10 more great Halloween novelty songs

DEoL's readers will recall that last year, on the final day of the annual Halloween Badvent calendar, I posted links to 10 of my favourite Halloween novelty songs. Well, by popular request, here's ten more to get the Halloween party going.

#10 - The Beast of Sunset Strip - Teddy Durant - this is the B-side of Durant's only 45, all the way from 1965 (the A-ide was 'The Night Stalker', which is also great and worth checking out). 'The Beast' has three writing credits, namely Mr Durant, Darrel Dee and one C. Francis, popularly believed to be the Coleman Francis, legendary director of 1961's The Beast of Yucca Flats starring Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson and guest actor in a number of Ray Dennis Steckler movies (Teddy was also the publicist for this flick). Anyway, as well as being released on 45, it was also included as a track on the superb 1967 compilation LP 'Mondo Hollywood' (the soundtrack to the Robert Carl Cohen film of the same name, in which Teddy appears as himself conducting an interview) credited to 'Terry & Darrell' with the writing credits including 'T. Charach', apparently Teddy's real surname, his first being Theodore. In real life Darrel (real name Daryl) was actually Teddy's brother: they recorded a spoof album called 'These Are the Hits, You Silly Savage!!' in 1967, which included covers of songs like 'These Boots Are Made for Walking' and 'Strangers in the Night'. Anyway, I digress. This is two minutes and twenty five seconds about monster drag racers, and it's a weird blast:

#9 - Cha Cha with the Zombies - The Upperclassmen - all the way from Inglewood, California come The Upperclassmen, a four piece doo-wop group active from the late 1950s to the early 1960s, when two members, Ritchie Rotkin and Arnie Marcus, split off to form The Rip Chords, who had a smash hit a few years later with 1964's 'Hey Little Cobra.' Anyhow, this song dates from 1959, and feels like the kind of tune you should be mixing a cocktail to, while firmly ensconced in your tiki bar:

#8 - Rockin' in the Graveyard - Jackie Morningstar - Willie Morrell Sr was born in Florida in 1938. By the time he was signed in 1957, his agent had given him his new 'Morningstar' title - and in 1959, he recorded his one and only single under that name. But Morningstar wasn't some dyed in the wool psych-rocker, despite what the song might sound like. 'Rockin' in the Graveyard' was the B-side to a soppy number called 'No Date' putting it very much in the novelty record category. But one listen to those primitive drums and scratchy guitar confirms, along with the background howls and screams, that this is one outta sight song. Written by Morrell himself, this is a blatant attempt to cash in on similar songs by selling "a million copies too." (hence his reference to Sheb Wooley's 'Purple People Eater' from the year previously).

By 1967, Morningstar had been dropped and he was plain ole Willie Morrell again, releasing a single entitled 'Brother, I'm Gettin' Ready' backed with 'I'm Making Plans to Be With Jesus.' Sadly those plans would have to wait until 2006 when Morrell died in obscurity at the age of 68, not knowing that his hit had sold more than a million copies via 7" re-releases and on numerous Halloween compilations:

#7 - Rockin' Bones - Ronnie Dawson - little Ronnie Dawson, with his blond buzzcut and high pitched voice, was 19 when he broke on the scene in 1959, first with the rather perky 'My Big Desire', which was followed by a must hear rousing little number called 'Action Packed' which found a whole new audience when it was featured on the soundtrack of Season 6 of The Walking Dead. His third single that year was the fabulous 'Rockin' Bones', all about a musician who, when he dies, wants first to be buried with his rock and roll records, then changes his mind and wants his body to be hung on a wall to show "the rotting gears of a bopping machine" (surely one of the finest lines ever heard on a rock 'n' roll single). Originally recorded in 1957 by Elroy Dietzel and The Rhythm Bandits (who recorded it rather differently), 'Rockin' Bones' was later covered by The Cramps, who reverted to Dietzel's version. Dawson revived his musical career in the 1980s, and his song 'Rockin' in the Cemetery', recorded in 1989, is also worth checking out:

#6 - The Monsters Hop - Bert Convy - Convy started off his extensive career as a singer in the 1950s and 1960s before branching out to become an actor in musical theatre (he was in the cast of Roger Corman's 1959 movie A Bucket of Blood) and then finally a game show host in the 1960s and 1970s. As a member of vocal group 'The Cheers' in 1955 he had a Top 10 hit with 'Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots.' 

