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UNDER-APPRECIATED ROCK ARTIST OF THE MONTH FOR APRIL 2012:  LINDA PIERRE KING 

One garage rock compilation album that I picked up by mailorder sometime along the line is We Had the Beat / The Heart Beats & Other Texas Girls of the 60’s.  The Heart Beats were a good enough band, as were the other featured bands; mostly they recorded serviceable covers of songs like “Little Latin Lupe Lu”, “Poor Side of Town” and the Nancy Sinatra hit “How Does that Grab You, Darlin’?”. 
 
But my ears really perked up when I heard toward the end of the album “Hard-Lovin’ Babe” by LINDA PIERRE KING:  That song had a pounding beat, great organ work, and haunting vocals with about as strong a vibrato as I have heard this side of Buffy Sainte-Marie.  Somehow, among all of these teen combos, the CD also includes this unknown folksinger.  And she didn’t just rate a track or two:  There are a total of eight songs by her on the album – more even than the Heart Beats (who had six).  The King songs were all put at the end of the album, maybe so that they would be easy to skip by diehard garage/psych enthusiasts, but they are far and away my favorite songs on the album. 
 
Mostly it is just Linda Pierre King and her guitar, but that is a full-blown band backing her on “Hard-Lovin’ Babe”.  They are named the Outcasts, and the people at Collectables Records hinted that they were the famed Texas garage rock band called the Outcasts that won the statewide Battle of the Bands in 1966 (the peak year for the garage rock genre) and whose records include classics like “I’m in Pittsburgh (and it’s Raining)” and “1523 Blair”".  As might be imagined, the Outcasts wasn’t exactly a rare name for a rock band; and the experts at Ugly Things magazine know of at least 10 bands by this name that made records in the 1960’s.  Whoever is backing King is definitely not the famous Outcasts – former bandmember Denny Turner disavows the recordings on his website – so they are a mystery for now.  One other song on the CD also features these Outcasts, the final track “My Boot Heels are Travelin’” – this is an original song, though the title is clearly based on a lyric from Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man”.  She also covers Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”. 
 
Speaking of “Blowin’ in the Wind”, several Peter, Paul and Mary albums turned up recently in the latest batch of records that I rescued from Katrina.  It was there that I discovered an earlier version of one of the standout Linda Pierre King songs, “Tiny Sparrow”; the song is also known as “Little Sparrow” and “Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies”.  “Tiny Sparrow” is included on PP&M’s second album Moving and is recorded in the urbane style of the folk trio.  King though wrings every last bit of emotion out of the song in her performance. 
 
Another great song with an interesting history is “Scotch and Soda”.  The song has all of the earmarks of a very good 1930’s standard; however, the first known recording of “Scotch and Soda” is by the Kingston Trio on their 1958 debut album, also called The Kingston Trio.  The song was discovered by the parents of legendary pitcher Tom Seaver of the New York Mets while on their honeymoon in Phoenix in 1932.  When they heard the song being played in a piano lounge, they knew immediately that it was going to be “their song”, so they had the pianist write it down for them.  One of the members of the Kingston Trio, Dave Guard was dating Tom’s older sister Katie Seaver for a time and heard the song while visiting at her parents’ home.  The bandmembers searched for years to try to find the real songwriter, but they never figured out who it was; Dave Guard is the placeholder songwriter in the album credits. 
 
The chilling song “Blackness” features a false start where you get to hear Linda Pierre King talking a little (she has a great Texas accent that you don’t hear at all in her singing).  Another original song included on the CD is a protest song called “Who Cares?”.  
 
So who is she? Linda Pierre King is a native of Houston and moved to New York in the mid-1960's.  She became active in the folksinging circuit and spent a lot of her time at a beatnik coffee house called Beanie Baby's Java Hut.  Apparently the recordings featured on the Heart Beats CD were made in New York but had never been officially released before this. 
 
Meanwhile, Norm Wooster was adrift in the Big Apple after seeing his musical career evaporate.  The self-styled "king of barbershop" had numerous hit songs in the 1950's and later became a talent scout for Play-Tone Records.  After a bitter dispute in 1962 with Play-Tone chairman Sol Siler, the #1 hit "Lovin' You Lots and Lots" was released in 1964 under the name Norm Wooster Singers, though Wooster did not perform on the record and had his songwriting credits excised.  This song was also the opening track on the soundtrack album for the 1996 Tom Hanks movie That Thing You Do! about a one-hit wonder rock band called (naturally) the Wonders. 
 
