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THINKIN' MAN'S GUIDE to DOUG CLARK AND THE HOT NUTS:
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NUTS TO YOU (Gross, 1961)
It's the rare Doug Clark album that was (a) actually recorded live, and (b) lists the songs on the cover, and Nuts To You is one of the few that do both. It hits you almost like a field recording, with one mike picking up everything (catch that psycho-falsetto in the vocal chorus!), but everybody is full of beer and fried foods and really enjoying themselves. The audience doesn't sound as jacked-up as on Panty Raid, however. Most of the action revolves around the operatic vocals of Prince Taylor, and if you can imagine Paul Robeson singing songs like "My Ding-A-Ling" and "He's Got The Whole World By The Balls," then you're halfway home. Many of the Hot Nut soon-to-be-standards are here: "Two Old Maids", the "Hot Nuts" song, that Mexican handclapping number, etc. The band gets to work out with "You Can't Sit Down", and probably because it's the first LP, the whole shebang has a hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar innocence without being totally stale. If you tell the mustiest cracks you can think of, you can still get laughs if you phrase it right. It's all in the timing, baby. Running gag: old men who can't get it up anymore, like the subject of "Old & Feeble" ("what used to be his sex appeal is now his water spout"). (JP)
ON CAMPUS (Gross, 1963)
Somebody wanted this out in a hurry. The titles are only listed on the label itself, not the back cover, and even then they're in a slightly different order from the record. It doesn't take long to figure out, anyway. The two old maids reappear in the singalong favorite "Roly Poly", and the Nuts get off some good lines in "Bang Bang Lu Lu" ("Lu Lu had a boyfriend/his name was Tommy Tucker/he brought her in the alley/To see if he could...BANG BANG LU LU..."). And there's also another version of "Hot Nuts", featuring this sign-of-the-times lyric: "I used to chase all the girls around/I was quite contrary/But now I chase the boys around/(high-pitched voice) Whoops, I'm a fairy!" (JP)
HOMECOMING (Gross, 1963)
The band gets a lot of musical space---all members get vocals, and the band does ten-second instrumental vamps ala The James Brown Show (a/k/a his fabled "Live At The Apollo" album). Prince Taylor was with the band on and off, and he apparently returned for this LP. If that's not him bellowing away on "The Amsterdam Maid", it's a damn good imitator. (JP)
RUSH WEEK (Gross, 1964)
That's right, it's "Doug Clark and His Hot Nuts" instead of "...and the Hot Nuts" on this one. And I, for one, think that makes them sound even nastier. There is a takeoff on Jimmy Dean's "Big John" entitled "Big Jugs" that may just be the queen of parodies ("pair of deez"). "Everybody But Me" is a song which centers on the misunderstandings that arise when the narrator's girlfriend develops a liking for a chewing gum called, oddly enough, Everybody But Me. ("She goes down for Everybody But Me/she sucks on Everybody But Me...") Unfortunately, the song's flimsy premise loses its flavor after a couple of smacks. The grossness level of this one is pretty mild and is more of the fill-in-the-blank school of yucks. Although it was their fourth release, it appears that they or the engineer had not quite gotten the hang of the laugh track. It is so high and shrill in the mix and so poorly timed that the canned laughs often step on the beginnings of the next joke. This distracting feature is on one hand, a hallmark of Comedy Genius, and on the other, a harrowing and emotionally devastating experience. (DD, Jr.)