The Monsters Hop, backed with 'The Gorilla' (also good but not really seasonal), was Convy's third, er, wax, released in 1958 and co-written by Convy and Robert Emenegger. I really like the song's driving beat and there's some great sax work combined with background weirdness. The B-side does include a reference to 'The Purple People Eater' but I'm still not including it.

#5 - The Monster - Bobby Please - probably one of the most batshit insane Halloween novelty records out there, and interesting not just for Please's execution (and the fact that the song kind of runs away from him at one point) but the very story specific nature of the lyrics, almost as if this was a sequel to an earlier song about his creation of the Frankenstein monster. Released in 1959 by 'Bobby Please and the Pleasers' as an A-side (the B-side was the more straightforward dance craze themed 'The Switch'). A Billboard review at the time concluded that 'the flip appears the money item.' Yeah, what do they know? Oh and two years before this Please had recorded a single titled 'Your Driver's License Please' in which he is harassed by the man when he's just trying to get frisky. No I know nothing about this bloke so I'm just padding the paragraph out with some random facts.

#4 - The Mortal Monster Man - The Savoys - The Savoys hailed from San Jose, California, and played throughout the bay area during the late 50s and early 60s.They comprised Albert Richie (lead vocals, piano), Beverly Soares (vocals, percussion), Chris Ray (lead guitar, vocals) and Bruce Hird (rhythm guitar, vocals). Their total output was three 7" singles between 1959 and 1960. The B-side of this 1959 single, called 'Watching the Sea,' emphasised the close harmony origins of the group, but the A-side comes from a different place altogether. From the slightly out of tune start to the singer's gruff oration about his rock and roll credentials, the more up tempo sound is possibly due to the addition of 'The Bella Tones,' the house band of Bella (the record label), on the disc.

#3 - Transylvania Twist - Baron Daemon and the Vampires - to 1963 we go for Number 3 in the chart. The bastardised Bela Lugosi impersonation adopted by Mr Daemon was the voice he used to make his living. For the Baron, or Mike Price to give him his birth name, was a popular TV horror host. His career started in radio, but Mike is best known for his "Good News" segment on WSYR 9 news on weeknights. Baron Daemon was a vampire-like character who hosted a late night movie show. He also became the host of a weekday afternoon children's show from 1962-1967. Price just retired in June 2008, but back in 1963, this record was a huge hit in the Syracuse area. The backing band on the record, The Vampires, were actually Sam and The Twisters, led by Sam Amato. Here's the Baron, socking it to 'em in 1993 where he revived the character (and the song) for one night only.

#2 - The Headless Horseman - Kay Starr - a version of this song, sung by Bing Crosby, was used in the 1949 Disney movie The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. Catherine Laverne Starks aka Kay Starr covered the song at around the same time, with slightly different lyrics. It was never released as a single and first cropped up on a 1998 compilation. There are no details of who wrote the song, but it's a favourite from childhood, so it's rather baffling how I remembered it from being a kid.

#1 - Dinner with Drac - John Zacherle - horror hosts weren't a feature of TV when I was growing up, mainly because any fright flicks shown on UK television were programmed way after the watershed, where adults wouldn't have really enjoyed a wisecracking thesp yacking on and on when all they wanted to do was watch the movie.

In the US of course it was a very different scene, with local TV stations needing personalities to draw ratings, and with 'creature features' regularly broadcast during the daylight hours. One of the most famous was John Zacherle, who between 1957 and 1960 hosted two different late night horror shows, 'Shock Theater' and 'Zacherley at Large.' Initially, he played 'Roland,' a ghoul who performed skits in-between moments in the film while speaking to his wife, a character who never exited her coffin. In 1958 he moved from Philadelphia's WCAU to New York's WABC, where he changed his name from Roland to Zacherley (the station added the "y" to his last name), and his show continued as if nothing was new.

Zacherle was also a recording star, releasing four albums and a number of novelty singles, of which 'Dinner with Drac' was the loopiest, and broke into the Billboard Top 10. To be honest, you probably only need to listen to one Zacherle song (they were all pretty much a muchness) but this is fine, fine, nonsense.

