Listen/Download – Johnny Jay and the Gangbusters – You Get Your Kicks MP3

Listen/Download – Johnny Jay and the Gangbusters – Gangbusters Blues MP3

Greetings all.

Today’s selection is one of those records that I picked up at a record show, never having heard it before, taking a chance on it because I knew the tune, a cover of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels 1966 ‘You Get Your Kicks’.

I had never heard of Johnny Jay and the Gangbusters, and I still haven’t been able to find anything out about them. The group appears to have recorded only this one 45 (in 1967) , and the information on the label isn’t very helpful, except to indicate that the record was produced by Gary Knight (aka Harold Temkin, Gary Temkin, Gary Weston), the co-writer of ‘You Get Your Kicks’ (and also co-writer, with Barbara Banks of one of the greatest soul 45s ever ‘River of Tears’).

I know it seems blasphemous to suggest this, but I think the Gangbusters version of the tune is better than the original by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels.

Though Ryder is the superior vocalist, the arrangement and playing on this version of the song is much more robust and ultimately danceable than the original.

The bass guitar is more prominent, as is the horn section and the lead guitar.

The flipside, entitled ‘Gangbusters Blues’, and credited to five separate writers (none of them Knight or his original co-writer Bob Crewe) is actually an instrumental version of ‘You Get Your Kicks’.

The 45 seems to have had some level of success on Northern Soul dance floors in the UK.

If anyone out there knows anything more about the group, please let me know.

I hope you dig the tune, and I’ll see you all on Friday.

Keep the faith

Larry

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