Huey Smith & The Clowns

A group called The Clowns would conjure up images of guys with orange hair and big red noses. But not so Huey Smith & The Clowns, and I’m not sure just why that is.

The group had 4 hits on the to 100, the best known of which in the long term is probably Rockin’ Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu, which is undoubtedly better known in its version by Johnny Rivers. I have their only top 40 hit. It went to number 9. Their next biggest hit went to 51. I got the song off of a CD that I will not tell you about until we get to Jimmy Clanton.

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Huey Smith & The Clowns:

• Don’t You Just Know It – New Orleans in excelsis. Difficult to understand the lyrics, but it sounds vaguely corrupt, if not outright demented.. “You got me rockin’ when I ought to be rollin’…” From the spring of 1958.