North in Louisiana

His group, John Fred and the Playboys, was formed in 1956; their first hit single was 1958's "Shirley".

From One Hit Wonders 

In 1956 one of the members of the group who was a big reader of Playboy magazine suggested they rename the group to “The Playboys”. “Sam Montalbano” the president and owner of “Montel” records who also managed the local Catholic Youth Center would hold dances and sock hops. He booked John and his group and a close friend “Johnny Ramistella” (better known as “Johnny Rivers”) to as many of them as they could make. Sam really liked one of the songs they regularly performed “Shirley” that was composed by both John and “Tommy Bryan”. On 23 September 1958 he took 17 year old John and his band to a recording studio owned by “Cosimo Matassa” in New Orleans. Some previous hits recorded there were “Don’t You Just Know It” by “Huey Piano Smith & The Clowns”, “Tutti Frutti” by “Little Richard”, “Ooh Poo Pah Doo” by “Jessie Hill” and “Jock A Mo” by “Sugar Boy Crawford”. 

“Fats Domino” was at the studio this day and agreed to record a quick version of “Shirley”. John had already sang backing vocals on “My Girl Across Town” by Jazz singer and trombonist “Lester Robinson” on Sam’s “Montel” records. So Sam decided instead of having Fats record “Shirley” he asked John and his band to record it. Before they recorded the song Sam told him he was aware of another group called “The Playboys” and suggested they go by “John Fred & The Playboys”. They also had Fats’ band backing them up on the song. The flip side of the record was “My Love For You” a take off on the #9 pop hit and #1 R&B hit this year by “Chuck Willis” of “What Am I Living For”. “Shirley” was released in December and began getting a lot of airplay on the R&B stations until the disc jockeys found out the group was not black and stopped playing it.

The song debuted on the pop charts on 23 February 1959 and peaked at #82 and was on the charts for only 5 weeks. The song would become a top 10 hit in the UK in 1983 by “Michael Barratt” (better known as “Shakin' Stevens”). John next appeared in March on radio in New York City on “The Alan Freed Show” where he met “Clyde McPhatter”. Their second release in April was “Mirror Mirror (On The Wall)” that had “The Jordanaires” dubbed in with backing vocals but it failed to make the charts. In August they release “Good Lovin’”, written by “Robert Charles Guidry” (better known as “Bobby Charles”) who is said to be one of the founding fathers of swamp pop. This is not the same version that was a #2 R&B hit in 1953 for “The Clovers” a #81 pop hit for “The Olympics” in 1965 or a #1 pop hit for “The Young Rascals” in 1966. 

In 1967, John  Fred and band member Andrew Bernard co-wrote "Judy in Disguise", whose name is a parodic play on the title ofThe Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". The song, issued by Louisiana-based Jewel Records on the Paula label( Stan Lewis other label ), became successful, knocking another Beatles song ("Hello, Goodbye") out of the #1 chart position on the Billboard Hot 100for two weeks in January 1968.^[3] It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.^[4] Although Fred actually had a well-rehearsed and talented group honed by years on the road, now known as John Fred & His Playboy Band, he was branded as a novelty act and never had another success. 

Dale and Grace 

In 1963, Dale Houston was working in a bar in Ferriday LA (home of Jerry Lee Lewis and his cousins Micky Gilley and Jimmie Swaggert , Sam "Montel " Montalbano approached Houston about teaming up with a female singer, Grace Broussard (born 1939) from Prarieville near Baton Rouge.Both had been singing in area bars  for several years - Grace with her brother, Van Broussard .The two met and practiced on Montalbano's home  piano for four hours. When Houston began to play an old song written and recorded in 1957 by Specialty Records  performers Don and Dewey— "I'm Leaving It Up To You"

Montel, asleep in the next room, woke up and screamed: “Play it again. That’s a hit!” ^[3] The song was soon recorded and released locally on the  Montel label 

According to The Billboard Book of Number One Hits by Fred Bronson, the song broke at Top 40 radio station KNUZ in Houston, where it was unanimously voted the "pick hit of the week" by the station's panel of seven deejays. Montel wanted to change the key in which the violins were recorded, but was persuaded by the KNUZ deejays to leave the recording as it was. It was nationally distributed as Montel #921 by Philadelphia's Jamie/Guyden Records after negotiations by producer Huey Meaux.^[7][6]

Montel's prophesy was vindicated when "I'm Leaving It Up To You" reached #1 on the U.S. chart, where it remained for two weeks.^[8] The song was #1 during the week that Kennedy was assassinated and also reached #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.

