Record #0031: One Night / Ain’t Gonna Do It – SMILEY LEWIS

Imperial 5380 (original 78 rpm) USA, 1956
Words & Music by:  Dave Bartholomew, Pearl King
Musicians: Smiley Lewis (vocals & guitar), Isidore “Tuts” Washington (piano), Herman Seals (drums), Dave Bartholomew (probably led the horn players), saxophone possibly by Lee Allen and/or Herbert Hardesty, others unknown
Recording sessions:  J&M Recording Studio, New Orleans, LA, 1955 or -56
Highest chart positions:  US R&B #11, UK -

(As I’ve got the first month down with this blog, I’m pulling one record out of the 78 rpm shellac collection.)

Smiley Lewis never got the success that he would probably have deserved. Could be that his “bad luck” was that on the same label, in the same genre, with same producer and even in the same city (New Orleans) there was one Fats Domino, who had 20 Top 10 hits in 1952-56 (while Lewis had only 4 Top 40 hits in the same period of time).

“One Night” did quite well, though. The song became even more famous when Elvis released his cover version of it in 1958 (US #4, UK #1).

With "Ain't Gonna Do It" as the flipside, this is a very good R&B record.

List price:  According to Les Docks’ “American Premium Record Guide 1900-1965” this record would go for $5-$10, but in auctions these sell for more than that. A fairly rare record.