Clarence "Frogman" Henry

Now Clarence Henry, he had 6 top 100 singles, 1 in ’57, and the rest in ’61 / 62. I have the 3 that made the top 40 (top 20 really) and I got them from some reissued singles.

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Clarence "Frogman" Henry:

• I Ain’t Got No Home – Grammar isn’t important. As Dave Marsh astutely pointed out in The Heart Of Rock & Soul, “In their entire careers, neither Prince nor Michael Jackson did anything quite this strange.” A song about a guy with nowhere to live turns into a song by a girl with no man, then a frog with no family, as our auteur transforms his voice into that of a young maiden, then that of the proffered creature. Weird. The Band covered this on Moondog Matinee, but they eschewed the vocal pyrotechnics. From the winter of 1957.
• But I Do – I don’t know why I love you but I do, sings Henry, in words that reflect the true nature of true love, though armies of sociologists and psychologists would have us believe otherwise. From the spring of 1961.
• You Always Hurt The One You Love – I suppose there’s truth in that, although “always” may be taken in the wrong sense, thereby justifying all manner of wrongdoing. Famous by the Mills Brothers, and a hit for Henry in the summer of 1961.