Rip it Up

"Rip It Up" is a song written by Robert Blackwell and John Marascalco. It was first released by Bill Haley and his Comets and Little Richard in 1956. The Little Richard version hit number one on the R&B Best Sellers chart for two weeks and peaked at number seventeen on the pop chart." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rip_It_Up_(song)





Robert Blackwell - From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Blackwell

"Robert "Bumps" Blackwell (May 23, 1918 – March 9, 1985) was an American songwriter, arranger, and record producer, best known for his work overseeing the early hits of Little Richard, as well as grooming Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, Lloyd Price, Sam Cooke, Herb Alpert, Larry Williams, and Sly and the Family Stone at the start of their music careers. He should not be confused with another songwriter: Otis Blackwell.

Born Robert Alexander Blackwell in Seattle, Washington, he led a jazz group in the late 1940s that included pianist Ray Charles and trumpeter Quincy Jones. He moved to Hollywood, California to continue study composition, but he instead took a job at Art Rupe's Specialty Records as an arranger and producer. He worked with Larry Williams, Lloyd Price and Guitar Slim, as well as producing Little Richard's rise to stardom in 1955.

In addition to producing Little Richard's breakthrough hit "Tutti Frutti" following hearing him sing the song in the studio, Blackwell also produced Little Richard's other mid-50s hits, co-writing some as them as well, including: "Long Tall Sally"; "Good Golly Miss Molly"; "Ready Teddy"; and "Rip It Up". They all quickly became rock and roll standards, and have subsequently been covered by hundreds of artists including Elvis Presley, The Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

He also produced Sam Cooke's hit "You Send Me". Blackwell left Specialty in 1957, taking Sam Cooke with him to Keen Records. He was the West Coast A&R director for Mercury Records from 1959 to 1963, and produced Little Richard's gospel recordings for that label. He became Richard's manager and continued to work with him into the 1970s.

In 1981 Blackwell produced some songs for Bob Dylan's album, Shot of Love, including the title track.
Blackwell died at his home in Hacienda Heights in Whittier, California in 1985 of pneumonia."

John Marascalco - From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Marascalco

John Marascalco (born John S. Marascalso, 27 March 1931 is an American songwriter, who is most noted for his collaborations with Robert Blackwell. Marascalco had a hand in some of the big R&B and rock and roll hits of the 1950s and 1960s.


Together with Robert Blackwell, he wrote the songs "Good Golly Miss Molly", "Ready, Teddy", and "Rip It Up" made famous by Little Richard. Like Norman Petty with Buddy Holly, Robert "Bumps" Blackwell put his name on the songwriting credits although Marascalco was the actual writer of the songs. Also for Little Richard, Marascalco co-wrote "Heeby Jeebies", "She's Got It", and "Groovy Little Suzy". He also co-wrote the song "Goodnight My Love" with George Motola made famous by Jesse Belvin and Paul Anka.

Furthermore he co-wrote songs with Fats Domino ("Be My Guest"), Scott Turner and Harry Nilsson, and helped to finance Nilsson's early recording efforts. Marascalso and Turner collaborated on songs for Nilsson, such as "I Just Ain't Right" and "Building Me Up," both of which appear on the albums Nilsson '62: The Debut Sessions and Early Tymes. Marascalco and Nilsson wrote songs together, including "Baby Baby" and "Born in Grenada" (Spotlight on Nilsson).

Marascalco co-composed "Send Me Some Lovin'" with Leo Price, and this was recorded by Little Richard. The Crickets for their 1957 debut album, The "Chirping" Crickets, Sam Cooke, and John Lennon also recorded the song. He also penned "Wouldn't You Know", which was recorded by Billy Lee Riley.
Marascalco tunes have been recorded by everybody from Little Richard to Creedence Clearwater Revival to the Stray Cats.

Wooden Heart - Muss i denn

"Wooden Heart" ("Muss i denn") is a song best known for its use in the 1960 Elvis Presley film G.I. Blues. The song was a hit for Presley in the United Kingdom, making number one for six weeks, but was not released as a single in the United States until November 1964 as the B-side to "Blue Christmas". Presley performed the song live during his Dinner Show concert at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas in 1975. The recording is available on the Elvis Presley live album, Dinner At Eight.

"Wooden Heart", created by Fred Wise, Ben Weisman, Kay Twomey and adapted and arranged by German bandleader Bert Kaempfert, based on a German folk song by Friedrich Silcher, "Muss i' denn zum Städtele hinaus", originating from the Rems Valley in Württemberg, Southwest Germany. "Wooden Heart" features several lines from the original folk song, written in the German Swabian dialect, spoken in Württemberg. The Elvis Presley version was published by Gladys Music, Elvis Presley's publishing company." Read More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wooden_Heart

Marlene Dietrich recorded a version of the song sometime before 1958, pre-dating Presley, in the original German language, which appears as a B-side on a 1959 version of her single "Lili Marlene"', released by Philips in association with Columbia Records.

