Wednesday, December 30, 2015

The Perfect Collection: Ninety-Nine Essential Pop Singles # 5 The Barbarians

'Will you remember Jerry Lee? John Lennon, T.Rex and Old Moulty?'

Now this record and band are an absolute goldmine of pop trivia. The Barbarians, from Cape Cod Massachusetts. featured on a famous TAMI Show broadcast which also featured The Stones, Supremes, Chuck Berry, Beach Boys James Brown, Marvin Gaye and The Miracles (clips posted below for good measure). They had a minor national hit with Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl? A daft record, worth tracking down in itself.



Otherwise, they're probably best known for Moulty. A song narrated by and about drummer Victor 'Moulty' Moulton, who played with a prosthetic hook in place of his right hand having lost that in a pipe-bomb accident in his teens. Backed, not by the other Barbarians, but by a set of New York Studio musicians Levon & the Hawks who later became The Band.

This song actually got to Number 90 in the US Billboard Singles Chart in February 1966, featured on Lenny Kaye's landmark Nuggets compilation released in 1972 and also British DJ and comedian Kenny Everett's radio show and record The World's Worst Record Show from later in the same decade. Also in the lyrics of The Ramones' Rock and Roll Radio, quoted above. Some legacy for a song that sounds like this! 

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