Clockwork Orange – "Your Golden Touch" (1967)

I was a fool to cry so much

I was a victim of your golden touch

In the previous 2 or 3 lines, we met Bill Ashley, the drummer of Clockwork Orange, a band from Paducah, KY, that released a great psychedelic single titled “Your Golden Touch” in 1967.

Here’s part two of my interview with Bill Ashley.

*     *     *     *     *

2 or 3 lines:  The version of “Your Golden Touch” that I heard on Steven Lorber’s “Mystic Eyes” radio program in 1980 was produced by the Cajun recording artist Doug Kershaw and released on his Creole label.  But you had recorded a different version of the song before you hooked up with Kershaw.  Tell us about how the original version of “Your Golden Touch” came to be recorded.

Clockwork Orange

Bill Ashley:  When we decided to record “Your Golden Touch,” we went to a recording studio in Lone Oak, Kentucky – just outside Paducah – which mostly did recordings of school bands and orchestras.  The studio was operated by Tommy Morrison, and we contacted Tommy and set up a date to record “Your Golden Touch.”  As I recall, Tommy was initially not very interested in the project, but he was a competent engineer.  We recorded two songs that day on a four-track tape recorder – “Your Golden Touch” and an instrumental cover of “Ferry Cross the Mersey.”  

2 or 3 lines:  That’s an odd coincidence – “Ferry Cross the Mersey,” which was a hit in 1965 for Gerry and the Pacemakers, was one of the first songs my eighth-grade band learned to play.  Were you happy with how “Your Golden Touch” came out?  

Bill:  The initial recording of “Your Golden Touch” was excellent.  Tommy Morrison added some reverb and that was all it needed.  He thought the record was great, too, and suggested we take it to Nashville to try and get a major label to release it. 

2 or 3 lines:  Is that what you did?

Bill: Yes, Terry and I went to Nashville and played it for several labels, but we got rejected every time –  it wasn’t what anyone was looking for.  Nashville was really only interested in country music at the time.  But Doug Kershaw had been outside of the studio door at one of the places we went to, and he heard the recording and asked us to bring it to his studio. 

2 or 3 lines:  Which I assume you did.

Bill:  Yes.  We went to his studio and he listened to “Your Golden Touch” again, and said he wanted us to re-record the song in his studio and release the song on the Creole label.  

2 or 3 lines: Doug Kershaw was kind of a big deal.  He was the most successful Cajun musician ever, and had a top ten country hit with “Louisiana Man,” which has been covered by over 800 artists.  Were you a fan of Kershaw’s?

Bill: We didn't know who he was, but we were ecstatic that someone liked our “Your Golden Touch.” But just after we got that good news, things started to turn bad. 

2 or 3 lines:  What do you mean?  What happened?

Bill:  Steve Rudolph, our organist, got on his motorcycle to go to his girlfriend’s house to tell her about our record deal, and had a terrible crash.  He was in a coma for days, and was unable to make the recording session, which took place in Birmingham, Alabama. We had to re-record “Your Golden Touch” without Steve – we used a studio musician instead of him.

2 or 3 lines:  So you went from being excited about recording under the guidance of a major recording artists like Kershaw to being devastated by Steve’s injuries.  I assume his condition weighed on everyone’s mind at that recording session.

Bill:  The Birmingham session did not turn out as well as the original session we did in Lone Oak with Tommy Morrison – partly because Steve was not there, and partly because we had been performing live a lot and were exhausted.  But Kershaw released the record even though we were disappointed in it.  The original recording at Tommy Morrison’s studio really represented the true essence of the Clockwork Orange.

*     *     *     *     *

The Lone Oak version of “Your Golden Touch” was never released, and few people other than Bill and his bandmates have ever heard it – until today, that is.

Bill had a copy of the demo on a minidisc – remember those? – that he converted to a .wav file and e-mailed to me.

A minidisc held one-third
as much music as a CD

That recording has some sonic flaws.  It was made from an acetate recording that was made more than 50 years ago from the original master tape.  (Bill has been unable to locate the original tape.)

A couple of years ago, a London company bought the acetate copy from Bill (who made the minidisc copy before shipping it off to Merry Olde).  They told him they hoped to enhance the quality of the acetate copy and eventually release the recording, but Bill hasn’t heard anything definite from them as of yet.

I’m hoping that company is able to produce a recording of the Lone Oak version “Your Golden Touch” that does it justice.  Until that happens – assuming that it does happen – all we have is the somewhat rough recording that Bill sent to me.

Click here to listen to the original Clockwork Orange recording of “Your Golden Touch.”  The Doug Kershaw-produced version was very good, but this one is even better.

*     *     *     *     *

My thanks to Bill Ashley for not only answering my questions but also providing me with a copy of the original recording of “Your Golden Touch.”

Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, Bill isn’t sure when he’ll next be appearing live.  But if you travel to Key West or anywhere on Florida’s Gulf Coast once life is back to normal, check out the local concert listings to see if Steve Hopper and the Wolf Island Band are playing in the neighborhood.  (If you do get a chance to see them, I’d suggest you request “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problems.”)