Happy Halloween...whatever you are!

10 great Halloween Novelty Songs

I've had a thing about Halloween novelty songs for a very long time. Last year I even guested on a radio show playing two hours of them, which you can hear here.

Anyhow as it's the glorious 31st I thought I'd give you the skinny on ten of my all time favourites - and they're not the classics, so don't worry, this is a 'Monster Mash' free zone.

#10 - Werewolf Watusi - Don Hinson & The Rigamorticians - a number of rather similar songs  saw the light of day (or should that be the darkness of the dungeon?) following the release and massive success of Bobby 'Boris' Pickett's 'Monster Mash' in 1962. 'Werewolf Watusi' wasn't a single as such - it was in fact a cover of an original song performed by Bobby Pickett and the Rolling Bones in 1964, so this is a cover version of a novelty record that pretty much copies the original. The culprit was actor/stand-up comedian/Las Vegas and Arizona DJ Don Hinson, clearly out to cash in (although WW was produced by Gary Paxton who also twiddled knobs on Bobby's 1962 hit). Hinson collected a whole load of these things together for his '64 LP 'Monster Dance Party' (best title on the album? 'Riboflavin-Flavored, Non-Carbonated, Polyunsaturated Blood'). But Pickett and Hinson's seemed to be a fairly amicable rivalry: Pickett in turn covered 'Monster Swim,' a track from Hinson's album written by Paxton, that same year. So many crummy Karloff impersonations, so little time.

#9 - Graveyard Rock - Tarantula Ghoul - Ms Ghoul's real name was Suzanne Waldron (1931 - 1982) all the way from Portland, Oregon, and this is probably my all time favourite Halloween novelty record. In her TG guise, Ms Waldron was host of the TV show 'House of Horrors' on Portland's KPTV station; the channel's bosses has seen Suzanne as a witch in a production of 'Macbeth' and were looking for their own version of Vampira (the Morticia Addams-alike hostess played by Maila Nurmi on a Los Angeles TV channel). As TG Waldron did her thing for two years, between 1957 and 1959. 'Graveyard Rock' which was actually the B-side to the inferior track 'King Kong', was recorded in 1958 at the height of her fame. Ms Waldron was quietly let go from her role when it was discovered that she was pregnant out of wedlock! She revived the TG persona a few times in the early 1960s, but her gothy flame was brief. Tarantula Ghoul, and Suzanne Waldron, both died at the tragically young age of 50 from cancer.

#8 - Whatever Happened to Eddie - Eddie and the Monsters - a break from all that 1950s and 1960s nonsense for a while. This rather extraordinary (and mercifully brief) two minutes of your life is the product of Butch Patrick aka Eddie Munster all the way from 1983. As well as tearing into the Munsters theme tune as the basis for the song, the lyrics go some way to explaining his, er, state of mind. The thirty year old former child actor had drifted slightly after achieving fame as a 10 year old in the long running series The Munsters, giving up acting in 1975 to work with his father. It was at this point he started to learn bass guitar, and eight years later the self referential 'Whatever Happened to Eddie?' appeared. Sadly this single was Mr Patrick's only vinyl output. In later years the stories of drugs and assault charges became the things he was better known for, but on listening to this, I'm thinking he was already on his way. Great video too.

#7 - The Lurch - Ted Cassidy - years before Butch cashed in on his Eddie Munster glory, Ted Cassidy was doing much the same. The 6' 9" tall actor was perfect for the role of Lurch the butler in the long running TV show The Addams Family, which aired for 64 episodes between 1964 and 1966. Slap bang in the middle of that run, Cassidy was persuaded into the recording studio in 1965 for a song which used as its inspiration an AF episode called 'Lurch Learns to Dance' where he does just that. The music was written by Gary 'Monster Mash' Paxton - clearly the go to guy for these sorts of things at the time - and Cassidy doesn't so much sing as lurk in the background uttering lines like "Satisfaction...jubilation!" in response to the singers who have successfully learned the dance (there is no guide how to do 'The Lurch' in the song, dance craze fans).

