“That hillbilly music was so slow. It was music that was putting me to sleep. I had no clue what rockabilly was. It was just something that I felt, so that’s what I did.” – C.J. Cheramie, a.k.a. Joe Clay

Dr. Ike and I visited rockabilly wild man Joe Clay, a Rockabilly Hall of Famer and Ponderosa Stomp regular, at his home on New Orleans’ West Bank in the spring of 2007. In the hour-long interview below, listen to him discuss his anticlimactic pre-Elvis turn on the Ed Sullivan show, how he changed his name, and why Marrero’s Gay Paree nightclub was the hot spot for the New Orleans country and rockabilly scene in the 50′s.

Listen to the Joe Clay Oral History Interview

William Bell performs at the Ponderosa Stomp at Lincoln Center\'s Midsummer Night Swing, 7/16/09.

Even after William Bell brought the Stax label one of its first hits, 1961′s “You Don’t Miss Your Water” – a song that would largely set the tone for the label’s signature Southern soul sound – he still remained on the fence about whether or not to ditch the recording business and go to medical school. At least, that’s what he told me during our live interview this past August at the Cutting Edge Music Business Conference.

Luckily, he didn’t (though our own Dr. Ike proves that medicine and rock n’roll aren’t mutually exclusive.) We’ve posted the audio from that interview below so you can hear one of the Stomp’s most popular returning performers discuss the rise and fall of Stax, the intense creative and political climate of Memphis in the 60′s, and how he happened to come to New Orleans to get a new sound.

Listen to the hour-long interview here:
William Bell Oral History Interview, 8/30/09

They hate CDs, but apparently they like the Interwebs okay. The mad geniuses and longtime Stomp supporters at Norton Records (label co-owner Miriam Linna moderated a memorable oral history with Question Mark at the 2009 Ponderosa Stomp Conference) have launched a new podcast to feed your ears, beaming out straight across the cyber-spaceways from their Brooklyn-based Sputnik.

Norton house band the A-Bones will also be striking out soon for the mystic East, with five dates scheduled (starting this Friday) in Japan, sharing bills with the 5,6,7,8′s and Jackie & the Cedrics.

Mystic Knight of the Mau Mau and recent Lincoln Center debutant Mike Hurtt is also dusting off his suitcase to play gigs in Portland, OR and Spain with soul legend and 2004 Ponderosa Stomp headliner Gino Washington.

Play the video below to see Gino ride his pony with Hurtt’s Party Stompers in Detroit earlier this summer.

The Ponderosa Stomp Foundation was sad to hear today that Ellie Greenwich, one of the leading songwriters of the early rock n’roll era, has passed away. 

 Greenwich was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1940 and raised in the suburb of Levittown. Her first instrument was the accordion, though she gave that up in short order to form a high-school vocal trio, the Jivettes. In 1958, she released her first single as a writer and performer: “Cha-Cha-Charming,” as Ellie Gaye.

 After graduating from Hofstra University in 1962 (where she met her future husband and writing partner Jeff Barry) Greenwich landed a job at the Brill Building headquarters of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and penned her first chart hits for Jay & the Americans and Darlene Love’s Exciters, the latter a group she’d work with for many years.

Along with Barry (from whom she separated in 1965,) Greenwich was responsible for such hits as “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “And Then He Kissed Me,” “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” and “Leader of the Pack,” co-written with Shadow Morton. In 1991, she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

 It was Greenwich, along with Barry, who gave rock n’roll teen bouffant queen Ronnie Spector “Be My Baby,” the hit that would turn her into an icon; a near-perfect expression of teenage lust and yearning that lives on as possibly the finest example of that era of songcraft. When Spector closed her set with it at Ponderosa Stomp 2008, the House of Blues crowd was absolutely rapt – even a little weepy.

 On another personal note, during the Stomp crew’s first junket to New York City to host a show at Brooklyn’s McCarren Park Pool in July of 2007, several of us took a special walk  to stand in front of the Brill Building at 1619 Broadway and take pictures in front of the doors that Greenwich and fellow writers passed through every day on their way to make the magic. 

R.I.P., Ellie.