{"id":299,"date":"2010-08-02T05:39:33","date_gmt":"2010-08-02T10:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=299"},"modified":"2026-09-21T07:23:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T11:23:06","slug":"album-review-the-orlons-the-wah-watusi-south-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2010\/08\/02\/album-review-the-orlons-the-wah-watusi-south-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: the Orlons – The Wah-Watusi \/ South Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another in the current series of re-releases from the Cameo-Parkway vaults, this Orlons <\/strong>twofer The Wah-Watusi \/ South Street<\/em> is a delight. More than simply a smooth R&B-pop vocal group, the Philly-based group had three female vocalists plus a male singer. So they had a versatility that many vocal groups lacked. They could cover a sweet ballad \u201cDedicated to the One I Love\u201d as well as a 50s-styled rocking tune like \u201cTonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the vocals are up-front on these recordings, the band is tight and inventive, if staying in service to the music. (No long instro solos here, but then this was <\/em>the early 1960s.) Some of the songs are thin rewrites of other pop hits (\u201cMashed Potato Time\u201d is little more than \u201cPlease Mr. Postman\u201d with different words) but there\u2019s something in each tune to make it worthwhile. In the case of \u201cMashed Potato Time\u201d it\u2019s a brief (but loud!) honking sax solo.<\/p>\n

The clear high vocal notes of \u201cThe Plea\u201d don\u2019t break any new stylistic ground, but as female vocal-centered R&B vocal goes, the song\u2019s nearly perfect. Try to listen all the way through its 2:10 runtime without swaying to that sultry beat.<\/p>\n

Gimmicky songwriting was the order of the day in 1962, so it\u2019s against that backdrop that a number like \u201cGravy (for My Mashed Potatoes)\u201d must be judged. It\u2019s a fun tune with another lovely sax solo. A crisp rhythm section cedes the attention to the vocal but does its job admirably. Keeping with the dance-craze theme, the title track of the first album included on this single-CD set (\u201cThe Wah-Watusi\u201d) is catchy even if its lyrics offer little clue how to do the dance. And yet another great saxophone solo.<\/p>\n

The music never strays far from V-III-I-II or I-IV-V, but then it shouldn\u2019t.\u00a0 The simple tunes were designed as vehicles for the close harmonies and clear, easily-followed lead vocals. And throughout the two dozen tracks on this CD, that goal is consistently met. \u201cI Met Him On a Sunday\u201d comes close to not even having <\/em>a chorus, but it isn\u2019t missed.<\/p>\n

The second album included in the set, South Street<\/em> (actually the group\u2019s third <\/em>record) finds the group hewing pretty close to the previous album\u2019s formula. The biggest change is the debut of Stephen Caldwell<\/strong>\u2019s vocal gimmick, his \u201cfrog\u201d voice. And while it\u2019s cute, it does wear on the listener quickly. Caldwell obviously had more range than the vocal gimmick displayed, but that was the ticket to shifting units, so that\u2019s the direction the Orlons took on South Street<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The straight vocal numbers featuring the female singers \u2013 numbers like covers of \u201cMister Sandman\u201d \u2013 find the group moving away from straight R&B vocal toward more middle-of-the-road pop. But there are still interesting things happening in the background: the group\u2019s version of \u201cCharlie Brown\u201d features an infectious jazz piano lick that\u2019s much cooler than the yakety-sax licks on the Coasters<\/strong>\u2019 version. And the joyous gospel-party hybrid \u201cGather \u2018Round\u201d sounds like what Phil Spector<\/strong> might have come up with if he had been limited to a handful of musicians.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetween 18th & 19th on Chestnut Street\u201d shows the group loosening up more than usual. One of the female vocalists lets loose a growl on the break, and the band plays with a loose, end-of-evening feel.<\/p>\n

Like all of the other recent Cameo-Parkway reissues<\/a>, these two Orlons LPs have been long out of print and unavailable. ABKCO — the Allen Klein<\/strong>-headed company that owned the masters \u2013 certainly kept them safe and sound. The transfer quality of these recordings is nothing short of amazing.<\/p>\n

Gene Sculatti<\/strong>\u2019s liner notes are informative, but offer little in the way of information about the musicians. Like the records, the focus is on the vocalists. The Wah-Watusi \/ South Street<\/em> is twenty-four songs \u2013 each and every one of \u2018em two minutes plus change \u2013 of fun vocal R&B.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another in the current series of re-releases from the Cameo-Parkway vaults, this Orlons twofer The Wah-Watusi \/ South Street is a delight. More than simply a smooth R&B-pop vocal group, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32461,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions\/32461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}