Red River Rock original version cover by Leo Salu

[Leo Salu]

[saxomonica]

Rockin’, Leo! Great to hear you again! Your growling is dynamic and you’ve a gorgeous tone.

I love your music long time.

Cheers, Mark 🙂

https://www.history-of-rock.com/johnny_and_the_hurricanes.htm

—— / ——

Johnny And The Hurricanes

[Leo Salu]

Hello Mark, once again appreciate your kind words, Red River Rock was quite the hit back in 1959,
I believe Johnny Paris was about 19 at the time, I was 13 so i remember when the song first came out,
those were the days for some great Rock and Roll songs. BTW love the way you find all this great info
on old songs, the links that you provided today were very interesting, it is fun to look into these old
songs and learn about the players. So did you get your YTS 23 back yet? Leo

[saxomonica]

Hi Leo, actually i’m still waiting for the repadding to be completed on the YTS 23 ya. I noticed it was a very light horn. And gorgeous even though rather scuffed up on the body. Saying that i have a friend age 65 wanting to learn sax, she’s 5 foot nothing so getting her started on an alto, and, have her geed up with a YAS 21 repadded for $1,200- being from the same repair Lady saxophonist residing here in Perth, Erin Royer. Yes mate it is interesting to find out about the songs we love and play and in any event the links pertaining to your origonal post might even help with the search engine on John’s website too.

It’s interesting to read that Johnny Paris is reputed to have had about 500 guys in the Hurricanes that he played with over the years especially spanning his later career .. can’t believe everthing you read ‘though lol
Rest in Peace

Looking very much forwards to your next song!
Cheers, Mark
🙂

—— / ——

From Sydney Morning Herald / May 13, 2006 — 10.00am

JOHNNY PARIS, the tenor saxophonist who led the US instrumental group Johnny and the Hurricanes into the British pop charts in the 1960s, has died of leukaemia, aged 65. They had four top 30 entries at home, and nearly twice that number in Britain, where they were on terms of fluctuating equality with the Shadows.

Their main hits – principal among them Red River Rock and Beatnik Fly – evoke an era of provincial youth clubs with soft drinks, ping-pong and “with-it” vicars. More importantly, the group was innovative for using lead instruments other than guitar.

Paris was born into a musical family, the Pocisks, in Walbridge, near Toledo, Ohio. He listened to modern jazz before the arrival of rock’n’roll, when he chose to model himself on Rudi Pompelli, the saxophonist with Bill Haley and the Comets. In 1957, at high school in Toledo, he formed a group called the Orbits. They enjoyed a long residency at a dance hall and appeared on regional television before moving to Detroit to be an all-purpose backing combo for such vocalists as the rockabilly entertainer Mack Vickery, with whom they first recorded.

The group was renamed Johnny and the Hurricanes – largely on the strength of Paris’s visual appeal – for its debut single, the sax-dominated tune Crossfire. In 1959, it reached the national top 30, and a follow-up, the million-selling Red River Rock, made the top 10 in both the US and Britain.

Reveille Rock and 1960’s Beatnik Fly were smaller hits. Like Red River Rock – based on a traditional campfire song of the old frontier – they were overhauls of well-known ditties on which the original melody was easily discernible on a shrill electric organ as prominent as Paris’s saxophone. Despite producing some adventurous B-sides, the group stuck otherwise to the established strategy of rocking up the likes of When the Saints Go Marching in (as Revival) and the evangelist hymn Bringing in the Sheaves (as Salvation).

By the end of 1960, however, there were perceptible signs of commercial danger. While climbing the British top 10, Down Yonder struggled in the lower reaches of the US Hot 100 – as did Rockin’ Goose, although it broke the formula, being an original composition that featured the apposite, if unchallenging, squawk of Paris’s mouthpiece. It was the group’s biggest British hit, peaking at No. 3 in a week in 1960 when nine of the top 30 entries were instrumentals. After the 1961 double A-side, Old Smokey/High Voltage, fell from the charts, the group disbanded.

Paris recruited new personnel to continue a relentless touring schedule, notably performing a season at Hamburg’s Star Club in December 1962, headlining over the Beatles. This prefaced a well-received visit to Britain in the new year. “I don’t feel alive until I get on a stage,” Paris said. “Music is what I live for.”

During the later half of his career, however, he ran an estate agency, an antiques shop and a vending machine business in Toledo, as well as coping with booking commitments, mostly on the European rock’n’roll nostalgia circuit, touring Scandinavia as recently as last November.

“Over in Europe, he was still popular,” said his son Jeffrey. “He liked that he could come home, have his own peace and be a regular guy, and then go some place else and be a star.”

Paris is survived by Jeffrey, daughters Sheri and Monica, and his second wife, Sonja.

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SEE –

http://www.shwoodwind.co.uk/Reviews/Saxes/Alto/Yamaha_YAS21.htm

“It’s also worth mentioning that, as a repairer and player, I see quite a few of these horns used in a professional capacity. Indeed, my tenor of choice is the 23 (a later variant of the 21) – and whilst a see a great many superb tenors come through the workshop, I still haven’t found one that does for me what my YTS23 does”.

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