JOHNNY LANCE - BIG TRAGEDY (Brent, 1963)

I first heard this on the radio some years back, and if you've listened to it and know the kind of stuff i like, you can no doubt imagine it made quite an impact on me. Sheezus. The DJ announced it as "slide her under the door" by moses longpiece, and that he was playing it off the famed "wavy gravy" compilation LP. I rushed out and bought Wavy Gravy and enjoyed it muchly, but always wondered why I couldn't find ANYTHING about this Moses Longpiece fellow...

Of course, as it turns out, there is no Moses Longpiece, that was just a phoney name the compiler had made up for this record. Eventually I discovered it was really "The Big Tragedy" by Johnny Lance, although i doubt if there was ever really an artist named Johnny Lance either, probably just a made up name for this 45. It was written by Jody Reynolds, who cut classics like "Fire Of Love" (as covered by The Gun Club) and "Endless Sleep" on Demon and Al Casey, who twanged out a million twangy guitar lines on a million records as part of the almighty Wrecking Crew. Al's low, deep twanging on this one one is just the most....