The T-Bones were a Liberty Records recording group from 1963 - 1966. The studio recordings of all of their albums but the last were done by American session musicians, The Wrecking Crew. When the T-Bones had a hit in 1966 with the single “No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach’s In)”, Liberty Records quickly recorded an album of the same name. “No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach’s In)” was based on the melody from a commercial for Alka-Seltzer. The tune reached #3. The “public” T-Bones were Judd Hamilton, Dan Hamilton, Joe Frank Carollo, Tommy Reynolds, and Gene Pello; they did record the T-Bones’ final album, Everyone’s Gone To The Moon (And Other Trips). Dan Hamilton, Carollo, and Reynolds would later form the 1970s soft rock trio Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds. (More from Wikipedia)
My introduction to the tougher sounds of surf music was on one of the compilation albums of that period, Shut Downs and Hill Climbs that I picked up from Columbia Record Club when I was ordering Jan & Dean records and other such. There are two Jan & Dean songs, “Hot Stocker” and “Little Deuce Coupe”; both are on one of their better albums, Drag City, with “Little Deuce Coupe” being a previous hit by the Beach Boys (and also the name of one of their albums, Little Deuce Coupe). There are other cool numbers on the album also, such as “Six Days on the Road” by Dave Dudley, “Seven Little Girls Sittin’ in the Back Seat” by Paul Evans, two instrumentals by the Ventures (more about them later), and a cover of the Rip Chords hit “Hey Little Cobra” by a band called the T-Bones.
(December 2014)
