Rockin' Song of the Week No.94 - The Champs

Rockin' Song of the Week No.94 - The Champs
Challenge 59076

From what I can gather, The Champs cut the great Red Eye 50 years ago today. I've got the song on the Ace CD, The Early Singles, a quality thirty track compilation. The music is mighty fine but the notes from Dave Burke and Roy Simonds don't mention this track. According to my Dutch buddy Dik De Heer, the song was cut in Los Angeles on March 30th, 1960, along with "The Little Matador". The two songs resulted in the single, Challenge 59076 which was released just two weeks later on April 18th.

The song was written by Gene Vincent Blue Cap Johnny Meeks, a guy who many of us love more than the much heralded Cliff Gallup. I know that Flippar has regular dreams about Johnny Meeks and the beautiful Bob Timmers is in love with the guy and cites this song as one of the reasons he wanted to learn to play guitar.

Meeks only worked with the Champs for around six months and this was the highlight of his stay, before Uncle Sam called him away. Some web sites state his tenure as being in 1959 while others say 1960. Knowing what a stickler for accuracy Dik is, i'm going with the 1960 date.