Chan Romero and the “Fried Green Tomatoes” Soundtrack

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2021 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

Yesterday I got two CD’s I’d ordered from third-party vendors through Amazon.com, the soundtrack to Fried Green Tomatoes and a collection by obscure late-1950’s rocker Chan Romero, who’s probably known for just one song, “Hippy Hippy Shake.” And virtually the only reason that song is known is it was a favorite of the Beatles – John Lennon and Paul McCartney in particular – and though they never recorded it commercially the Beatles played it a lot in their club years in Liverpool and Hamburg and I believe at least two Beatles performances of “Hippy Hippy Shake” survive, one from the BBC broadcasts and one on the Hamburg tape from December 31, 1962. The December 7, 1963 Juke Box Jury program on the BBC includes the Beatles commenting on another cover of “Hippy Hippy Shake” from their fellow Liverpudlians, the Swinging Bluejeans, and they said it was good, remembered playing the song themselves at the Cavern, but said Romero’s was still the best version.

The disc I got was called Fifties Flash Back and was a rather cheesy production with only 12 tracks, and a surprising number of them were ballads – including the opener, “I Don’t Want You Fooling with My Heart.” There was so much background noise on that song at first I thought this was a CD of remakes rather than the original hits, and really the only interesting songs were “Hippy Hippy Shake” and a surprising cover of Ray Charles’ hit “Drown in My Own Tears.” Romero’s Wikipedia page, which still lists him among the living even though he was born July 7, 1941 (which would make him nearly 80), describes his “rather mixed” ethnic ancestry: “His father was of Spanish and Apache stock while his mother was a mix of Mexican, Cherokee and Irish.” He signed a contract with Robert Keane’s Del-Fi Records in 1959, and apparently Keane signed him because his biggest rock artist, Ritchie Valens, had just been killed in the same plane crash that took the lives of Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper, so Keane was looking for another young Latino rocker who could take Valens’ place on the label and sell to the same audience. (Apparently the Montana-based Romero was so close to Valens, even though they never met, that he stayed in the home of Valens’ mother every time he needed to be in L.A. to play gigs or record.)

The Fried Green Tomatoes CD I bought was the shorter of the two that were apparently released – the longer one is either unavailable or very pricey on Amazon.com – and it also has 12 tracks, of which only two, “Ghost Train” and “Visiting Ruth,” are from the film’s musical score by Thomas Newman (Randy Newman’s cousin). The others are pop, soul or gospel songs performed in the film, including Paul Young’s cover of the Four Tops’ hit “What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted?” (which I bought as a cassette single when the film first came out, backed by “Ghost Train”) – Young hardly brings the wrenching emotion the Four Tops’ lead singer, Levi Stubbs, did but his is still a nice version – and an absolutely wrenching song called “Danger: Heartbreak Dead Ahead.” When I first heard this one I assumed it was a Black soul singer tearing her heart out; later I looked at both the album cover and the imdb.com soundtrack page for the film and it was white singer Taylor Dayne! There was also an O.K. blues number called “Barbecue Bess,” credited to 1920’s singer Lucille Bogan (though she recorded it under the name “Bessie Jackson”) and decently done by Patti LaBelle, though the song was also borrowed by Noble Sissle’s Swingsters for the 1938 record “Sweet Patootie” (a great side with drummer O’Neil Spencer handling the ribald lyrics and Sissle’s instrumental star, Sidney Bechet, in great form).

There are a couple of soul covers of the Association hit “Cherish” by Jodeci – one is labeled “Movie Version” and the other “Hip-Hop Version,” though I wonder why since the “Hip-Hop Version” doesn’t have any rap in it (“hip-hop” is the euphemism used for rap by people who like it). I was disappointed that the climactic final performance of Marion Williams singing “Didn’t It Rain?” in the movie wasn’t included on this version of the soundtrack – though Mahalia Jackson remains the winner and still champ on this song, Williams (who was proclaimed the world’s greatest living gospel singer on John Hammond’s 1975 retrospective program on PBS three years after Mahalia’s death) does a fine version in her own right and it was sad it was left off this album, though two other tracks by Williams, “Cool Down Yonder” and “A Charge to Keep I Have,” were included.