Wednesday, July 1, 2009

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.




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.

No comments:

 
Locations of visitors to this page