Somebody stop them! The Fulminators cover "Secret Agent Man"

             

You may not have heard of Johnny Rivers. He didn't really trouble the UK charts, but he had a string of hits in the US in the mid-to-late 1960s, mainly with covers of old Rock 'n' Roll standards recorded in what was known as the "Go Go" style: think brightly-lit discotheque, a live audience, carefully coiffed hair, lounge suit, and mini-skirted dancers - Las Vegas for the younger set. But surprisingly, the music wasn't bad. Between them, Johnny and the Beach Boys were about the only white rock acts holding up the American end against the British invasion.

Johnny Rivers' first big hit was a decent enough cover of "Memphis Tennessee", for which he pinched the arrangement Elvis had used on an unreleased version - pissing off the King mightily in the process. There were another 10 Top Ten hits to follow, the last of which came in 1972 ("Rockin' Pneumonia and Boogie-Woogie Flu"). My favourites amongst the intervening platters were the Willie Dixon-penned "Seventh Son" and the one I've covered here - "Secret Agent Man" - which was written by P.F. "Eve of Destruction" Sloan and Steve Barri and originally recorded in 1963. It was used as the theme song for  the UK hit series Danger Man when it aired in the US. Due to its popularity, Rivers re-recorded a live version at the Whiskey a-Go Go and that went to No. 3 in 1966 (yes, I know how train-spottery this all is). The cheekily simple repeated four-note guitar riff is sublime and is what makes this a classic. And, yes, it does sound like he's singing about an undercover Indian intelligence operative - the "Secret Asian Man".

There have been tons of cover versions - my favourite is probably the instrumental  version by The Ventures (but they should have ditched the girl chorus singers). The worst is undoubtedly Mel Tormé's horribly misconceived effort. On this occasion, the Velvet Fog even manages to make me sound good!


For those of you interested in the home recording process (don't all raise your hands) I may have found a way of recording my voice. I normally woofle away at the bottom of my range, but that doesn't suit this number, so I sang higher up, and placed the result just off-centre. Then, following some online advice, I created two copies of the track, added chorus on both, placed them at the extreme left and right of the stero spectrum, and chose the same volume setting for all three tracks. An improvement, I think.