Saturday, December 21, 2013

Who Do You Love?

In the spirit of the holiday season:

I walked 47 miles of barbed wire
Use a cobra snake for a neck tie
Got a brand new house on the roadside
Made from rattlesnake hide
I got a brand new chimney made on top
Made out of a human skull
Now come on baby let's take a little walk 
And tell me, who do you love?

Recorded in 1956 by Bo Diddley and featuring the Bo Diddley beat, the best known version of Who Do You Love is by George Thorogood & The Destroyers (1978), but my favorite is the 1963 cover by Ronnie Hawkins and The Hawks.   Hawkins also had a 1950s hit with Mary Lou, a THC top pick from that decade.  By the early 1960s he had recruited a rocking back up band of fellow Canadians called The Hawks consisting of the guys who would become The Band (with the exception of Levon Helm who joined later).   A couple of years later The Hawks became Bob Dylan's touring band when he went electric. This version features some raucous guitar by Robbie Robertson.

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