Tondeleo: If you have been reading this blog, you know that Doc always refers to me as a "sissy" or a "sissy Brit," not due to any sexual identity issues on my part, but because he thinks I talk like a sissy (compared to him and his uncouth mates) and because compared to them, I am built rather slightly built at 5'7" and 8 1/2 stone.
A couple of weeks ago I posted a vid on youtube of Doc and Marilyn singing "Gonna Send You Back to Walker" which is among their favourite songs. Someone on youtube commented that they were surprised to hear Doc sing the sissy British version of the song, which was a cover of an American song called "Gonna Send You Back to Georgia." The commentor said that the Animals substituted the word Walker for Georgia to make it more relevant to a British audience.
I told Doc about this, and he was adamant that it was NOT a British cover, but that he had learnt it from an old record by a black group called The Animals! I informed Doc that The Animals were indeed WHITE and British...
Doc: Ain't NO way, Tondy! Them guys ain't little Brits like you! They was black guys. They sang John Lee Hooker Songs.Fats Domino songs. Billy Boy Arnold songs. Jimmy Reed songs. Sam Cook songs.Ray Charles songs. Those is BLACK songs, Tondy. Black songs. AMERICAN BLACK SONGS.
Tondeleo: Well, Doc, you're right about the songs they did, but they were a white British group, a YOUNG white British group, not an American blues group! Doc, have you ever seen a picture of them? How did you learn their songs? This is unbelievable! Ha Ha!
Doc: Unbelievable? You need to BELIEVE, Tondy! But it ain't no laughin' matter! No, I ain't never seen no pictures of them. How could I? I found some records by The Animals in Clinchport, down when I was livin' there when I was a teenager. Someone left them in the roomin' house where we was stayin' an' they wasn't no pictures or covers or nothin.' Just the records. An' I kept 'em for my own an' wiped 'em down and put cloth around 'em and when we visited my cousins in North Carolina, I took them records with me to hear what they sounded like, and it was blues, mostly. It sounded like black people to ME. That singer screamed like a black man, not a white man. He hollered like a 40 year old black man, not no young white man. SO how was I supposed to know? You SURE they was white Brits?
Tondeleo: Yes, Doc! I know for a FACT that they were my fellow sissy Brits. And they were in my age group when they were singing those songs you love so much! Here are pictures of their albums with them on the over (I present Doc with some pics that I downloaded and stored on my phone)...
Doc: Well, I'll BE! They IS white! They got hair like YOU and your friends. Well, I like how they sang better than the ones I knew an' I always liked that singer cause he sang in the same keys I sing in but is better. Brits, huh? I know Big Dave ain't gonna take kindly to being tricked like this neither, cause he made cassettes of my records an' leaernt the same songs an' thought they was black men and some of the best blues men we ever heard. White Brits. The Animals. [Long pause] Well, I bet they was hard workin' country boys, not office boys like you, right Tondy? Am I right about that?
Tondeleo: Well, Doc, they WERE hardworkin' English boys, from the rough part of town, I am certain. They weren't university educated and probably barely had their O levels, I believe.
Doc: Well, I don't think Marilyn would be able to take this, Tondy. It might break 
her heart. Let's not say anything about this to her til she is a little older and can take this.
And we're gonna go back to singin' Gonna Send You Back to Georgia with the words from Timmy Shaw, how I first learned it. I got the 45 here somewhere.
[He left the room and went outside to his shed and emerged 20 minutes later with an old phonograph and a couple old 45 rpm vinyls, which sounded like someone had pioured sand on them and subjected me to hearing them a few times.]
...but I liked how The Animals done it better. We'll do it with his words and maybe some of The Animals' parts out of respect for them what come before us.
