Johnny Devlin: Matador Baby (1958)

 |   |  1 min read

Johnny Devlin: Matador Baby (1958)

It's widely known that Johnny Devlin was New Zealand's own Elvis Presley -- but unlike Elvis, Devlin wrote his own material.

Certainly he covered the hits of the day -- Hand Jive, Wild One, Bony Maronie and so on. But he also wrote some creditable originals like Hard to Get, High Heeled Shoes, Nervous Wreck and so on -- which all were firmly within the genre of Fifties rock'n'roll as we have come to understand it.

Matador Baby -- with Bob Paris on guitar and Bernie Allen on sax, probably -- is an interesting one: it adopts the whole language of American rock'n'roll ("the hop" which we didn't have in New Zealand) and at times here Devlin is closer to Jerry Lee Lewis than Elvis -- and of course it makes a reference which most people wouldn't get these days, to matador pants which were popular at the time and somewhat daring for their tight cut.

IMG_5941You can hear also how the band were actually jazz players moonlighting in rock'n'roll (the sax break and sort of New Orleans clarinet from Tony Ashby) -- sort of early jazz-rock?

You wish that pianist was let off the leash a bit more.

It might have taken his career in a very different direction -- the pianist is in fact the acclaimed jazz pianist Mike Nock who at the time was in his teens.

For more on-offs or songs with an interesting back-story see From the Vaults

Johnny Devlin was interviewed at Elsewhere here

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   From the Vaults articles index

George Harrison: Dream Scene (1968)

George Harrison: Dream Scene (1968)

This appropriately entitled piece is serious headphone listening for the wee small hours and is perhaps among the most strange things George Harrison's name was ever attached to. It appeared on... > Read more

Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee: Screamin' and Cryin' Blues (1964)

Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee: Screamin' and Cryin' Blues (1964)

Although this song didn't appear in wide circulation until the Terry/McGhee 1964 compilation Pawnshop Blues, it seems to date back to the Thirties. Blind Boy Fuller recorded a version late in that... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

Elsewhere Art . . .  David Sanborn

Elsewhere Art . . . David Sanborn

For quite a while, saxophonist David Sanborn was quite a name in jazz and rock. When I interviewed him in the early 1990s I noted the number of Grammys he'd won but also his guest spots on... > Read more

Kurt Cobain: Gun, head and Smithereens.

Kurt Cobain: Gun, head and Smithereens.

As with most people of a "certain age" I can remember where I was when I heard John F Kennedy had been shot ( I was in bed), and when I was told another Kennedy had gone the way of the... > Read more