Disciples, with Music Player!

• 1950s Rock, B: The '70s Disciples, with Music Player!

_____________________

• The Real History of Rock and Soul!: A Manifesto, A Handy Checklist

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ROCK Sex: "I Wanna Be Your Dog!" - The Stooges > Sonic Youth > Las Vulpes > Nirvana

ROCK Sex comes unleashed.

_______________
The original...

THE STOOGES -"I Wanna Be Your Dog" (1969)




New York Punk.
RAMONES -"Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" (1976)


London Punk.
SID VICIOUS -"I Wanna Be Your Dog" (1978)


No Wave.
SONIC YOUTH -"I Wanna Be Your Dog" (1983)


Spanish Punk.
PARALISIS PERMANENTE -"Quiero Ser Tu Perro" (1982)



Spanish Punk.
Instead of "come on" she may be saying "cabron", which is even better...

LAS VULPES -"Me Gusta Ser Una Zorra" (1983)


Rock.
JOAN JETT -"I Wanna Be Your Dog" (1988)


Grunge.
NIRVANA -"I Wanna Be Your Dog" (live, 1989)


Alt-Country.
UNCLE TUPELO -"I Wanna Be Your Dog" (circa 1990)


Industrial.
MISS KITTIN AND THE HACKER VITALIC -"I Wanna Be Your Dog" (live at 2002 Montreux Jazz Festival, 2002)


Electro.
EMILIE SIMON -"I Wanna Be Your Dog" (live, 2010)


Dream Pop.
KATY GOODMAN + GRETA MORGAN -"I Wanna Be Your Dog" (2015)



Go ahead, chant with me:

"Now I wanna read your Blog/ now I wanna read your Blog...!"



© Tym Stevens

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See Also:

• DON'T TREAD ON ME: The Original Punk of 1960s Garage Rock, with Music Player!

• ROCK Sex: Rock Revolution = Busted Amp! - Ike Turner > Burnette Trio > The Kinks > The Beatles

• "You Can't Hurry Love" - The Supremes > Iggy Pop > The Jam > David Bowie

• "Nightclubbing" - Iggy Pop > Human League > Grace Jones > Nine Inch Nails > Oasis


• The Real History of Rock and Soul!: The Music Player Checklist

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DON'T TREAD ON ME: The Original Punk of 1960s Garage Rock

...with 2 Music Players!

The Roots of GARAGE ROCK


"I heard Papa tell Mama, 'Let that boy boogie woogie/ Coz it's in him, and it's got to come out'!"-John Lee Hooker

Robert Johnson had paved the crossroads for the Blues, between the sacred and the profane; his acolytes hit another intersection, between the acoustic rural past and the electric urban future. After the great exodus from the depleted Southern states to the promise of Chicago, Detroit, and other Rust Belt cities, African Americans faced new paths of possibility or peril (as did their Dustbowl Days peers who went to Golden California). Muddy Waters was the first Blues maestro to go all electric in 1948, arguably creating the first Rock'n'Roll band. On his heels were Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker. It was a tougher, terser metallic blues, coarsened and amplified by the city. And by a divided soul in play. Compare the liberation-in-dance lyric above with Hooker's murderous vibe in his "Mad Man Blues", over jarring chords played like a stabbing: "I'm gonna take you down by the riverside/ Hang you a knot, baby, by your neck/ I got the madman blues". John uses the metaphor of a betrayed love to vent his fury at the racist structure he is struggling in. It's this crossroads that is at the heart of Rock; between ecstasy and agony, between celebration and revolt, between the hereafter and heresy.

American youth, like all, revelled in their frills while questioning their worth. When was a sleek car just a slick scam, when was a dusty old tune actually a raw truth? 50's Rock'n'Roll threaded this maze with every dance step. To the public at large this dance rebellion just looked like juvenile delinquency. But the harder they clamped down, the more kids wanted to be James and Marlon, Jayne and Bettie, a Jet or a Shark...wanted to rumble.

Into England rode the Teddy Boys. The working class were just a coiled calm. They thirsted for the driven, the free, the real. American musics were dispatches from the landscape of the possible. Tough youths sculpted brillo coifs, rode cycles, and donned Edwardian longcoats (hence "Teds"). These Rockers wanted the brutal, the intense, the unvarnished. Meanwhile other youth wanted the New now. They wanted to kill mundanity with modernity. The Mods wore the sharpest newest threads, rode million-mirrored Vespas, and wiggled to Soul music in clubs. Caught in the median were the Beat bands, who retired their suits by '65 under Mod influence while reclaiming more and more of the hard bristle of 50's Rock. (Asked if he's a Mod or a Rocker in A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, Ringo replies, "I'm a mocker.")