Words to live by: "My dog has a split personality. He hates cats, but he loves pussy!" They even get away with that oldie about the circus having "cunning stunts, while a sorority is a (laugh track suddenly turned up loud) array of stunning...oh...." All in the timing. "Big Bad John" parodies multiplied like rabbits in the sixties, and the Hot Nut version is the bizarre gang-bang ode, "Big Jugs": "These few words are written on the door/In the center of this room lies one hell of a whore." Today, you could probably play this during the "safe" midnight hours on college radio, but it wouldn't sit too well with anti-rape activists. (JP)
PANTY RAID (Gross, 1965)
The first voice you hear is a voice calling a meeting to order, making you think you put on Pigmeat Markham's "Here Comes The Judge" by mistake, but it's actually the Grand Dragon of the Hot Nuts Club. Then the guitarist kicks into a relentless surf riff as the group sings the fiery title track. There's also "Let Me Pet Your Pretty____" (the missing word is bleeped out). This album sounds live for real, and it makes a bigger, better difference. There's a lotta group vocals here. In fact, it's a real ensemble effort, and working with an equally crazed audience must have lit a fire under 'em. "Marriage is like a box of candy. You've gotta buy the box to get a piece!" (JP)
"Milk The Cow" b/w "Go Doug Go" (Jubilee, single, 1966)
Two of their more commercial numbers finally make it to a seven-inch. This was obviously an attempt to get them on the radio: the label credits this 45 to Doug Clark & the Nuts, and the sexual implications from the original version of "Milk" (from the Panty Raid album) are kicked to the curb. This new version hams it up as a dance craze song, and some R&B vocal group like the Vibrations ("Watusi") or the Olympics ("Western Movies") comes to mind. The flip is a boss instrumental that originally appeared on Rush Week, and the fake crowd noise is gone. Both sides of this single are amazing. (JP)
SUMMER SESSION (Gross, 1966)
The cover is so 1966, it'll kill you. There's an out of focus snapshot of the whole band (most of them, anyway) spending a New York afternoon in Central Park, in polka-dot mod yellow shirts and blue sharkskin pants. Tootsie, the female vocalist making her first appearance on a Hot Nuts cover, is wearing a canary-yellow dress, and one guy is wearing an orange jumpsuit. On top of that, the title and name is printed in unreadable psychedelic type (Doug says it was the idea of Jubilee, Gross' parent label, not his) ! The one remarkable thing about this album is that the old-fashioned limericks and toasts (closer to the schoolyard than the jailhouse) were being phased out for a straightahead R&B sound, so by now they sounded like an X-rated Coasters. "Hey Charlie" roasts a guy whose "thang" is so big the girls chase him through the street. (The last verse has big-dick Charlie going to Vietnam, which is as close as they got to social commentary.) "Charming Billy" and "Gonna Hang My Balls From A Tree" are fun, but towards the end of side one (the no-credit album cover doesn't tell you this) is the one-two punch of "Double Stroke Of My Twelve-Inch Pet" (reworded version of "Double Shot Of My Baby's Love" by the Swingin' Medallions, who worked the same beach-party circuit) and THAT SONG, the number the Hot Nuts have to do at each show, "Baby Let Me Bang Your Box!" However, even if you have this album, you'd be a two-dollar fool to pass up....
"Baby Let Me Bang Your Box" (Part 1/Part 2) (Jubilee, single, 1966, reissued on Virgo, 1972 and Goldies 45, 1973)
Part 2 isn't anything spectacular (they probably just kept playing for a long time and then split it in half for the single) but what's Part One got that the album cut doesn't? Fuller background vocals, which makes a mess of difference. Trivia note: all versions I've seen of this single, even the reissue, has a forbidding disclaimer that tells us that this jukebox record (a double-entendre number about some guy who wants to play some girl's piano) is NOT meant for radio airplay. Bullshit, I've heard Dr. Demento play the Toppers' original, no dirtier than Doug Clark's version, on his syndicated radio show several times! Oh, them uptight sixties! (JP)
HELL NIGHT! (Gross, 1967)
Their most musical album in quite some time. The jokes don't take up as much space as they did on Summer Session, but the raunch level is still high, as usual. The cover's a hoot: Doug and the Nuts forming a paddle line, with sadistic, chops-licking smiles and holding wooden paddles advertising different fraternities. Secret password of the album: "whore", used in more than one song, and sung with so much piss and vinegar by lead singer John Clark, you'd think he'd just learned the word that day. (JP)
FREAK OUT (Gross, 1968)
Undeniably, half of this record's charm lies in its outrageous cover. Refusing to let the Freak train pass them by, the members of this group are all sitting around an ornate hookah looking tentative and slightly bemused. Doug regains some of the dignity that he lost when he donned bell-bottoms and gladiator sandals by giving the viewer the DOUBLE BIRD for making him dress like some stanky ol' teahead. My favorite image from the cover has to be the Hot Nut who appears to be sticking the mouthpiece of the hookah into the center of his forehead. This cover is so wrong that it makes ME feel stoned. While the picture is all Summer of Love, the contents only betray the album's date with a Sonny-and-Cher-style romp called "Hair" (for hirsute fetishes) and a reference to California miniskirts. The rest of the blue humor is as timeless as ever. Particularly fetching is the number called "Drop Your Drawers, Young Candy," but mainly because my drug-addled ears hear "drop your drawers, John Candy and let me do my thing." The mental image of America's favorite chubby Uncle getting Buck with Doug Clark is too much. This release is also the first and only time that I have heard them utter the word "shit." Although it is delivered as a couple of kids in a school play flubbing their lines and mispronouncing the word "shot." Tootsie joins the boys' club again this time and turns in some truly beautiful vocal work. All in all, the only "head" in this shop is of the "gimme" variety. HIGH-larious!! (DD, Jr.)
