SUPREME 1535; AUGUST, 1949

Here’s a question to consider: Is it even remotely possible to be surprised by a stylistic curveball delivered by a relatively new artist who’ve yet to establish much of a track record as to the type of music they specialize in?

Probably not.

In the case of Eddie Williams and his inconsiderately named Brown Buddies the answer would be “definitely not” provided of course you knew the track records of the two key figures in the band and their musical backgrounds which were somewhat removed from rock.

So why then are we interested in a record that takes them uncomfortably close to their more mainstream alter-egos?

Well, because up until now Eddie Williams And His Brown Buddies had been positioning themselves far outside of their cocktail blues upbringing and carving out a decent sideline as a rock group and now that they’ve hedged their bets with this we’d like to know why.

Now you can say that it was only done for a B-side, thus it was something of a throwaway track, and that’d be true enough. You could also say that when in a rush for a song to finish a session this was something they could do in their sleep and thus it made sense in that way. After all, who really cares what they did if it was never intended to be the focal point of this release?

Fair enough. But all of those points become moot when it was this compromised track with which they scored their one and only national hit and thus rendered their unquestioned rock efforts that led up to it a mere footnote in their story.
 
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