Music In Costume: Link Wray dresses up as Neal Hefti

So this guy, Neal Hefti, is known by everyone except no one really knows his name. But he composed one of the most infectous, viral songs in the modern era. NananananananananBATMAN! It’s even spread to dogs. CROSS SPECIES.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrIp3k5pJQM

So this guy, this guy nobody knows, he also wrote the theme music for The Odd Couple. He received three Grammy nominations and WON for the Batman theme that everyone knows. But in addition to his name, no one really knows that Neal Hefti was a big band trumpeter, a songwriter and an arranger. An arranger is pretty much a musical alchemest, taking prior songs and rendering them into a different way. Like, turning predominantly vocal ballads into swinging big band numbers. Or if you had an old fashioned song but wanted to repurpose it for a new, hip audience. This Neal guy did that for people like Count Blasie, helping helm the music of the big band legend into something new and modern.

But his most widest know contribution is a song with the same word said eleven times. And being that it was written as a twelve bars blue progression with a surf-rock guitar hook, it’s been covered by ALLLLLL the surf bands out there. But, one of the better ones is Link Wray.

Link Wray’s “Rumble” is an instrumental track that was BANNED from the radio because it was that badass. That and because “rumble” means street fight and people were really uptight back then. Link Wray. I dig his version of the Batman theme song. What do you think?

Vs.

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