THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS PRESENT "DOUBLE TROUBLE" - DISHING THE DIRT WITH HOWLIN' WOLF AND GENE PITNEY. DOUBLE DOWN!!

Gossip, Tittle Tattle, rumors, hearsay, dishing the dirt, idle talk, back stabbing…. It’s not one of the seven deadly sins, but maybe it should be. How many friendships, how many marriages, and how many jobs have been lost through spiteful blather? In this episode of Double Trouble Howlin’ Wolf and Gene Pitney testify to the adverse effects of pitiless small town talk. Mind your own business, “they” say; “discretion is the better part of valor,”, “People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” etc. I’m sure you’ve heard them all, but how’s your ratio of disciplined restraint? That’s a lesson I had to learn the hard way. Gossip may feel like a way of getting closer to someone by sharing intimacies. But, the next thing you know that person tells the other person, and YOU’RE the odd one out. Best to maintain a lock-jawed policy of trust. HOWLIN’ WOLFWho’s Been Talking, from 1960, swings it’s savage message with a Calypso beat. Chester Burnett, the blues master trained by Charlie Patton and Sonny Boy Williamson; the discovery by a 19 year old Ike Turner for Sam Phillips and Sun Records; the neck and neck competition with Muddy Waters, and inductee into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame delivers his self-penned diatribe against the effect of cheap talk with his usual lupine swagger. “Who’s been talking?” Wolf wants to know, and when he finds out, whoa, the owner of those loose lips better hide, or they might get their jaw broken. GENE PITNEYTown Without Pity was a 1961 Kirk Douglas film with an uncredited, re-written screenplay by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, featuring a score by Dimitri Tiomkin, who also composed the theme for High Noon, among others. Town Without Pity was crooned by Gene Pitney, the heartthrob with the 3 octave range - and became Pitney’s first top 40 single. He garnered many accolades in a career which also boasted bull’s eyes as a songwriter, composing hits for Ricky Nelson with Hello Marylou, and Bobby Vee’s Rubber Ball. In this bluesy lament in a minor key, Pitney tugs at our heart strings as he bemoans the besmirching of his purest love by the wagging tongues of spite.