- YOUTUBE BILLY JOE ROYAL DOWN IN THE BOONDOCKS PLUS
- YOUTUBE BILLY JOE ROYAL DOWN IN THE BOONDOCKS PROFESSIONAL
However Bill Lowery saw the hit potential of "Down in the Boondocks", personally visiting Los Angeles to pitch the track to major labels: after Warner Bros. Royal considered "I Knew You When" - reminiscent of the Righteous Brothers' recent smash hits - as more likely than "Down in the Boondocks" to be picked up by a major label ("I Knew You When" would in fact be optioned by Vee Jay Records to be recorded by Wade Flemons with an August 1964 single release).
YOUTUBE BILLY JOE ROYAL DOWN IN THE BOONDOCKS PLUS
The session also yielded the original torch song " I Knew You When", plus - to serve as potential B-sides covers of the hits " Oh, What a Night" ( the Dells) and " Steal Away" ( Jimmy Hughes). Session musicians included Reggie Young on electric guitar, Bill Hullett on acoustic guitar, Sam Levine on horns, Clayton Ivey on piano, Bob Wray on six string bass, Greg Morrow on drums, and Freddy Weller on rhythm guitar/background vocals. How it sounded like a record I don't know": "We put a microphone down a septic tank and ran that through the recording for the echo.". "Down in the Boondocks" was recorded in a four hour session at the Gearhart Building, the converted schoolhouse in Buckhead which housed Bill Lowery's business headquarters, the school's auditorium serving as a recording studio: (Billy Joe Royal quote:)"We cut it on a three-track machine - the most primitive thing in the world. We were so young, we thought: 'Well they'll think it's Gene Pitney, and by the time they know it's a hit". Our plan was to try to sing like Gene Pitney. Royal himself would deny any intent to pitch the song to Pitney - (Billy Joe Royal quote:)"We would've never a song to him. It has been reported that Royal's recording of "Down in the Boondocks" was intended to serve as a demo to pitch the song to Gene Pitney, the song being evocative of Pitney's trademark hit sound with an especial resemblance to Pitney's 1963 hit " Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa": reportedly Bill Lowery, South's music publisher and Royal's manager, was so impressed with Royal's own recording of "Down in the Boondocks" as to pursue a major label release for it.
YOUTUBE BILLY JOE ROYAL DOWN IN THE BOONDOCKS PROFESSIONAL
The song's writer, Joe South was a longtime friend and professional associate of Royal: South had played guitar for Royal since the singer had begun performing in local venues at age 14, and from 1961 South had produced Royal's recordings of demos and low-budget singles. In the summer of 1965, "Down in the Boondocks" launched the top 40 career of Billy Joe Royal, who had recorded the song a year earlier.
Essentially the same theme appeared some twenty months earlier in the lyrics of Joey Powers' "Midnight Mary". The singer proclaims that "one fine day, I'll find a way, to move from this old shack", presumably to be able to join the higher class members of society and finally be able to date the girl openly. The girl's father is the singer's boss, which, along with the social division, prevents him from proclaiming his love and connecting with her, despite their shared feelings (which is the basis for the line "but I don't dare knock on her door/for her daddy is my boss man"). The people who live or are born in the boondocks are suggested to be a lower class than those in the city. The song is sung from the perspective of a self-proclaimed "boy from down in the boondocks." He sings of a girl who lives nearby, for whom he feels love and steals away with occasionally.
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