Friday, December 30, 2011

New Oldies - The Cat by The Sting Rays

http://musicmasteroldies.com/2011/12/30/new-oldies-the-cat-by-the-sting-rays/
Posted by joeknapp at 10:08 AM

1 comment:

  1. joeknappJanuary 14, 2013 at 11:17 PM

    Here's some updated information about this record and this band, courtesy of Tom Paulson!

    "Hello Joe. My name is Tom Paulson and I am someone that you made brief reference to in your article about the song "The Cat Came Back". It really was lots of fun to read the article and I actually learned more about the origin of the song. However, there were several factual errors that I wish to correct, just for the record (no pun intended). First, we recorded the recorded in 1965, not 1967. You are correct about the original band, except, I am no relation to John Paulson. The original band consisted of John Paulson on Sax, John Spittell on Base, David Spittell on Lead Guitar, and Bobby Thompson on Drums. I believe that John Paulson quit to join another band, and I was asked to join, playing Rhythm Guitar. Thompson was soon replaced on drums by Wally Scudamore, and we added Gene Peters on Organ and Guitar. Those were the players on the recording.

    As far as origin of the song, I was led to believe that John Spittell and his father (a Cardiac Surgeon), found a song that was outside of the copyright range that we could record. Thus you see the "Adaptation by John Spittell" on the label. Unfortunately, I can see no logical path to a connection to John Paulson and his Vocation. The song wasn't added to our repertoire until probably a year after i joined (to the best of my recollection).

    As I said, it was fun reading your article and to find our recording on YouTube. Because of the history of the song that you gave, I listened to several recordings that were earlier than ours. It was interesting to see how much of the original song was intact. And then I found a couple of recordings that were done later than ours, and was surprised to see that they used basically the same style and lyrics that we had recorded. I am now a little confused as to whether the modifications to the lyrics were actually ours or the later bands copied what we had done. The use of "Adaptation" by John leads me to believe that he may have actually created the changes, but I am not sure. I have not been in contact with John for almost 45 years and know nothing of where he is.

    But thank you, for bringing to light a little background on the song that I was not aware of. And thank you for bringing to mind a lot of fond (and not so fond) memories. That was the last take of probably close to 3 hours of trying to get it "right". "Shaggy Dog" was probably done in 3 or 4 takes, as we were tired teenagers, ready to go home.

    And again, thanks for the memories!

    Tom Paulson
    Minneapolis, MN"

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