The Swinging Blue Jeans

Although they're only remembered today for their 1964 hit "Hippy Hippy Shake," which charted on both sides of the Atlantic -- the Swinging Blue Jeans were actually one of the strongest of the Liverpool bands from the '60s British Invasion; and, indeed, the Blue Jeans' earliest incarnation goes back about as far as the roots of the Beatles as the Quarry Men. "Hippy Hippy Shake" -- a cover of an obscure '50s rocker that was actually done much better by the Beatles on tapes of their BBC performances -- was their only Top 30 entry in the U.S.. But the band enjoyed some other major and minor hits in the U.K., including a top-notch Merseyization of Betty Everett's (and later Linda Ronstadt's) "You're No Good," which they took into the British Top Five in 1964. The group's origins go back to 1957, when singer/guitarist Ray Ennis decided to form a band. The result was a skiffle sextet called "the Bluegenes" -- the latter a misspelling of "blue jeans" that remained unchanged for a couple of years. Surprisingly, Ennis had already played rock & roll, but -- in a manner the opposite of many other young musicians of the time -- he regarded skiffle as an advancement; equally surprisingly, given their later work, the Bluegenes were heavily jazz influenced, and stayed away from trying to cover songs associated with Elvis Presley and other American rock & rollers, preferring instead to try and emulate the horn and sax parts that they heard on their guitars. The skiffle group lineup also included Bruce McCaskill on guitar and vocals, Tommy Hughes on banjo, Norman Kuhlke on washboard, and Spud Ward on oil drum bass. Ralph Ellis later joined on guitar, and Ward subsequently moved over to Rory Storm's band, and eventually Les Braid took over the bassist spot. Hughes and McCaskill later...