In Defense of the Knockouts

The three Doo Wop Boxes are among my most treasured musical possessions, and Billy Vera does a fantastic job of annotating all 303 classic group harmony songs. It’s always bothered me, though, that he was so negative about the Knockouts. In his notes to their one big hit, Darling Lorraine, found in Box 2, Vera calls them a “Jersey Shore bar band” (true—no insult there), but goes on to say that in their few TV appearances, they “looked kind of seedy and old”—older than what he thought were their true ages, the early thirties. Darling Lorraine, which I had forgotten about until I heard it again on Box 2, was always a favorite of mine, and I felt badly that its creators had been sort of sleazy. Most painfully, Vera suspected that the record might have been a parody that listeners took seriously—so much for my teenage taste, I supposed at the time.

Recently, though, I heard a very different song by the Knockouts, which led me to do some further research. The admirable Funky16Corners blog posted their astoundingly over-the-top version of I’ve Got My Mojo Working (or Mo Jo, as they retitled it). It was later than, and totally different from, Darling Lorraine—but I like it a lot. It was released in 1964, five years after their one big hit, so they hadn’t just faded back to the Shore afterwards.

After some rummaging around, I found a decent history of the group here. It consisted of Bobby D’Andrea, vocals; Eddie Parente, guitar; Bob Collada, Piano; and Harry Venuta, drums, all from Bayonne or North Bergen, New Jersey. The accompanying photo indicated that, while not in the first bloom of youth, they weren’t necessarily as old as Vera thought. Indeed, a news clipping reproduced on the same site claimed that they were in their early twenties when Darling Lorraine hit it big. According to the clipping, it peaked out at #46 nationally. They were a Jersey Shore band (Seaside Heights!), but also performed at venues in such NJ metropoli as Lodi and Lyndhurst. They also stuck around on the recording scene for a few years and even recorded an album—Go Ape with the Knockouts (and on the album cover, they did look older and perhaps less than prepossessing).

I’ve been exploring the Knockouts’ oeuvre: Riot in Room 3C, a twangy instrumental that originally was the A side of the surprise hit Darling Lorraine; Rich Boy, Poor Boy, a very nice doowop ballad; Please Be Mine, a mid-tempo tune; and the aforementioned Mo Jo, which shows they could do a wide range of material and had some staying power. As for the idea that Darling Lorraine might have been a parody, artists sometimes hit the mark despite themselves, although I think their performance came from the heart.

And as for staying power, as of a few years ago, Bobby D’Andrea was still going strong on the oldies circuit—and sounding pretty good! Maybe he wasn’t that old after all.

Hey, if anyone finds a copy of Go Ape with the Knockouts while crate diving in some thrift store, I’m in the market.

Charles Sullivan: Time for Re-Entry

These days, historians generally view the Great Man theory of history as a simplistic and obsolete concept, but the music world hasn’t caught up yet. Take jazz trumpet players, for example. Satchmo, Dizzy, Miles, Clifford, Lee, Freddie, and (maybe) Woody are the crème de la crème, and anyone else is an also ran, an imitator―“the poor man’s [Satchmo, Dizzy, Miles, etc.]." It’s as if there’s no way to categorize other players except as geniuses or pallid imitators. Was Wilkie Collins the poor man’s Dickens? Maybe The Moonstone has more readers these days.

This mild diatribe brings me to Re-Entry, the reissue CD of Charles Sullivan’s 1976 WhyNot LP. WhyNot was a Japanese label that recorded a number of talented musicians who weren’t among the revered few on their respective instruments. Sullivan, who also recorded as Kamau Adilifu, has played with Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, and Roy Haynes and recorded with a host of other fine players. He also has had a solid career playing for Broadway shows and other more commercial settings. With all of that, though, he’s still not well known as a first-rate, creative artist – and that’s a shame.

Re-Entry starts off furiously with the title track, and Sullivan’s solo is blazing―he uses a combination of longer flowing lines and staccato phrasing to create a showpiece of hard bop creativity. Of course, with a rhythm section of Kenny Barron on Piano, Buster Williams on bass, and Billy Hart on drums, he has colleagues who both support and augment his efforts throughout. On Body and Soul, the band uses a glowering, mysterious opening to set the mood before launching into a gorgeous rendition of this classic ballad, and Sullivan, Barron, and Williams all make it work seamlessly. Carefree is a more medium-tempo outing, in which Rene McLean’s alto complements Sullivan’s sound (hearkening back to the first paragraph, McLean often is criticized for sounding like his dad, Jackie McLean, but I really love that off-kilter tone), while Sullivan employs his mute to good effect on Cricket’s Waltz, and McLean does a nice turn on tenor. The program finishes up with Mabe’s Way―a Sullivan composition, as are all of those on the album except Body and Soul. Bonus versions of the latter and Carefree round out the program.

Now that I’ve checked out Re-Entry, I’m interested in Sullivan’s two other outings as a leader―both available (but pricey). He’s an excellent and original talent and I hope he gets to record more in the future than he has in the past. If you want to hear a sample, try this.