Joe Dowell released a cover version in 1961 after Elvis and made it to No 1 in the USA.
here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNNwqm-joJM


The Elvis Presley version featured two parts in German, the first one is the first four lines of "Muss i' denn zum Städtele hinaus", whereas the second part appears towards the end and is based on a translation of the English version (therefore not appearing in the original German folk lyrics). This part being "Sei mir gut, sei mir gut, sei mir wie du wirklich sollst, wie du wirklich sollst..." This literally means "Be good to me, Be good to me, Be to me how you really should, How you really should..."

Friedrich Silcher- Composer of the German Folk Song  - Muss i' denn zum Städtele hinaus

"Silcher was a preeminent composer, poet, editor, music teacher, director, and preserver of German folk song and traditional choral music.

Philipp Friedrich Silcher was born on June 27, 1789, in a schoolhouse in the wine area of Schnait in Remstal, a son of the teacher Karl Johann Silcher.

As a teenager in 1803 he began a three-year apprenticeship as "Schulknecht" to Ferdinand Auberlen in Fellbach, who was well known as a good musician and valued arranger of men's choral music. In 1806 he became a teaching assistant in Schorndorf, where he also was a tutor in the house of the Kreishauptmann Freiherr von Berlichingen.

In 1817 Silcher became Musikdirektor at the University of Tübingen."
Read more about Friedrich Silcher here http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/bio/fritz2.html

Newcastle and International poet Keith Armstrong - The Jingling Geordie often travels to Tübingen for readings and poetic associations. He recently wrote this poem about Friedrich Silcher inspired by his statue

Keith Armstrong (Visit his website here http://keithyboyarmstrong.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/wooden-heart-new-song-in-morning-for.html?utm_source=BP_recent

WOODEN HEART: A NEW SONG IN THE MORNING FOR PHILIPP FRIEDRICH SILCHER (1789-1860)* - Keith Armstrong

Through an arch of towering plane trees,I reach to touch the hips
of an upright Swabian girl,
her lips
fresh with strawberries
from a breakfast bowl of kisses
sprinkled with sugar
and yesterday’s cream.
The birds of the Platanenallee
fly on the wings of melancholy,
the breeze of history

Photos by keith Armstrong

scenting their songs.
It dawns on me
that the rain
will lash against our faces
as we push our way
through the saluting wood.
The day is crumbling already
around us
with the leaves memorably
crunching under our futile tread.
Half way along the soaking avenue,
the sun like a song
sparkles in my eyes

and lights my last hours
with the beauty of skies.
And suddenly
you are there

Philipp Friedrich Silcher

your lump of a statue
bursting through the leaves,
a kind of terrible stone
trapping your crumbling tunes
inside rock.
To take a frail life
and carve it into something immortal
is a folly as well as a tribute
to the hypocrisy of pompous little leaders
seeking to employ music
for their brutal ends.
So I say
and so we sing
of beautiful glances
and military funerals
of dead songbirds
in the path of bullets.I climb in spiritto reach the flesh of this lovely girl,
for a moment
I am happy and then it is gone
behind the clouds of war.
And this is for you Friedrich
from my fluttering heart
in a sea of shaking branches,
reaching out
for humanity
to triumph
over the horror
of the mundane,
a gift of a song for you,
a lovely glass of wine
as the armies march again
into the blind alley
of a bleak despair:
Keith Armstrong
..............................
Wooden Heart - The lyrics
Can't you see
I love you?
Please don't break my heart in two,
That's not hard to do,
'Cause I don't have a wooden heart.
And if you say goodbye,
Then I know that I would cry,
Maybe I would die,
'Cause I don't have a wooden heart.

There's no strings upon this love of mine,
It was always you from the start.
Treat me nice,
Treat me good,
Treat me like you really should,
'Cause I'm not made of wood,
And I don't have a wooden heart.

Muss i denn, muss i denn
Zum Staedtele hinaus,
Staedtele hinaus,
Und du, mein schat, bleibst hier?

Muss i denn, muss i denn
Zum Staedtele hinaus,
Staedtele hinaus,
Und du, mein schat, bleibst hier?
(Got to go, got to go,
Got to leave this town,
Leave this town
And you, my dear, stay here?).