Norm Wooster then immersed himself in the folk music world in New York and saw Linda Pierre King perform at the Beanie Baby club.  He fell in love with her, and they were later married.  Through her, Wooster eased his way back into the music scene and performed in a variety of styles from psychedelic rock to disco to country. 
 
Linda Pierre King might also have helped moderate Norm Wooster's right-wing political beliefs; he had been friends with members of the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), whereas King was a follower of philosopher and author Ayn Rand.  The HUAC connection had exacerbated the falling-out with Sol Siler, since HUAC was investigating actress Suzanne Pleshette, whom Siler was dating at the time.  (See below).
 
I have also been reading about another CD that came out more recently which featured a lot of the same music, called It’s a Happening! Texas Girls of the 60’s.  Because the CD features the Heart Beats and Linda Pierre King, I assumed that it was basically a reissue of the earlier CD that I had, We Had the Beat / The Heart Beats & Other Texas Girls of the 60’s.  Actually, the 26-track album mostly features other bands; but more importantly from my standpoint, there are four songs by King that did not appear on the Heart Beats CD:  the South Pacific chestnut “Bali Hai”, the traditional ballad “Jack-A-Roe” (“The Train” is another traditional song that is on the earlier CD), an original song called “Where Are We Going?”, and a second Bob Dylan song, “Don’t Think Twice (It’s Alright)”.  That’s a total of 12 songs and is enough for a full-blown album for Linda Pierre King herself.  I guess I’m going to need to track down that CD also! 
  
(April 2012)
 
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Items:    Linda Pierre King  
 
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Well, apparently I got fooled by some of the back story that was created for the 1996 Tom Hanks movie called That Thing You Do!, about a one-hit wonder rock band called the Wonders; I have never actually seen the film.  There is no such person as Norm Wooster or Sol Siler, and Play-Tone Records was the fictitious record company that released the single by the Wonders.  The supposed hit song by the Norm Wooster Singers, “Lovin’ You Lots and Lots” was actually written by Tom Hanks.  Linda Pierre King evidently remained in the Houston area and never moved to New York City. 
 
I ran across the biography in more than one location that appeared to be reliable, such as the post on last.fm that gave a biography called “Norm Wooster: The Myth and the Legend” (and several Amazon.com and YouTube items, though one YouTube video disclaimed the New York City connection).  Birth dates, parents’ names, recordings, and name dropping peppered the entry; besides Linda Pierre King and Suzanne Pleshette (who was apparently not ever investigated by HUAC), the biography also mentions white soul singer Timi Yuro, Jerry Murad and the Harmonicats, Bob Dylan, and Kurt Cobain.  Turns out that last.fm is a wiki like Wikipedia; the real story can be found in several entries on Wikipedia.  It sure seemed legit to me at the time; I figured, how many people named Linda Pierre King could there be in the world who were folksingers?  
 
Anyway, sorry about that, and I apologize for my part in propagating this nonsense.  But that doesn’t make Linda Pierre King’s music any less wonderful.   
 
(October 2014)
 
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Flashback:  The Under-Appreciated Rock Artist of the Month for April 2012 – LINDA PIERRE KING

Well, this is timely:  I just yesterday put in a mailorder for a second CD that features several other songs (though still not everything – see below) by Linda Pierre King, called It’s a Happening! Texas Girls of the 60’s,  
YouTubehas several songs, including her best, “Hard-Lovin’ Babe” that was recorded with some band called the Outcasts, but not the Outcasts that I talked about above that included Galen Niles.  This song can be heard here, as taken from the new CD that has a somewhat cleaner sound than my copy:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CF_BWyxfNg .  “Who Cares?” is in a protest mode; it starts off a little shrill but has very thoughtful lyrics:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NODAnSALWFo&list=PLLGiu5j6kwN9PiUPApFH1W74mu6R3aQXy . 
 
Someone else put “Hard-Lovin’ Babe” on YouTubeand disputes what I wrote about her in my UARA post:  “Don’t believe the BS on the web about LPK, no one has come forth to know her biography.  She didn’t get into Any Rand (sic), nor end up in Greenwich Village, etc, and she wasn’t from Houston, either.”  Fine by me if you don’t believe what I wrote, but considering that there are only gripes there, I will stand by what I said.  (See above). 
 
