Luck goes a long way to make fame happen
By Brian Offenther |
April 5, 2012, Thursday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
AS much as talent, hard work and gumption have to do with success in pop music, a little luck can go an awfully long way.
Take Dick Peterson, author of the book "Louie Louie: Me Gotta Go Now," which is available at your Shanghai Library (1555 Huaihai Road M.). He's the drummer in the Kingsmen, a group that in 1963 recorded what is perennially considered one of the greatest songs in rock 'n' roll history, "Louie Louie."
The Kingsmen version of the song was done in a similar style to a rock 'n' roll cover of the original Calypso song by Rockin' Robin Roberts. By some alchemy the Kingsmen version of the song turned it into gold.
As drummer in the Kingsmen, you'd think he'd be very proud of his accomplishment and man, all throughout the book he is.
Except he didn't play on the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie."
He joined the group after they recorded the song, a point which he tries to skim over. He joined after the original drummer of the recording (Lynn Easton) leveraged the copyright he owned of the band name "the Kingsmen" to declare himself the new lead singer of the group, and then kicked everyone out who disagreed with him (everybody except the guitarist, Mike Mitchell). He does completely skim that important fact over.
So what's left in the book are tales of a touring rock band in the mid-1960s. That would be fine in itself, except Dick is more focused on aggrandizing himself with endless details of his bucolic childhood with cliché-ridden prose. Frustratingly, he teases the reader with tidbits of playing drums for the classic Beach Boys and other potentially interesting stories, but then writes, "The other stories … will just have to wait for a second book or, lacking that, remain untold."
Although Peterson did play on some minor hits and put in the hours on the road, the Kingsmen are only remembered today because of "Louie Louie."
Peterson got lucky.
Much less lucky is Tom Pang, the star of the new CD Tom Pang and Friends, which was recently released. Tom Pang is from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and plays bluegrass, an early style of American country music founded by Bill Monroe. Because of his locale and the era of his recording (2012 instead of say, 1952), Pang will likely go under noticed for his album.
That's a shame, because it's a good one.
Pang plays both the mandolin and fiddle, and is adept at both signature song styles of blue grass: the spry and vivacious fast ones and the mournful slow ones. And while the music here is firmly rooted in the traditional music style, it is updated with a few rock covers, including an effective, yearning "I Want You to Want Me" originally by Cheap Trick.
Rather than finding himself dropped into an association with success, Pang will have to persevere to get recognition.
That's unlucky for him. But it's lucky for us who get to regularly hear the talents of a world-class musician.
An old bluegrass song says "love don't love nobody." Neither does luck.
Take Dick Peterson, author of the book "Louie Louie: Me Gotta Go Now," which is available at your Shanghai Library (1555 Huaihai Road M.). He's the drummer in the Kingsmen, a group that in 1963 recorded what is perennially considered one of the greatest songs in rock 'n' roll history, "Louie Louie."
The Kingsmen version of the song was done in a similar style to a rock 'n' roll cover of the original Calypso song by Rockin' Robin Roberts. By some alchemy the Kingsmen version of the song turned it into gold.
As drummer in the Kingsmen, you'd think he'd be very proud of his accomplishment and man, all throughout the book he is.
Except he didn't play on the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie."
He joined the group after they recorded the song, a point which he tries to skim over. He joined after the original drummer of the recording (Lynn Easton) leveraged the copyright he owned of the band name "the Kingsmen" to declare himself the new lead singer of the group, and then kicked everyone out who disagreed with him (everybody except the guitarist, Mike Mitchell). He does completely skim that important fact over.
So what's left in the book are tales of a touring rock band in the mid-1960s. That would be fine in itself, except Dick is more focused on aggrandizing himself with endless details of his bucolic childhood with cliché-ridden prose. Frustratingly, he teases the reader with tidbits of playing drums for the classic Beach Boys and other potentially interesting stories, but then writes, "The other stories … will just have to wait for a second book or, lacking that, remain untold."
Although Peterson did play on some minor hits and put in the hours on the road, the Kingsmen are only remembered today because of "Louie Louie."
Peterson got lucky.
Much less lucky is Tom Pang, the star of the new CD Tom Pang and Friends, which was recently released. Tom Pang is from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and plays bluegrass, an early style of American country music founded by Bill Monroe. Because of his locale and the era of his recording (2012 instead of say, 1952), Pang will likely go under noticed for his album.
That's a shame, because it's a good one.
Pang plays both the mandolin and fiddle, and is adept at both signature song styles of blue grass: the spry and vivacious fast ones and the mournful slow ones. And while the music here is firmly rooted in the traditional music style, it is updated with a few rock covers, including an effective, yearning "I Want You to Want Me" originally by Cheap Trick.
Rather than finding himself dropped into an association with success, Pang will have to persevere to get recognition.
That's unlucky for him. But it's lucky for us who get to regularly hear the talents of a world-class musician.
An old bluegrass song says "love don't love nobody." Neither does luck.
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