Al Casey - Forty Miles of Bad Road

Recorded from a rehearsal acetate..... [1958] ...............Alvin W. Casey (26 October 1936 in Long Beach, California 17 September 2006 in Phoenix, Arizona) was an American guitarist. He was mainly noted for his work as a session musician, but also released records and scored three Billboard Hot 100 hits in the United States. His contribution to the Rockabilly genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

Casey began a longstanding association with Lee Hazlewood while living in Phoenix, Arizona. His guitar is prominent on Sanford Clark's hit 1956 version of Hazlewood's song "The Fool", featuring a lick borrowed from the song "Smokestack Lightning", and on many other recordings by Clark. He was also part of the backup for Duane Eddy's recordings, playing bass, piano, and rhythm guitar. Casey wrote one of Eddy's earliest hits, "Ramrod" (1958), as well as co-writing another Eddy hit, "Forty Miles of Bad Road" (1959).

Casey began working with his own ensemble, The Al Casey Combo, in the early 1960s. With this group he scored three instrumental hits: "Cookin" (U.S. #92, 1962), "Jivin' Around" (U.S. #71, 1962), and "Surfin' Hootenanny" (U.S. #48, 1963), recorded with Hazlewood. The "Surfin Hootenanny" album featured Al mimicking the styles of Dick Dale, The Ventures, and Duane Eddy. Drummer Hal Blaine and organist Leon Russell played on many of these recordings; the backup vocal group, named as The K-C-Ettes, were in fact The Blossoms. The small independent label he recorded for, Stacy Records, folded in 1964. Later he was a featured guitarist on the "Exotic Guitars" series of albums.

As a member of The Wrecking Crew, he worked as a session musician for artists such as The Beach Boys, Phil Spector, Elvis Presley, Glen Campbell, The Association, The Monkees, Johnny Cash, Eddy Arnold, Simon & Garfunkel, The 5th Dimension, Harry Nilsson, The Partridge Family, Frank Sinatra, and Nancy Sinatra on "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'". He also owned a music store in Hollywood in the late 1960s, and played as a member of the band on The Dean Martin Show. He continued recording into the 1990s, including an LP release, Sidewinder, for Bear Family Records, in that decade.
From Wikipedia

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Music

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• Al
• Casey
• Forty
• Miles
• of
• Bad
• Road

[stevenfd123]

I like this better than the Duane Eddy version. All guitar twang and no sax. Sounds great!!

[BGgunnor]

@stevenfd123 Oh yes, I do agree

[WallyPlumstead]

Nice! Real nice!

Al Casey and his boss guitar work is cool, man... cool!

5 Stars -- -Wally

[BGgunnor]

Thank you, and BTW, good lookin' "Wally" channel you have going there.

[angelofbebop]

WOW. Great job on cleaning up the Rehearsal Acetate. We're very proud of you too! Always LOVED this song. 5 stars/favs! Thanks for sharing it BG-Guru!

[BGgunnor]

Happy Happy you enjoyed it. And still more to come from that rehearsal session.

[twang73]

This song was written in 1959, by Duane Eddy and Al Casey, in the studio at a Duane Eddy session and recorded that day.

[ACoustaDC]

WOW, Al was fantastic. My greatest memory is Al playing" I wish you love" in Ziggies. Oh... and i'll never forget him teaching me route 66. Wish I'd kept the match book that we wrote the changes down on. Sure miss u AL!

[Warhammer212]

Thanks for posting this, been looking for this some time now.

[twang73]

Tell us more about the rehearsal tape. How did you get it and where was it recorded? So interesting!

[angelofbebop]

ALWAYS one of my favorite instrumentals :-))))