Wild Thing (song)
Wild Thing is the title of one of the British garage rock - band The Troggs became known in 1966 songs of the million seller has been and subsequently in many cover versions appeared.
History of origin
The original, composed by Chip Taylor in a few minutes, comes from the US garage rock group Jordan Christopher & The Wild Ones . The short-lived group consisted of lead singer Jordan Christopher as well as Chuck Alden (guitar), Tom Graves (keyboards), Tommy Trick (bass guitar) and Eddie Wright (drums). Wild Thing was to be the band's first record based on a demo tape by composer Chip Taylor and Al Gorgoni and was recorded in New York in July 1965. The song with the lewd lyrics was risky: "I was ashamed of the overt sexuality in the song," admitted Taylor and asked his music publisher not to distribute the piece to the group. Producer Jerry Granahan ignored the demo tape and completely rearranged the song. Instead of the ocarina solo, a harmonica solo was used, and a brass section was added. The resulting sound is reminiscent of punk, which appeared much later . The song, composed in A major, is based on the chord sequence I - IV - V - IV. On November 1, 1965, the song came out on United Artists # 947, but did not hit the charts.
Cover version of the Troggs
In the midst of the British beat boom, the Troggs became aware of this flop. Their first single Lost Girl , released on CBS in February 1966, was also a flop, so a hit was urgently needed. In February 1966, the recording session was scheduled at the London Olympic Studios under the direction of Keith Gant with producer Larry Page. The band kept more to the original demo recording , and the ocarina music director Colin Frechter could be heard again. The guitars are not correctly tuned to a Middle-C, and so the chords appear as between A and Bb. From only two takes , the uniformly recorded Take 2 was used as the master tape of the new Troggs record company Fontana and on Fontana #TF 689 on December 22nd Published April 1966. In the same recording session, the follow -up hit With a Girl Like You was created , which became the group's first number one hit in England after its release in June 1966 . Wild Thing first appeared on the UK charts on May 6, 1966 and made it to # 2. At the same time, Wild Thing appeared in the USA on the sister label Fontana # 1548 and even reached number one in the pop charts for two weeks. This made the early punk song an international hit, which in July 1966 also reached rank 7 as the highest ranking in Germany. In total, Wild Thing has sold 5 million times worldwide.
Wild Ones keyboardist Tom Graves recalls: “The Troggs version was much better and exactly copied the demo tape by Chip Taylor and Al Gorgoni. I also liked the demo, but our producer Granahan thought he could do something better with it. Oh well."
The song won a BMI award .
Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix , who never recorded Wild Thing in the studio, often played the title at gigs, for example at the London Flamingo Club on February 4, 1967 or in Paris on May 11, 1967. The most spectacular performance was on June 18, 1967 at the legendary Monterey International Pop Festival in Monterey, California, where he presented Wild Thing as the last of 9 songs in a heavily distorted version that ends with the usual guitar destruction when he sets his guitar on fire. Jimi Hendrix appeared with his band as an unknown artist in the USA, who lived in England and only had his hits there. The monotony of his chords had a mesmerizing effect on the crowd, with him doubling the tempo in the middle of the song. When he finally lit the guitar - soaked with fire accelerator - with a match, the crowd went crazy.
More covers
So far, there are 54 versions of Wild Thing . The first version - a parody of Senator Robert Kennedy, whose voice was impersonated by comedian Bill Minkin - reached number 20 on the Billboard charts in January 1967 and sold 450,000 copies in just three weeks. The British band Fancy covered the song in April 1974, their version reached number 14 on the US charts. In September 1975 the British band Goodies brought another version up to number 25 on the British singles charts; The song was re-recorded by X. for the film The Indians of Cleveland , which was released in German cinemas on February 8, 1990. Ace Frehley recorded the song with Lita Ford in 2016 for his album Origins Vol. 1 . There are humorous versions in German. The song Malepartus II (pseudonym of the Hessian band The King-Beats; Lisbeth , recorded on September 22, 1966) was the first to discover the German language, followed by Frank Zander's band The Q ( Erna , 1972) and Otto Waalkes ( Wild Zink , April 1974), the Kölschrock band BAP ( Wahnsinn , November 1979), Insisters ( Helmut , 1982), Torfrock ( Wildsau , February 1994), the German rock group Mr. Ed Jumps the Gun , which was released in January 1995 with an English cover version ( Wild Thang ) landed a hit. This was followed by the Original Deutschmacher ( Wild Ding , May 1996) and the Smurfs with Wild Smurf (May 1999).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Interview by Taylor in Mojo Magazine in September 2008
- ^ Alan Clayson / Jacqueline Ryan, Rock's Wild Things - The Troggs Files , London, 2000, p. 57
- ↑ Thomas Staudter, 'Wild Thing' Composer Continues Comeback, New York Times, September 19, 1999
- ↑ Tom Graves in an interview with Justin Tricarico
- ^ David Henderson, Jimi Hendrix - 'Scuse Me While I Kiss The Sky , 1990, p. 108
- ^ David Henderson, Jimi Hendrix - 'Scuse Me While I Kiss The Sky , 1990, p. 112
- ↑ Cover info on Wild Thing
- ↑ Time Magazine, Jan. 13, 1967, You Wild Thing, You
- ↑ Internet Movie Database, The Cleveland Indians (1989)
- ↑ Musikmarkt Online ( Memento of the original from February 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed February 17, 2016