There's no strings upon this love of mine,
It was always you from the start,

Sei mir gut,
Sei mir gut,
Sei mir wie du wirklich sollst,
Wie du wirklich sollst,


(Treat me nice,
Treat me good,
Treat me like you really should,
Like you really should),
'Cause I don't have a wooden heart.

KEITH ARMSTRONG

*Swabian musician Philipp Friedrich Silcher originally composed the tune, based on a folk lyric, used in the pop song ‘Wooden Heart’. His statue by Wilhelm Julius Frick (1884-1964), erected in 1941, is in Tuebingen by the River Neckar.


The original version is here in English

"German folk song (Swabian / South-West German), first Appeared in print in 1827 Lyrics (in Swabian German / Swabian): Friedrich Silcherstraße (1789-1860) Chorus: Runkfunkchor Leipzig Scenes from "home" (1984): Homecoming of . a young soldier from the Great War. I did a rough translation of the lyric into standard Swabian German (High German) as follows: ----- Do I have to, I have to because away from the town, town away , And you, my darling stay here? If I come, I come, when I get back, get back, I return, my dear, to you. Even if I can simply be with you not all, relationships (gear) I but my joy (to) thee when I come, I come, when I get back, get back, I return, my dear, to you .. How are you crying as you cry, That I walk (go away) must, hike (go away) must As if love would be over now? Are just outside, just outside are many girls, many girls, My darling, I stay true to you. Do not you think if I see one other, immediately would love my past ; just are out there, just out there are many girls, many girls . My darling, I remain loyal to you over the year, throughout the year, when my grape harvest is finished, grape harvest is done, Here I am again (message me here me here again); Am I then, am I still your baby, baby still, So should (it) be the wedding. Over the year, when my (working) time is over, since (then) I belong to my and your (own person / available); Am I then, am I still your baby, baby still, So should (it) be the wedding over the year, when my (working) time is over, since (then) I belong to my and your (own available ); Am I then, am I still your baby, baby still, So should (it) be the wedding -----"
.................................

Scenes from "Heimat" (1984): Homecoming of a young soldier from the Great War.

Taken from this choral version of the original song here (You will have to go to youtube to listen as it can;t be embedded) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7vYKkpnhbA

Good rocking Tonight - Roy Brown

Good Rocking Tonight was originally a jump blues song released in 1947 by its writer, Roy Brown and was covered by many other recording artists. The song includes the memorable refrain, "Well I heard the news, there's good rocking tonight!"


Brown had first offered his song to Wynonie Harris, who turned it down. Only after the Brown's record gained traction in New Orleans did Harris decide to cover it. Harris's version was even more energetic than Brown's original version, featuring black gospel style handclapping. This may have contributed to the composition's greater success on the national R&B chart. Brown's original recording hit number 13 of the Billboard R&B chart, but Harris' record became a number one R&B hit and remained on the chart for half a year.Brown's single would re-enter the chart in 1949, peaking at #11...

While Brown missed out on the biggest hit version of his song, its success kicked off his own career, which included two #1 R&B hits. In 1949, he released "Rockin' at Midnight", a sequel to "Good Rockin' Tonight", which might be thought of as "Good Rockin' Tonight part II" because it included updates on the same characters as the original. It reached #2 on the R&B chart, where it remained for a month. (From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Rocking_Tonight )





Roy Brown was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. As with many R&B singers, he started singing gospel music in the church. His mother was an accomplished singer and church organist. After a move to Los Angeles, California some time in the 1940s, and a brief period spent as a professional boxer in the welterweight category, he won a singing contest in 1945 at the Million Dollar Theater covering "There's No You", originally recorded by Bing Crosby. In 1946, Brown moved to Galveston, Texas, where he sang in Joe Coleman's group performing mostly songs from the Hit Parade, in a club called the Club Granada. His numbers included a song he wrote entitled "Good Rocking Tonight". After being rejected by the Armed Forces because of flat feet, he secured his first major job in a Shreveport, Louisiana club singing mostly pop ballads such as "Stardust" and "Blue Hawaii." The owner of Bill Riley's Palace Park hired him, as Brown told a Blues Unlimited interviewer, because of his appeal as "a Negro who sounds white." It was at the Palace Park that Brown started developing a blues repertoire, learning contemporary R&B tunes such as "Jelly Jelly" (recorded by Billy Eckstine). He returned to New Orleans in 1947, where he performed at The Dew Drop Inn.
In 1954, "Good Rockin' Tonight" was the second Sun Records release by Elvis Presley, along with "I Don't Care If The Sun Don't Shine" on the flip side. Presley and his bandmates hewed closer to the original Roy Brown version. READ MORE  - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Brown_(blues_musician)

His Latest Flame - Del Shannon

(Marie's the name of) His Latest Flame) was written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman and originally recorded by Del Shannon on the album "Runaway With Del Shannon" which was recorded June 21st and released in June 1961. More details here - http://davidneale.eu/elvis/originals/list1.html

Elvis recorded it soon after on June 25th / 26th 1961 and it was released in August 1961 as a single. Del Shannon's version was a possible follow up single to Runaway but they released his own composition Hats Off to Larry instead. The song featured a Bo Diddley beat. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/(Marie's_the_Name)_His_Latest_Flame

Hound Dog

"Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and originally recorded by Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton in 1952.