This schizoid temperament in Rock -between rough past and sleek future, the raw and the refined- was now international. From this would emerge a new hybrid trend that would effect the music's future forever.



GARAGE ROCK 1965-1966


In America, frat bands like The WAILERS had taken Little Richard's ferocity, welded it to Link Wray's rumble, and terrorized Seattle dance halls. Their rivals The KINGSMEN were the first out the gate to record "Louie Louie". They'd sped up the Jamaican ode and slurred the words to disguise they didn't know them. It was a cheeky triumph of attitide over aptitude, and blueprinted the music later called "Garage" or "punk music" (by the time Lenny Kaye compiled the seminal NUGGETS album in 1972). Harder than anyone were The SONICS, whose barbed guitar and vocals could strip paint. (Their 45 of "Have Love, Will Travel" later played continuously on the jukebox in the SEX shop as McClaren and Westwood were midwiving the Sex Pistols.) Not to be outdone, UK acts like The ROLLING STONES, The ANIMALS, The KINKS, and The YARDBIRDS ramped up the clang and swagger in their blues. After the British Invasion returned America's music back to it supersonic, an estimated 63% of young US males were in budding bands in their garage, barn, or dorm room. (And many uncounted females, as well and as usual.) The sound was amateur, rough, and wild. Curt guitar, pounding rhythm, farfisa organ shrills, and the voice usually shouting, sneering, or jive drawling discontent with dumb love.

American garage rock was full throttle with no highway. It was happening off most of the record industry's radar, on nowhere labels and lost 45's, and the wilderness of hole-in-the walls with PA's. Maybe it didn't get killed because they didn't see it coming. Crazed Texans like The SEEDS and The 13th FLOOR ELEVATORS; The MUSIC MACHINE, dressed all in black and shades with one glove; The MONKS, former soldiers with monk haircuts frothing apocalypse; DAVIE ALLAN & The ARROWS throwing fuzzed-out biker anthems like molotov cocktails; DEAN CARTER, splicing Rockabilly and Garage in his carpet-walled living room studio; and Char Vinnedge leading her all-female LUV'D ONES on a assault that got darker and more abrasive as it went. These people acted like there was no tomorrow but they had to get there yesterday.

The Pleasure Seekers.

But then, DYLAN. His forefather Woody Guthrie had scrawled "This machine kills fascists" on his battered guitar; likewise, Dylan emerged from the early 60's Folk boom as a tonic to vacuous industry Pop. But The Beatles had now reignited his secret love of Rock. Seeing the British retool US roots music, he went electric with the aptly-titled BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME. Too damn mercurial to remain the Protest King, Bob went intensely surrealistic, spitfiring cryptic barbs like Kerouac with the madman blues. Garage bands couldn't match the wordplay but they sure got the attitude. Their immature tirades against girlfriends shifted gears into social discontent. "I know of nothing else that buggggs me," seethed Australia's The EASYBEATS, "more than working for the rich man." From New Zealand came The BLUESTARS with "I've gained a label as an angry young man/ because I don't fit into the Master Plan." KIT & The OUTLAWS snarled "People walkin' round on me and they stomp my name in the ground/ Don't tread on me! Coz I wanna be free!"

The tension kept intensifying. Before rec execs could spit their martini, rock'n'roll was turning into rawwwwk. The WHO declared their generation with technology while tearing it to shreds. Fuzz chords corroded factory-fresh studio speakers. Brutal rhythms dropkicked amps like Bo Diddleysaurus Wrex. Weird echo and flange distorted state-of-the-art mixes. Madmen now menaced the airwaves from hot wax as fellow freaks around the world responded in kind. The DOORS, BLUE CHEER, CREAM, The CREATION, The YARDBIRDS with Jimmie Page. And then a student of Seattle and the South named JIMI HENDRIX landed in London. With him he brought the whole raw history of the blues and a futuristic clang louder than gods. He is the axis, bold as love, the crossroads from Garage into all Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Punk, Grunge, and Garage Revival to come.

"Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command/ It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls..." -Dylan



© Tym Stevens

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See also:

• 1950s PUNK: Sex, Thugs, and Rock'n'Roll!

• The Legacy of LOUIE LOUIE, with Music Player!

• The Pedigree of PETER GUNN, with Music Player!

