Two Sides from Wilmer & The Dukes!
Wilmer and The Dukes “Get It (Instrumental)” (Aphrodisiac, 1969)
- Listen to these songs on youtube: Give Me One More Chance, Get It
- 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
Today’s two sides come from one 45 by the upstate New York combo Wilmer and The Dukes. Their 45′s aren’t hard to come by and they were somewhat of a legendary group, gigging endless, primarily a cover band, so there’s a lot of cool documentation of their history. They were most active from the early 60′s to the mid 70′s with their only release coming in 1969 which is where our 45 comes from today and it really is a favorite of mine.
“Give Me One More Chance” is a favorite song of mine written by the Dukes guitarist Doug Brown and I’ve always dug the flip and included it here because I like the counterpoint the B side provides- you can just imagine the song being played out in a live setting, heavy and sweaty. You can feel the Stax influence on “Give Me One More Chance” which could have been pulled from an Otis Redding session and the “Get It” side might as well say “Jr. Walker” on it. Again, all good by me!
Wilmer and The Dukes proper called it quits in 1974 after 14 years of gigging in frats, bowling alleys and clubs all over upstate New York. It’s unconfirmed but it’s rumored they’re the inspiration for Animal House’s Otis Day and The Knights which makes sense considering they regularly played in fraternities and secret societies.
I hope you enjoy these sides as much as I do and we’ll see you next time.
-George / Snack Attack
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