Three Window Coupe

 

 

Most sources believe that Bruce Johnston and Terry Melcher basically took over vocal duties for almost all of the recordings by the Rip Chords after Hey Little Cobra and Other Hot Rod Hits.  However, Ernie Bringas insists that all four vocalists collaborated as to who would handle the singing, and that the hit song “Hey Little Cobra” is about the only song where neither he nor Phil Stewart sang at all.  For instance, both he and Bruce Johnston were singing the falsetto part on the Top 30 follow-up to their big hit, “Three Window Coupe” (co-written by Jan Berry of Jan & Dean). 

 

I purchased the band’s first album, Hey Little Cobra and Other Hot Rod Hits a long time ago, but I came across their second album just recently, and I have really been enjoying it.  Unlike the first album, Three Window Coupe  doesn’t recycle a lot of the same old surf songs; instead, the songs are all unfamiliar to me – except the title song, “Three Window Coupe” which I definitely remember – and that makes it a lot more special.  That “California Sound” a la Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys is there in force, and it was fun to refamiliarize myself with all those good times. 

 

(July 2011)

 

 

YouTube has numerous Rip Chords songs on hand.  Plenty of playbacks of their follow-up Top 30 hit “Three Window Coupe” are available on YouTube, but here is a nice live performance of this song by the band in 2012, together with a well-known surf instrumental as the introduction whose name escapes me (“Pipeline”?):  www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNRTGOOGhz8 .