Review: 'Bang! The Bert Burns Story: Official Soundtrack'

Producer/composer Bert Bern’s role in the Rock & Roll conversation tends to be limited to discussions of Van Morrison and Neil Diamond’s early career, but there’s a lot more to his legacy than “Brown Eyed Girl” and “Cherry, Cherry”. Berns wrote or co-wrote such timeless tunes as Solomon Burke’s “Cry to Me” and “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love”, Them’s “Here Comes the Night”, Freddie Scott’s “Am I Grooving You”, and Erma Franklin/ Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart”. He also produced such major records as The Jarmels’ “A Little Bit of Soap”, The Isley Brothers’ The Exciters’ “Tell Him”, “Twist and Shout”, The Strangeloves’ “I Want Candy”, and The McCoy’s “Hang on Sloopy”. That there is one impressive track record, my friends.

A new documentary called Bang! The Bert Burns Story apparently sets the record straight by telling Burns’s story, while its soundtrack is a stunning sustained blast of why that story is worth telling. There is not one bum track on this 20-track double LP. There isn’t even one track that deserves anything less than a sincere “Wow!” Relative obscurities such as two tracks by The Pussycats (making their long-playing debut), Morrison’s funky “Chick-A-Boom”, Lorraine Ellison’s gospel-like “Heart Be Still”, Bobby Harris’s “Mr. Success”, and Kenny Hamber’s “Show Me Your Monkey” join most of the classics mentioned above. The absence of any of Diamond’s early sides for Berns’s Bang Records seems a somewhat glaring oversight, but that does nothing to change the fact that Bang! The Bert Burns Story: Official Soundtrack is a knock out pop and soul compilation.

Psychobabble’s 20 Greatest One and No Hit Wonders of 1965!

Psychobabble’s 20 Greatest One and No Hit Wonders of 1965!

Tomorrow is October 1st, and that means Monster Movie Month will be returning to Psychobabble, and that means the Rock & Roll half of this site’s Jekyll & Hyde personality is going on hiatus. In the final Rock post until November, we’ll be taking a nice, long look at twenty phenomenal singles by twenty phenomenal one and no hit wonders released 45 years ago. These artists either only managed a single placing in the Top Twenty of Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart or never managed to get in there at all. So turn up the volume as loud as it will go and get ready to go-go to Psychobabble’s 20 Greatest One and No Hit Wonders of 1965!



20. “What’cha Gonna Do Baby” by Jason Eddie & the Centremen

Sweeping down from the cosmos with a burst of sci-fi organ, “What’cha Gonna Do Baby” by Jason Eddy & the Centremen is instantly identifiable as the work of producer Joe Meek. Meek is sometimes referred to as “the English Phil Spector,” both for his distinctive production style and his legendary madness (Meek’s life ended in a murder/suicide). Unlike Spector, Meek rarely worked with singers of the caliber of Darlene Love or Tina Turner. That Jason Eddy’s voice isn’t the strongest instrument matters little, though, as Meek swathes his sub-Gene Pitney croon in a luxurious shroud of otherworldly textures, making this single by the hitless Eddy and his Centremen a truly dramatic experience.

19. “The Rebel Kind” by Dino, Desi, and Billy

Considering their hopelessly unhip credentials as the sons of Desi Arnaz and Rolling-Stones-disser Dean Martin, Desi Jr. and Dino Jr. (joined by Billy Hinsche) had no right to cut a record as groovy as “The Rebel Kind”. Penned by freaky cult crooner Lee Hazelwood, this fuzzed out hunk of garage bubblegum outclasses Dino, Desi, and Billy’s sole top-twenty hit, “I’m a Fool”. No one would ever mistake these dewy teens for rebels, but that might not stop them from fruging madly to “The Rebel Kind”.

18. “Lies” by The Knickerbockers