The Groupies - Little Baby (Live, 1967)

Proto-punk New York garage rockers tear into this Howlin' Wolf classic. Song is intro'd by Kim Fowley. For more on this great band, visit http://www.hollywoodhangover.com/groupies_page.htm

The following is a quote from the engineer who recorded this:

The original recording was made on an Ampex 954 2-track recorder at 7.5 ips with 2 microphones and a feed from the P.A. The 954 had a built in "mixer" to the extent that it had separate controls for the mic inputs and the line inputs. I don't remember for sure, but from listening to the tape my guess is that I didn't have headphones or any other monitoring equipment, so when I started recording I brought up the mic inputs and the line inputs separately to see where they read on the VU meters, then I made a guess as to where to leave them for the rest of the tape, and that's why the mix is all over the place for the first few bars until Cooker sings a few lines.

Power was from a portable generator provided by Standel, who also provided the amps and other equipment at most outdoor events in the L.A. area at the time. The generator would slow down slightly from the load of the amps when the bands were playing, then it would speed up as the music ended, along with my tape recorder, which was also getting its power from the generator. When the original tape was played back on a deck running at the correct speed, the songs were sped up slightly, then the guitars would seem to go flat on the last note. I corrected the overall pitch error by dubbing the original tape to another recorder running with a capstan wrap, but the guitars still go flat at the tails of the songs.

The vocals are distorted because that's how they came out of the P.A.'s preamp. A lot of the odd thumping you hear was caused by wind in the microphones. And keep in mind that this came from a cassette that's probably about 10 years old or so. The master tapes sound better, and Bob Irwin at Sundazed will be able to clean them up to an amazing extent if he decides there's a market for a CD (or possibly a vinyl LP) by the Groupies.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Groupies
• Garage
• Rock
• Blues
• Howlin
• Wolf
• Sunset
• Strip

[Notanylo]

I search a track by the The Groupies, cant remember the name used in Dj Shadow's Painkiller (Kill The Pain Mix) which lyrics contains : "..my radioman is my number one high" . Thanks

[upst8]

@Notanylo I like the lyric, as I am a a radioman myself! But I don't know what song of theirs that would be - you could check: Primitive/I'm a Hog for You Baby. All the stuff I have of theirs is Howlin Wolf covers and whatever else I put on here. I'll check the DJ Shadow thing and see if I recognize it

[osummer]

My father is Peter Hendleman, the guitarist in this group!!!

I am so excited to find this video. He dosnt really use the internet but I am going to show him this clip and hes going to flip! :)

Thanks so much for posting it.......

[upst8]

That's awesome! I wish I could have found more pictures to use but all I could come up with was what was on hollywoodhangover. I really liked listening to the recording of this show - but now I can't find the sound file of it. I know that a record label called Sundazed has it but I don't know if they plan to release it.

[snailuna]

@osummer My dad was Ronnie Peters, other guitarist (He passed away in 2000)!! So cool!

[upst8]

@snailuna He rocked!

[forgive17]

this band took a lot of guitar riffs from other bands

[TDKIII]

they play the intro like a John Lee Hooker song

[lakeviewviking]

Fowley really didnt say that, it just sounds like something he WOULD say...I bet Norton Records would also be interested, if sundazed doesn't release it...