Thursday, May 27, 2010

Not So Great Lost Singles of the 60s

And speaking as we were the other day of "Why Don't You Smile," the first songwriting collaboration between Lou Reed and John Cale, it turns out its appearance was not confined to the super obscure b-side of that All Night Workers record.

From 1966, here it is as covered by the somewhat more famous -- at least in certain parts of England and Europe -- Downliners Sect.




I don't think this is as good as the original, if truth be told, but it certainly makes the song's "Louie Louie/Hang on Sloopy" roots seem obvious.

Incidentally, if you don't know the Downliners Sect, they were perhaps the rawest of all the Brit r&b groups that emerged in the wake of the Stones. Their early stuff, in particular, makes the The Pretty Things sound like The Budapest String Quartet.

6 comments:

Faze said...

Hmm. I kinda like this one better. If a band's going to do the shameful Louis Louis thing, they may as well do it with some gusto. What I wonder about is how a song like this wends its way from Syracuse to England, and into the hands of a pretty major group like the Downliners? There were a million second-rate singles coming out of frat party bands in 1966. How did the Sect get its hands on this one?

steve simels said...

I'm not sure who handled Lou's publishing once the Velvets happened, but it probably was somebody major.

Now what I really need to track down is the story that Brian Epstein wanted to manage the Velvets and that Lou and he had a meeting, apparently awkward, right before Epstein's death

Edward said...

I bet this sounded really great live.

TMink said...

Wow, this rocks hard. This is a new band to me, thanks!

Trey

Unknown said...

I've always wondered why the deerstalker hat thing didn't catch on.

Karatist Preacher said...

Maybe its just me but the Reed/Cale version is great - you can definitely hear early Velvets in that one.