Time now for another installment in the Insider`s Cavalcade of Pop History. We take you back some 24 years to a fairground in Allentown, Pa., where a state fair is in progress. A touring Dick Clark Caravan of Stars show is playing a stage on the infield of the fairground`s racetrack. The show, featuring a number of early rock `n` roll performers, has built to its big finish, an appearance by singer Freddy Cannon, whose song ”Buzz Buzz A-Diddle-It” is currently hot in Allentown. Cannon takes the stage, unaware that equine embarrassment looms. . . .
”I had asked Dick Clark, `Could I close this one show?` ” recalls Cannon, who normally appeared earlier in the proceedings. ”Dick said, `Well, since your record`s doing well here in Allentown, okay.`
”I did a couple songs and then got to the closing number, `Buzz Buzz A-Diddle-It.` But the show was running late, and these fairs gotta stay on their schedules. They don`t want to get in trouble. They get to a certain point, and they say, `Let`s go. Let`s go. We gotta push the buttons.` And they had a time when they were supposed to start the horse races. . . .”
So start the races they did. As Cannon launched into ”Buzz Buzz A-Diddle-It” on the track infield, a pack of ponies charged out of the track`s starting gate.
”I was still singing the song!” says Cannon. ”Suddenly, the people in the stands didn`t care about me anymore. They were interested in the race. They had money down, you know? I felt like an idiot.
”These horses came right by me. I`m singing this song, and what the hell are horses doin` here? Dick ran up and said, `That`s it, Freddy. That`s the last time you`ll ever close a show.` He laughed. I laughed.”
It was, certainly, the first time Cannon`s boisterous vocal style had been overshadowed by the thunder of hooves. He had broken into pop music only two years earlier, in 1959, with ”Tallahassee Lassie,” a big, booming number about a young woman from Florida with a ”hi-fi chassis.” That hit single, which made it to No. 6 on the charts, was a reworking of lyrics written by Cannon`s mother, Annette Picariello.
”I was about 18 then,” says Cannon. ”I was living in Revere, Mass., north of Boston, and I had a weekend band. We used to do record hops. And like any other teenage kid, I wanted to make it in this business.
”My mother would write poems every day–she had an ear for writing–and this one day she wrote a poem called `Rock `n` Roll Baby.` That turned out to be `Tallahassee Lassie.` I put music to it, and my band and I made a demo tape in Boston at Ace Recording Studios, then took the demo to Arnie Ginsburg, a disk jockey in Boston.
”Well, Bob Crewe and Frank Slay (two songwriter-producers) came into Boston, and Arnie gave them the tape. They took it to New York, called me, and I came into New York and recut the song. They gave it the `Tallahassee Lassie` title and fixed some of the rhymes and everything.
”From the time I cut the record to the time it came out was more than three months. I was very discouraged because I didn`t know what was going to happen. But then the record was finally released. They tested it in Boston and Philadelphia. Dick Clark picked up the record and played it on `American Bandstand.` Then it became the `Bandstand` dance contest record, and it was used daily.”
And Cannon–who previously had driven a truck, worked in a drugstore and held ”15 or 20 different jobs”–was off and running, notching 22 songs on the Top 100 singles chart between 1959 and 1966, the songs ranging from Top 10 tunes like ”Palisades Park” and ”Way Down Yonder in New Orleans” to the No. 92 ”Teen Queen of the Week” (a song with lyrics Cannon cannot even remember today).
Except for two years–1969 and 1970–when he worked in record promotion, first for Buddha Records, then for United Artists, Cannon has been performing regularly since ”Tallahassee Lassie.”
”I never got out of the business,” says Cannon. ”I still don`t understand when I hear an act say, `We`re going to take six months off.` What are you gonna do in the six months? Hang around? Do what? It doesn`t make sense to me. It`s just like retiring. You`re gonna die. I want to keep busy, be active, do something.”
Cannon will be busy Saturday at the Holiday Star Theater in Merrillville, Ind., appearing on two ”Let the Good Times Roll Superbowl” shows with Little Anthony, Bobby Vee, the Diamonds, the Coasters, Mary Wells, Stormy Weather, emcee Tony Danza and special guests the Refrigerettes.
Cannon still does some songwriting today, and Chicagoans will appreciate one of his recent efforts. Before January`s Super Bowl game, former Boston-area resident Cannon wrote and recorded a booster song about the New England Patriots called ”The Pats Attack.” (It should be noted that Cannon today is lavish in his praise of the Chicago Bears` Super Bowl performance.)
”The Pats Attack” was sung to the tune of Johnny Horton`s 1959 hit
”The Battle of New Orleans” and included the following lines: ”They fired the gun, and the game got started/ The Pats were up, and New England was high/ They ran for the yardage, and they ran for the goal/ They ran so hard that the Bears couldn`t hold.”
Freddy reports that the song hasn`t been getting much airplay lately.
