Movin' 'n' Groovin' - Duane Eddy
Eddy's first (and best) US chart entry ever (see last post), reaching number 75 in 1958, was also his first release produced and co-written by Lee Hazlewood. The intro is pure Chuck Berry, none the worse for that, and the disc sets the template for the future, complete with "twanging" guitar and terrific Steve Douglas sax solo.
When I was eight years old, my family was staying with my Granny in Worthing and I asked to be taken to a record shop. She led me to the "Music Department" in Woolworth's. They had a chart list, and I bought 3 or 4 "hits". When I got home and put them on the record player, they didn't seem to be quite the same as the songs I'd heard on the radio, but I played and sang along to them all the same. It transpired that they were all cover version of the original hits, released on Woolworth's own "Embassy" label performed by an stable of singers that included Rikki Henderson, Ray Pilgrim and Mike Redway. I wasn't too upset. I'd bought 4 singles on my one and only visit, and was delighted to find I was getting two hits per 45 as opposed to just one, as they were double "A" Sides.
One of the purchases was "Just Like Eddie" by Mike Redway. The original hit was by German singer Heinz. whose full name was Heinz Burt. He was the ex bass guitarist from the Tornados, a group most famous for their 1962 instrumental smash "Telstar". I used to think that the Eddie that Heinz was referring to in the song was Duane Eddy,
".....beneath the stars I play the guitar -
just like Eddie...."
but only recently discovered it was a tribute to Eddie Cochran (see https://www.unclestylus.com/single-post/2018/04/09/three-steps-to-heaven-eddie-cochran ) who'd died three years earlier in 1960. My mistake is understandable as the Heinz original does have some fairly "twangy" guitar by a fifteen year old Ritchie Blackmore (later of Deep Purple) no less.
The following year, while touring the US as support for Jerry Lee Lewis, Heinz regularly had cold baked beans thrown at him by audiences who thought he was cynically exploiting Cochran's death and also who, apparently, didn't like him because he was German - it was still less than 20 years since the second world war! And, of course, who thought it was a funny thing to do, given the most famous of his food retail namesake's 57 varieties.
Now that I think of it, it is quite funny.
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