Stomping R&B from The Beatles Bullpen Drummer
- Listen to these songs on youtube: Night Train
- Listen to these 45s in a Spotify playlist here with other 45s from the blog (though note, spotify doesn’t have all / many of the songs featured on the site so some playlists may be incomplete or feature slightly different versions than the original 45s I’m referring to here.
- Download the songs by clicking the titles above
My interest in today’s 45 is multi-tiered. Night Train is a killer song that is around in many different versions with James Brown’s probably being the best known at least to me (If you’re not familiar, listen to his version here and then watch this amazing super fast version of it performed live on the TAMI show here). If you’ve visited the blog before you know how much I love versions of a song so I was excited to dig in to this one.
Reading into the background of Night Train is actually pretty interesting. First released in 1951 by Jimmy Forrest the origins of the song actually date back a bit further. Before Forrest released the gritty R&B composition he was playing saxophone for Duke Ellington’s band. Ellington’s Deep South Suite contained the composition “Happy Go Lucky Local” which featured the riff that later morphed into Night Train. Forrest took the bones of the melody, rubbed some dirt and sweat on it and called it his own.
So who is Jimmy Nicol the musician in question on today’s version? For deep Beatles fans (which I definitely do not qualify) his story is well known, for others- myself included- it’s quite a wild tale. In 1964 at the height of Beatlemania and on the eve of an enormous Australian tour Ringo was sidelined with health issues. Rather than cancel the tour, disappointing millions of screaming fans, George Martin suggested replacing Ringo for the dates and he knew just the guy. Enter Mr. Nicol.
Jimmy Nicol along with working in his own groups had been a session musician on multiple budget/knock off records of popular hits including a pile of Beatles sides so he was competent and already knew the material. 48 hours after getting a phone call and an offer Jimmy was on his way to Australia to play for millions of adoring fans as a full fledged member of The Beatles.
Today’s 45 has Jimmy’s name as the lead despite being the drummer of the Shubdubs playing on a cover song because, though brief, he was truly a sensation for a moment. When Nicol’s name began appearing in newspapers and he was performing sold out shows his stock rose. Mar-Mar was a subsidiary of Chess who bought the American rights to the record from Pye in the UK to try and leverage his new found notoriety.
All the interesting history aside, when I first heard the record I was like “cool, nice version of Night Train” and was only intrigued by the name and label info. Despite it feeling like this is a cash-in opportunity the song stands on its own as a rockin piece of R&B and in my humble opinion Nicol does right by Forrest. I think when you listen you’ll agree!
Hope you enjoy the record and have a great new year.
Peace and love,
-Snack Attack / George
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