THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS PRESENT: THE SUNNY SIDE OF MY STREET with THE "MIGHTY MEZ" - SONGS TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD - EPISODE #23: HEY LEROY / JIMMY CASTOR BUNCH (1967, SMASH)

What is it about some songs that make them stick in your head like epoxy? This one isn’t even really a song, it’s just a riff (I guess in this it shares that distinction with an earlier SUNNY SONGS episode, Archie Bell’s “Tighten Up”), and, it’s also got that spoken shout out: “Hey Leroy! Your mama… she callin’ you, man!” Then the cackling laughter, and the bursting into a driving, urgent Latin Soul chant “Go to your mama”, (led by a skittering, syncopated cowbell). It’s just infectious wonderfulness, which culminates in Jimmy’s signature sax, bringing us on home as the record fades out. As kids, we would tease each other with the “Leroy” line, and have a fine time, running across streets and yards, madly dashing after each other: “Hey, Leroy! Your mama… She MAD, man!” 56 years later, while compiling a list of songs that make me feel instantly good, this one came scampering back, unbidden, from deep down the recesses of my befuddled brain to make the roster. Jimmy Castor started off his career in the doo-wop group, FRANKIE LYMON AND THE TEENAGERS. The difference was that Jimmy was not simply a harmonizer, he was a writer, a self-generating machine of catchy content, so, inevitably, he stepped up to the front of his own outfit, The Jimmy Castor Bunch, and released a raft of memorable material to the world - perhaps most notably “Troglodyte”, a national Funk hit in the 70s, making it to number 6 in the charts. You might remember its chant: “Gotta Get a Woman, Gotta Get a woman…” I don’t know what it is about this record, but could it be - (and, this might be a stretch) - that there is a little bit of “Leroy” in all of us: we all have mothers, and we all go through that period when were pushing away, but still a bit tied to the apron strings? Well… no need to overthink it. It’s just a riff, after all.