Monkey Bidness Music

Bill has this idea; one that he has not brought fully to fruition: a musical play about the lives of the four disc jockeys at Nashville's groundbreaking WLAC-AM radio in the late 1950's and early 1960's.  As part of that idea, he has written three songs:  "Not Much," his take on "Talk of the Town," and this, his tribute to William "Hoss" Allen.  It is the first of four songs that he wants to write about the men who made WLAC such a driving force in music in the '60's.  Having been given several recordings of "The Hossman" doing commercials for the radio station by his son, Rogan, it was decided by the Quarters to include one of them in the recording (so that voice you hear is indeed Hoss Allen's).

The interesting part of this particular song is that there are two, different arrangements (mostly in the backbeat); Bill played drums and bass on both, and he played them both differently (the first one is a much more freestyle drum part, and so, the bass part was more rigid; he reversed them in the second one, walking the bass more in the chorus and playing the drums a little straighter), to see which he liked better. The second one also features Bill singing the whole lead vocal, instead of trading lines like the Quarters did in the single.  As it turned out, both versions are pretty good, so we used TWO different commercials!

Many, many thanks to Rogan Allen for the recordings of his dad's commercials!

This is the Dirty Quarters, doing, "Hanging Around With the Hossman."  

The one heard most is the first one, including "The Satan's Special."