“Sea Cruise” – single from 1959.
Bouncy, exuberant, timeless.
(2 min. read)
*Note – I’m not going to try to rank songs, but I do plan to periodically write a little bit about some songs that I like.
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You never know when you’ll hear a song that sticks with you. For example, you might be in your early 20s, visiting a douchey high school friend in his Philadelphia apartment a couple years before you realize what a horrible human being he is. He might suggest going to some dive bar nearby, and you might stay when he leaves with some young woman. Maybe you stay because the little blues band that’s playing is really rocking. And that band might play a song you hadn’t heard before, but that is a classic old rock and roll tune that just completely rips.
That’s how I first heard “Sea Cruise.” I don’t know why I loved it immediately, or why it’s since become one of my all time favorites. But I did, and it is.
“Sea Cruise” opens with some nautical sounds to set the stage, then the drums, bass and piano immediately get the ball rolling. A honking sax plays a riff before Frankie Ford starts in wailing. His vocals really make the song rock, and you feel he REALLY wants the woman to go on that cruise. He sings with an abandon, nailing the syncopation and squealing “ooo-wee-baby.” The drums and horn section sound like proto-ska. It’s a beat made popular by The Skatelites, in the 60s, and The Specials, in the 70s. The boogie piano on top of it is super-infectious, and Ford sells those vocals for all he’s worth.
As happened constantly in the 50s, “Sea Cruise” was recorded by a Black artist, then remade by a white man, in this case Ford. In fact, Frankie Ford simply sang his vocals over the instrumental version of the original track. Typically, I’ll find the original version of such songs to be superior. And the original version, by Huey “Piano” Smith and the Clowns, is really peppy. But Smith sounds too controlled, with a harmony vocal that takes the edge off the wild urgency of the song. It’s nice, but I prefer Ford. He really delivers some Little Richard-style chaos. It’s pure, old-time rock-and-roll, so it’s a fast-paced song that ends quickly, without changing much throughout. But that’s just fine, the song has everything it needs.
Ford himself was kind of a corny showman, as this American Bandstand clip shows. “Sea Cruise” went to #14 on the US charts, and Ford never hit the Top Forty again. But the one time he did, he really made a splash.