Houston appeared on Clark's American Bandstand program. In autumn 1963, Houston and Broussard toured with Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars. The Clark caravan, which also included Brian Hyland andBobby Vee, was standing on a street corner on Main Street in Dallas waving at John F. Kennedy on that fateful day. Moments later, the Kennedy limousine turned right onto, ironically, Houston Street, then turned left onto Elm Street, after which the president was killed and Texas Governor John B. Connally was seriously wounded. The group had gone back to their hotel rooms after waving to Kennedy and did not hear about the assassination until several hours later.^[7]

The follow-up release "Stop And Think It Over" went to #8 in 1964. However, the popularity of The Beatles, combined with personal problems between the two performers, Broussard's homesickness, and a serious illness which landed Houston in the hospital, caused the duo to separate in 1965. Grace returned to singing with her brother.

The Uniques with Joe Stampley at the helm  were based out of Shreveport, and began performing in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. In 1965, The Uniques recorded, "Not Too Long Ago", the first national hit for Paula Records. One year later, they followed with "All These Things".. They were active from about 1965 to 1970, recording most of their material at Robin Hood Studios, located in Tyler, Texas.


Louisville Connections
The song "All These Things" was written by a newscaster in Louisville, Kentucky, named Tom Maxedon, written as a love song for his wife Carrie. In a time of need for supplemental income, Maxedon sold the rights to the song for $200 to an unknown producer making his rounds around the radio stations. The song hit the charts in 1966, and Maxedon's home station, WAKY in Louisville, began playing the song in their regular rotation in respect to Maxedon. "All These Things" became a nightly staple on WAKY, regularly one of their top-requested songs each night for over 10 years. The song stayed in the top 40 for just a few weeks nationwide, but was a local phenomenon in Louisville for over a decade.( So says Wikipedia )





Toussiant Mccall 
and yes it was recorded in his living room in Monroe LA .
Released on Ronn Records by Stan Lewis 
Mr Mccall in  1988 made a cameo appearance in the John Waters film, Hairspray, lip syncing to his hit song. ( clip is there to the left )
 and you ask does Ruth Brown speak French , just like everybody else in this clip ) N'est-Ce Pas  ?





Swamp Pop Music Links 
http://theswamper.tripod.com/


For another time 
Louisiana Hayride was a radio and later television country music show broadcast from the Shreveport Municipal Memorial Auditorium in Shreveport,Louisiana, that during its heyday from 1948 to 1960 helped to launch the careers of some of the greatest names in American music. Elvis Presleyperformed on the radio version of the program in 1954, and made his first television appearance on the TV version on March 3, 1955.

Glen Rutherford Article on WAKY and I'm A Mummy Remembered

Also see the web link 
City's airwaves went WAKY in the old days of rock 'n' roll
By Glen Rutherford from 1982

Cityscape is a weekly column in which members of the news staff ruminate on intriguing aspects of the life in the Louisville area.
 In the days before rock 'n' roll became an entry in the dictionary, a youngster had two choices if he wanted to hear the likes of Chuck Berry, Laverne Baker or Betty Everett.

He listened to the black radio stations - WLOU in town until sundown, then WLAC in Nashville at night, with "the Hoss Man, layin' it down for Royal Crown." Not the cola; the hairdressing cream.

'LAC had a midnight show, too, sponsored by "Randy's Record Shop. If it's ever been recorded, you can get it at Randy's."

That was it. That was before your mother knew what rock 'n' roll meant, before Elvis or Bill Haley, and yeah, before WAKY radio.

WGRC radio - the "George Rogers Clark radio station" - was playing who-knows-what kind of music before 1958; nobody I've talked to can remember. But they know what happened when a Texan named Gordon McLendon bought the station and changed its name to WAKY -- say that wacky.

The airwaves around Louisville haven't been the same since.

WAKY radio took to the air with 24 straight hours of one song, the immortal "Flying Purple People Eater."

Oh, they'd introduce other songs - "Hey, here's Louis Prima and Keely Smith," or "We know you're rarin' to hear Bobby Darin," but the song they'd play was Purple People Eater.

