FRANKIE LAINE - “Hey Joe”
(23rd October 1953)
The horns equal MAN ON THE PROWL thing gets further reinforced as Frankie Laine follows up a mega-hit by throwing everything he can at “Hey Joe” - brass all over the shop, a guitar solo (again!) (a much better one than Guy Mitchell’s I might add), backing singers, tumbling rhymes and an outright bizarre vocal style which stretches line-endings to breaking point and ends up sounding like proto-Dylan (”I’ll tell you face to face I mean to steeeeeeeal / Her from yeooooow“). It’s the most vigorous thing to top the charts since Kay Starr but for all its incident it never really gels. 5
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Doctor Casino on October 7th, 2007
Tom, you’re mad! This is one of the most fun things I’ve discovered poking back through the pre-Beatles era on this thing. Alternately swaggering, sweaty, and desperate, with humor that resonates. I can relate to the people who made this a hit. They seem like real people and not strange curiousities from a previous universe.
I’d also like to think of this as some sort of flipside to, say, “Wedding Bells” - now the old gang of buddies is breaking up, but not so much because of weddings but because of an effort to break one up.
Doctor Casino on October 7th, 2007
And that solo is wild!
Marcello Carlin on October 8th, 2007
Give it up for pedal steel maestro Speedy West!
FT's Lena on October 8th, 2007
So, this isn’t the usual “Hey Joe”?
Marcello Carlin on October 8th, 2007
No, nothing to do with the other “Hey Joe” with the other “wild solo.” Wouldn’t it have been great if it had been, though?
intothefireuk on November 8th, 2007
The second number one in a row to employ a much more rhythmic, uptempo & lively backing except this is a good deal busier and I think I can hear a kitchen sink in there somewhere as well. Frankie seems to have cheered up a little since his previous hit and it sounds like he’s having a ball (with his crazy pals in tow). If I was Joe I wouldn’t trust this bunch, and I think I’d be grabbing my girl and catching the nearest stagecoach outta town.
Doctor Casino on July 18th, 2008
Frankly, I think Joe’s pretty much already lost this one.