Swingin' Medallions – “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” (1966)

She loved me so long

And she loved me so hard

I finally passed out in her front yard 

If you’re a regular reader of my wildly successful little blog, you already know that this year’s “28 Records in 28 Days” will introduce the first (and perhaps only) class of inductees into my brand-new 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” COVER RECORDS HALL OF FAME.

(I see you shiver with antici- . . . -pation!)

Simply stated, a cover record is a recording of a song that has been previously recorded by a different artist.

That definition is overly simplistic, of course.  If you don’t believe that, you need to read the 2022 book A Philosophy of Cover Songs, by Professor P. D. Magnus.  (If Magnus had read the previous 2 or 3 lines, he’d know that he should have titled the book A Philosophy of Cover Records.)

Magnus spends over 125 pages defining and discussing cover records.  “How is that possible?” you might be asking.  Read the book and you’ll become a believer – it’s an amazing piece of work.

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Magnus’s book quotes Theodore Gracyk, who had this to say about covers:

Since the 1960s, the concept of the cover . . . normally refers to a communicative act of “covering.”  The cover record or performance is a version of an existing musical work.   However, it is more than a version.  It is a version that refers back to a particular performer’s arrangement and interpretation of a particular song. 

I think it’s safe to assume that each of the artists who recorded the cover versions that I’m featuring this month were aware of the original records that they were covering.

A cover may be quite different than the original.  In fact, Magnus says that a true cover “contrasts with the original.”  I will later explain why I think the best covers contrast sharply with their respective originals.  

At the same time, a cover is clearly the same song as the original.  It’s not so different as to be something else than the original entirely. 

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Magnus points out a number of tricky questions that can arise when you’re discussing covers.

For example, the first recording of “Let It Be” to be released was Aretha Franklin’s.  The Beatles’ version was released a few months later.  

But it’s absurd to call the Beatles’ record a “cover.”  The Beatles wrote the song, recorded a demo of the song, and sent the demo to Franklin.  If anything, she was covering their record – it just so happened that her version was released to the public first.

Also, there are covers that simply imitate the original recording – audio photocopies, as it were – which are sometimes called “jackal recordings.”  (In the 1960s, there were companies that released covers that were near-perfect imitations of the originals.  The goal was to attract buyers who didn’t care that they were getting an ersatz copy as long as the copy sounded almost exactly the same as the original – at least to unsophisticated listeners – and cost a little less.)

Our newest hall of fame doesn’t include any such records.  The covers in that hall of fame are clearly distinguishable from the originals – but also recognizable as the same songs.  

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It’s interesting that most of cover recordings I’m featuring this February were recorded by artists of a different race than the artist who did the original recording.  For example, we have covers of Motown songs by Creedence Clearwater Revival and Vanilla Fudge.

That may be because I like covers that are very different from the originals, and black and white artists in the 1960s and 1970s usually had very different musical styles.

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The original version of “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” was recorded by Dick Holler and the Holidays in 1963.  (Holler later wrote “Abraham, Martin, and John” and co-wrote “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron.”)

I had never heard the Holidays’ recording of “Double Shot” until a few days ago.  But I’ve always loved the Swingin’ Medallions cover, which peaked at #17 on the Billboard “Hot 100” in 1966.

The two versions are not entirely dissimilar, but the Swingin’ Medallions’ cover prominently features a Farfisa organ and is much more loosey-goosey.  It sounds like it was recorded live after the band had knocked down a few cocktails.

Click here to listen to the original recording of “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love”) by Dick Holler and the Holidays.

Click here to listen to the Swingin’ Medallions’ cover of that song. 

Click here to buy that record from Amazon.

Swingin' Medallions – "Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love)" (1966)

It wasn’t wine that I had too much of

It was a double shot of my baby’s love

As regular 2 or 3 lines readers know, I’m not above phoning a post in every now and then.

That was my original plan for this post – I was going to go directly from a cheap joke about the lyrics quoted above (something like “When I was younger, I could handle a double shot of my baby’s love with aplomb – but not any more!”) to a link to today’s featured song and then call it a day.  

But I ended up going down a pretty damn deep rabbit hole, where I found the Swingin’ Medallions, Duke Bradford, Madras-cloth pants, and the Greek Fountains (among other things.)

Madras pants

So instead of a quick-and-dirty, phoned-in, quickie post, you’re getting a double shot of 2 or 3 lines.  

I just hope you’re man (or woman) enough to handle it.

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The Greek Fountains were a popular local band in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the early 1960s.  They opened for the Animals, Sonny and Cher, Paul Revere & the Raiders, and others when those bands when they came to Baton Rouge. 