Big Mama Thornton's biggest hit was Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's "Hound Dog," recorded at Radio Recorders in Los Angeles on August 13, 1952. Thornton’s "Hound Dog" was the first record Leiber and Stoller produced themselves. They took over the session because their work had sometimes been misrepresented, and on this one they knew how they wanted the drums to sound; Johnny Otis produced the record and played drums on the recording. This 1953 Peacock Records release (#1612) was number one on the Billboard rhythm and blues charts for seven weeks. Otis received a writing credit on all 6 of the 1953 pressings. However, in 1957 Otis' claim to have co-written the song with Leiber and Stoller was dismissed in the New York Federal Court.

Thornton gave this account of how the original was created to Ralph J. Gleason. “They were just a couple of kids, and they had this song written on the back of a paper bag.” She added a few interjections of her own, played around with the rhythm (some of the choruses have thirteen rather than twelve bars), and had the band bark and howl like hound dogs at the end of the song. In fact, she interacts constantly in a call and response fashion during a one minute long guitar "solo" by Pete Lewis. Her vocals include lines such as: "Aw, listen to that ole hound dog howl...OOOOoooow," "Now wag your tail," and "Aw, get it, get it, get it."
Thornton's delivery has flexible phrasing making use of micro-inflections and syncopations. Over a steady backbeat, she starts out singing each line as one long upbeat. When the words change from "You ain't nothin' but a HOUND Dog," she begins to shift the downbeat around: "You TOLD me you was high-class / but I can SEE through that, You ain't NOTHIN' but a hound dog." Each has a focal accent which is never repeated" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hound_Dog_(song)




And a live version -

Bernie Lowe suspected that "Hound Dog" could potentially have greater appeal, and asked Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys to rewrite the lyrics to appeal to a broader radio audience. "Snoopin' round my door" was replaced with "cryin' all the time," and "You can wag your tail, but I ain't gonna feed you no more" was replaced by "You ain't never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine." This new version of "Hound Dog" was recorded on Lowe's Teen Records in 1955 (TEEN 101 with "Move Me Baby" on the flip side, two of four songs the group did with Lowe that year). The regional popularity of this release, along with the group's showmanship, yielded both a tour, and an engagement in the Las Vegas Sands Hotel's Silver Queen Bar.[14] The Bellboys' Vegas version of the song was a comedy-burlesque with show-stopping va-va-voom choreography. Jerry Leiber, the original lyricist, found these changes irritating, saying that the rewritten words made "no sense". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hound_Dog_(song)





Elvis Presley's first, apparently not very successful, appearance in Las Vegas, as an "extra added attraction," was in the Venus Room of the new Frontier Hotel from April 23 through May 6, 1956. Freddie Bell and the Bellboys were the hot act in town, and Elvis went to the Sands to take in their show. Elvis not only enjoyed the show, but also loved their reworking of "Hound Dog" and asked Freddie if he had any objections to him recording his own version. By May 16 Elvis had added “Hound Dog” to his live performances. The song was done as comic relief, and Presley based the lyrics, which he sometimes changed, and "gyrations" on what he had seen at the Sands. The song always got a big reaction and became the standard closer.
Drummer D. J. Fontana put it this way: "We took that from a band we saw in Vegas, Freddie Bell and the Bellboys. They were doing the song kinda like that. We went out there every night to watch them. He'd say: 'Let's go watch that band. It's a good band!' That's where he heard 'Hound Dog,' and shortly thereafter he said: 'Let's try that song.'" "Hound Dog" became Elvis and Scotty and Bill's closing number for the first time on May 15, 1956 at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis.
Presley first performed "Hound Dog" to a nationwide television audience on The Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956, his second appearance with Berle. By this time, Scotty Moore had added a guitar solo, and D.J. Fontana had added a hot drum roll between verses of the song. Presley appeared for the first time on national television sans guitar. Before his death, Berle told an interviewer that he had told Elvis to leave his guitar backstage. "Let 'em see you, son," advised Uncle Miltie

An upbeat version ended abruptly as Presley threw his arm back, then began to vamp at half tempo, "You ain't-a nuthin' but a hound dog, cuh-crying all the time. You ain't never caught a rabbit..." A final wave signaled the band to stop. Elvis pointed threateningly at the audience, and belted out, "You ain't no friend of mine. Over 40,000,000 people saw the performance and the next day controversy exploded. Berle's network received many letters of protest. The various self appointed guardians of public morality attacked Elvis in the press. TV critics began a merciless campaign against Elvis, making statements that he had a "caterwauling voice and nonsense lyrics" and was an "influence on juvenile delinquency," (despite the fact that when he started the movements, most of the audience laughed at it) and began using the nickname, "Elvis the Pelvis".

