{"id":442,"date":"2011-02-08T05:33:11","date_gmt":"2011-02-08T10:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=442"},"modified":"2026-09-02T08:22:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T12:22:56","slug":"album-review-the-dovells-for-your-hully-gully-party-you-cant-sit-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/02\/08\/album-review-the-dovells-for-your-hully-gully-party-you-cant-sit-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Dovells &#8211; For Your Hully Gully Party \/ You Can\u2019t Sit Down"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/dovells.jpg\" width=\"280\" height=\"280\" align=\"right\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"10\" \/>If <strong>The<\/strong> <strong>Dovells<\/strong> are remembered at all, it\u2019s primarily for the 1961 hit \u201cBristol Stomp.\u201d That song, written by a pair of executive staffers at Cameo-Parkway, was a chart-topper for the group. The Dovells were essential an <em>a cappella<\/em> group supported by studio musician backing. In the wake of the song\u2019s success, more material in a similar vein was expected. These albums are the response to that demand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Though primarily a singles act, The Dovells managed to release a few albums; the second and third of these have been combined an released on CD as <em>For Your Hully Gully Party \/ You Can\u2019t Sit Down<\/em>.\u00a0 The two dozen songs are straightforward partying frat-rock; the vocal arrangements aren\u2019t especially inventive, but they\u2019re ideally suited to the music. It would be an excursion in hyperbole to characterize <em>For Your Hully Gully Party<\/em> as a concept album, but there\u2019s clearly a theme at work here: songs like \u201cHully Gully Baby,\u201d \u201cCountry Club Hully Gully\u201d and \u201cHully Gully Square Dance\u201d tell the story (such as it is). The latter features some mildly amusing (but ultimately a bit stale) vocal impressions of everyone from <strong>Dean Martin<\/strong> to <strong>James Cagney<\/strong>. A sequel of sorts, \u201cStompin\u2019 Everywhere\u201d attempts to recount the saga of the \u201cBristol Stomp\u201d sensation; various city names are checked off.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">The songs on <em>You Can\u2019t Sit Down<\/em> aren\u2019t confined to songs about dances; there\u2019s even a <strong>Chuck Berry<\/strong> cover (\u201cMaybelline\u201d). Employing a then-typical approach, the Dovells covered songs that were currently charting for other artists: <strong>Jackie Wilson<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cBaby Workout\u201d and <strong>Jimmy Soul<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cIf You Wanna Be Happy.\u201d The Dovells\u2019 versions are something short of immortal, but they\u2019re credibly performed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">On one level, this is the sort of music that <strong>The Beatles<\/strong> saved us from. Though these songs were recorded between 1961 and \u201963, there\u2019s a distinct 1950s feel to the whole package. Of course what people think of as \u201cthe sixties\u201d in musical terms really began in February 1964. There\u2019s little in the way of inventiveness in the playing, writing or singing on <em>For Your Hully Gully Party \/ You Can\u2019t Sit Down<\/em>. But ambition wasn\u2019t the motivation; these songs were simply designed to serve as the soundtrack for fun. And on that level, the music is as successful as it ever was.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If The Dovells are remembered at all, it\u2019s primarily for the 1961 hit \u201cBristol Stomp.\u201d That song, written by a pair of executive staffers at Cameo-Parkway, was a chart-topper for [&hellip;]<\/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-442","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\/442","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=442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32355,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions\/32355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}