Washington Square..............

[elreydlp]

..........by "The Village Stompers". We did this with a standard 2 guitars, bass, & drums line-up.



Inspired by the success of the song, local Charleston TV station produced a musical variety show called "Village Square". They persuaded one of the top local bands to change their name from The Lancers to The Villagers and made them the house band. The show formula combined production numbers and national artists lip-syncing their hits with The Villagers playing current top-40 hits accompanied by a hot group of girl dancers.



In 1966, they were hired to play The Myrtle Beach Pavillion for the summer and left the TV show, which subsequently moved filming to Florence SC's WBTW. The name was changed to "Swing Ding with Bill Miller". Auditions for a replacement house band were held, and we (The Innovations) won. One of our audition songs was the same "You Make Me Feel Good" with me singing and playing my LPB Fender Electric XII. It was kind of ironic, because when The Lancers original singer, "Little Rikki" left them, he joined us, replacing our other guitar player, who went away to boarding school. All of us except Rikki were 15-16 years old, and a lot of people called us the "Jr. Lancers". After taping a few shows and a couple of tours, I threw a temper tantrum on a gig and quit. The band kept the gig for the two more seasons the show lasted.
The Villagers were a huge hit at The Pavillion. Their "Summer of 66" was made into a stage play which ran at the Crook and Chase Theater in Myrtle Beach and was optioned for a movie. Here's the story and some great pics:

http://www.juneswebs.com/Villagers/index.htm

[elreydlp]

"You Make Me Feel Good" was also covered by The Buckinghams and was the flipside of "Kind of a Drag". For some reason, they called it "You Make Me Feel SO Good".



Sorry for straying from the Instrumental nature of the thread.

[rictified]

I've always love Washington Square by the Village Stompers. I like dixieland in general anyway.

[rictified]

This is the version of You make me feel good I remember and love: The Zombies.

[8mileshigher]

An interesting tale there Skip about the first house band, the auditions, the tantrum and the TV show !

[jimk]

I remember hearing "Washington Square" on Top-40 radio when I was a kid. Always liked it. Years later, I figured out how to play it as a finger style guitar piece much in the style of Merle Travis/Chet Atkins.
JimK