Recorded version -

So Glad You're Mine - Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup (August 24, 1905 – March 28, 1974) was an American Delta blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known outside blues circles for writing songs such as "That's All Right" (1946),"My Baby Left Me" and "So Glad You're Mine", later covered by Elvis Presley and dozens of other artists. Read more on wiki -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Crudup

If I Can Dream

If I Can Dream
"If I Can Dream" is a song written by Walter Earl Brown and notable for its direct quotations of Martin Luther King, Jr. It was recorded by Presley in June 1968, two months after King's assassination. The recording was first released to the public as the finale of Presley's '68 Comeback Special.
Although the song is not technically gospel music, Presley performed the song with the intensity and intonations of southern gospel.

Brown was asked to write a song to replace "I'll Be Home For Christmas" as the grand finale on NBC's "Elvis" (June 20–23, 1968). He wrote "If I Can Dream," and when Presley heard it he proclaimed "I'm never going to sing another song I don't believe in. I'm never going to make another picture I don't believe in."

Steve Binder, who produced Presley’s 1968 television comeback special, recalled the origin of Presley’s hit “If I Can Dream.” Presley and Binder were looking for a way to end the show. The two had discussed Elvis’ dismay over the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. Binder was struck by the conversation and ordered W. Earl Brown, a songwriter working on the show, to come up with a song incorporating Presley’s concern to use as the finale to the show. So even though Presley did not write the song, his viewpoint was expressed in its composition."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Can_Dream

"I Have a Dream" is a 17-minute public speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered on August 28, 1963, in which he called for racial equality and an end to discrimination. The speech, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. Delivered to over 200,000 civil rights supporters, the speech was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century by a 1999 poll of scholars of public address.According to U.S. Representative John Lewis, who also spoke that day as the President of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, "Dr. King had the power, the ability, and the capacity to transform those steps on the Lincoln Memorial into a monumental area that will forever be recognized. By speaking the way he did, he educated, he inspired, he informed not just the people there, but people throughout America and unborn generations."
At the end of the speech, King departed from his prepared text for a partly improvised peroration on the theme of "I have a dream", possibly prompted by Mahalia Jackson's cry, "Tell them about the dream, Martin!" He had first delivered a speech incorporating some of the same sections in Detroit in June 1963, when he marched on Woodward Avenue with Walter Reuther and the Reverend C. L. Franklin, and had rehearsed other parts.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream

The Full Text of Dr Martin Luther King's Speech
"must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone." (Read the full text here -  http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/martin-luther-kings-speech-dream-full-text/story?id=14358231&page=2#.T2evWcUaP30

The Writer - Walter Earl Brown


"Walter Earl Brown was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on Christmas Day, 1928 to Walter Lincoln Brown, a descendant of the english royal family and Hattie Earl. Earl's father, Walter played in a "swing" big band so as a child Earl traveled with his parents.... Earl had a prolific and illustrious career in show business as a singer, composer, vocal arranger, and writer of special material. His work in television, films, revues, musical recordings and nightclubs began at an early age and continued until his passing. During the 40's and 50's Earl is remembered for having been the arranger and singer in the highly acclaimed vocal group "The Skylarks". He wrote a hit song for Elvis Presley in 1968 entitled "If I Can Dream", which has been re-recorded by Barry Manilow and others and which was recently performed on "American Idol" by Celine Dion as a duet, with Elvis resurrected on stage as a holographic image. Earl wrote songs for Dianne Reeves, including the Grammy winning "Who's Minding The Store?", as well as for Frank Sinatra, Mama Cass, Michael Feinstein, and numerous others. For many years he was the vocal director on many hit variety shows including "The Danny Kaye Show", "The Dinah Shore Show", "The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour", "The Osmonds Brothers Show", "The Andy Williams Show", "The Carol Burnett Show" and many other television programs and specials. Most recently Earl was the vocal arranger and writer of special material for "The Palm Springs Follies" for the last 13 seasons of the revue." More here  http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=24119368

Walter Earl Brown