Pop Archives

The Cherokees - Oh, Monah (1967)

(Ted Weems - Country Washburn)
Australia Australia
#11 Sydney #8 Melbourne #16 Brisbane #10 Perth

Adaptable Melbourne band whose career ranged from Shadows-style instrumentals to comic jugband revivals. See Moon In The Afternoon (1964),  I've Been Trying (1965), and Minnie The Moocher (1967).

Cherokees guitarist Pete 'Rattlebone' Tindal, now in the UK, runs Bluesola Music. Its website includes a section featuring the The Cherokees' music and history as well as Pete's own solo recordings.

Thanks to Pete Tindal.


Ted Weems And His Orchestra - Oh, Mo’nah (1931)

(Ted Weems - Country Washburn)
USA USA
Original version

Also recorded Oh, Monah – without the apostrophe – in 1941, presumably the same song.


No relation to the Bo Diddley song, Mona, also recorded by The Rolling Stones.


The Standard Quartette - Poor Mourner (1896)

(Traditional)
UK UK
Traditional

Columbia cylinder, one of the earliest recordings by any vocal group: see The Roots of Doo-wop which also suggests this may be "the very first doo-wop group".

Arnold Rypens’ Originals website cites this as the ultimate source of Ted Weems’s Oh Mo’nah. The recording may be heard at NPR’s Present at the Creation: Barbershop Quartets [link].

The Originals lists several recordings, under various titles, from 1896 until Weems’s as Oh Mo’nah in 1931.

Reference: Poor Mourner page at Arnold Rypens’ The Originals.
Further reading: The Roots of Doowop; NPR’s Present at the Creation: Barbershop Quartets.