The band’s bass player, Duke Bardwell, later toured and recorded with Elvis Presley:

Duke performing with the King

Duke’s parents were Stanford and Loyola Bardwell, and he had brothers named Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Auburn, and Stanford, Jr.  (Auburn?)

His twin sister was named Tulane.

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The Greek Fountains wore Madras plaid pants when they performed, and are credited with starting something of a Madras-pants craze in Baton Rouge and the surrounding area.

Sadly, I could only find a black-and-white photo of the group:

The Greek Fountains

As the name indicates, Madras cloth – a lightweight cotton fabric that features bright plaid patterns – originally came from India.  (Madras is a large city on the east coast of India whose name was changed to Chennai some 25 years ago.  Who knew?)

Madras cloth was first brought to the United States in the early 1700s, but wasn’t popular until Brooks Brothers started importing large quantities of the fabric in the late 1950s.  The company failed to warn customers that the vegetable dyes used in Madras cloth would bleed if you washed it in hot water, which generated a lot of customer complaints.

A vintage Brooks Brothers Madras shirt

Legendary Madison Avenue advertising man David Ogilvy turned lemons into lemonade by persuading customers that the fabric’s propensity to bleed was actually a good thing.  From a 1966 Brooks Brothers catalog:

Authentic Indian Madras is completely handwoven from yarns dyed with native vegetable colorings.  Home-spun by native weavers, no two plaids are exactly the same.  When washed with mild soap in warm water, they are guaranteed to bleed and blend together into distinctively muted and subdued colorings.

J. Press ad for Madras jackets

I had a pair of Madras plaid pants that I wore in high school.  I still remember what one friend said when he saw them for the first time: “Pard, those are some speedboat pants!”

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College fraternities and sororities are named after Greek letters, and their members are often referred to as “Greeks.”  Baton Rouge is the home of Louisiana State University, and the Greek Fountains played frequently at LSU fraternity and sorority parties, so I thought at first that the “Greek” part of the band’s name might refer to LSU’s Greek community.

Ladies love Madras plaids, too!

But where did “fountains” come from?

The ancient Greeks built fountains where the water emerged from the mouths of stone or marble figures, and there are fountains in many European cities that feature Greek-style sculptures.  But it seems doubtful that the band’s name refers to such fountains.

One source says that “Greek fountain” is slang for projectile vomiting.  Frat parties routinely involve the gross overconsumption of alcohol, so that seems plausible.

There's no such thing as
too much Madras plaid!

But the Urban Dictionary defines “Greek fountain” very differently.  Click here to read its definition (which 2 or 3 lines is much too prudish to reprint). 

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The Greek Fountains’ drummer was a chap named Cyril Vetter, who later went to law school and owned TV and radio stations and music recording and publishing companies.  

Where Cornell students shopped
for Madras plaid duds

Vetter co-wrote today’s featured song, “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love),” but for some reason the Greek Fountains didn’t record it.  Their friends, Dick Holler and the Holidays – another Baton Rouge band that later relocated to Columbia, South Carolina – released a 45 of the song in 1964.

While he was still living in Baton Rouge, Holler had performed on a local teen dance show called “Hit or Miss.”  Others who appeared on that show before going on to bigger and better things included Donna Douglas (Elly May Clampett on the Beverly Hillbillies), film critic and TV personality Rex Reed, and award-winning actress Elizabeth Ashley (who remains a fabulous babe at age 79).

Summertime means Madras shorts

Dick Holler later wrote two hit songs that could not be more different – “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron” (a #2 hit for the Royal Guardsmen in 1966) and “Abraham, Martin, and John,” (the only song in history to reach the Billboard top 40 five different times).

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Dick Holler and the Holidays’ recording of “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” didn’t go anywhere, but it was a different story when South Carolina’s Swingin’ Medallions covered the song in 1966.  Their recording of the song  – notable for its “96 Tears”-ish Farfisa organ part – is irresistibly loosey-goosey.

By the way, the Swingin’ Medallions performed in Madras-plaid pants, too:

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Instead of a half-assed, I’m-phoning-it-in post, 2 or 3 lines ended up delivering sooooo much more today!

Sometimes I worry that the best of 2 or 3 lines is behind me.  But then serendipity goes on a date with the man behind the 2 or 3 lines curtain, and together we beget a bast*rd genius baby – i.e., this post.     

2 or 3 lines got her groove back, boys and girls!

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Click here to listen to “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love).”

And click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: