Ernie Freeman

Freeman’s career was all over the map: jazz, pop, R & B, rock and roll. He was a member of B Bumble & The Stingers, and he arranged sessions for Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. He had 5 hits on the top 100, but apart from Raunchy, none made the top 40. 4 of them show up on a CD called Raunchy, which I don’t have, and the cheapest copy of which is $106 USD on Amazon (25 tracks). Very strange, that, considering that all his hits were on Imperial.

Ernie Freeman:

• Raunchy – The late 50s was when rock and roll was finding itself, so for sure it had to establish itself as in a medium for instrumentals. And so it was that we remember the classic instrumentals: Rebel Rouser, Rumble, Teen Beat, Guitar Boogie Shuffle, Tequila, Wild Weekend. And Raunchy. Raunchy was the first. It was written by Bill Justis, whose version reached number 2, and was covered by Freeman, who claims a close second at number 4, and Billy Vaughn, whose version reached 10, all in the fall of 1957. And none of its purveyors were particularly closely identified with rock & roll.