Unngghhh!!!
Listen/Download – The What-Knots – I Ain’t Dead Yet
Greetings all.
The witching hour (or week…as it is) has arrived.
Halloween is right around the corner, and I have some rollicking, slightly morbid garage wax for you to stuff in your ears.
Way back in the day, I wrote up one of the early versions of this tune (not the OG) by the Gentrys.
When that one came out in 1966, it was called ‘Don’t Send Me No Flowers’, and it was a cover of a record by another Memphis garage band, the Breakers.
The record I bring you today, rather boldy stolen, retitled and waxed by a crew calling themselves the What-Knots is groovy indeed.
My guess (going by the style of the record and the Buddy Killen production credit) is that the What-Knots were also from the south somewhere, but I can’t say for sure, since they are pretty obscure, even for a garage band.
It is of course possible that 45 years hence (this dropped in 1967) the What-Knots are still hiding from the Breakers’ lawyers, but you never know.
That said, their version of the song is a hopped up bit of southern/frat rock garage, with a singer that sounds in the breaks like the inspiration for James Brown’s Hot Tub Party.
I’m still not sure what he’s saying in a couple of places.
At one point it sounds like
“LEMME HEEYA BLOOTY SIGH!!!”
Okay Luther….whatever you say.
The combo organ and the honking sax-o-ma-phone are top notch, as is the thick, soup bass that threatens to overwhelm the whole affair.
It’s the kind of garage record that could only be made south of the Mason-Dixon line by a pack of likkered up snotballs, and for that we are all thankful.
I hope you dig it, and I’ll see you all next week.
Peace
Larry