"I like the way you walk. I like the way you talk. Susie Q."
Brilliant, brilliant rock recording, by Dale Hawkins.
Dale Hawkins, dead at 73. RIP.
With the recent death of Doug Fieger — of "My Sharona" — it's been a tough week for guys known for one great song about a girl's name. (Is there anyone else in that category?)
February 18, 2010
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Meade suggests Elliot Lurie, but I am sorry, you have to be way better than that to get into the Doug Fieger/Dale Hawkins death triad.
Elliot can live.
But quit playing that damned song!
Lead Belly for "Goodnight, Irene".
(Just kidding. But the Weavers struck gold with it shortly after Lead Belly died.)
Everly Brothers -- Cathy's Clown
How about John Fred's "Judy in Disguise"? He ever have anything else?
Do they all have to be dead...the whole group? A one time hit was by a group called The McCoys that sang Hang on Sloopy about a singer named Dorothy Sloop.
A most excellent song.
Oh man, that song brings back memories. There was this USO show after Operation Brute Force.
Johnnie Taylor and Disco Lady?
Oh -- please fix those apostrophe catastrophes
Dean Friedman had "Ariel".
Ariel is the best answer. I hope George lives deep in the bosom of suburbia.
Come On Eileen - Dexy's Midnight Runners.
One of the better scense in Apocalypse Now was the Suzy Q scene. RIP. Great song.
Off topic, but Little Miss Attila found this site which is funny.
The category is "one hit wonders" featuring a song about a girls name?
My entry:
Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners.
Kevin Rowland should watch his step.
Mozart was brilliant.
Ellington was brilliant.
But Dale Hawkins?
Brilliant????
A song I never tire of hearing. Unlike Rolling Stones.
Nor do I tire of watching a woman walk.
There's a more extensive article and obituary in the Shreveport (LA) Times, detailing Hawkins' ties to Shreveport and its musicians (James Burton is a native of, and lives in, Shreveport).
Here's the article that appeared on the front page:
http://tinyurl.com/ye56kf8
I was fortunate enough to see him in concert about 6 years ago at a small local blues festival. It was pretty amazing; that song is such a part of the fabric of rock and roll that you forget it has not been around forever.
I love, too, that the obituary published in the Times asked that "in lieu of flowers, please make memorial donations to the charity of your choice, or just help a struggling musician."
http://tinyurl.com/yeecqcm
RIP, what a genius,
Rita
"Layla," by "Derek and the Dominos," which has the mildly interesting feature that neither "Layla" nor "Derek" were the real names of the protagonists.
"Gloria," by "Them," with Van Morrison fronting.
"867-5309/Jenny," by "Tommy Tutone."
"Roxanne," by "The Police."
"Rosanna," by "Toto."
I think that'll do for now. But men, women, love, sex and music being what they are, there are a million of 'em, and a million more on the way.
Buddy Holly -- Peggy Sue
Forgive me, but I think we are looking for "one hit wonders", not simply songs about a girls name.
C'mon, Ann's talking about guys known for one great song about a girls name. Much more difficult than artists with lots of credits who also happened to sing a girl's-name song.
I can't believe I was scooped by Meade right off the bat with Brandy. (And what station do you hear it so often on, Ann?) I'll have to go comic with Antonio Monge (alternately Rafael Ruiz) and Macarena! Ay!
Meanwhile, the Suzies of the world are so over it.
Loved that song. Had a friend we all called Suzie Q.
Richie Valens - "Oh, Donna"
Buddy Holly - "Peggy Sue"
They died in the same plane crash along with the Big Bopper.
Brandy is what I call a button pusher. Whenever I hear the song on the car radio, I push the button for a different station. I try to push the button before the first word is uttered.
Some of the suggestions are missing a key factor, that the fame rest on that one song. So you can't suggest Buddy Holly or Sting, for example.
And the person should *not* be dead yet. I'm going on the theory that deaths come in 3s and speculating that there are particular individuals who need to be careful right now. That's why I said "Elliot can live." He doesn't fit the triad. "Brandy" just would be horrible put at the level of "Susie Q" and "My Sharona."
it's been a tough week for guys known for one great song about a girl's name. (Is there anyone else in that category?)
Is David Paich from Toto still kickin?
Thank you.
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo do do!
There's a port on a western bay and it serves a hundred ships a day....
DADvocate...Did Buddy Holly ever wake up Little Susy?
Screw the music, Limbaugh comes on in 6 minutes.
Does Ron Dante of "The Cuff Links" qualify with "Tracy"? They were definitely a one-hit wonder. However, I wonder if his leading of the "Archies" disqualifies him?
Almost all the musical people many of us boomers grew up with are gone.