However, the same person also added two previously unreleased songs by LPK; here is one of them, “More” (the theme from the unusual 1960’s movie Mondo Cane):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3hLC5iOMLg .  This recording of “Autumn Leaves” is also unreleased; this includes some chatter during the recording session and two false starts:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbzLHAje0Zw . 
 
(April 2014)
 
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Actually I am not at all sure that the above “Flashback” photograph is of Linda Pierre King; the other one came from the liner notes of It’s a Happening! Texas Girls of the 60’s, so that one is accurate I suppose. 
 
(January 2015)
 
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PICTURE GALLERY:  The Under Appreciated Rock Artist of the Month for April 2012 – LINDA PIERRE KING 

 

Linda Pierre King is a Texan folksinger who is sometimes backed by a rock band; I now have two CD’s of otherwise garage rock and psychedelic rock music that feature numerous songs that were evidently recorded by her back in the 1960’s.  None were apparently ever released until these CD’s came out, as far as I know.  

 

Someone put together a backstory for the characters in the Tom Hanks film That Thing You Do!.  Some of the people were entirely made-up; presumably those are the ones who are actually in the film.  Others are famous to one degree or another:  Bob Dylan, Suzanne Pleshette, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, Jerry Murad’s Harmonicats, Timi Yuro.  

 

And then they threw Linda Pierre King into the mix – and that just isn’t playing fair.  Neither one of the CD’s that I have provides any information to speak of about her.  The liner notes in one of them describe her as a quintessential hippie folksinger, and the small picture that is included bears that out.  Now anyone trying to ferret out information about Linda Pierre King has to get past all of the made-up story line about her hanging out in a Greenwich Village club called Beanie’s something-or-other, and then meeting and marrying the so-called King of Barber Shop. 

 

I did find a tidbit on line that I will share with you about yet another Linda Pierre King song, “Autumn Leaves” that does not appear on either CD.  I must say that she has an impressive list of songs for someone about whom no one seems to know anything.  

 

“Linda Pierre King travelled through Texas and in 1966, recorded at Accurate Sound in San Angelo.  Most of her songs were recorded solo, but on a couple, some of the Outcasts backed her up.  The owner of the studio, Ron Newdoll recalled her as an attractive folk singer who recorded about 18 songs in his studio.  Nothing of hers would ever be released though, until a couple of decades later.  This version and complete session of ‘Autumn Leaves’ makes it here or anywhere for the first time.  Other artists such as Nat King Cole also covered this famous ballad.”  

 

This is the first CD that I got with Linda Pierre King songs on it:

 

 

This is the second CD that I recently picked up: 

 

 

This is the small picture of her that was included in the first CD:

 

 

 

Here is another picture that purports to be of Linda Pierre King, though I am not sure that I buy that: 

 

 

 

(April 2015/2)

 

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Here is a rundown of the past year’s (2011-2012) Under-Appreciated Rock Bands and Rock Artists: 
 
December 2011 – 1960’s pop-rock band THE MAGICIANS (retrospective album) 
 
January 2012 – 2000’s rock singer-songwriter RON FRANKLIN (3 albums) 
 
February 2012 – 1980’s punk/hip hop rock band JA JA JA (1 album) 
 
March 2012 – 1970’s disco band STRATAVARIOUS (1 album) 
 
April 2012 – 1960’s folk-rock singer-songwriter LINDA PIERRE KING (several songs on two compilation albums) 
 
May 2012 – 2000’s punk rock band TINA AND THE TOTAL BABES (1 album) 
 
June 2012 – 1980’s new wave rock band WILD BLUE (2 albums, though 1 might be unreleased) 
 
July 2012 – 1980’s punk rock band DEAD HIPPIE (1 album) 
 
August 2012 – 1960’s garage rock band PHIL AND THE FRANTICS (retrospective albums) 
 
September 2012 – 1980’s new wave rock band CODE BLUE (2 albums) 
 
October 2012 – 1980’s progressive rock band TRILLION (2 albums) 
 
November 2012 – 1990’s-2000’s rock singer-songwriter THOMAS ANDERSON (5 albums) 
 
(Year 3 Review)