March, 2009
Who’s that knockin’ at my door?
“Crazy Little Mama” The Eldorados Guest Artist: The Magnificents Vee Jay Records (1957) Listen up: “At My Front Door”
The El Dorados did a week at Chicago’s Regal Theater starting February 22, 1957. They shared the boards with Bobby Charles, the Spaniels, Jimmy Reed, Arthur Prysock, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, the Rhythm Kings, Gene & Eunice, Big Joe Turner, Priscilla Bowman, Brook Benton, and the Tab Smith Orchestra.
In March, while the group was in Atlanta, Vee Jay announced that the El Dorados would have the honor of being the subject of the company’s first LP. Issued as VJLP-1001 (“Crazy Little Mama”), it contained ten songs by them: “My Loving Baby,” “Baby I Need You,” “Annie’s Answer,” “I Began To Realize,” “At My Front Door” (“Crazy Little Mama”), “Now That You’ve Gone,” “I’ll Be Forever Loving You,” “Rock ‘N Roll’s For Me,” “There In The Night,” and “A Fallen Tear.” For some reason, while they left off some of the El Dorados releases, they included two tunes by the Magnificents: “Up On The Mountain” and “Caddy Bo.”
Crazy little mamma come knockin’
Comes a-knockin’ at my front door, door, door
Crazy little mamma come knockin’
Knockin’ at my front door
Crazy little mamma come knock, knock, knockin’
Just like she did before
I woke up this morning with a feeling of despair
Looking for my baby and she wasn’t there
Heard someone knockin’ much to my surprise
There stood my babe lookin’ at my eyes
Crazy little mamma comes knock, knock, knockin’
Just like she did before
If you got a little mamma and you wanna keep her neat
Keep your little mama off my street
Same thing will happen like it did before
She’ll come knock, knock, knockin’ at my door
Crazy little mamma come knock, knock, knockin’
Just like she did before
Detroit breakdown
MC5 “Kick Out the Jams” (“motherfuckers”) 1969 Elektra Records Vocals, Rob Tyner; Guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred “Sonic” Smith (Later Mr. Patti Smith); Michael Fraser on vocals/bass and Grant Palmer on drums.
Radical and revolutionary. in the late sixties MC5 was banging out hard punk jams that meshed out jazz, political anger and garage band rock. MC5 was signed to Elektra in 1969 along with fellow motor city madmen The Stooges.
Stupefaction hips us to this site of MC5 drummer Dennis “Machinegun” Thompson. Check it out.