• BEATLESQUE Songs: 1966-esque, with Music Player!

• HERE IN PURPLE VELVET NOW: The Psychedelic Revolution, with 2 Music Players!

• WOMEN OF ROCK: The 1960s, with 2 Music Players!

• ROCK Sex: Rock Revolution = Busted Amp! - Ike Turner > Burnette Trio > The Kinks > The Beatles


_____________________

• "Evil Hearted You" - The Yardbirds > Pixies

• "I CAN'T EXPLAIN" - The Who > David Bowie > The Clash > Fatboy Slim > The Hives

• The Kinks > Sex Pistols > The Kinks


• The Real History of Rock and Soul!: A Music Player Checklist

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The Pedigree of PETER GUNN

...with Massive Music Player!

RockSex
now brings you the actual, all-inclusive history of Rock'n'Soul music, with Music Players.
▶ Music Player Checklist


Spotify playlist title=
PETER GUNNThis is a Spotify player. Join up for free here.


This Music Player contains 5 hours of covers, clones, and cousins of "Peter Gunn",
from 1958 to today in chronological order, spanning all musical genres.

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The Pedigree of PETER GUNN

"Louie Louie" is a riff that underlines the whole history of Rock'n'Roll, and "Peter Gunn" shadows it on the same trail.

It was created by unusual supsects who would become the world's most wanted. Writer/director Blake Edwards created the 1958 TV show, bringing in Henry Mancini to compose the themes, who cloaked the worldly detective in a jazz-noir score of torrid sax and motor engine riffs. (They went on to make their fame with the Pink Panther films.) The pianist on the sessions was future film composer John Williams.>

It was a surprisingly sophisticated and yet street-lethal score for the fresh new world of television. In fact, with its liberal use of West Coast free jazz, it opened the door for using Jazz in movies and television from then on. The bestselling soundtrack became a hinge into modern jazz for mainstream audiences. And its fusion of dramatic intrigue and brashly sensual bop created the Crime/Spy Jazz sound, paving the grooves for the soundtracks of James Bond and all his clones.

More immediately, it captured the dangerous allure of the modern city in the fantasies of young people nationwide.

Craig Stevens (r), starring as Private Eye "Peter Gunn".

Most of all, it was the power of that striding strain that arrested their attention. "Peter Gunn Theme" was the sound of walking cocky, punching felons, chasing roadsters, talking cool, and entangling hot. It was steamy and unseemly, a grinding prowl, a hungry stare, a hip-grinding dance. It was the entirety of the forbidden side of adulthood that teenagers ached to have. "The Peter Gunn title theme actually derives more from rock and roll than from jazz," Mancini clarified.

Rock'n'Roll guitarist Duane Eddy snuck his way into the club first. His twang-bar style, with its extra heavy reverb, amped the walking bassline into a tougher strut on his 1959 cover version. While Mancini's was sassy horns swinging in a hot nightspot, Eddy's was horny young nightowls on the prowl down midnight tarmac. At least in teen fantasies, it was a sidedoor into the sleazy twilight underworld they longed to slink into. The hard clang instrumentals of Duane Eddy and Link Wray ushered in Dick Dale and Surf guitar, which kept the edgy heart of Rock'n'Roll alive into the British Invasion.

Duane Eddy; Sarah Vaughan; Dick Dale.

Beyond simply the riff, the moody sound evoked by Eddy mutated into a shroud of instant atmosphere. For instance, the mid-60's English bands The Lost Souls ("This Life Of Mine") and The Syndicats ("Crawdaddy Simone") aren't playing "Gunn" specifically, but their songs are clearly rewrites of its chords and sound. Same thing for instrumentals by Freddie King ("Hide Away") and James Brown ("The Scratch"). When The Monkees broke free of their producer to play on their own records, the first thing they tried was a shambling pastiche called "Peter Gunn's Gun". Its status as a standard in any upstarts' repertoire carried it through the rehearsal holes of the world. Somebody somewhere would always don its instant cool, no matter whether honest or bootleg. Jazz queen Sarah Vaughn sang a lyrical version called "Bye, Bye" in '64. Dick Dale, Jimi Hendrix, and myriad garage bands donned its trenchcoat for some midnight rambling.

In the 70's, as rock began rebelling against its overblown indulgences, the tight riff became crucial. It was like cutting to the chase with a switchblade. Boston's Jonathan Richman had admired the lethal lyrics and blunt buzz of the Velvet Underground; he and the Modern Lovers trawled the city's dusky deadends in Peter Gunn's roadster in 1974's "Pablo Picasso". (This song is most remembered for its immortal lines, "Pablo Picasso was never called an a$$hole/ not like you.") His terse hum would soon transport punks.

