Part 1 & Part 2
Apart from being one of the most important records, and greatest recordings, ever cut, Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone (Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel is the other one) dealt the death blow to single song but double-sided record releases, even though it is 6 minutes long (actually 5.59). Previously longish records like Ray Charles What’d I Say or Chris Kenner’s I like It Like That had been spread over two sides. The reason for this was not any technical limitation but that juke box operators wanted short records- Stay by Maurice Williams & Zodiacs was pretty well perfect in maximizing juke box plays per hour. Fortunately Stay is a minor masterpiece and so cannot be played too often. And of course US radio DJs were always mindful of the limited attention span of US teenagers who might switch stations after 2 minutes of a record they did not like.
But since Dylan (as in Anno Dylan) records have tended to be issued on one side of a single, even dirges like Richard Harris’ Mac Arthur Park which must last a week, if not a lifetime.
Most double sided records were, of course, instrumentals and generally only one side was ever credited in the Billboard charts and, accordingly, given most “air play”. So Hot 100 hits included Image (part 1) by Hank Levine and Shimmy Shimmy Walk (part 1) by the Megatons. Sometimes part 2 was the hit as in Smokie -Bill Black’s Combo, You Can’t Sit Down- Phil Upchurch, Topsy- Cozy Cole, or Madison Time - Ray Bryant Combo . There are a lot of others but I restrict my examples to Hot 100 entries. Honky Tonk by Bill Doggett was an exception and was listed under just its title but, as anyone who owns this classic knows, there isn’t much difference between the sides. It is a one-take track that was just chopped in half to spread over two sides of a 45 disc. In contrast to, say, the Phil Upchurch track where side 2 is a completely different sound as with Hank Levine’s Image. Image started life as a 9 beat, 5 seconds radio station identity theme and eventually ended up as two completely different treatments of the expanded theme, justifying its double-side treatment. It is interesting that when the Dovells added words (or rather their song writers did) to You Can’t Sit Down it only lasts one side. And so it should. Len Barry (1-2-3, etc ) was their lead singer and that says enough. The Upchurch track could last forever. Top musicians really in a groove.
And what has all this to do with fell running? Well aren’t there two sides to every fell race story?
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Originally Posted by Derby Tup