That was just the start of the craziness, of a decade or so of off-the-wall radio. It was radio that brought Louisville face to face, or ear to ear, with music that changed the way young people thought about practically everything.

WAKY has mollified over the years. The craziness gave way to less radical radio, which gave way to oldies -- in recent years they came play the same stuff that had made the station famous.

Now the oldies have given way to computers.

WAKY has switched to an electronic format; all the music is pre-programmed, played automatically without the aid of a disc jockey.

It's probably making Jumpin' Jack Sanders turn over in his grave.

Jumpin' Jack was perhaps the best known on-air personality WAKY ever had.

Probably the wackiest, too.

Thomas Shelby "Bob" Watson works for the Associated Press now, but back in the crazy days of WAKY radio, he was the station's news director. Like everyone who recalls Jumpin' Jack, Watson does so with a smile.

"I started at WAKY when I was still a student at UK," Watson recalled, "and all my teachers in Lexington thought I was crazy. They did not view WAKY as legitimate radio."

Little wonder.

Would a legitimate station air a "news report" about the alleged sighting of a giant alligator in the Ohio River near the foot of Fourth Street?

Would an on-air personality at a legitimate radio station set fire to the bottom of the news wire the real newsman was reading?

Would a legitimate station seriously promote such events as a man spending a weekend in a coffin with 40 poisonous snakes?

WAKY did all those things, and Jumpin' Jack Sanders was behind much of it.

"At one time, we had a three-man news department with Tom Perryman, Gerry Wood and me," Watson said, "Wood came to become one of Sanders' favorite people, and when that happened, look out. He couldn't wait 'til Wood got on the air to harass him."

On occasion, said Watson, Wood would still be typing his newscast right up to the second he was to go on the air, and occasionally he'd rip copy from the Associated Press wire machine and lay it on his lap.

Sanders would delight in seeing that," said Watson, "He'd sneak behind the turntables, make his way to the newsroom door and he'd light the copy. Just set it on fire."

It made for an interesting newscast.

So did the WAKY promotion centering on a guy who called him Wacheetanokai, the snake man.
Perryman, now general manager of WCII radio in Louisville, remembers that WAKY staged that promotion with the old Rambler City auto dealership in Jeffersonville, Ind.

"The guy'd read a book or something, lying with 40 or 50 poisonous snakes - least I guess they were poisonous," said Perryman. "This time he did it in the dealer's showroom, and they had about 40,000 people come in that weekend. Didn't sell a single car, that I know of, because it was too crowded for anybody to get any work done."

An incredible amount of talent came and went from WAKY radio, Perryman said. Not just DJs, either, but talented newscasters, program directors and station managers.

"It was, no kidding, a tremendous station," he said.

Sanders, who died in Nashville four years ago ( Ed Note :Jack Sanders  died in February, 1978 in Nashville from liver disease and pneumonia), wasn't WAKY's only famous crazy. Those who followed him were sometimes just as crazy -- jocks such as Bill Bailey, Jim Brand, Gary Burbank, Weird Beard and Coyote Calhoun.

And especially Skinny Bobby Harper.

Harper was at WAKY just a year or so, but he left an impression. He was one of the first in town to write comedy bits for his show ahead of time -- he did routines such as "The Itty-Bitty News," and phony commercials for non-existent products or movies.

Who can forget his famous promotion of a bogus film called "The Monster That Ate Pleasure Ridge Park."

"Pleasure Ridge Park," went Harper's ad. "Where men are men, women are men, and the children are confused."

He was also the guy who started the "Ties for Columbus" project, an effort to get people to send neckties to Louisville Police Chief C.J. (Columbus James) Hyde.

I think he inundated poor C.J. with ties," said Watson. "Tell you what, it (WAKY) was the kind of place where work wasn't work. You looked forward to coming in every day 'cause you never knew what was going to happen."

It was also the kind of station you loved to listen to. To this day, it's easy to recall the station's Sunday night jingle -- one of the last things my radio played before I drifted into sleep and into another week of school.

"The weekend's over," the jingle singers sang, "it's Sunday night, time to dream a dream or two. With WAKY, seven-nine-oh, Sunday night radioooo…"

Note From Bill Grubb

Wasn't it Jack Sanders who locked himself in the control room and played the Mummy song ?

Here it is to jog your collective memories