Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Squeaky vs The Black Knight ???


Posted by joeknapp at 1:26 AM

6 comments:

  1. AnonymousDecember 18, 2009 at 5:02 PM

    Good stuff!

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  2. AnonymousDecember 20, 2009 at 1:28 AM

    Thanks for this !!! I used to live in Milwaukee-played some 50's & 60's up there

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  3. UnknownAugust 2, 2010 at 7:47 PM

    Great story! I thought maybe I had the only 45 left of Sqeaky vs The Black Knight. I listened to it as a kid and thought the Snoopy version when I first heard it was wrong. Thanks for the memories.

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  4. joeknappAugust 23, 2010 at 1:55 AM

    Since writing this post, I've learned some new "inside" information about this record. As it turns out, The Royal Guardsmen had nothing to do with writing the music for Snoopy Vs The Red Baron. When Phil Gernhard approached the Guardsmen with the song, the music had already been written by Dick Holler. The Guardsmen may have worked out some changes in the arrangement and adjust the lyrics a bit, but by the time The Guardsmen got the song, all the music and about half the lyrics had already been written by Dick Holler. Before The Guardsmen came into the picture, Dick Holler had already written a song called The Red Baron. He recorded a demo of it at Cosmos studio in New Orleans with Phil Gernhard. Some time later, Phil read the Charles Shultz comic strip with Snoopy and The Red Baron and got a great idea! He changed the lyrics to add Snoopy's name, but only made changes after the first chorus. Listen to Snoopy Vs The Red Baron and you'll hear that the first two verses and chorus make no mention of Snoopy at all! Phil got the Guardsmen to record the song with the new lyrics without telling Dick Holler (only because he couldn't find him). When Phil finally caught up with Dick, Snoopy Vs The Red Baron was already moving up the charts and close to becoming a smash hit! That was great news for Dick, so he wasn't about to complain. Even though Dick wrote all the music and half the lyrics, he ended up splitting the song credits half and half with Phil. So now you know the rest of the story!

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  5. mrzeeSeptember 17, 2011 at 1:01 AM

    I have copies of both versions. I remember as a kid, I never understood why they made two records of virtually the same song.

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  6. AnonymousFebruary 21, 2012 at 7:54 PM

    This is is really interesting, I've loved this song since I was a kid 15 years ago or so.

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