Before he became Patti Smith’s lead guitarist, Lenny Kaye compiled the 2 album set, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era. Released in 1972, the two-LP set covered American garage rock and psychedelia from the years 1965-1968 and was a major influence on punk rock. Rhino Records reissued an expanded version of the set in 1998, with 118 tracks in total. I’m profiling and rating each of these 118 tracks, working backwards.
Track 48/118: I Wonder by The Gants
Release Date: 1967
From: Greenwood, Mississippi
Aphoristic Rating: 9/10
I WONDER – The Gants [2:14]
(Sid Herring)
Personnel/SID HERRING: vocals, guitar * JOHNNY SANDERS: guitar * VINCE MONTGOMERY: bass * DON WOOD: drums
Arranged by DALLAS SMITH
Produced by DALLAS SMITH
Recorded in Nashville, TN
Liberty single #55940 (1/67)
Sid Herring started his musical career playing in a band named The Kingsmen (different from the band who recorded ‘Louie Louie’). He formed The Gants, taking the band name from a popular brand of shirt. Their first single was a cover of ‘Road Runner’, and they opened for The Animals. Because two of the band members were still in high school, they never committed fully to their music career, but they were clearly accomplished.
Released in 1967, ‘I Wonder’ recalls 1965-era Beatles, belying the band’s Mississippi origins. Herring sounds similar to John Lennon, while the melody is reminiscent of ‘In My Life’ in places. It’s lightweight, but in the best possible way.
The band released three albums, and their 1966 single ‘Little Boy Sad’ helped pioneer the talk effects unit. But they’d drifted apart by 1967 – Herring continued in the music business as a staff writer for Liberty Records, but the other members returned to Greenwood. They reunited in 2005, but by the end of 2012 Herring was the only surviving member of the band.
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Pretty pleasant tune. I also love the trivia about the talk box. “Little Boy Sad” isn’t a bad song either!
Yeah, I was surprised to learn that the talk box was so old.
Definite Beatles flavor to it. I think of The Smithereens as well…
I don’t really know The Smithereens – I’ve always assumed I’d like them, but so many bands, so little time…
That is so funny cuz I always thought the exact same thing you did, how it sounds like In My Life. It would have sounded like the Beatles anyway just cuz it’s so British Invasiony. I didn’t know Gant was a brand of shirt. Maybe it was like London Fog shirts like my father used to have and was a big brand back in the sixties and seventies. And they made these Mod-sy shirts that Mod people used to wear. They were like a regular button-down shirt that were usually pin-striped except sometimes the collar was white and the rest of the shirt was like blue or pink and sometimes they had a Nehru collar. And you wore them with your peg leg pants. I used to go up in our attic and go through the boxes of old ’60s clothes that my father had saved and it was awesome.
I think the In My Life thing is pretty obvious.
Looks like Gant is a brand: “For GANT, it all began with shirts and we’ve never stopped reinventing them. Born in 1949, it’s a shirt that is rich in legacy and history.”
My dad didn’t have such cool clothes. He liked to wear knee socks with roman sandals and short shorts.
I’m going to have to look up Gant and see what their shirts were like. You can buy actual vintage London Fog shirts online but I never did. It’s fun looking at them though. I wouldn’t mind having a paisley one.
Look at this list from a poll we had at RYM. Look how much better it is than the Rolling Stones list. Ain’t it? What do you think?
https://rateyourmusic.com/list/bobohead61x/the-2023-rolling-stone-top-200-singers-of-all-time-continued-on-rym/
So you just added a bunch of extra singers at the end – that’s pretty cool. You got some of my favourites like Carl Wilson.
No Celine Dion? I guess RYM HQ can expect a protest too….
I think someone nominated Celine but nobody voted for it so she didn’t get very far. First everybody nominated whoever they wanted and then they were voted on.
I’m surprised she even got nominated on RYM.