Chris Wilson (born September 10, 1952 in Waltham, Massachusetts) is a guitarist and multi instrumentalist, most known for his role as the singer of the best-remembered line-up San Francisco cult band the Flamin' Groovies, having replaced original singer Roy Loney in 1971. With Wilson on lead vocals, the band released their influential 1976 album Shake Some Action. His song "Shake Some Action", co-written with Cyril Jordan, appeared in the 1995 movie Clueless. He was also a long-term member of The Barracudas; and in 1993, he released the mini-album Pop backed by The Sneetches and the debut solo album Random Centuries. (More from Wikipedia)
The two songs that introduced me to Phil Gammage were on a sampler album entitled The Electric Radio Sampler Music Test (1993). The album is probably intended to be played inside record stores as an inducement to purchase albums on sale by the label who released it, Marilyn Records. It doesn't look like much, but there is some great music on this little CD. Besides the two Phil Gammage songs, there are two by Flamin' Groovies guitarist Chris Wilson. The opening track, "If Wishes Were Horses" is based on the old saying "if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride" – one of those sayings where everyone only seems to say the first half and often forgets how the rest of it goes (I had for this saying). On this song, he is backed by a San Francisco indie rock band, the Sneetches.
The other Chris Wilson song, "The Derelict" is even better – it is the "yo ho ho and a bottle of rum" pirate song. The original song was made up by Robert Louis Stevenson for his 1883 adventure tale, Treasure Island. Young Ewing Allison, a newspaperman of that era, wrote a full poem based on the short verse included in the novel. Accompanied by a gritty rock band called (appropriately enough) the Barbary Coasters (also from San Francisco), the lyrics are taken from that poem and I believe include all six stanzas. I also have the full CD by Chris Wilson that includes both songs, Back on the Barbary Coast.
(March 2015)
