Little Willie John's Worst Career Move: An Incident from Nevada Bob's Police Days in Seattle
Photo credit: Gary Firstenberg Something very important in rock and roll history happened here in this house. Do you know the story of Little Willie John? I, like many teens who came of age in the Sixties, was unaware of how many of the pop singles we listened to had their origins in black R&B. The things we've learned in retrospect could fill volumes. There's a whole chapter devoted to this in David Halberstam's The Fifties . The McCoys' two big hits in 1965 were "Hang On Sloopy" and "Fever." I never knew that the song Fever had been first recorded by Little Willie John. In fact, it had been a #1 hit on the R&B charts in 1956. Over a five year period Little Willie had 13 songs reach the Top Ten on the R&B charts. He also had many regional hits including "Leave My Little Kitten Alone," of which The Beatles recorded five takes while recording Beatles For Sale in August 1964. The song was very popular in the Northwest, which wa...