[Ed. Note: The following press release from Kittyhawk Productions national headquarters was found in my Inbox this morning:]
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NEWS RELEASE: TOP PRIORITY CLASSIC RECORDING “RHYTHMIC BLUES” LAUNCHED ON YOUTUBE
NORTHFIELD, MN – October 9, 2010 – Kittyhawk Productions (NYSE KHPR) announced today the release of the second of three classic recordings by Top Priority (“The Band That Rock Forgot”) now available on YouTube!
Reached at his Dana Point, California bungalow, Top Priority executive producer Victor N. Cucini had this to say about the recording’s official release: “This is a truly unique “Scat Jacobs and The Manhattans Featuring Sonny Williams” recording. It’s Keys, Scat, Sal, and Sonny at the height of their artistic brilliance. It’s just a shame that the original recording is so degraded, but I thought it was important, not just to get it out there, but to tell the incredible story behind it.
“The tune itself was composed by legendary bluesman E.P. Hemingway (“You May Be A Hen But I Ain’t Chicken”), and he gave it to Jerry “Keys” Palma after an afternoon of drinking malt liquor on the back porch of E.P’s shack down in the Mississippi Delta. This was in 1976, y’know. Keys, like the rest of the band, had grown tired of all the non-stop touring, the hotels, the chicks, the sex, and the crowds; combined, they all had taken its toll on the band’s psyches.
“Y’see, Keys was interested in taking the band in a new direction, and he chose this bizarre combination of white man’s blues and cocktail party music – he was a genuius. The band bought into the paradigm completely, they fired guitarist Paul “The Bouch” Boucher, dropped the Top Priority name in favor of “Scat Jacobs and the Manhattans Featuring Sonny Williams” (the better to explore their more sensitive and artistic side), and the rest, as they say, is history. All I can dsay about this recording is, it’s the balls, dig it.”
Click here to hear Scat Jacobs and the Manhattans Featuring Sonny Williams perform their classic recording, “Rhythmic Blues”.
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Pool temp: 74 degrees