I know listening to a Doug Clark album for pure music is like buying Playboy for the articles, but R&B fans should get a load of that guitar picker, who sounds like he locked himself in his room listening to Steve Cropper and Curtis Mayfield. The edits between jokes and songs are unusually sloppy, however. (JP)
WITH A HAT ON (Gross, 1969)
Doug raises the ante in the dirty cover game on this release, and that's not all he's raising! This cover shows him flanked by two ladies wearing nothing but red bowlers and Doug has a bowler too---only it's not on his noggin and he ain't using his hands to hold it either. While the title might be a call for safe sex, there is not much else that's safe on this one---their last and raunchiest album. There's a randy X-mas carol that has "Old Saint Nick whipping his dick" and a dirty ditty about "Charlotte the Harlot." With A Hat On predates the nasty covers and jokes of Rudy Ray Moore and Wildman Steve and is evidence that even on their final record, the Hot Nuts never cooled down. (DD, Jr.)
Doug told me that four girls were originally planned for the cover, but only two showed up for the photo shoot that day. I wonder if Doug showed up for the whole session---a couple of songs don't have his drum track. The last word on the Hot Nuts' vinyl career in the sixties belongs to Tootsie, who sings "Grayson", a "Hi-Heel Sneakers" cash-in which advertises her boyfriend's lovemaking abilities. It's not overtly bawdy or anything, it's just a killer R&B number that needs to be heard. Tootsie's never cut loose on a Hot Nuts record like this, wailing like Ann Peebles or some other southern soul singer, but it's too bad her shining moment had to wait for the last song on the last side of their last real album. (JP)
A GREATEST HITS COLLECTION (Hot Nuts, 1998)
This is a pretty good retrospective of their early, limerick-heavy years, circa the first three albums. The Clark brothers still own all the original masters, and the only reminder of their later R&B phase is the album version of "Baby Let Me Bang Your Box", and a few of these selections sound like they were mastered at a higher speed than I seem to remember. They should do a second, R&B-slanted volume, with "Big Jugs", "Double Stroke", "Shove It Home", the Xmas fable from With A Hat On, the single versions of "Bang Your Box" and "Milk The Cow", etc., but this is a fine compilation for what it is. If you want a piece of this action, write to Hot Nuts, Inc., P.O. Box 15341, Alexandria, VA 22309, or call 1-888-902-DOUG. (JP)
MISCELLANEOUS:
I usually ask older bands what TV shows they appeared on during their heydays, although I figured (rightly) that the guys who gave us "Baby Let Me Bang Your Box" wouldn't be lipsynching it on some teen-dance-party show. They did make it to cable in 1990, on Playboy 360, a Playboy Network answer to Entertainment Tonight, or something. This was made when 2 Live Crew were really hot, so the tone of the feature was, "Without Doug Clark, there'd be no Luther Campbell." There are some astounding shots of the band, in red bowler hats, performing a marathon version of "Hot Nuts" in the beer garden of a club called He's Not Here, to a yardful of well-heeled yuppies. One guy with a thick Southern accent gleefully recalls the time he caught hell from his mom for listening to Doug Clark in the sixties (when his dad heard it, he spun it a few times for himself). Younger partygoes drunkenly explain how Clark and the Nuts are an institution. We get to see that telling dirty jokes has been good to Doug, as the camera gives us a panoramic view of his mansion-style spread; his mother recalls how Doug and John first got into music; we see the band loading equipment into their trailer. But the ghost of 2 Live Crew continues to haunt the building, so a couple of younger Nuts nail the coffin for good. Lead guitarist Sydney Brodie: "Luther Campbell is a cool dude, and I like him, but that is just nasty...it is outrageous." Bassist Robert Brodie: "In other words, when we tell our jokes, people laugh. When they tell theirs, people frown." (JP)