#6 - Screamin' Ball (at Dracula Hall) - The Duponts - the explosion of Halloween novelty songs in the late 1950s referencing the Universal classic monsters was in direct response to the syndication of those great movies to US TV in 1957 by Screen Gems, and shown on the 'Shock Theater' programme. Hosted by people like Vampira and the irrepressible Zacherley, this was the first time that a new generation of kids had been exposed to the Frankenstein monster, Dracula, The Mummy and The Invisible Man. Not only did this glut of classic horror inspire the late Forrest J. Ackerman to start up the influential 'Famous Monsters of Filmland' magazine, but it also sparked a rush of songs which named the creatures. The Jimmy Williams/Johnny Brandon penned 'Screamin' Ball,' the last of three singles from doo wop quartet The Duponts from New York, New York, was one of the first cash in novelty singles of this type: it also scores extra points for the sheer number of character references jammed into their two and a half minute tune. 

#5 - Transylvania Twist - Baron Daemon and the Vampires - another TV horror host cuts some wax! This guy was actually Mike Price, and he was picked up back in 1963 for WNYS, a Syracuse, New York TV station looking to develop their own horror show after purchasing a load of B horror/sci fi movies. Clearly inspired by Bobby 'Boris' Pickett's 'The Monster Mash,' released the previous year, the station felt like it was time for them to have a novelty single of their own. Taking a line from Pickett's song, with words by Hovey Larrison and music by Mike Riposo, and with musicians borrowed from local band Sam and the Twisters, they set to work, although apparently during recording the song morphed somewhat from the original composition to something more resembling The Twisters' recent single 'Fooba, Wooba John' which they'd had a hit with a couple of months previously. And I think it's this rather rough sound, almost an indie garage version of a novelty song, that I really like. And the B side of the single was called 'Ghost Guitars'!

#4 - House on Haunted Hill - Frank De Vol and His Orchestra - this brilliant mamba version of the theme to William Castle's 1959 terror classic House on Haunted Hill is two minutes of moody organ brilliance with a lush twangy guitar/string section. De Vol was actor Frank Denny (the De Vol name was used for his soundtrack credits, of which there are many). In the 1940s he was a musical arranger for stars like Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett and Doris Day, and went on to compose scores for many movies including Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964). This version of the original score, backed by a track called 'Hades,' is rather different to the original theme by Castle regular composer Von Dexter. Incidentally there was a surf version of the theme in 1963 by 'Kenny & The Fiends' (also in some releases 'Kenny and the Beach Fiends') which is also a DIY gas, but not as much of a gas as their surf adaptation of Poe's poem 'The Raven' (parts 1 and 2) the following year.

#3 - Vampira - Bobby Bare - many people assume Bare's 1959 rock and roll non hit is a tribute to the TV horror hostess. I'm not sure, but it's a very cool song. Bare heralded from Ohio, USA and throughout the 1950s tried to break into the rock and roll scene with songs like this (you could tell he wasn't hardcore - the B side of the single was a soppy ballad called 'Tender Years' with a distinct country and western feel that would herald the genre in which he became most successful). Along with the singer of #8, Bare and Butch are the only ones still with us - indeed Bare bco-wrote Norway's entry in the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest! I love the ad libbed line in this, "done scared me to death." We've all been there Bobby.

#2 - Graveyard - The Phantom Five - in true indie style this was the only record made by this great surf band, all the way from 1964, with a great sax break. The B side was 'Cool it!' so I think the 'Graveyard' reference might be more slang than horror. Anyway this Indiana quintet were Lani Allen, John Bolling, Thomas Davis, Richard Fortin & William Johanson. If anyone knows any more about the group let me know. But this is 2 minutes 37 seconds of cool surf fun, and not a raucous laugh in sight.

#1 - Do The Know It's Halloween? - North American Hallowe'en Prevention Initiative - we're bang up to date with our last entry (well 2005, so positively modern): this was a charity record inspired by 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' put together by an amazing array of artists, including Beck, Feist, Peaches, Russell Mael, Thurston Moore, Karen O and a heap of others. It reached number four on the Canadian pop chart, and all proceeds were donated to UNICEF - it also has an ace video, albeit rather low res (144, really!). According to the official press release, the song stemmed 'from a frustration with other benefit songs' misguided, somewhat patronising attitude, and Western-centric worldview.' Well done to them. And Happy Halloween readers!