JUNE 13, 2017
“BATMAN AT THE GO-GO” (WRITER: MONK HIGGINS–BURGESS GARDNER)
ARTIST: BUTCH BAKER
RELEASED 1966 ON 7” 45
Adam West’s recent passing led me to think about the impact
of Batman on the music scene when the ABC-TV program became popular in early
1966.
Within weeks of the show’s January 12 premiere, a spate of
songs hit the market celebrating, poking fun at, or just plain cashing in on
the popular DC Comics character and the hip, pop-art television depiction of the
Batman & Robin stories. This seems to have been a continuation of the 1965 James
Bond/secret agent craze, which had already produced plenty of hits (and misses)
on the record charts.
Neal Hefti composed Batman’s
catchy theme, and he and the Marketts reached the hit parade with competing
versions. Plenty of other acts—from the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to
the Kinks—recorded the theme. Both Adam West and Burt Ward (who played Robin on
the series) issued loopy, self-referential solo 45s; Ward’s was written and
produced by Frank Zappa!
Even two of the program’s guest villains, Frank Gorshin and
Burgess Meredith, were captured in songs referencing their characters.
Of course, novelty specialist Dickie Goodman produced a
break-in, “Batman and His Grandmother,” which also referenced the hit songs of
spring 1966. A Chicago ensemble cut “The Battman Polka.” A group of Los Angeles
session musicians, including Leon Russell, put out “Batman and Robin” under the
name The Spotlights.
Well-known hit-makers cashed in too. R&B songstress Lavern
Baker updated her classic “Jim Dandy to the Rescue” to the somewhat desperate “Batman
to the Rescue,” while the Brothers Four, an otherwise undistinguished folk-pop
combo, cut a somewhat amusing novelty entitled “Ratman and Bobbin in the
Clipper Caper.” California surf/car duo Jan and Dean were on the scene very quickly,
creating an entire album of Caped
Crusader-styled novelties. Jumpin’ Gene Simmons, of “Haunted House” fame, did his
own thing called “The Batman.”
The February 5, 1966 issue of Record World magazine reviewed six new Batman-inspired 45s that week alone; there were many, many more,
and they came fast and furious in several genres: rock, R&B, novelty,
country, orchestral. It took only a few weeks from Batman’s premiere on ABC for the Neil Hefti and Marketts versions of
its theme to dent the national charts!
Which brings us, sort of, to 12-year-old Butch Baker. In
February 1966, Chicago’s St. Lawrence label—distributed by the much larger Chess
label, with great 45s by Mamie Galore and the Vontastics to its credit—issued a
stomping R&B single by young Baker entitled “Batman at the Go-Go.”
Adam West’s Batman character had performed a dance called
the “Batusi” in the show’s first episode on January 12, immediately injecting
some mod frisson to the already campy character; the idea of a caped superhero
dancing to popular discotheque music clearly blew some peoples’ minds.
Penned by veteran Chicago R&B session men/songwriters
Monk Higgins and Burgess Gardner, “Batman at the Go-Go” was appropriately lighthearted,
referencing current dance trends such as the Philly and the Slide and the Jerk and
something called the Boston Monkey (?!). The musicians had serious chops, and Baker was pretty darn good for a 12-year-old. “Robin at the Go-Go” was the
flip side.
Unfortunately nobody at St. Lawrence bothered to contact National
Periodicals, Inc., which owned the copyright to the caped character and his
name. Almost immediately after “Batman at the Go-Go’s” release, some sharp
pencil noticed that this R&B novelty was getting radio play in Chicago, and
St. Lawrence was hit with an injunction. In fact, National Periodicals put many
unauthorized Batman records
off the market entirely.
But the folks at St. Lawrence were undaunted. The label immediately
cut and issued a new track called “The
Fat Man,” which simply replaced every mention of “Batman” with “fat man” (and,
comically, “Batmobile” with “fatmobile”). The local soul charts referred to the
record as “Fat Man at the Go-Go,” but either way the song’s airplay and success
were limited only to the African American community of Chicago.
Little is known about Butch Baker’s future activities, and
the Batman craze on records died out by the end of spring 1966, to replaced by
other media-driven pop trends over the summer and the fall such as the “psychedelic”
music hoo-hah, John Lennon’s “more popular than Jesus” remark, and the arrival
of The Monkees. But it sounds like it was fun while it lasted.
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