Monday, July 18, 2011

Sing Sing Sing/Christopher Columbus


Long before Iron Butterfly, there was Gene Krupa. Long before "McArthur Park" and "Hey Jude," there was this nine-minute top 40 hit. Oh, you had to flip the record halfway through to hear the whole thing, but there it was.

And the live version from Carnegie Hall, from the live album that is still in print decades later, is still one of the greatest performances ever recorded in person.

This is the original record from the mid 1930s, still packing all the punch it had from the start. I can imagine folks hearing it for the first time and wondering "What is THAT?!" And buying it and playing it over and over again, like my dad when he was a teenager, and his son who wore it out the rest of the way ...

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