Sigh
Okay, I'm going to say Jeff Barry, who cowrote "Sugar Sugar" (1969), should look both ways - twice - before crossing the street.
Some of the suggestions are missing a key factor, that the fame rest on that one song.
Whew. Neil Diamond can live.
Though there are probably some Red Sox fans that don't know that he sang anything but Sweet Caroline.
I saw Ann's first comment before I saw Meade's ahead of it. I thought my death sentence had been commuted.
Btw, Wilson Pickett did a pretty good cover of "Sugar Sugar" in 1970.
Who can ever forget "Patches" by Dickie Lee
OT: plane crashes into Austin building.
I was going on the assumption that the performer *must* be dead and was about to suggest "Judy In Disguise" by John Fred (& His Playboy Band), RIP 2005. Folks in my day thought they were a British Invasion group, though they were actually from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
But with Ann's clarification I offer this from my favorite 60s group composed solely of NYC record producers (The Strangeloves) - "I Want Candy". Another song every bit as memorable as Suzie Q & My Sharona, and later covered by the excreable Bow-Wow-Wow (barf-barf-barf). As far as I know Feldman, Goldstein and Gottehrer are all still alive & kickin'.
I would have loved to suggest "Venus" by The Shocking Blue but as you all well know their singer Mariska Veres was not only female but sadly now deceased.
"OT: plane crashes into Austin building."
Terrible!
"Shiloh" by Neil Diamond may have been his best song. I actually knew a girl by that name in high school. I chose to marry "Eileen" however.
Arthur Alexander, Anna -- comes much closer, I think, to your criteria than most of those proposed.
@Meade And how.
TG - I believe Wake Up Little Suzy was the Everly Brothers.
How about "Come On, Ilene" by Diexie's Midnight Ramblers?
I just finished checking the whole Motwown Lineup 50s 60s 70s range and it aint there.
It must be a country song.
Mozart was brilliant.
The first composer of the entirely predictable music that culminated in rock n roll.
The French, around 1900, had a habit of whistling along to premiere performances of new compositions that were too predictable, something they should have used for Mozart.
"Come on Eileen" - greatest one-hit wonder ever.
25 years ago! Just starting college when it came out.
At a football game in 2004, a local band doing halftime (because one university dumped their band, an excellent move!) did the song and I swear the whole stadium was shouting the chorus.
Lead singer/composer had some rough drug times after the 80s..
CCR's cover, not Hawkins rendition, is the Suzy Q that comes to mind.
"Bitch" by Meredith Brooks.
DADvocate...You are correct. My memory has an I-Pod shuffle on it today. Speaking of dead singers, how about Georgia On My Mind by Ray Charles...Georgia is also a girls name, maybe. In the 60s Ray used to play long engagements at The Peacock Lounge on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta. They admitted smart ass white boys too.
"Jenny 867-5309"
'Isadora Duncan' by Vic Chesnutt.
R.I.P.
"I can't believe I was scooped by Meade right off the bat with Brandy. (And what station do you hear it so often on, Ann?)"
I was hearing it on the Meade station... Meade kept playing the YouTube of it.
"Meanwhile, the Suzies of the world are so over it."
My mother often called me Susie Q (or just Susie). She had a thing of calling us by different names. She called my sister Dell "Pat" (or "Princess Pat"). and she called my brother George "Sam" (or "Sam the Cake Man").
"OT: plane crashes into Austin building."
Any chance Kevin Smith was in the plane ;)
@Althouse
Gran called my bombastic younger sister Susie Q. after Susie Q. Smith, the female "Archie", of the late 40'- 50's comics world.
Bobby Hebb "Sunny" (1966)
Still alive.
Wait.. Sunny was a guy.
DADvocate...My shuffle mind went again. The Royal Peacock was the name of the club Ray Charles played in Atlanta.
Hey I just heard Gordon Lightfoot assumed room temperature.
Did he have any songs about girls?
The Wreck of the Ella Fitzgerald?
Nope, Gordon's still with us.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/gordon-lightfoot-very-much-alive/article1473102/
the Meade station
Is that on Pandora?
Criteria: One hit wonder, hit was about a woman, signer still alive but old enough (or self destructive enough) to be a candidate to die soon.
Is that right?
(That last one is a bit gruesome, isn't it?)
I was thinking about Peter Noone and Mrs. Brown's lovely daughter, but then I discovered that he also recorded "A Kind of Hush," which maybe rules him out.
Nobody but me hates that song?
We loved this when it came on the radio. My personal fave....:)
Patricia
One guy who wrote famous movie themes & was famous by name only to insiders, was fortunate to have had Johnnie Mercer write the lyrics for his one really big "hit"
David Raskin Laura
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