X-Ray Spex; The Cramps; The B-52's.

For punkers, this edgy sordid nightscape was their reality. It became a theme song where the usual suspects were now the heroes. You can detect it in the surging buzz of X-Ray Spex's "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo" in '78. The Cramps crimped that stalking stocatto for their mix of pychobilly, garage, and horror movies by mutating it into 1979's "Human Fly". Duane's rival, the original psychobilly Link Wray, sprungload it with new edge in his "Switchblade", with punkabillies nodding in approval. The B-52's relay that riff into an alien signal via throbbing satellite with 1979's "Planet Claire", cut through with the stabbing clang of silver surfer Ricky Wilson.

The Blues Brothers; Nina Hagen; REPO MAN soundtrack.

The BLUES BROTHERS movie (1980) may have done more to expose the song to a new generation that any other source; their version is fueled by the guitar of Steve Cropper and bass of Duck Dunn, of the legendary Booker T And The MG's. Conversely, out in some bleak no man's land, Bruce Springsteen hears it on his dashboard as "Mr. State Trooper", burning through the ebon byways with some bad menace in his heart. His stripped down acoustic seethes like a harrowing confession before something terrible happens. Also in 1982, German alien Nina Hagen germinated the riff with Captain Beefheart's rasp, quotes of Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust", and cascades of cosmic clang and shrill in "Iki Maska".

The title theme of the 1984 REPO MAN film, by Iggy Pop, has definite treadmarks of Peter's ride. To underscore the point, fellow acolytes Burning Sensations repo-ed Richman's carriage, putting a Duane Eddy kit on it in their "Pablo Picasso" cover for the same movie. This version is so popular that many thought it was the original.

The shamus haunts the darks of Bauhaus' "Hair Of The Dog", Front 242's "Body To Body", and L7's "Uncle Bob". Grandmaster Flash and Tthe Furious 5 flipped fresh spin on the theme with "Style (Peter Gunn's Theme)", where Flash honed back in on the horn riffs. The British Art Of Noise chopped that HipHop with some orchestral flourish, congas, and the hard twanging strut of the actual Duane Eddy himself in their "Peter Gunn", an alternative dance smash in 1986. Aussie rebels Midnight Oil called in the lawman's ghost to bust its country's guilty conscience over issues of Aboriginal land-rights with "Beds Are Burning", with the riff's phantom flickering through their 1988 breakthrough hit. (There's also brief chops of Chuck Berry's "Little Queenie" in there, too.)

The TWIN PEAKS soundtrack by Angelo Badalamenti.

Much of Mancini's original score haunted Angelo Badalamenti's brilliant music for the TWIN PEAKS TV series (1990); the clanging reverb takes possession of the title theme, while the fingersnapping hipster jazz tunes take their cues from Mancini tracks like "Brief and Breezy". Poison Ivy, the axe-slinging dominatrix of The Cramps, claims to own about every cover of "Peter Gunn" ever made; she puts her stiletto all the way through the floorboards in her ultimate version. Covertly, Peter dogs the footsteps of '90s era songs by Living Colour, Diamanda Galas, and The A-Bones.

England's vastly underrated Elastica, known for their chop shop tricks, trysted Peter with The Beatles' "And I Love Her" for a scintillating twist in their fuzzy stomp, "Love Like Ours" (2000). Iggy & the Stooges refueled their reunion in 2003 cruising Peter's night haunts with "Skull Ring", skewering the mugging partystars and glampires who have gentrified his beat. It's the propulsive bassline of The Strokes' "Juicebox" (2005). On the eternal trail, the flatfoot still pounds the beat of The Come Ons, Los Explosibvos (Mexico), and Django Django.

Have riff, will travel. That memorable hook and the atmosphere that surrounds it always resonate beyond the moment, transporting anyone who ever hears it, and forging new paths into the future.



© Tym Stevens

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See Also:

• The Legacy of LOUIE LOUIE, with Music Player!

• Shock Waves: How SURF MUSIC Saved Rock'n'Roll!, with 2 Music Players!

• JOHN BARRY: The Influence Of The JAMES BOND Sound On Pop Music, with 2 Music Players!

_____________________

• John Barry > Fatboy Slim

• "Misirlou!" -The Deep History of Dick Dale's Surf Classic

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