TRAVELIN' MAN

Right from the first hearing, I loved the opening bass chorus 'bo bo bo bo' ~ plus I could play the tune on my uke.

When Jimmie Burton came in with his tight middle eight solo, i knew I was home.

Check out this charmingly self-conscious clip of Burton and Nelson on Trambone.

I didn't learn that one until Duane Eddy recorded it on his 'Twang's the Thang' album ... poh poh poh, all that hammered bass and echo'd Bigsby work ... So fake, but we fell for all that stuff back then, didn't we?

I tell you what we didnt have to fall for - the funky groove of the Rebel Rousers when Duane hit the beat.

When people shriek choque horror about gayness and the effect on les jeunes, I think back to my innocent prep' school youth when we hadnt the faintest about it, even under our noses.

We had a master, Timothy Ozanne, who'd always supervise after-games showers and lost no opportunity to brush the pretty boys' shoulders  or towel down those hard-2-reach back bits - he'd come into Eagle House common room and fondle the Rick Nelson LP covers with a murmured 'charming, quite charming'. We just thought he was soft and rather spaz.

Funnily enough, he ended up running away with Guy Bagnall's dad who was a brutal figure of a man, broken nose from university rugby, drove a Humber. Rather sexy mum, as I recall, except she wore too much powder and never quite stood up straight.

I'd left before the bolt with Bagnall père otherwise I would have ragged Guy rotten. Gay Bagnall and all that, know what I mean?

A few years later, at public school, a hot hot tease of a maid from the village suggested we meet in her dad's greenhouse after chapel and why didnt I bring Duane's The Lonely One to play 'because it has that great guitar sound.'

I have friends who swear they were so stoned when it first came out, they never properly heard Pink's 'Dark Side' until years later. I never heard a clear version of The Lonely One until some years after school, thanks to Sylvia clamping her legs round my ears and not letting go until it was all over. I mean the tune as well as all the rumpy-pumpy. 


Lord have merceh! Now I'm on an Eddy roll. An Eddy eddy, forsooth.

Oh man! Just looking at those album covers, they were my youth - staring out at a rainy Sussex landscape, only pasty-faced Cliff and horn-rimmed Hank to choose from ... but whoa!

Duane Eddy. 

Even the fronking name was cool and exotic and he looked tough and 'American' and he had this once-piece hairstyle to die for that the English can't get and Mr Alban wouldn't let us have - OK, Barry Greensted had it but he didn't play geetar ... altho' if I looked like him I'd borrow one and stand outside the Common Room with a 1,000-yard stare, twiddling 'n' a twirling that axe and pretending not to notice the pretty sisters as they pretended not to notice me as they giggling passed by.


Lawdy lawdy lawdy - these strums down Memory Lane are bad for my Pacemaker. I'm surprised I didn't ending up calling my gals Gretschene and Guilda. Fine names for a brace of fillies. Git me a manly son - Bigsby, yo'

Yeh right, thanks Dad.

Good times. I'll dance to that. [Oh baby, that dampered down bass ... gets my low-down butter runnin' ever' time.]

Because they're Jung ~ I strain for wordplay, the excruciatinger the better.

Ever since I heard there was a distinguished analyst geezer working his charms on the island, I've been trying to match plectrum to pun.

Thanks to a Commentaire Irregulière, now I can ~ but I'm only playing this track because DE actually mentions Johnny Walker. I hate these oldie clips where everyone loves them just because they're ancient and they flub the tune and the sound's wrong and you can see the other musicians bending and swaying obeisance because someone has told them "He's really famous, like he's a legend in his own legato" and the sessions guys are going like "OK, big deal, on with the respectful legend smile ... but why the fuchsia doesnt the old goat play like a legend?"

The Twerp and the Twang - final note, then this correspondence closed. So many comments and ideas coming in, I thought I'd
run a sublime-2-ridicule clip showing the magnificent Gretsch in the hands of a right wally.

Won't even wear my class ring - I still say that the Best of this Blog is the commentaria. I'm just a vehicle.

I sent this to my Spitfire for her aghast approval: "Dad! That is like soo gay!" Out of the mouths of.

Anna's at Evergreen, Washington state, nailing the good grades and still refusing to date.

I was chauffering her pals around and, from the back seat:

"Omigod, you were like so cool. Like he turned up on his bike and was like getting it go all vroom 'n' stuff and trying to be cool and you didn't even look round!"

• I'll rev to that.