WACKY WEDNESDAY: R&B Inspired by Children's Music

Bob E. Soxx & The Blue Jeans

I owe this Wacky Wednesday post to a veteran rock 'n' roll disc jockey and Facebook friend of mine known as Truly Judy. She recently posted a 1963 Top 40 list from a Kentucky radio station, WKLO that contained a couple of songs that I'd been thinking of lately that basically were soulful renditions of children's songs. I'd often thought of these two together, and realized they were pre-Beatles early '60s numbers. But not until I saw that chart did I realize they were popular during the same week in January 1963.

Here's the higher ranking tune at Number 5 -- at least in Louisville that week -- by a guy called Johnny Thunder (not to be confused with Johnny Thunders!). Listen, then go take a bath!

And coming in at Number 14 -- at least in Louisville that week -- was "Zip-a-Dee-Doo -Dah" by Bob E. Soxx & The Blue Jeans, who sound far more hip than Uncle Remus did in Song of the South.

But Thunder and Soxx weren't the only R&B singers to take a children's story or nursery rhyme into the realm of rock 'n' roll. 

Here are The Coasters goosing Mother Goose.

And here's LaVern Baker with an ode to a couple of characters from Alice in Wonderland.