Friday, August 30, 2024

BAD RECORDS: Worst -Ever Top 40 Hit? And Oakland's Answer Record to Sam Cooke's 'Chain Gang'

Bad Records - WORST TOP 40 RECORD EVER?


Worst Top 40 Record from the 'Golden Era' ?
Very few records from the 60s and 50s  and even the 70s and 80s we do not care for but there is one that not only  we don't like but have no idea why anybody else would like it . It's just a repetitive mess with virtually no melody or distinguishable lyrics and there is no redeeming value-You probably heard it as it was a 1 No. 17 Billboard  hit in 1963, normally a   good year for music, and it's called El Watusi by Ray Barretto.
 A little research says the song was the most successful 'pachanga'record, later known as 'boogaloo' style with Cuban or Puerto Rican origins.
Please let let us know YOUR THOUGHTS and your worst song .


Now Ray may have had some other good redeeming songs we need to look into but this one was not one of them, in our opinion. Give us your feedback .

At one point it even sounds like a broken record, repeating segment over and over- it goes on so long . Also,we don't detect any musicality other than a short horn solo. Maybe its early rap with Ray just droning on in Spanish. Perhaps if we understood the Spanish lyrics we would appreciate it more but doubt it.  Don't know if it's the worst record ever but it certainly be pretty high on the list. Of course, by today's standards, it might not even compete. But then, I can't even name a Top 40 song today and don't really want to. Not sure it's even music anymore. 

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Kilgore was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and was brought up in Oakland, California. She began singing in church. Her first recording, on which she was billed as Theola Kilgord, was as the featured vocalist on "Look to the Hills" by the Mount Zion Spiritual Choir, released in 1955. While working as a gospel singer in the late 1950s, she befriended Sam Cooke's talent manager, J. W. Alexander, who introduced her to singer and record producer, Ed Townsend. Her first secular recording was "The Sound of My Man (Working on a Chain Gang)", an answer record to Cooke's 1960 hit, "Chain Gang".[1]

She registered her biggest hit with "The Love of My Man", an adaptation of "The Love of God" as recorded by the Soul Stirrers. The record, on the Serock label, a subsidiary of Scepter Records, reached No. 3 on the R&B charts in 1963, and No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.[2]





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