(Teddy McRae - Sidney Wyche)
Australia
Track on the 1972 album Sex, Dope, Rock n Roll by wildly popular goodtime rock revivalists from Melbourne who created a classic with their own Eagle Rock, Australia’s #1 single of 1971.
Ultimately, Daddy Cool left their mark with original compositions (Eagle Rock, Come Back Again), but they were also known for their revivals of old songs (Cherry Pie, I’ll Never Smile Again), amongst which Baby Let Me Bang Your Box was a relatively obscure choice.
Daddy Cool grew out of an informal 50s-styled band-within-the band of Sons Of The Vegetal Mother, the progressive band of Daddy Cool founders Ross Wilson and Ross Hannaford.
The band shared its name with another old song, Daddy Cool, originally by The Rays (1957).
Further reading: 1. Daddy Cool history at Milesago. 2. DaddyCool.com.au
Thanks to Keith Glass.
(Teddy McRae - Sidney Wyche)
USA
Single on Jubilee by Doug Clark & The Nuts, better known as Doug Clark & The Hot Nuts, long-lasting North Carolina band formed as The Tops in 1955 to specialise in frat party gigs. A re-formed line-up became Doug Clark & The Hot Nuts in 1956 after they recorded a song called Hot Nuts.
♫ Listen at YouTube
A band billed as Doug Clark’s Hot Nuts continued to perform after Doug Clark’s death in 2002 with a line-up that included Doug’s son.
The defunct official site (1999) referred to the band’s raunchy style of telling dirty jokes and singling out audience members.
Single on apparently short-lived label R&B, #65101. This is not the 1960s British label of the same name.
According to a 1997 Usenet post, The Bangers’ version was an alternative station favorite in the mid-60’s in Pittsburgh. but the label shows the record originated with Hitcity in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was produced by Ken Green, and the writer credits show D. Wadley – K. Green, although it is the same song as the McRae-Wyche composition. Little seems to be known about The Bangers.
♫ Listen at YouTube
Further reading: Ron’s post on The Bangers and the song at Old Mon Music: Pittsburgh Sounds.
Thanks to Ron at Old Mon Music.
(Teddy McRae - Sidney Wyche)
USA
Original version
Single on Jubilee released on both 45 and 78 rpm discs by black vocal group formed in Brooklyn in the early 50s as The Tune Toppers. The word baby is in the lyrics but it does not appear in this longer form of the title.
On their one single for Jubilee the group was billed as The Toppers, but they are better known as The Hurricanes, releasing several singles on King under that name 1955-1957. They also recorded later as The Memos on the Memo label. Several lead singers featured over the years, but it was John Kelly on Baby Let Me Bang Your Box.
The writers
• Sydney Wyche (1922-1983) wrote, for example, Talk That Talk (Jackie Wilson 1959).
With Mayme Watts he wrote the much-recorded Alright, Okay, You Win (first released by Ella
Johnson 1955), and with Aaron Schroeder he wrote A Big Hunk O’ Love (Elvis Presley 1959).
• Teddy McRae (1908-1999) was a tenor saxophonist, composer, arranger and music director whose extensive résumé
from the big band era included work with numerous orchestras including those of Chick Webb,
Cab Calloway and Lionel Hampton. Artie Shaw’s Back Bay Shuffle and Traffic Jam were both Shaw-McCrae
compositions. McRae also recorded as Teddy (Mr Bear)
McRae in the 50s: see Hi Fi
Baby / Hold Out Baby on New York label Amp 3).
References, further reading: 1. Marv Goldberg’s Hurricanes page which includes a Toppers-Hurricanes-Memos discography. 2. The Hurricanes by Jim Dunn at All Music Guide. 3. Sidney Wyche page at Discogs.com. 4. Teddy McRae obituary at JazzHouse.org. 5. Post by Norm Katuna and others in thread Who recorded this r’n’b song? from rec.music.rock-pop-r+b.1950s (1997).
The lyric goes: Well my baby had a party the other night/ The party was gettin’ dead/ I spied a piano in the corner/ Looked at my baby and said/ Baby let me bang your box, baby let me bang your box…
(Jonny Destry)
USA
Red herring
Same title but not the same song as
‘Baby Let Me Bang Your Box’ by Daddy Cool.
Track on Millennium (RCA) album Girls, Rock’N’Roll & Cars by band led by Jonny Destry (John Speenkamp), Netherlands-born musician working in US.
(Teddy McRae - Sidney Wyche)
USA
Later version
Single on Columbia produced by R. K. Wightlead. Also on Macon GA label Sox.
♫ Listen at YouTube
I can find no background on J. Silver or Wightlead.
Any clues here? The B-side Rock The Night Away was written by April Lawton (formerly in Ramatam) and Joe Lamente (in NY band Shelter, formed 1981), and produced by Wightlead with New York studio owner and engineer Bill Stahl.
(Teddy McRae - Sidney Wyche)
USA
Unreleased
Session by rockabilly swamp rocker and originator of Susie Q Dale Hawkins (vocals) with Roy Yeager (drums), Duck Dunn (bass), Joe Khoury (guitar) and Nashville Horn section.
Source: All the above details are from Tapio Väisänen’s Dale Hawkins Sessionography.
Sung (or lip-synched) by Robin Byrd (b.1957) during the outro of her adults-only Robin Byrd Show, the New York cable TV show hosted by the Debbie Does Dallas actress since the late 70s.
Be able to sing ‘Baby Let Me Bang Your Box’ was among the “things you gotta do before you can call yourself a real New Yorker”, listed at “Essential New York”, a now defunct blog by blackstar27.
The Robin Byrd Show®™
Still on cable TV in New York, 2024, from Robin Byrd’s homepage
NOW ON CHANNEL 1820
…and the show goes on into 2024
Seven Days a Week – Unscrambled & Uncut
Further reading: Hip-hop producer Blockhead reminisces about The Robin Byrd Show in a Village Voice Q&A with Phillip Mlynar (2012).
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