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Song Stories

“Race With the Devil”

Gene Vincent | 1956

With sung-mumbled lyrics about a drag race with Satan alongside lightning rockabilly guitar licks and bent notes from Cliff Gallup, Gene Vincent's "Race with the Devil" was chosen as the follow-up single to his smash "Be-Bop-A-Lula," but it barely charted. Producer Ken Nelson arranged to have Nashville session musicians on hand if Vincent's band couldn't play well. But as Vincent's manager Sheriff Davis (credited with Gene as co-writer of the song) remembered, "When they heard Cliff go off on all those runs, they turned to each other and went, 'Whaaat! Whaaat!'"

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“Mellow Yellow”
Donovan | 1966
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“(Just Like) Starting Over”
John Lennon & Yoko Ono | 1980

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Song Stories

“Everyday People”

Sly and the Family Stone | 1968

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.

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