Bristol Stomp

"Bristol Stomp"
Single by The Dovells
B-side
Released August 21, 1961
Genre Doo-wop
Length 2:18
Label Parkway Records 31348
Songwriter(s) Kal Mann, Dave Appell
The Dovells singles chronology
"No, No, No"
(1961)		 "Bristol Stomp"
(1961)		 "Do the New Continental"
(1962)

"Bristol Stomp" is a song written in 1961 by Kal Mann and Dave Appell, two executives with the Cameo-Parkway record label, for The Dovells, an a cappella singing group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who recorded the song for Cameo-Parkway late that year. Appell also produced and arranged the song and his Cameo-Parkway's house band served as the studio musicians on the song.[1]

The Dovells' recording made the #2 spot on the Billboard magazine Hot 100 singles chart in 1961.[2] "Bristol Stomp" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.[3]

The song was written about teenagers in 1961 who were dancing a new step called "The Stomp" at Good Will Hose Company dances in Bristol. It refers to Bristol, Pennsylvania, a blue collar suburb of Philadelphia.

The refrain of the song:

"The kids in Bristol are sharp as a pistol
When they do the Bristol Stomp
Really somethin' when the joint is jumpin'
When they do the Bristol Stomp"

Other versions

In 1962, under the Columbia record label, Chubby Checker released his version of "Bristol Stomp" on his album Don't Knock the Twist. In this version, Chubby Checker performs lead vocals with the Dovells providing backup. Though it was not as instrumentally polished as the Dovells's original version, the Checker version added more pep to the song. The album title is the same name as the movie (released in the USA on 13 April 1962 (New York City, New York); released in Venezuela on 6 June 1962 and in Mexico on 1 November 1962) starring Checker.[4]

On the live performance of Gary U.S. Bonds's "Seven Day Weekend" found on Johnny Thunders's live soundtrack album Stations of the Cross, Walter Lure begins singing the chorus of the song, playing on the fact that the two songs share the same chord sequence.

The song has been used by Fox Sports during broadcasts of the Food City 500, a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race from the Bristol Motor Speedway, in Sullivan County, Tennessee, also referring to massively wrecked racecars as having been "Bristol Stomped." (Prior to changes that were first shown on Fox Sports when it transmitted the 2008 race, the crashes on the notorious one-groove concrete track were known for heavy damage.)

This song was played on Family Guy's fourteenth-season episode "A Lot Going on Upstairs," which was transmitted as the fifteenth episode of that season.

References

  1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20070317034052/http://www.daveappell.com/biography.html
  2. ↑ Joel Whitburn, The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits
  3. ↑ Murrells, Joseph (1978). The Book of Golden Discs (2nd ed.). London: Barrie and Jenkins Ltd. p. 134. ISBN 0-214-20512-6.
  4. ↑ "Don't Knock the Twist (1962)". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2016-09-26.
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