The Bugs – Twist & Shout

There has to be heaps of them, the budget “cash-in” labels, every country has them, every record collector knows them. There are labels dedicated to “cash-in” LPs only, 45s only also. The “Hit” label is one of the 45 ones, a reasonably prolific one at that. According to the label discography ( http://www.globaldogproductions.info/h/hit.html ) there are over 350 45s on this label, all from the early to mid sixties & almost all split with different artists on each side. I wonder if these groups were real working bands, or just a number of different names given to a pool of recordings by session musicians. I don’t even know what part of the US the label comes from but judging by some of the titles released there must be some fairly respectable versions of popular songs of the period on the “Hit” label. This label probably shows up often for cheap in piles of old 45s, but before you flick casually past you may want to take a chance on the one that sounds interesting.

The Bugs had just a few releases on the label, much less than the group that features on the flip of this 45 (the Chellows doing a “beat” version of Maurice Williams & the Zodiac’s “Stay”) but their version of “Twist & Shout” is actually pretty cool. You can guess it was a bite on the Beatles’ version & that the Bugs were Hit’s version of a Beatles styled group, but that doesn’t really matter. Who has more info on this label or other Hit 45s that they can recommend?

[audio:the-bugs-twist-shout.mp3]